The Girl from Honeysuckle Farm / One Dance with the Cowboy: The Girl from Honeysuckle Farm / One Dance with the Cowboy

Again she had not been able to lie. ‘I’ll go and clear my desk,’ she’d offered.

‘You don’t have to go straight way,’ her employer had told her kindly. ‘Let’s say in a month’s time.’

Because she’d known she would need the money, Phinn had not argued. But she never did work that full month. Because a couple of weeks later her world had fallen apart when her father, haring around the fields, showing a couple of his pals what a reconstructed quad bike could do, had upended it, gone over and under it—and come off worst.

He had died before Phinn could get to the hospital. Her mother had come to her straight away, and it had been Hester who, practical to the last, had made all the arrangements.

Devastated, having to look after Ruby had been the only thing that kept Phinn on anything resembling an even keel. And Ruby, as if she understood, would gently nuzzle into her neck and cuddle up close.

Her father had been popular but, when the day of his funeral had arrived, Phinn had never known he had so many friends. Or relatives, either. Aunts and uncles she had heard of but had seen only on the rarest of occasions had come to pay their respects. Even her cousin Leanne, a Hawkins several times removed, had arrived with her parents.

Leanne was tall, dark, pretty—and with eyes that seemed to instantly put a price on everything. But since the family antiques had been sold one by one after Hester had left, there had been very little at Honeysuckle Farm that was worth the ink on a price ticket. Thereafter Leanne had behaved as decorously as her parents would wish.

That was she’d behaved very nicely until—to his credit—Ashley Allardyce had come to the funeral to pay his respects too. Phinn had not been feeling too friendly to him, but because she did not wish to mar the solemnity of the occasion with any undignified outburst—and in any case it was not him but his elder brother Ty who was the villain who went around instigating notices to quit—she’d greeted Ashley calmly, and politely thanked him for coming.

Leanne, noticing the expensive cut of the clothes the tall, fair-haired man was wearing, had immediately been attracted.

‘Who’s he?’ she’d asked, sidling up when Ashley Allardyce had gone over to have a word with Nesta and Noel Jarvis, the tenants of Yew Tree Farm.

‘Ashley Allardyce,’ Phinn had answered, and, as she’d suspected, it had not ended there.

‘He lives around here?’

‘At Broadlands Hall.’

‘That massive house in acres of grounds we passed on the way here?’

The next thing Phinn knew was that Leanne, on her behalf, had invited Ash Allardyce back to the farmhouse for refreshments.

Any notion Phinn might have had that he would refuse the invitation had disappeared when she’d seen the look on his face. He was clearly captivated by her cousin!

The days that had followed had gone by in a numbed kind of shock for Phinn as she’d tried to come to terms with her father’s death. Her mother had wanted her to go back to Gloucester and live with her and Clive. Phinn had found the idea unthinkable. Besides, there was Ruby.

Phinn had been glad to have Ruby to care for. Glad too that her cousin Leanne frequently drove the forty or so miles from her own home to see her.

In fact, by the time Christmas had come, Phinn had seen more of her cousin than she had during the whole of her life. Leanne had come, she would say, to spend time with her, so she would not be too lonely. But most of Leanne’s time, from what Phinn had seen, was being spent with Ash Allardyce.

He had driven Leanne back to the farmhouse several times, and it had been as clear as day to Phinn that he was totally besotted with her cousin. Phinn, aware, if village talk were true, of his recent recovery from a breakdown, had only hoped that, vulnerable as he might still be, he would not end up getting hurt.

Because of a prior arrangement Leanne had spent Christmas skiing in Switzerland. Ash had gone too. For all Phinn knew his notice-to-quit-ordering brother might have made one of his rare visits to Broadlands and spent his Christmas there, but she hadn’t seen him, and she’d been glad about that. The notice to quit had never been executed. It had not needed to be.

Since Phinn had no longer had a job, she’d no longer needed a car. Pride as much as anything had said she had to clear the rent arrears. She had formed a good opinion of Ash Allardyce, and did not think he would discuss their business with Leanne, but with him becoming closer and closer to her cousin, she had not wanted to risk it. She did not want any one member of her family to know that her father had died owing money. She’d sold her car and sent a cheque off to the lawyers.

Though by the time all accounts had been settled—and that included the vet’s last bill—there had been little money remaining, and Phinn had known that she needed to get a job. A job that paid well. Yet Ruby had not been well enough to be left alone all day while she went off to work.

Then Leanne, on another visit, having voiced her opinion that Ash was close to ‘popping the question’ marriage-wise, had telephoned from Broadlands Hall to tell her not to wait up for her, that she was spending the night there.

It had been the middle of the following morning when Leanne, driving fast and furiously, had screeched to a halt in the middle of the farmyard. Phinn, leaving Ruby to go and find out what the rush was about, had been confronted by a furious Leanne, who’d demanded to know why she had not told her that Broadlands Hall did not belong to Ash Allardyce.

‘I—didn’t think about it,’ Phinn had answered defensively. Coming to terms with her beloved father’s death and settling his affairs had taken precedence. Who owned Broadlands Hall had not figured very much, if at all, in her thinking at that particular time. ‘I told you Ash had a brother. I’m sure I did.’

‘Yes, you did!’ Leanne snapped. ‘And so did Ash. But neither of you told me that Ash was the younger brother—and that he doesn’t own a thing!’

‘Ah, you’ve met Ty Allardyce,’ Phinn realised. And discovered she was in the wrong about that too.

‘No—more’s the pity! He’s always away somewhere—away abroad somewhere, and likely to be away some time!’ Leanne spat. ‘It took that po-faced housekeeper to delight in telling me that Ash was merely the estate manager! Can you imagine it? There was I, happily believing that any time soon I was going to be mistress of Broadlands Hall, only to be informed by some jumped-up housekeeper that some poky farm cottage was more likely to be the place for me. I don’t think so!’

Phinn doubted that Mrs Starkey would have said anything of the sort, but as Leanne raged on she knew that once her cousin had realised that Ash was not the owner of Broadlands, it wouldn’t have taken her very long to realise the ins and outs of it all.

‘Come in and I’ll make some coffee,’ Phinn offered, aware that her cousin had suffered something of a shock.

‘I’ll come in. But only to collect what belongings of mine I’ve left here.’

‘You—er—that sounds a bit—final?’ Phinn suggested at last.

‘You bet it is. Ten minutes and the village of Bishop Thornby has seen the last of me.’

‘What about Ash?’

‘What about him?’ Leanne was already on her way into the house. ‘I’ve told him—nicely—that I’m not cut out for country life. But if that hasn’t given him something of a clue—tell him I said goodbye.’

Ash did not come looking for her cousin, and Honeysuckle Farm had settled into an unwanted quietness. With the exception of her mother, who frequently rang to check that she was all right, Phinn spoke with no one other than Ruby. Gradually Phinn came to see that she could do nothing about Leanne having dropped Ash like a hot brick once she had known that he was not the one with the money. Phinn knew that she could not stay on at the farm for very much longer. She had no interest in trying to make the farm a paying concern. If her father had not been able to do it with all his expertise, she did not see how she could. And, while she had grown to quite like the man whom Leanne had so unceremoniously dumped, the twenty-nine-year-old male might well be glad to see the back of anyone who bore the Hawkins name.

She had no idea if she was entitled to claim the tenancy, but if not, Ash would be quite within his rights to instigate having her thrown out.

Not wanting the indignity of that, Phinn wondered where on earth she could go. For herself she did not care very much where she went, but it was Ruby she had to think about.

To that end, Phinn took a walk down to the local riding school, run by Peggy Edmonds. And it turned out that going to see Peggy was the best thing she could have done. Because not only was Peggy able to house Ruby, she was even—unbelievably—able to offer Phinn a job. True, it wasn’t much of a job, but with a place for Ruby assured, Phinn would have accepted anything.

Apparently Peggy was having a hard time battling with arthritis, and for over a year had been trying to find a buyer for what was now more of a stables than a riding school. But it seemed no one was remotely interested in making her an offer. With her arthritis so bad some days that it was all she could do to get out of bed, if Phinn would like to work as a stable hand, although Peggy could not pay very much, there was a small stall Ruby could have, and she could spend her days in the field with the other horses. As a bonus, there was a tiny flat above one of the stables doing nothing.

It was a furnished flat, with no room for farmhouse furniture, and having been advised by the house clearers that she would have to pay them to empty the farmhouse, Phinn got her father’s old friend Mickie Yates—an educated, eccentric but loveable jack-of-all-trades—to take everything away for her. It grieved her to see her father’s piano go, but there was no space in the tiny flat for it.

So it was as January drew to a close that Phinn walked Ruby down to her new home and then, cutting through the spinney on Broadlands that she knew so well, Phinn took the key to the farmhouse up to the Hall.

Ash Allardyce was not in. Phinn was quite glad about that. After the way her cousin had treated him, dropping him cold like that, it might have been a touch embarrassing.

‘I was very sorry to hear about your father, Phinn,’ Mrs Starkey said, taking the keys from her.

‘Thank you, Mrs Starkey,’ Phinn replied quietly, and returned to the stables.

But almost immediately, barely having congratulated herself on how well everything was turning out—she had a job and Ruby was housed and fed—the sky started to fall in.

By late March it crash-landed.

Ruby—probably because of her previous ill-treatment—had always been timid, and needed peace and quiet, but was being bullied by the other much younger horses. Phinn took her on walks away from them as often as she could, but with her own work to do that was not as often as she would have liked.

Then, against all odds, Peggy found a buyer. A buyer who wanted to take possession as soon as it could possibly be achieved.

‘I’ll talk to her and see if there’s any chance of her keeping you on,’ Peggy said quickly, on seeing the look of concern on Phinn’s face.

Phinn had met Geraldine Walton, a dark-haired woman of around thirty, who was not dissimilar to her cousin in appearance. She had met her on one of Geraldine’s ‘look around’ visits, and had thought she seemed to have a bit of a hard edge to her—which made Phinn not too hopeful.

She was right not to be too hopeful, she soon discovered, for not only was there no job for her, neither was there a place for Ruby. And, not only that, Geraldine Walton was bringing her own staff and requested that Phinn kindly vacate the flat over the stable. As quickly as possible, please.

Now, Phinn, with the late-April sun streaming through the window, looked round the stable flat and knew she had better think about packing up her belongings. Not that she had so very much to pack, but…Her eyes came to rest on the camera her mother, who had visited her last Sunday, had given her to return to Ash on Leanne’s behalf.

Feeling a touch guilty that her mother’s visit had been a couple of days ago now and she had done nothing about it, Phinn went and picked up the piece of photographic equipment. No time like the present—and she could get Ruby away from the other horses for a short while.

Collecting Ruby, Phinn walked her across the road and took the shortcut through the spinney. In no time she was approaching the impressive building that was Broadlands Hall.

Leanne Hawkins was not her favourite cousin just then. She had been unkind to Ash Allardyce, and, while Phinn considered that had little to do with her, she would much prefer that her cousin did her own dirty work. It seemed that her mother, who had no illusions about Leanne, had doubted that Ash would have got his expensive camera back at all were it not for the fact that he, still very much smitten, used it as an excuse to constantly telephone Leanne. Apparently Leanne could not be bothered to talk to him, and had asked Phinn to make sure he had his rotten camera back.

Phinn neared the Hall, hoping that it would again be Mrs Starkey who answered her ring at the door. Cowardly it might be, but she had no idea what she could say to Ash Allardyce. While she might be annoyed with Leanne, Leanne was still family, and family loyalty said that she could not say how shabbily she personally felt Leanne had treated him.

Phinn pulled the bell-tug, half realising that ifAsh was still as smitten with Leanne as he had been, he was unlikely to say anything against her cousin that might provoke her having to stand up for her. She…

Phinn’s thoughts evaporated as she heard the sound of someone approaching the stout oak door from within. Camera in one hand, Ruby’s rein in the other, Phinn prepared to smile.

Then the front door opened and was pulled back—and her smile never made it. For it was not Mrs Starkey who stood there, and neither was it Ash Allardyce. Ash was fair-haired, but this man had ink-black hair—and an expression that was far from welcoming! He was tall, somewhere in his mid-thirties—and clearly not pleased to see her. She knew very well who he was—strangely, she had never forgotten his face. His good-looking face.

But his grim expression didn’t let up when in one dark glance he took in the slender, delphinium-blue-eyed woman with a thick strawberry-blonde plait hanging over one shoulder, a camera in one hand and a rein in the other.

All too obviously he had recognised the camera, because his grim expression became grimmer if anything.

‘And you are?’ he demanded without preamble.

Yes, she, although having never been introduced to him, knew very well this was the man who was ultimately responsible for her father receiving that notice to quit. To quit the land that his family had farmed for generations. It passed her by just then that her father had done very little to keep the farm anything like the farm it had been for those generations.

‘I’m Phinn Hawkins,’ she replied—a touch belligerently it had to be admitted. ‘I’ve—’

His eyes narrowed at her tone, though his tone was none too sweet either as he challenged shortly, ‘What do you want on my land, Hawkins?’

And that made her mad. ‘And you are?’ she demanded, equally as sharp as he.

She was then forced to bear his tough scrutiny for several uncompromising seconds as he studied her. But, just when she was beginning to think she would have to run for his name, ‘Tyrell Allardyce,’ he supplied at last. And, plainly unused to repeating himself, ‘What do you want?’ he barked.

‘Nothing you can supply, Allardyce!’ she tossed back at him, refusing to be intimidated. Stretching out a hand, she offered the camera. ‘Give this to your brother,’ she ordered loftily. But at her mention of his brother, she was made to endure a look that should have turned her to stone.

‘Get off my land!’ he gritted between clenched teeth. ‘And—’ his tone was threatening ‘—don’t ever set foot on it again!’

His look was so malevolent it took everything she had to keep from flinching. ‘Huh!’ she scorned, and, badly wanting to run as fast as she could away from this man and his menacing look, she turned Ruby about and ambled away from the Hall.

By the time she and Ruby had entered the spinney, some of Phinn’s equilibrium had started to return. And a short while later she was starting to be thoroughly cross with herself that she had just walked away without acquainting him with a few of the do’s and don’ts of living in the country.

Who did he think he was, for goodness’ sake? She had always roamed the estate lands freely. True, there were certain areas she knew she was not supposed to trespass over. But she had been brought up using the Broadlands fields and acres as her right of way! She was darn sure she wasn’t going to alter that now!

The best thing Ty Allardyce could do, she fumed, would be to take himself and his big city ways back to London. And stay there! And good riddance to him too! She had now met him, but she hoped she never had the misfortune of seeing his forbidding, disagreeable face ever again!

CHAPTER TWO

SOMEHOW, in between worrying about finding a new home for herself and Ruby, Phinn could not stop thoughts of Ty Allardyce from intruding. Though, as the days went by and the weekend passed and another week began, Phinn considered that to have the man so much in and out of her mind was not so surprising. How dared he order her off his land?

Well, tough on him! It was a lovely early May day—what could be nicer than to take Ruby and go for a walk? Leaving the flat, Phinn went down to collect her. But, before she could do more than put a halter on the mare, Geraldine Walton appeared from nowhere to waylay her. Phinn knew what was coming before Geraldine so much as opened her mouth. She was not mistaken.

‘I’m sorry to have to be blunt, Phinn,’ Geraldine began, ‘but I really do need the stable flat by the end of the week.’

‘I’m working on it,’ Phinn replied, at her wits’ end. She had phoned round everywhere she could think of, but nobody wanted her and Ruby. And Ruby fretted if she was away from her for very long, so no way was Ruby going anywhere without her. Phinn had wondered about them both finding some kind of animal sanctuary, willing to take them both, but then again, having recently discovered that Ruby was unhappy with other horses around, she did not want to give her ailing mare more stress. ‘Leave it with me,’ she requested, and a few minutes later crossed the road on to Broadlands property and walked Ruby through the spinney, feeling all churned up at how it would break her heart—and Ruby’s—to have to leave her anywhere.

The majestic Broadlands Hall was occasionally visible through gaps in the trees in the small wood, but Phinn was certain that Ty Allardyce would by now be back in London, beavering away at whatever it was financiers beavered away at. Though just in case, as they walked through fields that bordered the adjacent grounds and gardens they had always walked through—or in earlier days ridden through—she made sure that she and Ruby were well out of sight, should anyone at the Hall be looking out.

Hoping not to meet him, if London’s loss was Bishops Thornby’s gain and he was still around, Phinn moved on, and was taking a stroll near the pool where she and her father had so often swum when she did bump into an Allardyce. It was Ash.

It would have been quite natural for Phinn to pause, say hello, make some sort of polite conversation. But she was so shaken by the change in the man from the last time she had seen him that she barely recognised him, and all words went from her. Ash looked terrible!

‘Hello, Ash,’ she did manage, but was unwilling to move on. He looked positively ill, and she searched for something else to say. ‘Did you get your camera all right?’ she asked, and could have bitten out her tongue. Was her cousin responsible in any way for this dreadful change in him? Surely not? Ash looked grey, sunken-eyed, and at least twenty pounds lighter!

‘Yes, thanks,’ he replied, no smile, his eyes dull and lifeless. But, brightening up a trifle, ‘Have you seen Leanne recently?’ he asked.

Fleetingly she wondered if Ash, so much in love with Leanne, might have found cause to suspect she was money-minded and, not wanting to lose her, not told her that it was his brother who owned Broadlands. But she had not seen her cousin since the day Leanne had learned that Ash was not the one with the money and had so callously dropped him.

‘Leanne—er—doesn’t come this way—er—now,’ Phinn answered, feeling awkward, her heart aching for this man who seemed bereft that his love wanted nothing more to do with him.

‘I don’t suppose she has anywhere to stay now that you’re no longer at Honeysuckle Farm,’ he commented, and as he began to stroll along with her, Phinn did not feel able to tell him that the only time Leanne had ever shown an interest in staying any length of time at the farm had been when she’d had her sights set on being mistress of Broadlands Hall. ‘I’m sorry that you had to leave, by the way,’ Ash stated.

And her heart went out to this gaunt man whose clothes were just about hanging on him. ‘I couldn’t have stayed,’ she replied, and, hoping to lighten his mood, ‘I don’t think I’d make a very good farmer.’ Not sure which was best for him—to talk of Leanne or not to talk of Leanne—she opted to enquire, ‘Have you found a new tenant for Honeysuckle yet?’

‘I’m—undecided what to do,’ Ash answered, and suddenly the brilliant idea came to Phinn that, if he had not yet got a tenant for the farm, maybe she and Ruby could go back and squat there for a while; the weather was so improved and it was quite warm for early summer. Ruby would be all right there. But Ash was going on. ‘I did think I might take it over myself, but I don’t seem able to—er—make decisions on anything just at the moment.’

Ash’s confession took the squatting idea from Phinn momentarily. Leanne again! How could she have been so careless of this sensitive man’s fine feelings?

‘I’m sure you and Honeysuckle would be good for each other—if that’s what you decide to do,’ Phinn replied gently.

And Ash gave a shaky sigh, as if he had wandered off for a moment. ‘I think I’d like to work outdoors. Better than an indoor job anyway.’ And, with a self-deprecating look, ‘I tried a career in the big business world.’

‘You didn’t like it?’

He shook his head. ‘I don’t think I’m the academic type. That’s more Ty’s forte. He’s the genius in the family when it comes to the cut and thrust of anything like that.’ Ash seemed to wander off again for a moment or two, and then, like the caring kind of person he was, he collected himself to enquire, ‘You’re settled in your new accommodation, Phinn?’

‘Well—er…’ Phinn hesitated. It was unthinkable that she should burden him with her problems, but the idea of squatting back at Honeysuckle was picking at her again.

‘You’re not settled?’ Ash took up.

‘Geraldine—she’s the new owner of the stables—wants to do more on the riding school front, and needs my flat for a member of her staff,’ Phinn began.

‘But you work there too?’

‘Well, no, actually. Er…’

‘You’re out of a job and a home?’ Ash caught on.

‘Ruby and I have until the end of this week,’ Phinn said lightly, and might well have put in a pitch for his permission to use Honeysuckle as a stop-gap measure—only she chanced to look across to him, and once more into his dull eyes, and she simply did not have the heart. He appeared to have the weight of the world on his shoulders, and she just could not add to his burden.

‘Ruby?’ he asked. ‘I didn’t know you had a child?’

He looked so concerned that Phinn rushed in to reassure him. ‘I don’t.’ She patted Ruby’s shoulder. ‘This lovely girl is Ruby.’

His look of concern changed to one of relief. ‘I don’t know much about horses, but…’