Chapter 38
After seeing to the animals, Lettie decided to go back to bed for an hour. She had no chance of lasting the day without a little more sleep so set the alarm on her phone and closed her eyes. She was woken by her phone ringing. She reached out and picked it up from her bedside table, squinting at the brightness of the screen. She had only been asleep for twenty minutes.
‘Uncle Leonard? Is everything all right?’
‘I’m calling you to ask the same thing.’
She heard the panic in his voice and realised he must have heard about the fire the night before. ‘Everything is fine,’ she said then explained what had happened and how quickly the fire service had arrived to put out the flames. ‘No casualties, thanks to Brodie the vet’s quick thinking.’
He sighed heavily. ‘That’s a relief. I never would have forgiven myself if anything had happened to you or any of the animals.’
She wasn’t sure why he felt responsible for them but assumed it was because he was her uncle and that he had her best interests at heart. ‘I understand you’re only trying to protect me, Uncle Leonard. I also know that it must be very odd for you, well, my parents too that I’ve wanted to become involved with the farm when I’ve never shown any inclination to do so before now.’
‘I understand that your father’s decision to change his lifestyle must have been a massive shock to you and Zac, and I wanted you to know that you must feel free to call me if you need me for anything. Will you do that?’
Touched by his concern, Lettie promised that she would.
‘I’m sure you’ve already discovered that farming is very different to the life you’ve been living in London.’
Lettie pictured her beautiful clothes and hectic life that until recently she thought she was destined to follow. ‘I know, but things hadn’t gone so well over there,’ she admitted, frowning when she thought of Scott and all the aggro he had caused her. ‘And although I’ve never considered farming, growing up on a farm and watching Dad, Mum and you and Auntie Sue’s lives going on around me, it’s not as if I’m completely unaware of what this life is like.’
He mumbled something to himself. ‘True. But watching someone doing something and carrying out the work yourself are two very different things, as last night must have shown you. Not that it is the usual sort of thing that happens obviously. I just wanted to remind you that I’m here to help you while your dad is away.’
It was reassuring to hear him say so, Lettie thought feeling slightly better. ‘Thank you – I appreciate that.’
‘I suppose I should let you get on,’ he said. ‘What have you got planned today?’
Lettie told him about harvesting seaweed on the beach.
‘Good idea.’ He went quiet for a few seconds and she wondered if he was thinking or whether she should say something to fill the silence. ‘I tell you what, I’m busy for the next few hours here with the herd but I’ll pop over to the farm mid-morning and help you put the seaweed onto the field. How does that sound?’
It sounded great. ‘Wonderful. Thanks, Uncle Leonard. I’ll see you later then.’
Lettie looked out of the window, glad to see how quiet it was after the storm. It had been a little frightening worrying about how the high winds were battering her crops, especially after the horror of the smaller barn being struck by lightning. She shivered at the memory, then smiled recalling how amazing Brodie had been during the emergency. She thought of Brodie and her stomach did a little somersault.
Her thoughts morphed into what might have happened if Brodie hadn’t been there. No. She wasn’t going to let herself go there. He had been there and he had been amazing. Now he had left and if she wasn’t going to become an anxious mess she would need to find something to take her mind off the dramas the night before.
‘Seaweed.’ She quickly checked high tide again to remind herself when it would be best to go and collect a mound of it. She had a few hours.
Showered and dressed and after wasting twenty minutes attaching her dad’s trailer to the back of his pickup truck, she eventually drove onto the beach. She wasn’t the first one there but that didn’t surprise her. She knew well enough how early some farmworkers began their day, especially at times like these when there was a time limit to a job that needed to be done.
Hearing a tractor engine, she looked up to see a large vehicle with a huge trailer and mechanical digger coming down the nearby slipway. ‘Bugger.’ She needed to hurry if she wasn’t going to let them take all the seaweed before she had a chance to collect enough for herself. She wouldn’t need as much as them as she only had to cover two small fields.
She heard amused voices and saw two men talking to each other and looking her way. So what if she didn’t have their fancy equipment. Maybe she should have thought about hiring someone to do this sort of thing for her, but it hadn’t occurred to her. Another lesson learnt, she realised.
Determined not to let her error or lack of equipment stop her, Lettie slung another fork-load of vraic onto the back of the trailer and wiped the sweat from her forehead with her sleeve on the back of her right forearm. It was almost 9a.m. and she had already been here for an hour and still the trailer was only half filled.
‘Urgh, why did I think this was ever going to be easy?’
No point in moaning to herself, she decided. She needed this for her small field of Jersey Royals. The tide was starting to come in and she was proud of herself for putting in this effort to make the most of the island’s natural resources for her land. It was a relief that the storm had happened on a Thursday because if it had happened the following night she wouldn’t be able to harvest this valuable commodity because it was illegal to collect the dead seaweed that had been washed up on the beach over the weekend.
After a while, she noticed the trailer was almost two-thirds full. Hell, this was taking forever. Next time she was going to have to ask someone to come and help her. Her uncle might even have his own equipment to come and do this for her in the future. It was something she would definitely ask him about.
She heard a male voice calling her name and looked up to see a dark-haired man with messy hair striding towards her carrying something. She peered at him then realised who it was.
‘Joe?’
‘I thought it was you,’ he said grinning from her to the trailer and back to the fork in her hand. ‘You’ve not loaded all this by hand, have you?’
‘Why, don’t you think me capable?’ She smiled to show she was only teasing, then realising how knackered she must appear, groaned. ‘Actually, I hadn’t considered how long it would take me or how heavy this work would be.’
‘The wet sand that gets caught up in it makes is even heavier than it already is. Here, this coffee and bacon roll are for you. I’ll put mine in your tractor while I have a go at doing this and you eat your breakfast and catch your breath.’
She had no intention of arguing with such a welcome offer, and although she had already eaten that morning, it was several hours before and the physical work loading the trailer had made her hungry and thirsty.
‘Thanks, that’s really thoughtful of you.’ She rested the fork against the vehicle and took one of the cups and a bag containing a bacon roll from him and watched him take his to the tractor cabin. Lettie leant against the side of the trailer and breathed in the delicious-smelling coffee. ‘This is wonderful, thank you.’
‘No problem at all.’ He began forking the seaweed into the trailer. ‘How are you after last night?’
‘Last night?’ she asked mortified.
Joe stopped what he was doing and turned to her, then seeing the look on her face smiled. ‘I was referring to the fire, at the barn?’
Embarrassed that her reaction had said more about her relationship with Brodie than she was happy to share, she cleared her throat. ‘Oh that. It was a bit of a shock. Thank you for all you and your colleagues did though with getting the fire under control so quickly.’
‘It wasn’t too difficult. You must have noticed the fire immediately and called us soon after because it hadn’t really got hold too badly.’
‘It was an enormous relief to see you all, and I appreciated you checking that I was all right before you left.’ She took a bite of her roll then drank some coffee. ‘Delicious.’
‘I had hoped to ask you out for another meal but I couldn’t miss the way our local vet was looking at you at the farm last night.’ Lettie opened her mouth unsure what to say to his comment. ‘And I also saw the way you looked at him, so imagine that you two are quite close.’ He indicated the breakfast. ‘This might not be very exciting but at least this way I get to share a meal with you.’ He gave her a cheeky wink. ‘And breakfast at that.’
Lettie laughed, relieved Joe was keeping things light between them. ‘This is very welcome, as are you.’ She ate more and then, determined to change the subject away from her and Brodie, admitted her error in thinking the seaweed collecting would be easier. ‘My expectations were a little ambitious.’
‘You’ve done well.’ He forked another load onto the growing heap, then stopped to look at her. ‘I admire your determination. What you’re doing is very impressive.’
Baffled, Lettie laughed. ‘I can assure you there’s nothing impressive about me or what I do. I’m just trying my best to hang in there right now.’ She thought of the near disaster the previous evening.
‘Anyway, what are you doing down here at this time of day?’
‘I stopped at the café at the top of the slipway to buy a coffee and bacon roll and while I was waiting for them got chatting to one of the lads who is with those guys.’ He indicated the men who had been amused by her efforts earlier. ‘He was saying how there was a young woman doing the collecting by herself without any machinery and—’ he stopped shovelling and smiled at her ‘—I instinctively knew it would be you, so had to come down and see for myself.’
‘And you were thoughtful enough to bring me food and something warm to drink, unlike that lot who just found what I was doing amusing.’
Joe looked over at them now busily working the machinery before one drove off a tractor with a full load behind him, passing a second returning with an empty trailer. ‘They’re as impressed with you as I am.’
Lettie laughed loudly. ‘I doubt that very much.’
‘It’s true,’ he said with little certainty.
She was a bit full after her scrambled eggs not long before, but gratefully finished her food and drink then went to take the fork from him. ‘Your turn to eat now, although yours is probably cold,’ she added guiltily.
‘It’s fine. I’m always eating cold food.’ He cocked his head in the direction of the seaweed. ‘Anyway I’m almost finished. This will only take a couple more minutes, and then you can sit with me while I eat mine. Deal?’
A deal too good to miss, she decided. ‘Yes, and one I’m happy to accept without argument.’
Unable to sit on the damp sand, the pair of them leant against the trailer as Joe wiped his hands on one of the wipes Lettie had brought to clean her hands. ‘You’re very organised.’ He smiled.
‘Not really. If I was I’d have planned better than to simply bring something to clean my hands.’
‘It’s fine. You’ve done it now and that’s all that matters. Would you like me to come and help spread it onto your field for you?’
She shook her head, not wishing to take up any more of his day. ‘No, that’s fine, but thanks for offering.’
Once he had eaten, he looked at her. ‘So what is the story with you and the vet?’
He didn’t sound as if he was digging only curious, but still the question made her feel awkward and Lettie knew she was going to have to admit she had feelings for Brodie. ‘We have become close,’ she said aware that it was an understatement. ‘It’s been nice.’ Lettie wasn’t sure what to say really and, preferring to keep her private life to herself, didn’t want to divulge much more than that. ‘He’s very busy with his practice and I’ve only got a few months to prove my worth to my father where the farm is concerned so neither of us have much free time.’
‘I can imagine.’ Something seemed to occur to him. ‘I’m glad you’re enjoying your time back on the island, Lettie.’ His eyes twinkled mischievously. ‘If I’m honest I’d rather you were spending your free time with me, but Brodie seems like a good bloke and I’m happy you’re both getting on well.’ He stood. ‘Right, I’d better get a move on. Let me take your cup and paper bag to the bin on my way off the beach.’ He indicated her trailer full of seaweed. ‘And don’t forget, if you change your mind about needing help spreading that lot just give me a call.’
‘Thanks again, Joe,’ she said grateful to him for his kindness. ‘I’m very grateful for your help and—’ she laughed ‘—for that delicious and unexpected breakfast.’
‘It was my pleasure, Lettie. Hopefully I’ll see you again soon.’
She waited for him to take their rubbish from the cabin and then, after giving her a quick wave, he ran along the sand towards the slipway and off the beach. She checked her watch and realised it was almost nine thirty, time to get back to the farm and get on with the rest of her day.