Page 105 of Rachel’s Pudding Pantry

Chapter 42

THE BEST APPLE CRUMBLE EVER

‘Rachel … Rach-el?!’ Jill’s voice rang out across the yard.

Rachel was in the lambing shed, sorting out the next batch of cattle and sheep tags, checking they were all in order. She left her task and headed out of the open shed door.

‘Ye-es?’ She hoped everything was okay. Thankfully, things seemed to have settled down with Maisy in the last four days since her disappearing act.

‘Ah, there you are.’ Mum looked relieved. ‘I’ve just had a call from Tom. He’s got a bit of a problem with the tractor. He’s in his North Field, been ploughing there, wondered if you’d take a look before he calls a mechanic out.’

Rachel could be quite handy with a spanner and tools when faced with a tractor engine. God knows, they’d had to sort out their own tractor hiccups many a time. It was amazing what could be achieved with Dad’s old toolkit and some YouTube videos.

‘Ah, okay, no worries. I’ll get across there now.’

Actually, it would be nice to do something to help Tom out for a change. And, maybe this would be a good way to break the ice too. Rachel was well aware that she still hadn’t plucked up the courage to see him and have that ‘talk’ he’d mentioned. Much as she found she missed him, like a deep ache in her soul, she didn’t know where to start. It had all gone horribly wrong since that revelation about his conversation with her dad, and she didn’t know where they could go from there. Could a friendship even be salvaged?

Rachel walked back across the yard with Jill, as she’d need a vehicle to get across there.

‘Oh, and if it takes a while, love, don’t worry about Maisy. I’m fine with her,’ Jill said, rather emphatically.

‘Right, okay, good to know.’ Rachel grabbed the tool box and the keys to the Land Rover, before setting off. She knew Tom would want to get the tractor fixed as soon as possible, it was already early evening, having just gone 6 p.m., and he’d want to finish ploughing that field before dusk, no doubt. It had, in fact, been a lovely day and was still warm, the sun now slipping low in its arc but still giving a honeyed glow to the softly rolling landscape.

She soon reached Tom’s land and knew which fields to cross to get to the North Field. Being on the hillside, it would be one of the harder ones to plough, having steeper banks that no doubt had put stress on the tractor. She arrived at the gate to this field, and stopped to open it, concentrating on the latch, then sweeping it back ready to pass. She drove through to the other side and then came to a grinding halt, her foot coming off the accelerator as she looked at the hillside ahead of her.

Oh my, wow … who had done that?

Ploughed into the bank of the stubble field in huge twenty-metre-high letters was … ‘I Love You’.

Rachel paused and pulled the handbrake on. She then stood up out of the truck. Yes, that was definitely it. ‘I Love You’. It would fit the size of a full swimming pool, and was across the whole top half of the field.

Suddenly there was a toot-toot of a horn. There was Tom’s pick-up at the top of the bank. And there beside it … Tom … The broken-down tractor was nowhere in sight.

Tom walked over to stand to the side of the ‘I Love You’ sign … Was the message for her? The penny was finally dropping.

She closed the gate on autopilot and, feeling rather stunned, she drove up the set-aside of the field, all the while admiring the view. The lettering was mind-blowing – had he ploughed that?

Could it be for her? Did he love her? She wasn’t sure if it was excitement or incredulity buzzing through her veins. As she approached his truck and parked up beside it, she could see that Tom had set out a table and two chairs. It was like in a restaurant with a white tablecloth, candlesticks, wine glasses … she squinted to see more … little posies of wild flowers. And Tom stood there beside it all, dressed in smart dark chinos and a white shirt with a huge, if slightly nervous-looking, grin on his face.

‘Hello, you,’ was all he said, as she stepped out of the Land Rover.

‘Hello, you,’ she echoed, still wondering what the heck was going on here. ‘No breakdown with the tractor?’ The penny was starting to roll down and into the slot now.

‘Nope.’

‘Is this a set-up?’ Had Jill been in on this too? Her mum’s ‘I’ll be fine with Maisy’ was suddenly sinking in.

‘Now you’ve got me.’ Tom was grinning broadly.

Oh … my … God.

Rachel looked at the table again. There was a bottle of red wine and one of white there ready by the glasses. The flowers were in jam jars and were mostly pretty hedgerow plants, including red rosehips and rowan leaves and berries, along with small pale-pink roses that were probably from Tom’s garden.

‘I picked them all myself,’ he added proudly, watching her gaze. ‘Umm, well, I said we needed to talk … and I’m not so good at talking … so I hope this says it all.’

Rachel stood there stunned and realised she wasn’t so good at talking herself just now. She needed to say something back, she hadn’t even thanked him yet. But it was taking a while to get her head around it all.

‘Wow – this is amazing … and the message … on the hill.’