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Oddly, Zeus, the traitor, had curled up alongside him, in no hurry to join me in his usual night-time spot in the middle of my eiderdown. Retrieving the duvet from the spare room, I draped it over Evan, tucking the ends in. Dimming the lights before adding a couple more logs to bank up the wood burner, I took one last look. They were both out for the count. I reckoned they’d stay put until morning.
CHAPTER 3
Dairy herds didn’t respect the weather, the festive season, mild whisky hangovers, or my need for more hours in a warm bed. Anyone who said farmers became accustomed to getting up at four a.m. every morning had never actually had to get up at four a.m. every morning themselves throughout a bitterly cold winter. No wonder my dad handed the farm over to me when he turned sixty and buggered off to sunny Spain. On mornings like this, I was tempted to join him. Thank heavens for Marks & Spencer thermal long johns.
Twenty-four milking units lined either side of my milking parlour. Parlour was a good, old-fashioned term, always putting me in mind of dainty ladies sipping tea and nibbling seed-cake. The reality was noisy, smelly controlled chaos, especially when I was milking alone.
In groups of six, my dairy cows patiently waited their turn to be linked up to the four-cup clusters to automatically collect the milk. Bovines were docile creatures by and large, but once one got jittery, the rest followed. While smooth, calming words were essential, keeping them moving forwards was also necessary and an underrated physical workout. For three hours, I raced up and down the lines, connecting and disconnecting udders, disinfecting the equipment, and regularly sluicing the shed floor clean, while simultaneously encouraging the milked animals back outside to make room for the next wave. Managing three hundred of the buggers, minus the ones having a couple of months off, and each averaging seven minutes per milking, plus plodding-in and plodding-out time, and working solo, saw me through until seven o’clock.
To ensure an even supply of milk, cows calved throughout the year. This month, I had twenty-two calves, and feeding started around the time milking finished. Bill was on calf duty this morning. Letting him get on with it, I waded through the snow past the calving shed, back to the house for a bit of scran and to check on my patient.
Bill had gritted and cleared the yard of the worst of the snow. Taking off my waders in the porch, I noticed my overnight guest was at the kitchen table, having a heated discussion on the phone. With a flash of irritation, I checked the time. I was a grumpy sod in the mornings—Bill could testify to that—preferring moody silence over conversation. At least until I’d got a couple of mugs of coffee and a bacon sandwich down my neck. And small talk with a stranger was even worse.
Evan had the kettle steaming on my old Rayburn, though. Politely nodding in his direction, I threw a couple of spoonsful of instant into two mugs, tossed bacon into the frying pan and pretended not to listen. To be fair, there wasn’t much to earwig. His end of the conversation consisted of a lot of yesses and attempts to interrupt the shrill female voice at the other.
“My ex-wife,” he explained with a heavy sigh as the call terminated. “Well, soon to be ex-wife. Sorry you had to hear that. We split a few months ago, and I was supposed to be picking up the last of my stuff from her place.” He threw me a wry smile. “Seems broken ribs, a dislocated shoulder and a heavily sprained ankle, not to mention a lack of transport, aren’t sufficient excuses.”
I made a sound I hoped encompassed sympathy and an understanding of women while also conveying my lack of enthusiasm for chitchat. I must have failed. Spying my outdoor gear, he added, “Been for an early-morning walk in the snow? I bet the views are gorgeous.”
The joys of townie innocence. I shook my head. “Milking.”
“Ah.” I interpreted this as his failed attempt to make out he understood a single thing about farming.
“Do you want bacon?”
He hesitated, as if it was a trick question. “Um…no, thank you. I’m…er…I’m vegan, actually.”
I stifled a smile, not a shape my mouth tended to form after a four a.m. start,
and kept the two extra rashers in the pan anyway. One more for me and one for Zeus, who was currently having his ratty tummy tickled by Evan, seemingly oblivious I’d buggered off and left him to fend for himself for three hours.
“Er…is that for…er…health reasons?” I wasn’t sure of the correct response to being informed one’s companion was vegan. I’d swear on the herd he was the first vegan to set foot in this house in over two hundred years.
“A bit of everything, really. My…my wife got me into it. I mean, I’ve probably had a healthier diet since I converted, and there’s lots of evidence it’s better for our carbon footprint. Then there are the ethical and animal welfare issues with meat and dairy production,” I turned sharply at that, “although obviously that’s mostly a large scale mass production problem, not…er…local farms.”
Carbon footprint? From a man who drove a three-litre, gas-guzzling German beast? I bet he took expensive trips abroad on aeroplanes too. Keeping my trap shut, I handed him a mug of black coffee and added a generous quantity of unpasteurised, straight-from-the-cow milk to mine. At least veganism had one thing in its favour. It was a blinder of a conversation stopper.
The background sizzling of bacon filled the silence, like an appreciative round of applause. The aroma was bloody heavenly. If they invented a cheap aftershave smelling of fried bacon and real coffee grounds, I’d fall for any bloke wearing it.
My companion, in comparison—who, judging from his damp hair had made use of the bathroom in my absence—smelled of something much more expensive. In daylight and with a few hours’ sleep between our harrowing ordeals (he’d probably argue his was worse than mine), I could appreciate him properly.
To sum it up, Santa had brought me a visual treat. My houseguest wasn’t particularly tall, not as tall as me, but he had a compact, sturdy frame, as if he played sport regularly. And strong thighs. Being dark, he’d be hairy too. I liked that in my men. Evan wasn’t the flibbertigibbet crumpet Freddie had in mind, though I wasn’t complaining. In reality, they weren’t my type. Shame about the estranged wife; but at least that told me everything I needed to know before I put my size-ten welly boot in it. As if our encounter could get any more awkward.
The hairy chest and thighs would forever remain a mystery, but from the parts of him I could see, I’d already sussed Evan and I were chalk and cheese. Bacon and kiwi fruit. The cowgirl and the dandy. Whereas he was a well put-together, smart ensemble of country casuals and lily-white skin, I was as brawny, weatherworn, and gnarly as my old Barbour sweater. While his silky black locks were coiffed at regular salon appointments (nose and ear hair too, probably), I snipped my straw-coloured fringe with the kitchen scissors in front of the bathroom mirror, only when it reached such a length I needed a hairband to tie it back. And my nose hairs stayed up my nose, unless Lucy threatened me with the tweezers. My eyes were indifferent, the ordinary blue of a cheap biro; I had no eyelashes to speak of. Whereas Evan’s were as green as the pea plants harvested on the east side of the estate. Even his flattened nose worked, if only to highlight all his other perfections.
“So,” he ventured, “I need to work out how I’m going to get from under your feet. What time did the RAC say they would get here? I’m not sure I can ask anyone else to drive out and collect me. Not in this weather.”
I agreed. If the RAC arrived, then they’d give him a lift into Allenmouth. “Around four. Assuming the snow stops.”
He nodded thoughtfully, probably wondering how he was going to kill the next few hours.
“How are the ankle and shoulder this morning?”
His ankle was propped up on one of my kitchen chairs; with a tinge of annoyance, I noted it was the one I generally favoured. Thankfully, the bruising was covered in a sock. He gave his shoulder a delicate shrug as if to test it out. “The shoulder’s sore, but fine, I think. And I can just about weight bear on my ankle, so hopefully it’s only a bad sprain. My ribs are the worst, to be honest. Every time I take a deep breath or cough, I feel a crunching.”
He spotted my involuntary shiver, and his mouth twitched. “If you put your fingers over the broken part, the ribs are all crepey and ripple underneath when I move.”
Oh God. I slapped a hand over my mouth and swallowed hard. He chuckled, a nice throaty sound, then winced and held his side. Which kind of served him right. “Shit, don’t make me laugh.”
