1
ZAC
Zac leant on the fence at the bottom of the lower meadow and gazed at the beautiful pink granite farmhouse that had always been his family home. The symmetrical two-storey house had varying shades of hollyhocks growing up on either side of the front door and windows. To its right stood the largest of two barns with a smaller barn next to that and then several other outbuildings graduating down in size.
He smiled, proud of his older sister Lettie and the way she had given up her job in fashion and moved from London back to Jersey to take over the running of the eighty-acre farm when their father had suffered a heart attack earlier in the year. He thought of the contracts he had refused – looking after the sound at various music festivals around the island – to help her and knew he needed to think about returning to work. He might have a good reputation as a sound engineer, but there were other engineers only too willing to step in to cover for him, and the last thing he wanted was to end up not being offered work.
One of the Jersey cows in the upper field mooed. He loved the sounds of this farm. Even though his father had moved from dairy to growing organic produce over ten years before,Zac couldn’t help thinking how typical it was for his father to be unable to part with several of the older cows, insisting they should spend the rest of their days on the farm where they had been born. He looked behind him at the paddock with three alpacas and still found it strange that anyone would bring these beautiful creatures to the island, only for his father to end up giving them a home when the owners moved away and insisted they wouldn’t have space for them.
He thought of Brodie, the local vet and his sister’s boyfriend, and the dog he had given a home to a couple of months before after Lettie had found it on one of the nearby lanes. He could never understand how anyone could let these lovely animals go.
He heard his sister’s anguished shout and, following the direction of her voice, hurried to the kitchen to see what was wrong.
‘What’s the matter, Letts?’
Lettie’s face was flushed with temper. She groaned and held up a letter that looked as if it had been scrunched up before being flattened out again. ‘This is so infuriating. The insurance company is refusing to cover the entire cost of the repairs to the barn roof,’ she grumbled. ‘Apparently our policy hadn’t been linked to cost-of-living increases and they’re only paying seventy per cent of the cost of repairing the storm damage.’
‘What?’ He had no idea how much money the work would cost but imagined it wasn’t going to be cheap. ‘But you need that fixed before winter if the animals are going to stay in there.’
‘Exactly.’ She folded her arms across her chest. ‘We could keep some in the smaller barn, but not the larger animals. I’m so angry about it.’
Upset more like, he thought. ‘Sorry, sis. That is a bit of a blow. What can we do about it?’
She shook her head and shrugged. ‘I’ve no idea, but something needs to be sorted out because I can’t do without that barn.’
He walked over to her and took the letter, reading it for himself. ‘Rotten sods.’ This was all Lettie needed. She had bravely taken on the farm but it hadn’t proved to be as easy as she expected. ‘We’ll think of something. Try not to worry.’
She pulled out one of the chairs and sat, resting her elbows on the table before lowering her face into her hands. ‘I’m already shattered and this is a problem I hadn’t seen coming.’ She looked up at him. ‘Another thing that shows how inexperienced I am at running a place like this.’
He sat next to her. ‘Hey, you’re doing brilliantly. You will sort this.’
She turned to him and after a look of disbelief he noticed her expression harden. ‘You know what, Zac? You’re right. I will sort this. I just need to figure out how.’
‘There. I knew you’d fight back.’ He stood to go and put the kettle on and make them both a cup of tea. It was the standard reaction to most dramas in their house.
‘I know,’ Lettie exclaimed. ‘We’ll raise money by holding a fundraising event.’
‘Good idea.’
She gasped. ‘It could be a festival. We’ve got the land. Yes, that’s what I’ll do – I’ll hold a festival here at Hollyhock Farm.’
His interest piqued, he forgot the tea and sat back down again. ‘A music festival?’ He loved the idea. He was a sound engineer after all and a lot of his job entailed working at festivals. ‘That’ll be brilliant, Letts.’
She shook her head. ‘Sorry, Zac. We can’t have loud music and people singing and making noise around the animals; it would terrify them.’
She had a point. ‘I hadn’t thought of that.’ If she wasn’t thinking of a music festival, then what? ‘Tell me more.’
‘A wellness festival.’ She beamed at him, clearly delighted with her idea.
‘What?’ She went to repeat what she had said, but he stopped her. ‘I know wellness is all about looking after yourself, but I don’t know what sort of things you’d offer.’
‘I’ve only been to one.’
‘So you know what they do at these things?’
She shrugged. ‘I can learn. That’s what the internet is for, surely.’
He didn’t like to argue, not when she was this enthusiastic for an idea. He liked seeing her ready to fight back and had no intention of crushing her excitement.
