Chapter 6
By seven o’clock the next morning, Rae was scribbling in her notepad at the kitchen table with a coffee that had already gone cold.
The dogs played in view in the backyard outside, door open to let the cool breeze slip in.
It was the most at peace she’d felt in months, but was soon disturbed by the sound of slippers scuffing the wood floor behind her.
She turned to find Dad bedraggled in his sleepwear, a grey T-shirt and shorts.
The toes of his injured foot hovered like he was afraid to put too much weight on it, but Rae was relieved when he managed to walk to the table with only a mild wince and limp.
‘What on earth are you doing up?’ he questioned.
‘I’m planning how to get the farm back in shape. First of all, we need to start preparing the fields for visitors to come and pick their own fruit, maybe up the entry fee slightly. I’d also like to start preparing preserves for the farm shop; at the moment, there isn’t much going on—’
‘Hang on, hang on. TMI, as the kids say.’ Dad wafted his hands as he sat down beside Rae. Like last night, he propped his foot on the chair adjacent, and Rae hopped up to grab the ice pack before he could protest.
‘That’s not really what TMI… Never mind.’ She placed the pack on his foot, ignoring his trepidation. ‘Do you want a brew?’
‘I want you to sit down and tell me why you’re suddenly managing my farm.’
‘It’s technically Gran’s farm,’ Rae reminded, but obeyed with slumped shoulders, feeling like a scolded child. ‘I’m trying to help, Dad. You can’t pretend this place is running the way it should be, and I know you and Gran have been struggling to keep up with the work.’
‘Which has nothing to do with you.’ That rough edge of bitterness left a sting.
She leaned back in a fruitless attempt to protect herself from it. ‘What do you mean? I grew up on this farm.’
‘And then you upped and left. I don’t need you poking your nose in, thinking you’re helping, only to leave us with more problems later. We managed before, and we’ll manage now – without you, like we’ve had to for the last ten years.’
The silence that followed rung hollow in Rae’s ears.
She looked down at her neat handwriting, willing her eyes not to tear up.
She’d had her fifteen minutes of crying last night, hoping it would help her sleep.
She surely should have been good for another twenty-four hours.
‘Just because I moved away for work, it doesn’t mean I don’t still want to be here to help when I can. ’
Dad dragged the notes towards him. Too stubborn to get his eyes tested, he squinted to read them. ‘You want to get our produce in the local shops?’
Rae nodded. ‘The tearoom could use our jams, and maybe we could sell some of Gran’s wine to the tavern. I know we didn’t used to need the extra income, but we do now.’
‘But we’d also need the extra staff, and I can’t afford that.’
‘Not with me around. I can do all the heavy lifting.’
She didn’t know why his face still creased with displeasure at the idea, like she was terrible for wanting to help. All they needed was a kickstart to get more regular visitors and buyers. It wasn’t like she was proposing an entire takeover or changing what had always made Sweetbriar so special.
‘The quicker we can get started, the better. That way, we can begin promoting the Strawberry Fair now—’
‘We’re not doing the fair this year,’ Dad cut in.
Rae faltered again, clasping her hands in her lap. ‘What? Why?’
The fair had been her favourite memory – without it, it wasn’t summer at all.
Every year since she was little, and long before, thanks to Gran and Granddad, Sweetbriar had hosted a festival to celebrate the end of the summer harvest season, with tractor rides, a tombola, local vendors, and sometimes even live music.
She and Martha would spend the entire day playing hide and seek between the shrubs as the farm, Rae’s home, swelled with laughter and joy.
She could still feel sticky candy floss and ice cream on her fingers, grass stains on her knees.
Less and less businesses had joined in later years, but it had still been lovely to see the extra visitors.
Without them, she wasn’t sure how they’d manage through the colder seasons.
‘It’s too much work,’ Dad grumbled. ‘We just can’t make it happen, all right?’
‘But I’m here—’
‘I’m not,’ he interrupted. ‘I won’t be here.’
Rae’s mouth opened and closed, but she was unable to find any words save for, ‘Why?’
‘I’m getting surgery. They’re finally giving me a stoma.’
She swallowed thickly. They’d talked about it before, the last time the gastro doctors had struggled to manage Dad’s Crohn’s, and while she was sure it would mean a lot less pain, it was also a big surgery and a completely different way of life afterwards.
He’d have to wear a stoma bag, forever cautious of leaks or complications.
The fear must have been written all over her face, because his rough hand found hers with a squeeze.
‘This is a good thing, aye? No more running to the loo ten times a day. But we all have to come to terms with the fact that maybe having the farm just isn’t feasible anymore.
I won’t be able to do much heavy lifting for at least a few months after, and then I’ll have to work myself back up slowly. I’m not as fit as I used to be.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ Rae whispered.
‘Because I knew you’d look at me like you are now, and I bloody hate that look. Besides, it takes a miracle for you to answer your phone.’
She turned away, wiping her cheeks though they came away dry. She was fine. However scary this was for her, it would be ten times scarier for him. ‘You can’t let the farm go, Dad. It’s home. You and Gran worked so hard for it.’
He shrugged. ‘I agree, but my body doesn’t.’
‘I’ll stay until you’re well again. I have my savings to keep us afloat, and we can plan for autumn—’
‘No, Rae,’ he snapped. ‘You’re not doing that. You’ll go back to work at the end of summer, like you planned. I’m not going to let you stay and throw your own future away.’
‘Dad,’ she protested, but he shot her a warning glare.
‘No. We’re not arguing about this.’
‘Well, you’re going to have to compromise, because I’m not going to stay here all summer and not do anything. I can manage the fair. Even if we just get a few local businesses involved, it’s something. Let me try, please. We haven’t lost it yet.’
Dad clucked his tongue. ‘Jesus, she’s stubborn,’ he told Roderick, who had prowled in for his breakfast.
‘I wonder where I get it from.’
He rolled his eyes with a grumble, and she knew she’d won – at least for now.
She yanked back her notepad and began writing again, glad to have something that wasn’t her uncertain future to focus on. If she could fix just one thing in her life, it would be the farm. Always.
It was embarrassing how eager Struan was to head back to the farm the next day.
He’d tried to busy himself with other things, like preparing routes for his summer tours and scrolling through Instagram – which definitely did not involve rereading last night’s messages from Rae, because that would be ridiculous.
Unused to having a day off, he’d gotten bored by nine thirty and given up. If he was keen to get back to Sweetbriar, it was only to check on Doug, he told himself.
Yet when his beaten, mud-splattered SUV pulled up on the gravel outside the white-stoned farmhouse, it was like the world had other plans.
There Rae was, stumbling out of the shop adjacent, canvas tote bags slung on both shoulders while she battled to keep a toppling tower of punnets upright in her arms. That same glow he’d felt last night radiated in his chest again at the sight of her, chaos wrapped in a pristine disguise, with not a single hair slipping from the braid that curled over one shoulder.
She no longer dressed like a farmer’s daughter, either, those old, tatty dungarees she used to wear replaced by a pretty pink skirt – which was currently riding up with every swing of her bags, revealing thighs he’d tried so hard not to enjoy yesterday.
Jesus Christ. Martha would murder him very slowly and very violently if she knew he was having those sorts of thoughts about her best friend.
Probably with her pink stapler, because she was a big fan of stationery.
Hopefully, this was just another of his passing fixations, like the teaching assistant who had flirted with him after his water safety presentation at the primary school the other week, or the long-haired Icelandic man he’d guided up Ben Nevis last summer.
It happened sometimes, likely a symptom of his loneliness, but not usually for a person he’d known since adolescence. Certainly not for someone off-limits.
With his hands frozen on the steering wheel, it only occurred to him when the top punnet of strawberries dropped to the floor that perhaps she might need help.
‘Shite.’ Struan tore his keys from the ignition and jumped out of the car.
He dashed over to help Rae, but the spilled strawberries were already a lost cause.
The dogs flocked around Rae’s feet to gobble them up.
As he took the top few containers from her so he could at least see her rosy face, he asked, ‘Are you taking up juggling now, too?’
‘Very funny,’ she grumbled, then chastised the waggling-tailed dogs to urge them away. ‘No, leave!’
Naturally, they ignored her, only lifting their heads when they’d licked the floor, and their lips, clean.
Struan grimaced. ‘Oh, well. Strawberries are healthy enough, no?’
‘I suppose we’ll find out.’ Rae set the tower of fruit down to readjust her bag straps, every movement bordering on aggressive. ‘If you’re here for Dad, he’s in the house. I’d join you, but I need to take these into town.’
‘Why? Is there a strawberry shortage down there?’
She gave him a flat look, those big brown eyes darkening. ‘Your jokes are only funny when I’m not dripping in sweat and about to lose an arm.’
‘Ah, so you do admit they’re funny otherwise?’
If he had free hands, Struan would have raised them in a plea of surrender, her glower cutting enough to ward him back.
His focus dipped, then swiftly snapped back up when he found that her skirt had bunched even higher, her simple white underwear now on display.
Cheeks – and other parts of him – flaming, he angled away from her. ‘You’re… erm, a wee bit exposed.’
‘Please. You haven’t exposed anything,’ she retorted, stepping in front of him to continue her journey away from the shop.
Of course, that meant the sidelong view of before now offered a snapshot of her gorgeously plump arse, too.
Half of it, at least. Struan’s cock twitched at the sight of the dimpled flesh, much like it had when she’d hugged him last night.
Never before had someone’s underwear blunder been this fucking sexy, especially when they’d clearly been designed for comfort over seduction.
Which surely made him even more of a depraved prat for enjoying it.
‘I mean in the skirt department,’ he clarified, pointedly hiding behind his punnets when she whipped around.
‘What?’ A sharp gasp fell from her, and she piled her containers onto his before tugging the hem down to her knees, her face the same colour as the fabric. ‘Crap! I knew there was a reason I didn’t take this skirt when I moved out!’
‘I didn’t see anything,’ he lied, squeezing his eyes closed to block out the shrill alarm ringing in his ears.
It didn’t work, white cotton and pale skin imprinted on the back of his lids.
Now he knew what was under her skirt, he wouldn’t be able to stop thinking about it.
He loved curves, especially supple ones that spilled and moulded, and Jesus, it had been a while since he’d last touched someone.
Since anyone had last touched him. That starvation seemed to cling to him like a second skin, radiating in palms that longed to squeeze and a mouth that longed to kiss and—
A stapler would be too kind. Martha deserved to use a shredder. Or a guillotine. One for paper or public punishment; either was deserved.
‘Well, obviously I need to go and get changed,’ Rae murmured, footsteps crunching away in the gravel. ‘Come on. I’ll show you in.’
He followed, only realising his lids were still closed when Rae hissed, ‘You can open your eyes now!’
Good job, too, because he was seconds away from tripping over one of the dogs, still hoping for another spell of strawberry rain.
He warily opened only one eye first, afraid of the lustful imaginings his mind might conjure if he saw anything else he shouldn’t, but Rae kept one hand on the hem of her skirt as they climbed the porch steps.
He had to duck to keep from being attacked by a set of wind chimes hanging from the portico, then wiped his boots on the welcome mat an excessive amount before dropping the fruit under a row of coat hooks in the hallway.
‘I’m going to go upstairs,’ she announced. ‘When I come back down, you’re going to have wiped whatever you saw from your brain, and we’re going to pretend this never happened. Okay?’
‘Excellent plan.’
‘For the record, they might not be pretty, but they’re very comfortable.’
‘I wouldn’t know.’ His heart racketed against his ribs.
What he really wanted to say was that they’d seemed pretty enough to him, especially with how they’d stretched to near transparency to accommodate her shape.
Perhaps they didn’t deserve the credit for that, though: her plump arse had done all the work.
‘Good,’ she said.
‘Good,’ he agreed.
She backed away one step at a time, a warning in her narrowed eyes. It was painful, trying to keep himself composed, gaze following her all the way through the hallway until she eventually turned her back to him.
He truly was terrible, because every sway of her hips only fanned the sparks igniting through him. He was still standing there like a gormless fool minutes later, when Doug limped out of the living room with an empty mug, surprised to find Struan there.
‘Are you lost, lad?’ he questioned.
Oh, you have no idea, thought Struan.