Chapter Ten
Will
“You’re alive, then?” Lane said, grinning at me from the farmhouse doorstep.
He was wrapped in a thick coat with the collar pulled up and a beanie pulled down over his short hair, leaving only his face exposed.
Behind him, outside the pool of light cast by the house and the security light above the door, I saw more snow falling.
“What made you think I wasn’t?” I asked as I stepped back to gesture him inside before all the heat disappeared out the door.
“You haven’t answered your fucking phone in four days. I was getting worried.”
I grinned and raised an eyebrow. “Were you? Or are you just here because you want to ask about Jamie?”
“Who?” Lane asked as he shed his coat and hat, hanging them on the rack before toeing off his heavy, steel-capped boots.
“You’re a piss-poor liar, you know that?” I sighed, walking into the kitchen to flick the kettle on. Then I thought better of it and went to the fridge to dig out a couple of beers.
We’d had another day of nonstop snow, and it didn’t show any signs of letting up.
I was tired and stressed, and it didn’t help that I couldn’t get Jamie off my bloody mind.
Monday night had been incredible and had cracked open some doors in my brain I’d bolted and boarded tightly shut so I could pretend they didn’t exist.
Now it was Wednesday evening, and it was still all I could think about. I’d have been back to his hotel without a second thought if it wasn’t for the snow and my bone-deep exhaustion.
“How long was it before Spencer cracked?” I asked, digging out a bottle opener to pop the tops off the bottles before handing one to Lane.
“Cheers.” Lane took a swig and glanced around the kitchen. He really was fucking awful at trying to feign innocence. “How do you know he cracked?”
“It’s Spencer. The man’s lovely, but he’s not great at keeping secrets. If you ask him the right question, he’ll crack like an egg, and he won’t even realise he’s done it.”
My guess was Spencer had told his boyfriend, Noah, since I hadn’t expressly forbidden him from saying anything and after that his brother, Alex, since they owned the coffee shop together.
Noah was better at keeping things to himself, but he and Alex were thick as thieves so as soon as they realised the other knew, they’d both be talking about it.
They’d also both grown up with Lane and Oliver, so Alex had probably told Lane.
If I was lucky, it would’ve just stayed with that lot.
But Theo was nosy as fuck, and what he knew Laurie knew too, and then there were Oliver’s friends Anders and Bastian, who were both regulars at Novel Tea.
Honestly, that coffee shop was like the spawning site of all our gossip.
“Would it be better if I told you I didn’t actually hear it from him?” Lane asked, giving me a half-smile.
I sighed and took a long drink of my beer. “Let me guess, Alex told you?”
“Yeah… Spencer told him and Noah.”
“I thought so,” I said, scrubbing my face. I didn’t know why I was irritated since I hadn’t told Spencer not to say anything. Maybe it was because this thing with Jamie wasn’t anything more than a fling and would be over as soon as he went back to London.
That thought soured my stomach, and I pushed down the grimace threatening to contort my face.
“You’re pissed,” Lane said. “Is it because he told us? Or is it because I told you we know?”
“I don’t know.” I tried to think of how to put my feelings into words because I wasn’t even sure what they were.
“Come on.” Lane tilted his head in the direction of the living room. “Let’s sit down.”
I followed him through and carefully stepped over Mog to stick another log on the burner before I sat down.
I didn’t think she’d moved much all day, especially not since my mum had insisted on bringing her food bowl into the living room so she didn’t have to go far when she wanted to eat.
That cat was so bloody spoilt it was almost unbelievable.
Lane didn’t say anything, he just sat and watched me while I twisted the beer bottle in my hand. “I’m not pissed because he told you,” I said eventually. “I don’t even care that you know whatever you know.” I turned to look at him. “What did Spencer even tell you anyway?”
“Not much,” Lane said. “Just that Jamie had come into Novel Tea on Monday and that he’d recognised him. And that he’d asked Jamie if he had your number, which apparently he didn’t, so Spencer had asked you if he could give it to him.”
“Did he tell Alex that he badgered me into it by calling me when I was out on the moors trying to get hay out of the barn?”
Lane shook his head and chuckled. “No, he skipped that part.”
“I figured as much,” I said, taking another swig of my beer.
“Does this mean you haven’t seen him again since Friday?”
“I didn’t say that.” I looked over at Lane, and he grinned.
“You had fun then? Let off some steam?”
“Something like that.” I wondered how much I should tell him.
Lane was my best mate, and we’d talked about a lot of stuff over the years, but I’d always held back a little.
It wasn’t like I didn’t want to share; I just didn’t know how.
Learning to talk about the farm was one thing but talking about my suppressed sexual fantasies was another.
I could barely even admit to myself what I wanted, let alone say it out loud.
Lane raised an eyebrow as he sat back into the cushions, his eyes fixed on me like he was trying to work something out. “Do you want to talk about it?”
“Not really,” I said.
“I promise I won’t tell a soul,” Lane said. “Not even Oliver.”
“It’s not that. There’s not much to talk about really. He’ll be going back to London at some point, and that’ll be it.”
“Do you want him to stay?” Lane asked. “Is there something else going on, or is it just that he’s a really good lay?”
“I don’t know… definitely the second. Maybe the first. He’s just different, that’s all. And like I said, it’s not really worth thinking about since he’s not sticking around.”
Lane nodded. “Do you think it’s just that the sex is really good and you don’t want to go back to shagging your regular hook-ups?”
“Maybe.” I chuckled and took another drink. “Maybe it’s just because he’s been a good distraction since the weather’s been so bloody awful.”
“It’s a pain in the fucking ass,” Lane agreed.
“I bloody hate snow. I slipped on a patch of ice under the snow this morning while I was walking across the yard. Nearly broke my neck and got a wet ass. Had to get Ollie to bring me some spare boxers so I wasn’t sitting around in wet underwear all morning.
Do you know what it’s like having cold, wet boxers stuck to your balls?
It’s like sitting on fucking ice cubes.”
I snorted. “Not your sort of thing, then?”
“Definitely not.” Lane shuddered, then thought for a second, a small smile pulling at his mouth. “Guess it’d be different in bed, though. Like one carefully applied ice cube is not the same as falling on your ass in the stuff. Maybe I’ll ask Ollie to see what he thinks.”
“Don’t let me stop you,” I said, and Lane grinned.
“Are you trying to get rid of me? Is Jamie secretly hidden here? You haven’t got him tied to your bed, have you?”
“No. I don’t think he’s the tying down type.” I tried not to think about the idea of Jamie tying me to the bed and why that was suddenly making my pulse race. “And I’m not sure if I’ll see him again.”
The thought of texting him and asking for another round resurfaced like it had multiple times over the past few days. Everything had felt like twice as much work, as it always did in the snow, and it was wearing me down like water on rock.
I had people on all sides needing things from me and pelting me with questions, from Higgs asking about feeding schedules and repairing one of the fences that had come down in last week’s wind, to Dylan asking about water supplies for the yard since the pipes were freezing, to my dad asking endless questions about his beloved trio of Highland cows, even though he could just walk down the bloody road and check on them himself.
But ever since his hip replacement last year, my mum had tried to make him be more careful about going out in the ice and snow since one bad fall would be enough to cause him some serious damage, and this year, he seemed to have taken her words to heart. Either that or she’d hidden his boots.
When I thought about Jamie and what he’d given me on Monday, all those voices pulling me in different directions seemed to dull like they were far away.
I knew seeing him again would give me another chance just to let go and switch off for an hour or two, but it frightened me.
Jamie was leaving, and I didn’t want to get attached to him and what he was offering only to have it ripped away.
I knew he had a life to get back to, whatever that was, and it was selfish of me to expect him to give me more. But I didn’t know if I’d be satisfied without one more taste.
“Can I ask you something?” Lane said, his voice laced with a soft, serious note.
“Sure.”
“Are you happy? And I don’t mean just like surface level happy or happy today, but I mean, are you happy with your life?
Because these past few months… I know you’ve said in the past that this job is hard and that you always knew this farm would be yours, but I just…
I know it’s fucking impossible with a job like this because it’s your whole life rather than something you just do day-to-day, but there’s more to life than work, Will.
I know I’ve said it before, and I’ll probably say it again, but you deserve to be happy, possibly more than anyone I know. And I don’t know if you are.”
I opened my mouth to tell him everything was fine, that of course I was happy. Why wouldn’t I be? Except even in my mind those words sounded like a lie.
Things were fine, good even, and I didn’t have anything to complain about beyond the weather, the stress, and the farm’s constant lack of money. But that was the same as normal, so it wasn’t anything I wasn’t used to. But happy? That I wasn’t so sure about. Not anymore.
“I’m fine,” I said because it was all I could think to say. “I think I’m just tired at the moment. Winter always takes it out of me, especially when it’s like this.”
Lane’s expression told me he didn’t believe me, but he didn’t push. Instead, he totally changed the subject and started asking about the dogs and telling me that he was starting to get a little worried about his elderly collie, Sparrow, since the winter was making her stiff and pottery.
I welcomed the change, and we spent another hour just chatting about dogs, the small projects he was working on in the cottage that he and Oliver owned, whether Noah and Spencer would finally actually move in together, and about the upcoming period drama that was supposed to start shooting at the Castle but had apparently been pushed back because of the weather.
When Lane finally stood up and said he needed to get back because Oliver was making dinner, the snow was still falling and was now lying a good couple of feet deep across the garden.
“You going to be all right driving back?” I asked, looking up at the sky and seeing nothing but dense clouds.
“I’ll be fine,” Lane said. “I’ll go slow, and if I run into any problems, I’ll give you a call, and you can come tow me out.”
“All right. Let me know you get back okay, or I’ll spend all night thinking you’re stuck in a hedge somewhere.”
“I will.” Lane pulled me into a hug. “Don’t leave it another four days or I’ll be back. Just let me know you’re alive for Christ’s sake so I don’t have to worry about you turning into a snowman or something.”
I followed him out to where he’d parked his van, waving him off and watching him trundle slowly out onto the drive, heading towards the lane that would lead him back to town.
While I was out, I stuck my head over the dog’s stable door to check they were both warm enough.
I’d hung an old heat lamp that we’d used in the past for lambs and the litter of puppies Moss had had last spring and smiled when I saw the pair of them snuggled up together in one bed underneath it.
They were buried under enough blankets I could only see parts of their faces sticking out.
Nell opened one eye and looked up at me but didn’t seem inclined to move.
“Good girl,” I muttered. “You stay nice and warm in there.”
If the weather stayed like this, I’d bring them into the house, and they could sleep in the kitchen since Mog would refuse to share the log burner, but if they were happy in the stable for the night, they could stay there.
My footsteps crunched on the snow as I walked back to the house, my mind half thinking about what to make for dinner while the other half thought about what Lane had said.
I wasn’t convinced I deserved happiness more than any other person, but I knew he was right that there was more to life than just an endless slog, even if I wouldn’t admit it out loud.
And even if Jamie was only here for a little bit longer, maybe I needed to take what I could from him.
Maybe it would be okay for me to be selfish for once and think about what I wanted, even if it was only for a couple of hours.
It would give me something to hold on to as I approached lambing season—the busiest time of the year, when sleep became a thing of the past.
I leant against the kitchen counter and pulled out my phone, tapping out a message before I lost my nerve.
Will
What are you doing tomorrow?