A Funny Thing Happened...

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.

And so much for him not being able to afford a car with a radio, she thought, eyeing the BMW logo on the boot lid with jaundice. It probably had a gadget to pick up radio waves by telepathy!

‘I’d better lock it,’ he muttered, pointing the remote control at the car, and Jemima stifled a laugh. City types, she thought, and tried to forget that until just under a year ago she’d been one too.

‘I’ll put these sticks up,’ she told him, and, rummaging in her pocket, she pulled out the underwear, tied it to the sticks and then took one to the front, ramming it in by the side of the bumper where it would stay up and show.

She struggled back past the car, grabbed the other stick and was pushing it into place when Sam took the torch from her hand and pointed it at her ‘flags’.

‘What the—?’

‘Don’t you dare laugh,’ she warned him, but it was too much.

A chuckle rose in his throat, and without thinking she scooped up a handful of snow and shoved it down his miserable neck.

He let out a yell that would have woken the dead and returned the favour, and a huge glob of snow slid down her front and lodged in her bra.

‘Touché!’ she said with a laugh, and backed off, pulling her clothes away from her chest and shaking the snow out.

‘Pax?’ he asked warily, hefting a fresh snowball just in case.

She considered revenge, and then decided she’d get her own back on him in the next few hours anyway—in spades!

‘Absolutely,’ she agreed. ‘I’m cold enough without snow in my underwear. You can drop that.’

‘Not yet—just look on it as insurance,’ he told her, and she flashed the torch at him and caught a lingering smile that transformed his face and did odd things to her insides.

They headed back down the lane, bent over to shelter from the driving blizzard, and made it back to the cottage without incident.

‘I should change into jeans,’ she advised as they shed their outer gear and went back into the lamp-lit kitchen. ‘It can get mucky in the barn.’

‘Mucky?’ he said with suspicion, and she smiled.

‘That’s the one,’ she said cheerfully. ‘I should change in here—I’ll go and dig out some sheets and make up your bed while you do that.’

She pulled off her hat, shook the snow off her hair and ran upstairs with the torch, her socks soundless on the threadbare carpet. She decided to put him in the room over the parlour. After hers, which was over the kitchen, it was the warmest.

It was also right beside hers, which might not be such a good move. She eyed the doors of the other rooms, but they were small, cold and full of boxes that she still had to sort out.

She’d have to put up with his proximity, and not get into any more playful snowball fights with him that might lead on to other things. She was finished with all of that. She didn’t need it—or rangy, sexy men with wicked smiles and attitude. She made the bed up and tried not to think about what he was doing downstairs with those incredible long legs of his.

She tugged the quilt straight, patted the pillows and went back down, taking the torch with her. Again, her socks made no sound, and she arrived in the kitchen to find him crouched down in his designer jeans, scratching the dogs behind their ears.

Amazing.

‘I should watch Jess, she doesn’t like men much,’ she warned.

‘Jess?’

The collie pricked her ears and looked longingly at him.

‘Short for Jezebel,’ she muttered. Faithless mutt. Apart from Sam’s grandfather she’d bitten every other man who’d crossed the threshold since Uncle Tom had died!

‘Come on, let’s go and get this milking started. The sooner we start, the sooner we’ll finish. Ever milked a cow before?’

He shuddered. Not a good sign. ‘No, thank God.’ ‘Oh. Oh, well, you’ll learn, I suppose. I wonder how long this power cut will last?’

‘Phone the electricity board. They usually have an idea.’

Stupid. She should have thought of that. If she hadn’t been so distracted by him, she probably would have done it ages ago. She took the torch into the parlour and rang up. It did nothing for her mood.

‘Unknown fault,’ she told him disgustedly. ‘Could be hours—it sounds like a huge area’s out. I thought it was my tree.’

‘Shorting out the whole of Dorset? It must be a hell of a tree.’

She laughed. ‘In its day, maybe. Now it’s just a pain. Come on, let’s turn you into a country boy. Ever seen the film City Slickers?’

He gave her a dirty look. She deserved it. It was a cheap shot.

‘Come on, townie,’ she said more kindly. ‘Let’s see what you’re made of. I’m sure I can find you something safe to do.’

She grabbed her coat, shoved her feet into her boots and picked up the lantern. ‘OK, cowpoke. Let’s be having you.’

He met her eyes without a word, and she saw him pick up her challenge like a gauntlet. Oh, lawks. She was in way over her head.

She tugged her hat down hard and went out into the blizzard...

CHAPTER TWO

HER revenge for the snowball came sooner than she expected. It took Daisy ten seconds to check Sam out and decide he needed butting in the ribs, and he leapt backwards with a grunt and smacked into the wall.

‘Daisy, that’s not nice,’ Jemima chided, and turned her attention to her crippled farmhand. ‘Are you OK?’ she asked, eyeing his pinched mouth and closed eyes with concern. After all, it would be such a waste of all that God-sent muscle if he was really injured—

‘Oh, I’m fine, just peachy,’ he wheezed, and his eyes flickered open and speared her. ‘Can’t you—tie her up, or something? In fact, can’t you tie them all up?’

‘I don’t need to. It’s milking time. If I feed them they’ll go and stand in their stalls ready.’

‘Well, feed them then, for heaven’s sake!’ he pleaded, and levered himself off the wall, feeling his ribs cautiously.

Jemima gave a little shrug and grabbed a pitchfork, then started forking silage into the trough in front of each cow. They knew the routine, and lined up patiently waiting as she worked her way down each side of the barn.

‘Can I do that for you?’ he offered, eyeing her safe position on the other side of the barrier.

He certainly could. She handed him the fork, took another one and cleared away the straw under each animal’s udder, ready for milking. Now all she needed was the hot water. She handed Sam a bucket.

‘Could you go into the house and bring some hot water, please? Not too hot—it’s to wash their udders.’

His eyes widened, but he took the bucket and the torch and headed for the door. ‘I am going out—I may be some time,’ he murmured theatrically, and then the door opened and the Arctic screamed in on a frigid blast. He ducked his head, shot out and slid the door back into place, shutting out the blizzard.

Jemima grinned and set up the milking stool and bucket, then looked round the barn and lost her smile. She’d have to muck out in the morning, so she hoped the power would be back on because milking by hand took so long she’d be hardly finished before she had to start again, and she didn’t think for a moment that her intrepid explorer was going to make much of a milkman.

He reappeared, hair on end again, a steaming bucket in his hand and Jess by his side. ‘She was desperate to come—is that all right?’

‘Sure.’ She smiled and held out her hand, and Jess came running up for a quick pat before finding a cosy corner and flopping down, one watchful eye open. Jemima took the bucket and the old flannel she used to wash them, and started on the first udder.

Normally she’d connect them up to the old Fulwood milking plant Uncle Tom had bought in 1949 and never got round to changing, but without power she had no option but to crouch on the little stool by each cow in turn, and strip the milk out of all four quarters by hand. It was a slow process, and she could see Sam was bored, so she cocked her head round towards him and grinned.

‘So, what do you usually do for entertainment on a Friday night?’ .

.He laughed and hunkered down beside her, watching. ‘Oh, this and that. Murder a few grannies, rob the odd bank—nothing special.’

‘There’s a picture of you in the police station—or was that Buffalo Bill?’

‘Probably—we’re very alike,’ he said, absolutely deadpan.

‘Mmm—except he can milk cows, of course.’

A brow arched—just ever so slightly—and she wouldn’t have noticed if she hadn’t been taking such a close interest in his features. However, she had noticed. Was it a challenge? She wasn’t sure, but she stood up anyway and gave him the stool.

‘Come on, Buffalo Bill, your turn.’

He folded himself up onto the stool and gave her a steady look that spoke volumes. Her estimation of him went up a notch, and she folded her arms and propped herself on Bluebell’s nicely rounded rump.

He reached for the udder tentatively, and Bluebell turned her large, gentle head and eyed him in surprise. It was odd enough being milked by hand, something that happened very rarely, but this stiff, taut man—well!

‘Rest your head on her flank,’ Jemima instructed, and he gave her an old-fashioned look.

‘Rest my head?’ he said, as if she’d suggested he should put it in a lion’s mouth. She stifled a laugh.

‘Yes—you know, lean on her.’

He arched an eyebrow disbelievingly, and allowed his head to touch her side. ‘Now what?’

‘Pull the teat down, and then close your fingers from the top down to the bottom, as if you’re squeezing the milk out like toothpaste—that’s it!’

A little squirt of milk shot out of the teat and splashed on his jeans.

‘Now try and get it in the bucket.’

He gave her a dirty look, shook his head despairingly and carried on. He was doing really quite well until Bluebell moved and knocked the bucket over.

‘Hell!’

He leapt to his feet, ducking out of the way of the flying milk and startling Bluebell, who shot across the barn towards Jemima, rolling her eyes and snorting softly.

‘It’s all right, sweetheart, he’s just a city boy,’ she crooned comfortingly, squashing her laughter. ‘Come on, my love.’

‘Come on my love, nothing,’ he muttered, watching her balefully as she led the anxious cow back across the barn to her stall and gave her more silage. ‘Why did she do that?’

‘I expect you tickled her—they’re very sensitive.’

‘Sensitive!’ he exclaimed. ‘They’re a bunch of loonies!’

‘Just ignore him, darlings,’ she told the cows. ‘He’s only a man; he can’t be expected to understand.’

One of them lowed at her, a warm, soft sound of agreement, and Sam snorted in disgust. Smiling, Jemima went back to her place beside Bluebell, quickly finished off and moved on to the next cow.

‘Why do you wash the udders?’ he asked, following her but standing safely out of range. ‘They don’t look dirty.’

To clean them, of course, just in case, but also because it helps the let-down.’

‘Let-down?’

She smiled into Ruby’s side. ‘They have to give you the milk. If it was just a tank it would run out. You have to persuade the udder to relax—’

‘Right.’

He didn’t sound convinced. Ruby understood the system, though, and was easy to milk, but then she’d had mastitis quite recently and had had to be hand-milked for some time. There were others who were much harder to do.

‘What happens to the milk once you collect it?’

‘It gets filtered and poured into the cooling tank—oh, no!’

‘What?’

‘No power! The cooler won’t be working, and the paddles won’t be stirring, so the milk will separate and go off—not that they’ll be able to collect it anyway...’

‘And?’

‘And so I won’t get paid for it, and I’ll lose money.’

‘Much?’

She thought of the useless tractor, the state of her car and the even more precarious state of her bank balance.

‘More than enough,’ she said grimly.

‘Is there anything you can do about that?’

She straightened up, looking at the placid cows waiting patiently for her attention. It would take for ever to milk them all, and it would all have to go down the drain—

‘I need to put the fresh calvers back with their calves. That will feed the calves, stop me having to milk their mums until the power’s back on and save the wasted milk until the tanker can get through again.’

‘How many are fresh calvers?’

She sighed. ‘Only ten.’

‘So you’ve got—what, twenty more?’

She nodded. ‘Yes. Twenty-one, in fact. We ought to sort them out now; they’re getting uncomfortable because I’m late.’

It was another half-hour before the fresh calvers and their offspring were reunited, and then the others needed milking urgently. Jemima looked into the water trough and sighed. Already it was almost empty—

‘What is it?’

‘The water trough. It needs filling up—the well water pump is electric.’

‘Wouldn’t you know it?’ he muttered. ‘Where’s the nearest tap?’

‘The water in the house is electrically pumped. We don’t have mains.’

‘What!’

‘The water’s beautiful—it comes from deep aquifers and the taste is so clear, so pure, you—you just wouldn’t believe it.’

‘But mains is so easy.’

She shook her head. ‘The milk wouldn’t taste the same, and I sell it to a specialist firm—they make clotted cream and yoghurt with it. The quality of the milk is everything.’

He sighed. ‘What are you telling me?’

The water has to come from the stream. There’s a little step to stand on while you dip the buckets. I’ll show you.’

‘I can hardly wait,’ he muttered under his breath, but he came with her, saw the stream, hung up a lantern between the barn and the stream and started bucketing the water while she milked.

‘How many do I need to bring?’ he asked after the tenth trip or so.

She looked up and took pity on him. He was propped against the wall, breathing hard, and he’d hardly started.

‘About a hundred and fifty buckets,’ she told him.

His eyes widened. ‘How—? A hun—! That’s ridiculous,’ he said flatly.

‘They drink about ten to fifteen gallons a day. That’s at least three hundred gallons, or a hundred and fifty buckets. It’s only seventy-five trips a day.’ She relented at his look of horror. ‘It won’t need that many tonight, and I expect the power will be back on by the morning.’

He shouldered away from the wall without another word, and went back out. The wind was still howling, she noticed, and although it had stopped snowing there was a fine stinging spray of snow being carried off the field and straight into his face as he came back to the barn.

She finished the last cow, poured the milk into the cooler just in case the tanker was able to get through tomorrow by a miracle and the power came back on soon, and then went to help him.

They finished the water at ten o’clock. By that time her hands were bleeding freely from the many cracks in her fingers, her palms were raw, her back was screaming and if she’d been on her own she would have curled up and wept.

She wasn’t, though, so she didn’t.

Nor did Sam, and, casting him a quick look, she thought that left alone he’d probably want to do the same!

‘You’ll be stiff in the morning,’ she warned.

‘Tell me about it. Anything else to do tonight?’

‘Only eat, if I can find anything worth cooking.’

‘Shall I nip out for a Chinese?’

She met his eyes, and was amazed to see humour lurking there still, after all they’d done. All he’d done, and him just a city boy.

‘Good idea. I’ll have special chow mein.’

‘OK. I’ll have rice and lemon chicken—fancy a spring roll?’

She looked round the barn one last time, took the lantern down and glanced at him. ‘Oh, yes—and prawn crackers.’

His stomach rumbled loudly, and she gave a quiet, weary laugh. ‘Come on, cowboy, let’s go and raid the larder.’

Sam was dog-tired. He didn’t remember ever being so tired in his life, but he supposed it was possible. His hands hurt from carrying so many buckets, his back and shoulders ached with the unaccustomed exercise and he was so hungry he had the shakes.

‘Anything I can do?’ he offered, hoping to speed things along.

‘No—there’s some bread and cheese and there’s some soup left in the fridge—I’ll heat it up. Wash your hands, but be frugal with the water, the tank won’t refill—in fact, use my water, here.’

She shook her hands off and picked up the towel, and he went over to the sink and looked down into the bowl of water. The bar of soap was streaked with red, and he looked over his shoulder and watched as she pressed the towel against her fingers cautiously and winced.

He scrubbed his hands clean, wiped them on the towel and then went over to her, taking the cheese from her and putting it down, then lifting her hands in his and turning them over.

They were cracked and ingrained with dirt, the skin rough and broken although it had stopped bleeding, and she stood there with her eyes closed and said nothing.

‘Jemima?’ he murmured.

‘The dirt won’t come out,’ she said defensively. ‘You can get your own supper if it worries you.’

‘It’s nothing to do with that. Have you got any cream?’

‘I want to eat.’

‘Have you got any cream?’

‘I’ll put it on later. I want to eat first so my food doesn’t taste of gardenias.’

He let her go, and she bustled about, cutting bread, laying the table, feeding the dogs, making tea—