More from Jessica Redland
MORE FROM JESSICA REDLAND
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Chapter One
BARNEY
‘Barney!’
I was applying toothpaste to my toothbrush when a high-pitched shriek made me drop both items into the sink and race back into the bedroom.
‘Olivia? Are you okay?’
‘No! Make it stop!’ She pulled the duvet over her head with a groan.
The beeps on my mobile phone alarm reached a crescendo as I grabbed it from the bedside drawers, flicking on the lamp at the same time.
‘Sorry. I thought I’d switched it off.’
She yanked the duvet back and narrowed her eyes at me. ‘Well, you obviously hadn’t. It’s 5.30, Barney. Who the hell gets up at this time on a Saturday?’
‘Erm, me.’
She shoved her long platinum-blonde hair back from her forehead and scowled. ‘Why?’
‘Because I’m a farmer,’ I said, trying to keep the sarcasm at bay, ‘and that’s what we do.’
‘But it’s Easter weekend. It’s a bank holiday.’
‘And I’m not a bank so I’m not on holiday.’
‘That’s not funny, Barney. You’re not funny.’
With a disgusted, ‘Urgh!’ she pulled the duvet back over her head and I sighed inwardly as I lowered myself onto the edge of the bed, a sinking feeling in my stomach in recognition of where this was heading.
‘I’ll be out for a couple of hours,’ I said, gently placing my hand on her rigid back. ‘I’ll make you some breakfast when I get back.’
No response.
‘I’ll see you later, yeah?’
Silence.
I flicked the lamp off and returned to the bathroom. Arms braced against the sink, I squinted at my reflection in the mirror and slowly shook my head. I wouldn’t see Olivia later. She’d be gone by the time I returned – another relationship over when it had barely begun.
‘Probably just as well,’ I murmured, retrieving my toothbrush and paste from the sink. Lambing season would start imminently and my already limited social life would take a nosedive. Olivia would never have stuck around through the long hours and sleepless nights, no matter how ‘adorable’ she imagined it would be to bottle-feed any lambs that couldn’t be fed by their mothers. When she’d gushed about that on the night I met her – out for my best mate Joel’s birthday last month – I’d known it wouldn’t last that long. It never did. Was it time to give up and accept that it was never going to happen for me? That I was destined to run Bumblebee Barn on my own and was never going to have children to pass the farm down to?
Ten minutes later, I pushed open the door to the boot room off the farmhouse kitchen.
‘Morning, Bear! Morning, Harley!’
My Border Collie brother and sister team scrambled out of their beds for a scratch behind the ears.
‘It’s a wet one this morning,’ I said, raising the blind on the door and looking out at the rain. It was so heavy, I couldn’t even see the other side of the farmyard.
I slipped on my waterproof boilersuit, shoved my feet in my wellies, pulled a fleece-lined beanie hat over my messy dark hair and grabbed the keys for the quad bike before leaving the house, ready to start another busy day on the farm. The sun would rise in about an hour so the sky should already have been lightening, but the steady downpour kept it dark and dismal. Like Olivia’s mood.
In the garage – the large barn where I kept the most frequently used vehicles – Bear and Harley jumped onto the seating platform on the back of my red quad bike and we set off into the darkness.
Bumblebee Barn – a large farm on the Yorkshire Wolds – had been in our family for 112 years. It had started as a smallholding run by my great-great-grandfather Dodds on Mum’s side of the family and had passed down through the generations. Each new owner had expanded the farm, although Granddad’s purchase of neighbouring Whisperwood Farm had made the biggest impact, doubling the size to seventy-six hectares.
The whitewashed T-shaped farmhouse couldn’t actually be seen from the road. It was approached by a track flanked by crops and tucked away behind several barns. The boot room and kitchen doors at the back of the house opened onto the farmyard and the front of the house overlooked a large garden with stunning views across the land.
When Granddad retired, Bumblebee Barn should have passed to one of his two children, but Mum, who ran a successful catering and events management business, wasn’t interested in farming, and the less said about her younger brother Melvin, the better. It had therefore skipped a generation and I’d become the new owner ten and a half years ago when I turned twenty-one.
An increase in size hadn’t been the only major change for Bumblebee Barn. It had started off purely arable, but Whisperwood Farm had been pastoral with cattle and sheep, so the new larger farm became a mixed one and had stayed that way. I’d sold off the last of the cattle last year, we still had two breeds of sheep, but my legacy was pigs. It had been Joel’s suggestion. He was a shift manager at Claybridge Fresh Foods, a local factory specialising in bacon and pork products. He’d mentioned that the factory was expanding and there was a shortage of local suppliers, so I’d acted quickly and now Bumblebee Barn was one of their main suppliers, bringing in a valuable income stream for me to invest back into the farm, embracing new environmentally friendly thinking.
I’d never taken the farm for granted. I knew how fortunate I was to have a vocation and a home that I loved thanks to the hard work put in across several generations. I hoped it would stay in the family for generations to come but that meant having children of my own, and that wasn’t looking hopeful. When it came to farming, I felt like I was winning. When it came to relationships, not so much.
* * *
It had stopped raining when I returned to the farmyard a couple of hours later. Olivia’s car was gone. Even though it was expected, my stomach still lurched at the sight of the deserted farmyard.
‘Another one bites the dust,’ I muttered to Bear and Harley as they jumped down from the quad bike after I parked in the garage and cut the engine.
I crouched down beside Harley and scratched her ears while Bear took a drink from the water trough.
‘She lasted six weeks. Bit of a record for me. Can I get a high five?’ I held my palm towards Harley and she placed her front paw against it. ‘Good girl.’
‘Who’s hungry?’ I asked them. ‘Let’s grab some breakfast.’
They followed me across the farmyard through the puddles.
‘Who thinks she’ll have left a note?’ I said, opening the boot room door and removing my hat, wellies and boilersuit. ‘No, me neither. Text? WhatsApp? What’s that, Bear? You think she’ll ghost me? I think you could be right.’
I sat down at the kitchen table a little later with a bowl of porridge but had to really force the first spoonful down my throat. The second attempt was no easier. I dropped my spoon into the bowl and pushed it aside, taking a gulp from my milky coffee instead.
It was so quiet in the kitchen – just the occasional sigh from the dogs punctuating the silence. A kitchen like this should be alive with activity and laughter. It was a kitchen for a family. A home for a family.
I ran my hands through my damp hair and sank back in the chair, gazing up at the beams on the ceiling. It wasn’t that it was over with Olivia that bothered me. If she hadn’t walked out, I’d probably have ended it myself as I knew we didn’t have a future together. What bothered me was that I couldn’t foresee a future with anyone. Just me, the dogs, the farm and the everything’s fine and I love my life face I wore every time I saw my family or friends. Why was it so hard to admit the truth?