‘You really mean it?’
‘Of course. Now, what are the exercises, maybe I could help you do some now?’
The smile faded as he adjusted himself in the chair again. ‘I’m not ready.’ He winced.
‘What hurts?’
‘Everything, and moving around doesn’t appeal to me right now so sod the exercises. I just want to sit here in peace.’
When he didn’t even apologise for snapping she said, ‘I’m so sorry I left it this long to come back.’
‘You did what you had to do.’
‘It was selfish. Oh! I never would’ve forgiven myself if –’
His voice softened. ‘Stop that now, you hear me, Melissa Drew.’
‘You don’t need to last-name me.’
The sunlight was blocked as Harvey stepped through the back door. ‘He does that when we’re in trouble.’ Holding a small basket of eggs, he didn’t pass comment on Melissa’s tears that had begun again.
‘That’s right,’ she smiled back at Barney. ‘Remember when I threw an apple at Harvey’s head? You double-named me then, at the top of your voice, scared the living daylights out of me.’
‘You took aim and were the perfect shot,’ Barney confirmed, eyes dancing in amusement.
She’d almost made Harvey cry that day too. She hadn’t realised quite how much it must’ve hurt until she was walking beneath a tree later on and an apple landed plonk on top of her head. She’d wailed, there’d been a smug look from Harvey, and she’d ended up apologising for throwing one at him and causing him pain.
Harvey was in the kitchen area taking out a frying pan, finding a spatula. ‘Omelette,’ he explained to Barney, ‘as requested.’
‘It wasn’t requested. And I’m not hungry,’ Barney grumbled.
‘You need to eat,’ Harvey batted back. ‘Call it an early dinner.’
‘I’ll bet it’ll be so much better than any hospital food,’ Melissa assured Barney.
Barney grimaced. ‘Don’t get me started on that.’
‘Was it terrible?’ she asked.
He just grunted in response.
‘You need to eat, Barney,’ Harvey’s voice carried over as he began cracking the eggs into a bowl. ‘And the eggs were laid fresh this morning, can’t ask for better than that.’
Hadn’t he just been to the supermarket? That’s what he’d told her when she bumped into him at the inn, and there was no need to make things up, no matter how desperate he was to get Barney to eat. ‘Laid fresh this morning?’ she repeated, looking Harvey’s way.
‘They came from Nola Green’s place,’ Harvey answered as though reading her mind and knowing where her comment was heading.
‘They keep chickens at The Copper Plough?’
‘At their daughter’s cottage a few doors from the pub,’ Barney told her. ‘She’s got a lot of land out back. After your family…well, you know, after we stopped having the eggs from your chickens, the few of us who’d been lucky enough to have those fresh eggs had to start going to the supermarket and it was never the same. Nola stepped up and decided to bring the custom back to Heritage Cove herself. She bought a fair few chickens, I’m not sure how many.’
‘Nineteen,’ Harvey called out from the kitchen, where he was grating cheese. ‘Was twenty until a fox found them.’
Melissa pulled a face. She remembered her mum’s tears when a fox found one of their chickens once. She was thankful she’d never seen the body, ripped to shreds. It was a brutal way to go. ‘Good to know someone took over,’ she said, even more glad that Barney was one of the lucky few who got to enjoy the eggs that were no doubt richer in taste and colour and creamier than those bought at the shops.
Harvey was on to chopping the tomatoes and a chunk of ham and Barney must’ve seen her looking over because he whispered to her, ‘Have you two spoken yet?’
She smiled, mostly glad that despite his up-and-down moods, he was talking and taking an interest. ‘Not properly, it’s been a long time.’
