Chapter Twenty-Four
Will
“Are you comfortable down there?” I asked with an amused smile as I stuck my head over the fence of one of the pens in the lambing barn to see Jamie sitting on a bale of straw, attempting to bottle feed three lambs at once.
They were all trying to climb into his lap, trying to shove each other out of the way to get to the teats on the bottles, even though there was plenty for all of them.
“Not particularly,” Jamie said. “But I’ll manage.” He gave me a bright, beaming smile, then squawked as one of the lambs jumped onto his groin. “Ah! Fuck! Can you fucking not? Please.”
I chuckled. “You probably need to stand up. Stops you getting trampled.”
“Yes, well, lesson learnt for next time,” Jamie said as he nudged one lamb out the way, crossing one arm over the other to shove one of the bottles into a waiting mouth.
Despite my fears, Jamie had taken to lambing like a duck to water and had thrown himself into the season with gusto. He was almost unrecognisable now to the man I’d first met in the pub at the start of February.
His designer clothes had been replaced by a pair of overalls that had stayed clean for about twenty-minutes before they’d been covered in mud, his chin was now dusted with stubble where he’d been too tired to shave, his cheeks were reddened with cold, and his hair stuck out from underneath the beanie he was wearing.
He’d never looked better to me.
“Are you off out on rounds?” he asked, deftly switching one of the empty bottles out for a third one that was full.
“Yeah. I’m going to take Moss out to the far fields to see how they’re getting on. I reckon we’ve only got a few up there left to lamb, but I’m a bit worried about one of them. I might bring her in.”
Jamie nodded. “Just let me know if you need a hand. I can get a pen sorted for her.”
“Cheers. Are you happy to do the rest of the feeds?”
“Of course,” he said. “As long as the triplets here don’t suck my fingers off.” He smiled affectionately at the smallest of the three lambs who, having had her fill, was now trying to suck Jamie’s gloved hand into her mouth.
Triplet births could often be difficult, and theirs had been one of the hardest I’d ever dealt with.
The first one had been breech, and things had gone downhill fast from there.
We’d lost the ewe, and I’d never forget watching Jamie’s face as he cradled the three tiny lambs in his arms, tears streaming down his face as he scrubbed them with towels, trying to keep them warm.
We’d brought them into the house because they were all so small and weak, and Jamie had spent all night sitting on the floor by the fire with them armed with bottles of replacement colostrum.
I’d wanted to tell him it would be okay, but I couldn’t lie to him.
This was the worst part of lambing, and every loss stayed etched in your heart forever.
You never forgot the first time you lost a ewe or a lamb in the same way you never forgot the first time you saw a successful birth.
The highs and lows were all part of it, and you could never have one without the other.
All I could do was put a blanket on his shoulders, kiss his forehead, and tell him I was there for him.
I’d wondered if it would be the end of our relationship, if the loss would be too much and burst the pastoral fantasy bubble that so often surrounded farming, and I’d wake up the next morning to nothing but an empty bed and a note saying he couldn’t take it.
The bed had been empty the next morning, but all Jamie’s stuff had still been there, and when I’d gone downstairs I’d found him in the kitchen with three tiny lambs tottering around his feet as he made up bottles, Moss sitting on the back door mat, wagging her tail in amusement.
Jamie had greeted me with a smile and a kiss and asked how I was doing after all the stress.
Then he’d pressed a cup of tea into my hands and told me to sit down at the table while he made me some toast. It was such a small gesture, but it felt so much bigger.
It gave me five minutes to just sit and be, and despite the kitchen being full, it felt like it wasn’t all on me.
Ever since then, Jamie had dedicated himself to caring for whoever was in the lambing barn—lamb or ewe alike.
I loved sneaking in to watch him as he distributed feed and hand fed the lambs, talking to them like they were a bunch of unruly children and sympathising with the ewes like they were mums in a coffee shop.
Moss seemed to have attached herself to him ever since the triplets’ birth, and she followed him round like a silent shadow, sitting outside the lambing pens and watching him carefully.
I’d seen Jamie talking to her too, asking her questions like they were co-workers and taking her head tilts and tail wags for answers.
It made my chest ache every time I saw it because it felt too perfect to be real.
And with every day that passed, my worry grew that everything was going to come crashing down around my ears.
I knew it was ridiculous because he’d been in Heather Bay for nearly two months, and if nothing had put Jamie off so far, then I didn’t know what would.
But my brain still refused to believe that the beautiful man who’d spent his whole life living in a world of luxury would want to give it all up for early mornings filled with rain, snow, and no small amount of shit and bodily fluids.
“Excuse me,” Jamie said, his voice laced with indignant laughter. “Can you not eat my boots, please? I need those.” I snapped back to reality and watched as one of the triplets tried to pull at Jamie’s laces. He glanced up at me and frowned. “Are you okay? You seemed to drift off there.”
“Yeah,” I said, blinking several times and forcing my brain back into gear. “Just fucking knackered. Another week or two and it should all be done.”
“And then we can sleep until five again.” Jamie snorted. “God, I’d never thought I’d consider that a lie-in.”
“We might even be able to stretch it to six.”
“You spoil me. I’ll have to return the favour.” He smirked at me, and my stomach bubbled. We hadn’t had sex since lambing began, both of us quickly overcome by sheer exhaustion. It was another reason I’d expected Jamie to give up and leave, but instead, it seemed to amuse him.
At some point, I couldn’t even remember when, he’d just moved into the house, and every time we crawled into bed for a few snatched hours of sleep, he’d cuddle right up to me and bury his face in my neck.
Sometimes he’d drift off before me, and I’d just lie there, listening to him breathe, wondering if there was anything else in the world that would feel like this.
“Okay,” Jamie said as he stood, gathering up the empty bottles and extricating himself from the triplets. “Three down. Seven to go. Just let me know if you need to bring any more in, and I’ll get things ready.”
“Cheers,” I said, opening the gate to the pen to let him out quickly. He kissed me softly and smiled.
“Of course. That’s what I’m here for.”
I was still worrying about everything two days later when I came back to the house to find Lane and Oliver sitting opposite Jamie at the kitchen table, all of them drinking tea and eating thick slices of cake.
“There you are,” Lane said. “Glad to see you’re still all in one piece.”
“Aye, I’m here,” I said as I toed off my boots.
It was common knowledge amongst the group that at this time of year I’d disappear for a few weeks, and usually, at least one or two of them would pop up at various intervals to make sure I was okay and bring me food since it was all they could do.
It was a gesture I appreciated more than they knew.
“How’s everything going?” Oliver asked.
“Not too bad. Don’t reckon we’re too far off being done, but I always say that and then something surprises us.”
“Do you want some tea?” Jamie asked, standing up and walking over to the kettle because he already knew the question was more of a formality than anything else. “Lane and Oliver brought us a lasagne, a cheese and herb tear-and-share bread, and a sponge cake.”
“The cake’s from Mabel,” Oliver said. “I mentioned to her yesterday we were coming to see you, and she sent Ivor round with it this morning.”
“Tell her thanks from me,” I said. I’d only met Lane and Oliver’s elderly neighbours a few times, but from what Oliver said, Mabel seemed to spend half her life supplying people she knew with cakes and buns.
Usually all delivered by hand by her gruff, grumbling husband, Ivor, who preferred the company of his plants to people.
Jamie handed me a mug of tea and a plate of cake before returning to his seat and pulling out the chair alongside him so I could sit down. “Oliver asked if there’s any chance he can see the lambs,” he said. “Are you okay if I take him out to the barn in a minute? He can help me feed everyone.”
“Of course,” I said, looking over at Oliver who was smiling excitedly. He hadn’t been around for lambing before since he’d only moved back to Heather Bay last summer. “Be prepared to get mobbed.”
“As long as you don’t bring one home,” Lane said with a wry smile at Oliver.
“I think that’s more likely to be you,” Oliver said, raising his eyebrow at his boyfriend. “I saw you cooing over those kittens Gary had in the van on Friday.”
“But they were so tiny,” Lane said. He glanced at me and Jamie and added, “Gary found a cat and a litter of kittens in an old shed of this house we’re doing up.
The house has been empty for a while, and it doesn’t seem like the cats were dumped there, but it’s not good for them to be out alone, so Gary decided to take them in.
From the sound of it, the mum doesn’t have a microchip or anything, so I think she and the babies’ll be staying with him. ”
“Until you take one home,” I said.
“I would,” Lane said. “I just don’t know how Sparrow would feel about it. Then again, we could section off the house easily if we needed to keep them separate. I don’t really know a lot about cats, though.”
“If you really want one, we can think about,” Oliver said, and I knew that was enough permission for Lane to bring one home. “We’ll just have to wait until they’re older.”
“I might talk to Gary on Monday. Y’know, just to see how they’re getting on.”
We all chatted for a few more minutes, Lane and Oliver catching me and Jamie up on any gossip we’d missed.
Apparently, Noah and Spencer had finally taken the plunge and formally moved in together after dancing around it for months, and Lane thought Alex had been very quiet and secretive for the past few weeks, but Oliver thought it was nothing to be worried about.
“He’s just busy,” Oliver said. “Especially with all the people coming in for filming. I think quite a few of the production crew pop into Novel Tea regularly, and their orders are never small. I think some of the cast have been in there too. Bastian swore he saw Henry Lu in there last week!”
“Oh, yeah, I’d forgotten the filming had started,” I said, sipping my tea.
They’d been talking about filming some new period drama series up at the Castle for nearly a year now, but the start of production had been delayed at least once, and with the chaos of lambing, I’d forgotten it was even happening.
They’d contacted me about using some of the land adjoining the Castle estate for filming, and I’d agreed considering they’d offered to pay me.
It wasn’t a part of the farm I often used for lambing since it was easy for the ewes to be disturbed by people visiting the Castle, but I made a mental note to check my emails and see when they were meant to be going up there.
Mostly because I wanted to make sure I knew what it looked like before they started filming so they didn’t leave it a total mess that I had to spend time and money fixing.
“Apparently, they’ll be here until the end of August,” Lane said. “Bits of town keep getting shut down for it.”
“Theo managed to get himself and Laurie in as extras, though,” Oliver added. “Theo’s hoping he might even get a line or two, but I think that might be wishful thinking.”
“Does anyone know what the show’s actually about?” Jamie asked. “I’ve heard rumours, and there seems to be some speculation online, but I’ve not seen anything concrete. It’s not an adaptation like Bridgerton or Poldark is it?”
“I don’t think so,” Oliver said. “I’ve not heard anything about a big new adaptation. I think it’s an original.”
“I’d have thought they’d keep the details close to their chests for as long as possible,” I said. “It’ll be easier to make a splash that way when they’ve got a trailer ready to go.”
“Maybe we can get Theo to spill the beans,” Jamie said as he picked at the last of his slice of cake. “Unless they’ve all had to sign NDAs.”
“Probably,” Oliver said. “But maybe if we get him somewhere private, and by that I mean somewhere other than the pub, he’ll spill.”
Lane sighed. “Does that mean we’re going to be hosting another dinner party?” Oliver smiled sweetly at him, and Lane shook his head. “Fine, but we’ll wait until lambing’s over so these two can come too.”
“I love dinner parties,” Jamie said. “I can’t cook, but I can bring wine.”
“Done,” Lane said. “Both Laurie and Alex are banned from bringing drinks to things now. They’re both untrustworthy as fuck.”
Jamie snorted. “It sounds like there are good stories there.”
“There are,” Oliver said.
“Come on,” Jamie said, draining the last of his tea. “You can tell me while we go and feed everyone. If we leave it much longer, we’ll have a full-scale rebellion on our hands, and the triplets will be leading it.”
“We’ll stay here,” Lane said, giving me a pointed look across the table that pinned me to my seat. I had no idea what he wanted to talk to me about, but I got the feeling I was in trouble.
“See you in a bit,” Oliver said as he stood up and leant down to give Lane a kiss.
“Do you need anything?” I asked Jamie, catching his hand in mine and giving it a quick squeeze.
“No,” he said, stealing a kiss of his own and making my heart skip as he did. “You stay here and sit down for a bit. Then we can do the final rounds when I’m back. Higgs is on duty at the moment, and he’ll tell us if he needs anything.”
I watched as he led Oliver out the door, the two of them chatting happily together as they went. Then I turned back to look at Lane who had a wry smile across his face.
“So,” he said as he sat back in his chair, “when were you planning on telling Jamie you’re in love with him?”