Buch lesen: «A Funny Thing Happened...»

CHAPTER ONE

‘TYPICAL! Now where do I go?’

Sam opened his window and a blast of snow worthy of the Arctic plastered itself on his face. He lifted his hand to shield his eyes, ignoring the stinging bite of the blizzard in a vain attempt to see the sign.

Useless. It was obliterated by the snow, flying horizontally and sticking itself to every available surface—including him. Still, he was pretty sure he knew the way...

He pressed a button and the window slid noiselessly back into place, shutting out the howling wind. He brushed the snow off his sweater and sighed. There was always the option of getting out of the car, of course, but just now it had about as much appeal as crawling naked through a trough of maggots.

Possibly less.

He glared balefully at the now white window. ‘I thought it was supposed to snow at Christmas, not in February,’ he growled, and peered through the windscreen. With the supremely effective heater on full and the wipers doing their nut, it was just about possible to see through it—to the white-out beyond.

‘Brilliant,’ he sighed. ‘Just brilliant.’

His car radio automatically searched for local traffic information, and would override the CD player, but there was nothing, so he sat back and listened to Verdi and waited for the snow to ease. It took about half an hour, but by then it was almost dark and the howling, shrieking wind was still blowing the snow.

‘Might as well give it a go,’ he muttered. He eased the car forward, testing the traction control for the first time in the soft, thick snow, and to his relief it pulled slowly away. He could feel the automatic system checking the power to the wheels, giving them just enough to move and not enough to slip.

He smiled grimly. He’d bought a car with traction control because he was sick of being stuck on construction sites, but there had always been enough big blokes around to shove the car out if necessary.

Here, though—here he was totally reliant on the car’s ability, and although it had passed this test, for the first time he began to have serious reservations about arriving at his grandparents’ farm tonight and in one piece.

He was only able to move at a slow crawl because the snow was blowing off the field to his right and drifting onto the lane, and then suddenly the hedge on the right thickened up and he was able to put his foot down a bit.

‘Progress, finally,’ he muttered. He passed a farm on his left, a little cluster of brick and flint barns and red-tiled roofs next to a cottage that had seen better days. Tatty though it was, it looked welcoming, he thought. The lights were on and it looked cosy—a warm haven in this suddenly inhospitable landscape. Even the farm buildings looked cosy, with lights blazing in the barn and the yard outside.

Humanity.

He left the lights behind and was swallowed up in the eerie darkness, and he shivered, suddenly feeling very alone.

How odd. He was sick of people, sick of crowds of sycophantic hangers-on and idiots with grandiose ideas and no common-sense. Indecisive idiots, for the most part. He hadn’t been able to get out of London fast enough.

So why on earth did he feel lonely now just because there was no one about? He cast one last longing glance at the little farm in his rear-view mirror as he went round the corner.

Not a good idea.

He hit the snow drift at the end of the hedge at twenty miles an hour and came to a grinding halt, his nose inches from the steering wheel, his chest crushed by the seat belt pre-tensioner. He sat back and glared at the drift.

‘Well, I suppose I should be thankful for small mercies,’ he muttered. ‘I could have been looking at an air-bag.’

And he had traction control. No problem. He put the car into reverse—and listened in defeat to the grinding of the wheels.

‘Damn!’ He thumped his hands on the steering wheel and glared at the snow. It was piled up over the bonnet, the wind even as he watched piling it higher—and on his side it was hard up against the door.

He tried again to reverse out, but it was pointless. After several fruitless attempts even Sam admitted it was pointless. Traction control or not, he was stuck.

Perhaps the farmer could give him a pull out with his tractor—or, failing that, put him up for the night in that cosy-looking farmhouse. Crazy. He was only a couple of miles from his grandparents, if that—

‘Oh, damn,’ he muttered again, cutting the engine and sliding across to the passenger side. It wasn’t easy with his long legs to negotiate the transmission tunnel between the front seats, and he nearly did himself a permanent injury on the handbrake lever.

Swearing and muttering, he climbed out of the passenger door—straight into several inches of snow. It took all of three seconds to realise how cold and wet his feet were going to be by the time he’d walked back to the farm, but it was too late to worry. He slammed the door, opened the back door and retrieved his coat and shrugged into it.

Hell’s teeth, that wind was cold.

He turned up the collar on his coat, pulled his head down as low as he could and headed towards the friendly glow of the farm. If he’d thought it looked welcoming before, it was nothing to how it looked now!

It would have been all right if the lights hadn’t gone out just as he reached the farmyard...

Jemima was at the end of her tether. It was bitterly cold, her chapped and frozen hands were starting to bleed, and as if the snow wasn’t bad enough Daisy the Third had mastitis again.

Some hopeful punter drove past much too quickly, and she lifted her head and listened. There was bound to be a drift at the end of the hedge—yup. She listened almost in satisfaction to the dull whump of the car hitting the snow, then sighed.

They’d want to be pulled out, of course—and that would have been fine, only the tractor was out of action.

She listened with one ear to the revving going on round the corner, while the rest of her attention was on Daisy’s painfully inflamed udder.

‘Poor old girl,’ she murmured softly, massaging the cream into the reddened quarter. She had to hand-milk her, stripping out that quarter to relieve the tension. It was a painful business for both of them because Daisy was inclined to kick out at her saviour.

‘Gratitude isn’t your strong point, is it, Daisy my love?’ Jemima crooned, dodging another kick. ‘Steady, girl. There’s a good girl. Well done.’

She straightened, pressing a hand to the small of her back and easing out the kinks.

The revving had stopped. Any minute now some townie would come tiptoeing round the corner of the barn and apologetically ask for help—

Without warning, they were plunged into total darkness.

‘Damn. That’s all I need.’

She waited, giving her eyes a few moments to adjust to the sudden loss of light before she went over to Bluebell and took the no-longer-sucking cluster of suction cups out from underneath her and moved them to safety. Would the power come back on? Possibly. Or possibly not.

Oh, hell. She really didn’t need another power cut, especially not at milking time. She’d been talking to the electricity company about the dodgy supply for ages, but they hadn’t got round to stringing her a new line.

It was that tree, of course, that was the trouble—a dead oak, hugely tall and inextricably tangled in the wires, and every time the wind got up it snapped the line. Naturally they wouldn’t put in a new line until the tree was cut down. The owner of the tree was responsible, they said, and the problem was, she was the owner.

She’d asked a firm to come and quote her for cutting it down, and they’d gone away without the contract. She just didn’t have hundreds of pounds to spare on something so trivial.

It didn’t seem so trivial now, though, not with thirty cows to milk by hand—!

There was a noise, a crash followed by a stream of words that should have made her blush. Should have done, but didn’t. She’d just used a few of them herself.

It was the car driver, of course, floundering about in the yard and setting the dogs off in a volley of frenzied barking. She took the bucket out from under Daisy, put it by the wall and opened the barn door a crack. The wind shrieked and plastered her with tiny granules of ice, and, tugging her woolly hat down further over her ears, she plunged out into the yard—full tilt into a hard and undoubtedly masculine chest.

‘Ooof—’

‘Sorry!’

He stepped back, rubbing his chest where she’d head-butted him and muttering under his breath. She had to lift her head to see his face, and the snow lashed against her chapped and stinging cheeks, making her eyes water.

‘Can I help you?’ she yelled into the wind.

He peered at her, his face just inches from hers but barely visible in the last scrap of daylight.

‘I need to see the farmer—is that your father?’

Crisp, incisive, used to giving orders-and having them obeyed. Jemima smiled, and inwardly leant back and folded her arms. She loved this type.

‘I’m the farmer,’ she told him.

‘Don’t be ridiculous, you’re about sixteen.’

She wasn’t sure whether to be flattered or annoyed. She decided it was dark enough to let him get away with it, and anyway, she was only knee-high to a grasshopper. ‘Hardly,’ she said drily. ‘Stuck?’

‘Yes.’ The word was tight and clipped, and her mouth twitched again. He obviously hated being at a disadvantage. ‘I need a tow—I wonder if your father would be kind enough to pull me out with the tractor?’

She stifled the chuckle. ‘I’m sure he would,’ she said agreeably, ‘but he’s in Berkshire at his house at the moment, and anyway the tractor’s broken.’

‘Broken? What do you mean, broken?’

He sounded disbelieving, as if it was too much to accept that a machine might dare to be broken. She sighed. Now she was going to have to admit her stupidity. ‘Just—broken,’ she told him.

‘Permanently?’

‘Well, I can’t fix it in the next ten minutes, anyway,’ she snapped.

He sighed and stabbed his hands through his hair, dislodging the snow. ‘Look, can we get out of this vile weather?’

‘Be my guest.’ They ducked into the barn, and the soft lowing of the cows brought his head up sharply.

‘Are they tied up?’ he asked, and there was a certain anxiety in his voice. Our city friend doesn’t like cows, she thought with a smile.

‘You don’t need to worry,’ she assured him. ‘They’re more worried about you than you are about them.’

‘I doubt it.’ A cow lowed nearby, and he stepped back hastily. There was a squelching noise, and he swore again.

‘I should look where you stand,’ she advised, and brought forth a volley of muttered curses.

‘I should love to,’ he bit back, ‘but in case you hadn’t noticed, it’s as black as ink in here and I can’t even see the end of my nose.’

Nor could Jemima any more, and she realised that the last of the light had gone. A flurry of snow followed them in on the howling wind, and she shivered.

‘I’m sorry, I would help you,’ she told him, her compassionate nature overriding her sense of humour at last, ‘but the tractor really is out of commission at the moment and I don’t have a four-wheel drive. Is it worth trying to push it?’

He snorted. ‘I doubt it. It’s buried up to the windscreen in a snow drift.’

‘Oh, dear. Well, suppose we go and find some lamps and call the rescue people—I take it you do belong to a motoring organisation?’

‘Of course,’ he replied tartly. ‘Not that I ever need them.’

‘Of course not,’ she said blithely, tongue in cheek.

‘It hasn’t broken down,’ he growled, picking up on her dig.

‘No—and of course the snow drift was totally unexpected.’

Did she imagine it, or did he grind his teeth? Too used to having his own way—and his car wouldn’t dare break down, she was sure! Much too well-trained.

Unlike hers, but she couldn’t afford a recovery service, so she’d taken to making short journeys and then only if absolutely necessary. ‘We’ll go and ring them,’ she told him. ‘Follow me.’

‘I can’t see you, never mind follow you,’ he said bitterly.

Oh, dear. She reached out her hand and groped for his, coming up against a hard masculine thigh and—oops!

‘What the hell are you up to?’ he yelped, jumping backwards.

She giggled before she could stop herself. This whole thing was in danger of deteriorating into farce. ‘Sorry. I was trying to find your hand to lead you to the house,’ she explained lamely.

She reached out again, and after a second of distrustful silence she felt his fingers contact hers. They were cold, but not as cold as hers. They were also considerably softer.

‘You’re freezing, child,’ he muttered, and his fingers squeezed hers protectively.

‘I noticed, and I’m not a child. Come on.’

She tried to ignore the warmth and strength of his grip, but it was hard. It had been over a year since she’d had any male company, and she’d forgotten just how hard and strong a male grip could be. And warm. And gentle, on occasions—

‘Just stay close,’ she warned, and went through the barn door, sliding it shut behind her. She didn’t want the snow blowing in there before she got back with a lamp to finish the milking.

It was only a few steps across the yard to the cottage gate, but she managed to smack her shin on the tow-hitch of the muckspreader and blunder into the hawthorn hedge surrounding the garden before she found it. She pulled him up the path, stamped her feet off and threw open the door. ‘Come in, quick, and take your things off in here,’ she yelled over the barking of the dogs in the kitchen.

He followed her, shrugging off his coat and shoes in the little lobby, and trailed her into the kitchen. A flurry of fur and lashing tongues greeted them, and she bent down and patted the dogs automatically. ‘Hello, girls. Say hello nicely—’

They dodged past her and leapt at him and he backed away, crashing into something and swearing savagely.

‘Jess, Noodle, get down. Bad dogs! Don’t move, I’ll find some light,’ she told him, and reached for the torch and switched it on.

He was propped up in the corner in amongst the broom handles and dangling dog leads, clutching his groin and fending off the eager dogs.

‘What the hell is it with you lot that you keep attacking my genitals?’ he muttered through gritted teeth, swatting at Noodle yet again. Noodle, a Bichon Frisé and first cousin of the floor-mop he was leaning on, leapt up his leg again, grinning eagerly, the silky cords of her wild off-white coat falling around her like tangled spaghetti.

‘I’m sorry.’ She stifled a laugh and slapped her thigh. ‘Noodle, come here, sweetheart. Stop it.’ The dog came, quite unrepentant, and her guest straightened and looked at her. She couldn’t quite read his expression, so she shone the torch full in his face and he ducked his head, flinging his arm up to cover his eyes.

‘What the hell are you trying to do now—blind me?’ he snapped.

‘Sony,’ she said again, but she wasn’t. In that split second before she’d lowered the torch she’d seen enough to make her pulse do stupid and erratic things. His eyes were startling—dark blue, almost navy, stunning against the winter white of his skin and the dark slash of his brows, and just now they were spitting sparks. His hair was thick, upended by the wind so that he looked rumpled and sexy and gorgeous, and that mouth, if it wasn’t snarling—

She swung the torch round and hunted for the lantern and matches, then fiddled for ages trying to light it while he stood waiting in the shabby kitchen, frustration coming off him in tangible waves.

Thank God it was dark, she thought. Maybe by lamplight the tired room would look cosy and romantic—and maybe she’d look a bit more presentable and less as if she’d been tumbled in the haybarn, but it was unlikely. She finally got the wick to burn, and trimmed it and put the glass globe back. The flame spluttered and steadied, and she held it up and looked up at him—and up, and up...

‘You’re tiny,’ he said accusingly, as if it were a fault in her that she should have tried to overcome.

‘Sorry, but the best things come in little packages,’ she quipped, and tried to ignore the race of her pulse. ‘Now, why don’t you go in the parlour and ring the rescue people before it’s so bad they won’t come out?’

She handed him the lantern and pushed him towards the parlour door. ‘Phone’s in there.’

‘Where am I? I need to tell them how to get here.’

She met his eyes and knew this was going to be embarrassing. It had seemed fun at the time when she’d changed the name, but now—

‘Puddleduck Farm,’ she told him, and felt her chin rise challengingly.

‘Pu—right,’ he said, letting out his breath. Humour danced in his midnight eyes, but to his credit he kept it in—to a point. Then he blew it. ‘Don’t tell me—your name’s Jemima.’

She breathed in and drew herself up to her full five feet nothing. ‘That’s right,’ she told him, and dared him to comment

His mouth twitched but he said not another word. ‘Nice to meet you, Jemima,’ he said with a courtly, mocking little bow. ‘Samuel Bradley. At your service.’

‘I thought I was at yours,’ she said drily.

His mouth twisted in a wry smile, and her heart did a crazy hiccup. ‘You are—and I’m very grateful. I’ll ring them.’

She left him to it and went back into the kitchen, filling the kettle and standing it on the hob by torchlight. She could hear his voice rising, but she guessed it was fruitless. Against the window she could see the swirling snow, bright in the torchlight, falling now in great fat flakes that would cut them off without doubt She threw the dirty crockery into the sink and ran hot water over it, trying to hide it.

Hopeless. She needed to spend hours in here, but there just wasn’t the time in the day, and by the evening she was bushed—

He stomped into the kitchen, a look of disgust on his face, and set the lantern down with a little smack. The flame flickered and steadied.

‘Problems?’ she said mildly. She knew there would be.

‘They can’t come,’ he growled. ‘They’re flooded with calls and they can’t do anything until tomorrow.’ He glanced at his watch, a thin flat disc of gold on a plain leather strap, simple and tasteful—and why was she even noticing?

‘Mind if I ring the people I’m going to? They’ll be expecting me and I don’t want them to worry.’

‘Of course. Be my guest. You can stay the night, if you like.’

‘Oh, that won’t be necessary. I’m sure I can walk to them from here; it can’t be far.’

‘In this?’ She shone the torch at the window again and he swore. He was doing that rather a lot. Obviously a man who liked things his own way. He’d better not take up farming, then, she thought with an inward sigh. She’d got thirty cows out there to milk without power, not to mention the calves to feed and water to fetch and eggs to collect, and it was going to be hell—starting shortly.

‘I’ll ring them,’ he muttered, and went back into the parlour with the lantern.

‘Hi, Gramps, it’s Sam. Look, I’ve had a minor hiccup. I’ve got the car stuck in a drift at Puddleduck Farm. How far is that from you? Can I walk?’

‘Puddleduck? Oh, that’s only—’

‘Puddleduck?’ his grandmother said in the background. ‘Give that to me. Hello, Sam?’

‘Hello, Grannie. I was just telling Gramps I’m at Puddleduck Farm. The car’s stuck in a drift, so I was going to walk—’

‘Oh, no, not in this! It’s much too far! You stay there, Jemima will look after you—’

‘You know her?’

‘Oh, yes, we’re neighbours—well, sort of,’ she rushed on. ‘It’s quite a distance, though, a good two miles, and in this snow and the dark—no, darling, it’s not safe; you stay there with Jemima. Perhaps you can give her a hand—she’s on her own and with the power out she’ll have to milk by hand—she could probably use your muscles to help with the other chores.’

He heard his grandfather snort in the background, and could have groaned aloud. Help her—in this? He hated the cold, and most particularly he hated cows. He looked down at his socks and trousers, covered at the ankle with a malodorous plastering of dark green, courtesy of one of the aforementioned, and sighed. He could just see the look he’d get at the dry cleaners!

‘I’m sure she can cope—’

‘Oh, Sam! She’s on her own and she’s a tiny slip of a thing. You can’t abandon her!’

He crumbled. ‘OK, Grannie,’ he surrendered. He knew when he was beaten, and if there was one thing his grandmother had always been able to do, it was to sort out his priorities. That, after all, was why he was coming to see her now.

‘Will you be all right?’ he asked belatedly.

‘Oh, yes. We’ve got a lovely warm house, and lots of wood inside the porch. We’ll be fine—after all, we’ve got no animals to worry about now apart from the dogs and cats. We’ll just wait it out. You just look after Jemima, and keep in touch. Give her our love.’

He said goodbye and cradled the phone thoughtfully. Look after Jemima, eh? From the brief glimpse he’d had of her that wouldn’t be necessary—she seemed more than capable of looking after herself, tiny though she might be. He went back into the kitchen and set the lamp down, just as she poured the tea.

‘All right?’ she asked brightly, and turned round.

The lamplight caught her eyes, golden brown and mellow with a hint of mischief, matching the smile on her chapped lips and the chaotic tumble of curls that rioted around her head. She looked young and vulnerable and incredibly lovely, and he had a sudden shaft of suspicion about his grandmother’s motives.

‘My grandparents send their love,’ he said, watching her closely. ‘Dick and Mary King.’

Her eyes widened. ‘You’re their grandson?’

‘Yes. I was on my way to stay with them, only it’s apparently too far to walk, my grandmother said. She suggested I should stay here and help you—if you really did mean it when you offered me a bed for the night?’

Jemima looked hard, but she couldn’t see a thing where his halo ought to be. It must be on Mary’s head, she thought, and stifled a smile. It was barely three hundred yards over the fields to Dick and Mary’s little farmhouse, and Mary knew it. So would Sam, when he realised where he was, and who she was.

Help her, eh?

She eyed her captive farmhand with interest. Six foot, at least, and well muscled under the sweater. He’d grown up nicely...

Yes, he’d do. A bit soft, of course, but he was proud enough to work through that. All she had to do was appeal to his ego.

Bless Mary. What a regular sweetheart!

‘Thanks—that would be great,’ she agreed, and smiled the first genuine smile since he’d arrived.

‘I’ll pay you for the accommodation, of course,’ he said quickly—doing things correctly again, of course. Her smile widened.

‘That’s OK—I’ll take payment in kind.’ She ran her eyes over his body, openly assessing him, and to her delight he coloured. He really hadn’t changed much at all. ‘You look fairly useful,’ she went on, a smile teasing round her lips. ‘Have you got stamina?’

‘I’m sure I can keep up with you,’ he said blandly, recovering his composure. His lips twitched, and her eyes were drawn to the fine sculpted lines of his mouth. Not too full, but not skimpy, either. She’d lay odds he’d learned to kiss—

‘I’d better find you something to wear—unless you’ve got anything you want to get from the car?’ she said hastily, backing off from this banter before she talked herself into more trouble than she could handle. After all, they were trapped alone together. Just because he’d been a nice boy didn’t mean he was a reliable adult He could be a serial killer, or a rapist—! ‘Perhaps some jeans?’

‘I’ve got some—thank God. I can just see me squeezed into a pair of your tiny little jeans. Yet another assault on the family jewels,’ he said drily.

She blushed, ignoring his remark, or at least the last part of it. ‘I was going to offer you something of my uncle’s, but if you’ve got things in the car we might as well get them before it gets worse.’

He looked at the snow swirling up against the window and his face was a picture. He obviously didn’t relish going out in it any more than she did, but the difference was she had to and he didn’t.

She had a sudden pang of conscience, and stifled it. He was big enough and ugly enough to look after himself, she decided, and anyway, they were his clothes. Whether he would help with the cows had yet to be seen.

‘Well?’

‘I wonder if it might make more sense to do it in the morning?’

‘You might not find the car in the morning,’ she pointed out in fairness, and then added, ‘I don’t suppose you thought to tie anything on the aerial?’

‘Like what?’ he said wryly. ‘Party balloons? Anyway, it doesn’t have an aerial.’

‘Oh.’ Funny, with those expensive-looking clothes she would have thought he could have afforded a car with a radio, but whatever. ‘We ought to mark it with something red, so a snow plough doesn’t come along and upend it into the hedge. It’s been done before.’

He went pale, poor love. ‘Oh,’ he said tightly. ‘I haven’t marked it. Do you have anything red?’

She thought, and the only thing that came to mind was a bra—a lacy confection that she didn’t wear any longer. After all the cows didn’t give a tinker’s cuss if she wore sexy undies, and frankly the plain cotton croptop style bras were more comfortable when she was working.

Still, she wasn’t sure she was ready to let him tie it to his car!

‘Maybe,’ she conceded. ‘I’ll have to look. We’ll tie it to a stick and shove it in the drift. If it’s attached to the car it might get covered.’

‘Covered?’ he exclaimed.

She shrugged. ‘Whatever, we need to get your gear out. I think there might still be a pair of boots here your sort of size—here, try these.’

She turned them upside down and banged them, and a huge spider fell out and ran across the floor.

‘What the hell was that?’ he yelled, backing up into the kitchen. The collie chased the spider and cornered it, then barked at it.

‘Just a spider—Jess, stop it! You’re daft. Here, try them on.’

He took the boots suspiciously. ‘Any cousins down there?’ he asked, peering down the tops.

‘Possibly. Tuck your trousers into your socks, just in case. Is that the best coat you’ve got?’

He pushed his feet into the wellies with a shudder and stood up. ‘Yes. Why?’

‘Because apart from the fact that it’ll get filthy, it’s not waterproof, and when the snow melts on you, you’ll get soaked and freeze. ,

‘I can hardly wait,’ he muttered.

Jemima took pity on him and banged out an old waxed jacket, checking the sleeves for spiders before handing it over. ‘Here, try this.’

He pulled it on and looked instantly more like a farmer and less like a townie. Amazing what the right uniform could do to a man. He almost looked as if he could cope with a cow—except for the fine wool trousers that were going to get hopelessly ruined unless he changed.

‘What about the red thing to tie to a stick?’

‘Ah.’ She ran upstairs, found the red bra and a matching suspender belt, and stuffed them into a pocket. She’d tie them on when he wasn’t looking...

‘Let’s go and get your gear,’ she said, arriving back in the kitchen and pulling on her own coat and boots. She told the dogs to stay and headed out into the blizzard, torch in hand. She picked up a couple of stakes from the corner by the shed, and headed across the yard towards the lane.

He followed her, not more than a few inches away all the way to the car, and so she heard his muttered exclamation when they found it almost totally buried under the snow drift.

‘Where’s the case?’ she asked.

‘In the boot.’ He eyed the smothered boot with jaundice. ‘I suppose I’d better brush the snow off first.’

‘Probably,’ she agreed, and held the torch while he swiped at the light powdery heaps. It reminded her of why you couldn’t make a decent sandcastle with dry sand—it just kept on pouring down. In the end he swore in exasperation and just opened the boot, hauled out a smart garment bag and a monogrammed leather sports bag, and slammed the lid before the entire snow drift slid inside.