Chapter 14
14
‘Good afternoon, Mr Stone. Thank you for coming.’
‘It’s my pleasure. Please call me Declan.’
‘Declan.’ She smiled at him. ‘I don’t want to take up too much of your time. Shall we get down to business?’
‘That’s why I am here.’ She caught a flash of white teeth. Or maybe that was just the contrast against his tanned skin. He didn’t look as though he spent much time indoors and she was pleased to see he was wearing sturdy boots. Of course he was – hadn’t Farmer John said he was one of Rural Developments’ negotiators? He must be out surveying land all the time.
As they walked across the yard, Diesel strolled across in front of them and Declan remarked, ‘That’s supposed to be lucky, isn’t it? A black cat crossing your path.’
‘Let’s hope it is for us.’
‘It obviously is for him – I’m presuming he’s escaped.’
‘No, he has free range of the place. He was the first cat I ever rehomed so I decided to keep him.’
‘Shame, I might be in the market for a cat.’
‘Seriously?’ Jade shot him a sideways look. For some reason he hadn’t struck her as an animal kind of person, but you never could tell. Maybe she’d misjudged him. ‘I could show you our cats,’ she suggested. ‘Maybe after we’ve discussed the other bits and pieces.’
‘Cool. I’d like that.’
Jade felt herself relax a little. There was a part of her that had been dreading this visit. But she was starting to think it was going to be all right.
Declan commented on every enclosure they passed, usually favourably. It reminded Jade of when she’d first shown Finn around and the observations he’d made. Thankfully the sanctuary was a lot more up-together than it had been back in those days. She was very relieved about that. She didn’t imagine Declan would have been too impressed if he’d discovered he was going to be building new houses next to an eyesore.
They passed the pink caravan and the picnic table and a short while later were crossing the hen field and had arrived at the boundaries of Jade’s land. Jade paused to lean on the five-bar gate and hoped the hens who were all heading over at top speed wouldn’t be too much of a nuisance.
These hopes were soon dashed when one of the braver birds swooped in for an experimental peck at Declan’s trouser legs.
‘Ouch.’ He bent to brush her away and Jade suppressed a giggle as he danced around out of the hen’s reach.
As he straightened, he caught Jade’s expression and frowned. ‘Did you think that was funny?’
She was mortified. ‘Um, no, sorry. I wasn’t laughing. I was – er…’ She halted when she saw the amusement in his eyes.
‘I had you going there, didn’t I? You should have seen your face. It’s OK. My parents kept hens when we were growing up. I’m well used to their antics. I’m guessing this lot see you as food giver, don’t they?’
‘They do. Yes.’ She smiled in relief.
‘All the same. It might be safer if we stood on the other side of this gate?’
For someone wearing a smart suit, he was much more nimble than she’d have guessed as he leapt over the five-bar gate.
She followed, and to her embarrassment stumbled as she landed on the rutted ground the other side and would have fallen if he hadn’t put out an arm to stop her.
‘Thanks,’ she murmured, grabbing it, and feeling embarrassed. ‘I’m not normally so clumsy.’
‘No problem.’ Just for a second there was something in his eyes. Something that wasn’t professional, but it was gone so quickly she might have imagined it.
‘Why don’t we walk around the boundary you were hoping to buy?’ Declan said, so they did just that until they were standing at the treeline that led down to the road.
She pointed out that the trees made a natural border and Declan nodded in agreement.
‘I do see what you mean. But I need to show you something.’
‘OK.’
They continued walking towards the road that bordered both the farm and Duck Pond Rescue and once there, Declan stopped and turned to her.
‘The difficulties we have, Jade, are all to do with access. You see how the road curves around on a bend just up there?’ He pointed as he spoke. ‘We can’t put an access to a housing estate on a blind bend. It’s deemed too dangerous. And if you were to buy the land up to the point you’d like, our access would be right on that blind bend. Do you see our difficulties?’
Jade felt her heart sink as she nodded. She could see exactly what he meant.
There was a long pause and she wondered why he’d bothered coming to see her at all. Maybe he’d just wanted to show her that Rural Developments weren’t being unreasonable. They were just being practical.
‘So, you’re telling me that what I want is impossible. Is that right?’
‘Not impossible. But I wanted you to see for yourself how the land lies – if you’ll excuse the pun.’
She waited, not daring to hope. ‘There is one possibility,’ Declan went on. ‘I’d need to speak to the powers that be. It’s a bit above my paygrade. But it might work if we kept the same access but then rerouted the road away from your property instead of going straight into the estate. If we did that you could still buy most of the land you want and everyone would be happy.’
‘Is it possible to do that?’
‘Possible but more expensive. It would be quite a hard sell. And we may have to charge you more than you were hoping to pay. What was that?’
She told him and he didn’t quite suck air through his teeth but he did look surprised. ‘I see. Hmm. That’s not to say it would be a definite no.’ He met her gaze steadily. She was aware of the seriousness of his blue eyes. ‘I’m going to try for you, Jade, because I can see it means a lot to you. But I can’t make any promises.’
‘Thank you.’ Impulsively, she touched his arm. ‘It does mean a lot to me.’
‘OK, then that’s what we’ll do.’ A brief smile lit up his face. ‘Maybe you could show me those cats now?’
‘I’d love to.’
* * *
Softly softly catchee monkey, Declan thought as they walked back across the hen field towards the yard. When she’d touched his arm back there he’d been so tempted to return the gesture, but he didn’t want to go in too heavy. She reminded him of a roe deer. Beautiful, but wide eyed and ready to flee at the slightest wrong move.
Yet he already knew there was more than one side to Jade Foster. He had no doubt at all she’d fight for what she loved. And that was definitely her animal sanctuary.
‘So is there a Mr Foster?’ he asked as they walked. ‘I’m guessing you don’t run this place on your own.’
‘You’re guessing right. My partner helps. He’s away at the moment. I also have quite a few volunteers.’
‘I bet you do. It must be a magnet for animal lovers.’
‘Yes, it is. I’m really lucky. How long have you worked for Rural Developments?’ It was a deft change of subject.
‘A long time. It’s my grandfather’s company. I always knew I’d go into the family business. My dad’s the general manager, but he’s the kind of dad who thinks kids should make their own way in life, so I had to work my way up through the ranks. I did a business degree first, so I know about the business side of things. I also had to do some legal training, and believe it or not I’ve done all sorts of jobs on site too – I was a brickie for a while.’
‘You never were?’ He had her attention now. She was looking at him in amazement.
‘It’s true. It was a surprise that he let me go to uni at all. My dad’s an advocate of the school of hard knocks. So’s my grandpa. Which isn’t so surprising. My grandfather started the company from scratch in Northern Ireland.’
‘Wow, so you’re Irish? You don’t sound it.’
‘I’m half Irish but I grew up in England.’
They’d arrived back at the yard and their conversation was interrupted by a blonde-haired middle-aged woman, heading towards them with purposeful steps.
‘Jade, sorry to interrupt but Aiden’s here and I’m not sure which animals you wanted him to look at. Do you have a second?’
‘Of course.’ Jade glanced apologetically at Declan. ‘Aiden’s my vet,’ she explained, ‘so I’m going to have to go, but Dawn’s my right-hand woman. I’m sure she’d be more than happy to show you the cats.’
‘The cats?’
‘You said you might be in the market for a cat?’
‘I am. Yes. That’d be grand. Thank you.’ He berated himself for that throwaway comment. He was definitely not in the market for a cat – but he would go and look. He could find some excuse to pull out later.
* * *
Jade went to greet Aiden, who was waiting for her outside reception. She felt hugely relieved. Declan was a nice guy. She didn’t think there was going to be an issue at all with getting the field, although it did look like the cost would go up.
‘Morning, Jade.’ Aiden, who’d always dressed like an old-fashioned gentleman farmer, in tweeds and green wellies, had a more relaxed look since he’d met Kate, his new girlfriend. Kate was a stunner and she’d obviously had a hand in changing Aiden’s look. Today Aiden had a light brown fleece over an expensive shirt. He’d swapped the green wellies for trail boots.
‘Morning, Aiden. Thanks for fitting us in. Your first patient’s Mr Spock. Apparently he’s got a cough, although I must admit I haven’t heard it. A few of the volunteers have been worried, though. So I thought maybe you could look while you’re here. The other patient’s a cat that’s a bit off colour in the hospital block.’
‘No problem.’ They went into reception and Jade saw to her chagrin that Mr Spock was out of his cage. The piece of paper she’d left sellotaped to the door saying to leave him in today must have fallen off.
‘Don’t worry, he’s easy to catch,’ she told Aiden. But these proved to be famous last words.
Like all living creatures, Mr Spock had superb ‘vet radar’ and he led them a merry dance around reception, flying from one end of the room to the other but never landing anywhere for more than a few seconds.
After ten minutes, Aiden said, ‘I think it was James Herriot who said if you can’t catch your patient, there’s not much wrong with it. Shall we go and see the cat first and let him settle?’
Just as he spoke, Mr Spock alighted on top of his cage and started preening. Aiden, who was closest, pounced but in the process he tripped over Mickey’s basket, stumbled and lurched into the cage so it tilted and the whole lot teetered to the left and then tipped over. Somehow Aiden ended up on the floor too. It was chaos. Sandpaper, parrot toys and bird poop littered the floor.
Jade leaped to Aiden’s side. ‘Oh, God. Are you OK?’
‘I’m good.’ Aiden picked something unmentionable out of his hair and winced from his position on the floor. ‘Sorry. I lost my footing. Where did the bloody parrot go?’
Jade looked around them. Mr Spock was back on the window beside reception. ‘Bloody hells bells,’ the parrot said cheerfully, and before either of them could speak, he added a string of ruder expletives and finished with a cough.
‘Did you hear that?’ Jade said.
‘Yes, but that’s a human cough. Parrots don’t cough like us. They have different respiratory systems. They don’t have a diaphragm.’
‘Of course they don’t.’ Jade clapped her hand over her mouth. It had been a while since she’d done her vet training, which she’d never completed, and a memory of a distant lecture was surfacing. ‘I’m so sorry, Aiden, I’ve dragged you out on false pretences.’
Mr Spock ‘coughed’ again and Jade glanced back at Aiden, who had just climbed to his feet and was righting the bird cage.
‘I reckon he’s heard someone with a cough,’ Aiden muttered. ‘He’s mimicking. That’s all. Judging by all the – er – swear words he knows, he’s quite a good mimic.’
‘He is.’ Jade felt her face flaming. ‘I’m so sorry.’
‘Don’t worry. I’m sure we’ll laugh about this one day.’ Aiden gave her a crooked smile. ‘But please don’t tell Kate. Or I’ll never hear the end of it. She already thinks I’m accident prone.’
‘My lips are sealed,’ Jade promised, privately thinking Kate might be right. It wasn’t that long ago that Aiden had been headbutted by a goat, had knocked himself out in the process of escaping, and had ended up spending a night in hospital with suspected concussion.
‘Are you sure you’re not hurt?’ she asked solicitously.
‘I’m good. Let’s go and see this cat, shall we? It’s probably a safer option.’
* * *
Finn couldn’t remember a time when he’d felt so emotionally wrung out. He and his father had stayed up talking deep into the night. They’d finally got to bed sometime around 4a.m. and despite being convinced he wouldn’t sleep, Finn had dropped into an exhausted slumber sometime around five thirty, which was when he’d have usually been waking up.
The next thing he’d been aware of was bright sunshine pouring into the room and when he’d rolled over and reached for his phone, he’d been shocked to see it was ten fifteen.
For a while he’d lain in bed, listening to the sounds of the house. He could hear someone moving around downstairs in the kitchen and the buzz of muted chatter. Maybe that was what had woken him. He could also smell toast – that might have woken him too. For a few seconds he stayed wrapped under the duvet in warm blissful ignorance and then the memory of last night came crashing back into his consciousness.
After Ray had told him Bridie had left because she was pregnant with another man’s child, Finn had felt knocked sideways. He was torn in two. It was no surprise that Ray had kept this whopper of a secret – he could see that had been done out of fear.
But the fact he had a sibling out there – a brother or sister – who he’d grown up not knowing felt like a body blow too. After he’d acclimatised to the shock of his past being rewritten, one overriding feeling had risen out of the chaos.
He’d known he wanted to meet them. Bridie and whatever family she had now. He wanted to see them. Even if it was only once. He knew there was a possibility they wouldn’t want to see him. Bridie might not have told any of her family she had an older son. When Ray had told her on that long-ago day that Finn thought she was dead, she might have decided to leave the past alone. To focus on her new family. In fact, the more Finn thought about it, the more likely this seemed.
If he were to turn up in Bridie’s life now, he’d probably be a major bombshell. These churning thoughts that had kept him awake into the early hours started to churn again and Finn blinked away the pain. He had a searing headache. He needed to get up and find some painkillers.
Besides, he had to go downstairs and face his father and Dorrie – she had made herself scarce last night, and he wasn’t sure she hadn’t gone back to her own house a few doors up from his father’s. That had been diplomatic of her.
He hadn’t even told them about the double wedding yet – at least that was a nice non-confrontational subject they could chat about.
He also urgently needed to speak to Jade. He felt terribly guilty that he hadn’t already told her what was going on.