Healing Together (Together Forever in Fellside #1)

Chapter 1

Alex

Tommy taps the table with his knuckles, a small, deliberate sound that suggests whatever comes next will be deeply unpopular.

“Right, lads. I need a volunteer.”

The break room falls silent. Six grown men turn into furniture. Even the kettle looks like it’s holding its breath.

Fellside Mountain Rescue isn’t a slick outfit with shiny kit.

We’re just a bunch of volunteers with day jobs, legging it out the door whenever another tourist got themselves stranded in bad weather.

We take turns on the rota with other units, and when something big hits, we all pile in.

And, unlucky for us, rescuing people isn’t the only thing that needs doing.

Fundraising keeps the lights on… as the government grant barely covers the biscuits.

Tommy lifts one of the mountain-shaped donation tins and gives it a pitiful shake. “We’ve three new shops in the village. Someone needs to ask the owners if they’ll display one of these.”

Nothing. Not a twitch. A roomful of men staring at the table as if it might reveal a secret escape route.

Phil’s on my right, trying very hard to merge with his fleece.

He’s three years younger than me, a quiet National Trust handyman who can coax a frightened casualty back from the brink with the same gentleness he uses to fix a rotten beam.

We became mates years ago after getting stranded on a fell in a storm, soaked to the bone and judged by sheep.

He’s brilliant on rescues, but fundraising? Not his happy place.

Chris sits next to him. Forty-two. Built like a dry-stone wall and just as likely to shift. Nothing spooks him except tourists trying to cuddle his sheep for photos… and asking strangers for money.

Rob, also forty, a librarian by day and chaos gremlin by night, is trying not to laugh. This is the man who once swapped all our head torches for ones that mooed. Try doing a night search when you sound like a stampeding herd.

Tommy, our team leader, runs a hotel and somehow tolerates the lot of us. He’s only a shade older but ends up playing responsible adult far more often than he’d like. On rescues we behave ourselves. Everywhere else, we’re basically a pack of overgrown schoolboys.

And then there’s Nick. Primary school teacher. Forty-three like me. Brilliant on rescues, a lifelong pain in my backside everywhere else. He’s been winding me up since school and shows absolutely no sign of retiring from the position.

“So,” Tommy tries again, “does anyone want to step up?”

Nick sits up straighter, all false helpfulness. “I think it’s Phil’s turn.”

Phil’s entire body tenses. My jaw does too.

“You volunteering yourself while you’re at it?” I ask.

Nick smirks. “Did it last time. Phil’s turn seems to be… never.”

He’s not wrong that we usually shield Phil from anything involving strangers because his shyness makes him freeze up, but no way is he pushing him into this.

“Funny,” I say. “Because I’m pretty sure you had some excuse about needing to rush home and feed your goldfish.”

Rob snorts loudly enough that Chris elbows him. Nick’s grin sharpens.

There is a firm nudge against my knee under the table. Phil’s way of telling me not to rise to it. He does it more often than he knows.

“Alex is off today,” Phil says, attempting casual but sounding more like someone begging a referee for mercy. “He could come with me.”

Before I can object, Tommy nods. “That’s actually not a bad idea. Phil, you take the lead. Alex can go with you. If you panic, he steps in.”

I give him a look that says you know full well this is not Phil’s comfort zone, but Tommy just shrugs. The man has organised enough fundraising campaigns to know none of us volunteer willingly for this one.

“Fine,” I say. “I’ll go.”

Phil lets out a shaky breath of relief.

“Brilliant,” Tommy says, sliding the tins and a sheet of shop addresses across the table. “Off you go.”

That’s all it takes for the rest of the team to leap out of their seats like startled wildlife before Tommy thinks of another task.

Outside the small building FMR calls home, the air is already warming. Behind the rescue centre, the fells roll up into soft clouds, the whole view so perfectly framed it barely looks real.

“Thanks, mate,” Phil says as we head towards my Range Rover. His shoulders finally start to drop.

“You’re welcome,” I reply. “Though this was not on my list of ideal Friday activities.”

Phil gives me a look. “What would you have done instead? Sat on your sofa in your boxers, rugby on the telly, crisps as a main course?”

“That was one time you caught me in my boxers.” Not my fault that he turns up at my house in the middle of a heatwave unannounced.

“It was three.”

I unlock the car. “I have hobbies.”

“Climbing,” he says immediately.

“I have others.”

“Shagging,” he adds helpfully.

I grip the door. “I haven’t had a woman in my bed in weeks, if you must know.”

Phil’s eyebrows shoot up. “Blimey. Should I ring a doctor?”

I huff out a laugh, but his surprise is fair. For years I was the Fellside Casanova. The single bloke who could flirt with anything that moved and walk away without a second thought. Never cruel, never dishonest, but always drifting.

It suited me. Until it didn’t.

“I’m just bored of it all,” I mutter. “The one-nighters. The tourists who think there could maybe be more. It’s empty.”

Phil looks at me like I’ve just admitted I knit jumpers for fun. “You’re actually serious.”

“I wouldn’t mind something real.”

He lets out a low whistle. “Alex Harris, in the market for feelings. Should I alert the Fellside Gazette?”

“Shut up and get in the car.”

He grins. “There he is.”

Cherry Pie Bakery is our first stop. The shop itself is new, all fresh paint, pretty displays and that warm sugary smell that could make a grown man weep. But Lisa, standing behind the counter, is as Fellside as they come.

She grew up two streets over from me, used to run her mum’s tearoom before it shut, and has been talking about opening her own bakery since we were gawky teenagers.

I also had a brief, ill-advised one-night stand with her about a decade ago, back when I still thought it was clever to mix cheap cider with questionable choices.

We both moved on by breakfast, no drama.

But it was the moment I decided sleeping with local women was a bad idea.

Too small a village. Too many awkward run-ins at the Co-op.

Tourists, who head back down south a week later, are a far safer bet.

Lisa brightens the second she spots us. “You boys want a tin spot?”

“We could be just here for the pastries.” I give her a wink for old times’ sake.

“No need to turn on your charm, Harris!” she laughs. “Pop it right here. Tourists get generous once they’ve inhaled half my pastry counter.”

She speaks with that casual confidence only locals have. Her older brother was part of FMR before he moved to Newcastle, and she’s always treated the team like slightly daft cousins who need feeding.

Before we can argue, she hands us éclairs the size of small artillery shells. “Payment for your trouble.”

Phil clamps onto his like it’s a life raft. He’s halfway through it before I’ve even lifted mine to my mouth.

“Well done us,” he says, muffled by cream.

“Well done me,” I reply. “You just looked pretty.”

He tries to glare but he’s got pastry on his chin and it ruins the effect entirely.

Lisa laughs and waves us out as another queue forms behind us. “Tell Tommy he still owes me a chance to become preferred supplier to his hotel!” she calls, and I’m not entirely convinced she’s joking.

Outside, the warm air hits again. Phil wipes the last crumbs from his mouth with a sugar induced grin on his face.

Extreme Sports is next, a short walk away, giving me enough time to scoff down my éclairs.

Fellside might be tiny, but it still manages to host two Extreme Sports shops at opposite ends of the village, because apparently tourists cannot cope with walking more than ten minutes without buying a waterproof jacket.

The original one sits near the start of the high street.

The new branch has opened at the far end, right by the church, so no matter where visitors enter the village, they can panic-buy hiking gear immediately.

Phil perks up a little as we approach. He knows the lad behind the counter from school, and that tiny sliver of familiarity gives him just enough confidence.

Inside, the place smells of new fabric and ambition. Jackets are stacked to the ceiling, boots lined up like soldiers, and a display of walking sticks threaten to spear anyone who turns too sharply.

Phil clears his throat, launches into a quiet but respectable spiel about FMR, and even manages a joke about rescuing their manager’s cousin last month. The lad behind the till laughs and agrees to take the tin straight away.

We’re out within minutes.

“That went well,” Phil says as we step back outside. The pride in his voice is small but unmistakable.

“You did great,” I tell him.

His shoulders lift just a little, and there’s something quite satisfying about seeing him believe it.

“All that’s left now is the florist,” I say.

Phil slows his steps. “Estelle’s old place?”

“Yep.”

Estelle ran the shop for what felt like a century.

If you needed flowers, gossip or cake, she was your woman.

When I fitted her new shelving a few years back, she tried to feed me so much Victoria sponge I thought she might be preparing me for winter hibernation.

She finally retired last year and decided to trot off along the Silk Road like the fearless seventy-something she is.

Granny, who is Estelle’s best friend, updates us religiously, as though she’s narrating a travel documentary.

Estelle’s granddaughter has taken over the flower shop since.

She’s from London, apparently. Which can mean anything.

Some Londoners turn up in Fellside desperate for quiet and fall completely in love with the village.

Others spend two weeks here and flee back South the moment they realise Deliveroo doesn’t cross the county line.

We reach the shop, just down from the church.

The building is painted a soft mint green, pots of flowers lined up outside like they’re auditioning for an advert.

It’s the kind of shop front that makes you slow down without thinking, warm light glowing through the window in a way that looks almost… inviting.

Phil lets out a low breath. “What if she tells us to sod off?”

“Then we charm her,” I say.

I take hold of the door.

“You ready?”

“No,” he says immediately.

“Perfect.”

Right, quick chat, tin on the counter, and then I’m reclaiming my Friday with a pint and rugby.