Friday September 19th 2025 #2
Hitched up my skirt and climbed the steps to the tractor cabin. It was surprisingly snug and cozy in there, though as soon as we started moving, the juddering motion made my teeth chatter.
“Sheep emergency, is there?” Rog said, flashing me a gold-toothed smile.
“Sure,” I said, giving up. “Thanks for the sheepdog advice. While I have you, can we talk about something else, please?”
“Oh, hello, another Charlie Jones!” Rog said, waving enthusiastically to Jones, who was cycling toward us, standing up in his saddle, peering into the cab of Rog’s tractor.
He looked a little surprised to see me. Had never seen Jones on his bike before, though it lives propped up by our front door.
A little lurch of emotion went through me at the sight of him in his helmet, looking for a split second like he was someone else entirely.
Least he was wearing one, though—loads of islanders don’t.
“Charlie? What are you doing?” he called. Or at least, I assume that’s what he was saying. Rog wasn’t wrong—it was hard to hear up there. I asked Rog to turn off the engine for a moment.
“I’ve been calling you,” Jones said, dropping one foot to the track as he came to a stop. “We need you back at the shop. Red’s had to duck out for a bit.”
“Why?”
“She’s…” Jones’s eyes flicked to Rog. “Can you come down?”
I sighed—had really geared myself up for the hard conversation with Rog—but dismounted again. Jones immediately took my arm to pull me aside. He was windswept from cycling, and the smell of the island breeze had caught in his jumper. I resisted the alarming urge to breathe him in.
“She’s crying,” he said grimly.
“Red?” I said, horrified enough to stop checking out Jones in his jumper. “But Red’s so…cheerful! That’s like her whole personality!”
“I’m not sure cheerful is anyone’s whole personality.”
“Maybe that’s where I went wrong when I got here.”
Jones laughed, then said “What?” when I looked at him in surprise.
“Look at you, laughing at my jokes. You barely cracked a smile week one here.”
“Well, you got funnier,” he said, the corner of his mouth twitching.
The way his eyes crinkle when he smiles…I had to look away. The conversation with Brianna was still fresh in my mind, and it was such a little thrill to make this shadowy, complicated man laugh.
“Did you need something from Rog?” Jones said.
“What? Oh, shit.”
Rog had set off again. I yelled his name and chased his tractor down the track.
“Can’t stop, Charlie! I’m already late after sorting the plumbing at Karyn’s place!”
Could well believe that. Rog is always late.
“What do you need Rog for?” Jones said from behind me.
I sighed, slowing to a walk. “Don’t ask. You don’t want to know.”
“Is it shop business?”
“Yes. I wanted to keep you out of it until it was done, so you didn’t have to bear the brunt of everybody’s outrage, too, but…” I stopped walking. Found myself actually quite desperate to share the burden. “I need to fire Rog.”
Jones stared at me as Rog chugged off into the distance behind us. “You’re going to fire Rog? One of our four employees? Without discussing it with me first?”
“Trust me. If you knew what I know—”
“Which I don’t.”
“Well, I just thought—”
“What happened to trusting each other?”
“This isn’t about trust! I just didn’t want you dragged down into all this. Galoshes already hates me, but she’s all right with you, and you’ve been really getting somewhere with the coffee and biscuits thing, and if you were part of this—”
“She might get the mistaken impression that we’re jointly managing the shop?”
“She might blame you!”
“This is about trust,” Jones said grimly. “You don’t trust me to be able to handle it. Are you even going to tell me why we’re firing a good man who works hard and does a great job?” He paused. “Sometimes? If he turns up?”
“I saw him stealing, Jones. That’s why the till never balances at the end of the day.”
Jones was silent for a moment. “You actually saw him?”
“Yes. He took a couple of twenties out while he was cleaning and locking up.”
Jones breathed out slowly. “All right. I’ll talk to him.”
“Talk to him?”
“Get his side of things.”
“Are you serious? Do you not believe me when I say I saw him stealing?”
“I believe you thought you saw that. But I also believe in giving people a chance.”
“So do I!” I was so frustrated I could have cried. “But I also believe what I saw!”
“Leave the Rog situation with me,” Jones said. There was no crinkling around the eyes now. “Why don’t you focus on Galoshes instead? She’s been dismantling all your autumnal decorations while you were out.”
“She’s— What?”
“Yeah. She knows you’re too scared of her to bollock her for it, I imagine.”
Jones was angry. I’ve only seen him properly angry once before—that moment when we were drenched by the lighthouse, when I told him he was an entitled man used to getting what he wanted.
But this time, there was no danger of this ending in a kiss.
His arms were folded tightly across his chest and his glower was fierce.
I was having to fight to keep from crying.
Had gotten used to the warm, caring Jones—hadn’t realized how much he’d changed until he was back to this scowly, shut-off stranger again.
“Your issues with Galoshes are getting in the way of progress in the shop. She’s not going to agree to anything until she believes we’re good people who aren’t trying to turn the shop into some gimmicky tourist trap.
I’m doing what I can, but the fact is you’re fifty percent of this, she doesn’t trust you and we have two and a half weeks to get that shop to a place that justifies two salaries.
Sort it, please,” he said, climbing back on his bike.
“Jones—”
“I’m done,” he said. “Unless there’s anything else you’ve not deigned to tell me because you think I can’t cope with it?”
“What? No, no, it wasn’t…”
He was already cycling away.