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“Because he couldn’t make ends meet. You know we have half the number of dairy cows we did before, right?”
“Yes, but—”
“It’s really tough to make a living from farming these days,” Harriet continued. “It’s part of the reason why I wanted to get this bakery thing going. To help out with expenses. And because I like baking,” she added with a small, wry smile. “I’m not that altruistic.”
“So there’s a mortgage on the house,” Rachel stated, her mind focused on that one unpalatable fact. “How much?”
Harriet spread her hands out wide. “Honestly? I have no idea. Ben helped him with the paperwork.”
“Ben?” For some reason this felt like a betrayal. Ben was getting all up in her father’s financial business? Was this part of the reason why he’d said she had to come home? Why hadn’t he told her about it? It annoyed Rachel that her neighbour knew more about her family’s financial affairs than she did.
“He’s been really helpful, Rachel,” Harriet said quietly. “When Dad’s been down with one of his headaches, Ben’s done the milking with me, even though he’s got all his own work.”
Rachel took a steadying breath. “I wish you’d told me that Dad was thinking of getting a mortgage on the house,” she said, trying to keep her voice mild even though part of her felt like raging the way Harriet once might have. “Or thathe’dtold me. That’s a really big deal. Having this house free and clear—”
“What,” Harriet interjected, an edge to her voice, “are you worried about your inheritance?”
“No,” Rachel returned evenly, “but I’m worried about Dad struggling to make his mortgage repayments, especially if the farm is already in the hole financially. If he’d needed an influx of cash, he could have come to me.”
Harriet raised her eyebrows. “You’ve got that much lying around?”
“Some,” Rachel allowed. She felt as if they were veering towards one of their old arguments, and she wanted to avoid it. Things had been going well this week, mostly. “Probably not enough. Look, it’s obviously too late to worry about it now,” she said in what she hoped was a conciliatory tone. “Maybe I’ll talk to Ben about it, find out more.”
“Go right ahead.” Harriet turned away, still sounding in something of a snit.
Rachel stared at her sister’s back, a new thought creeping over her with unease. “You and Ben have become close, it seems,” she remarked, keeping her voice as casual as she could. Her sister, however, wasn’t fooled.
“We’ve always been friends, if that’s what you’re asking,” she replied with a short laugh.
“I wasn’t asking anything—”
“Ben and I have never been athing, Rachel,” Harriet cut her off. “And we never would be. He’s always been yours.” She spoke matter-of-factly, without rancour, without regret.
Shock blazed right through Rachel, and she felt her cheeks heat, her body tingle. “He’s not mine,” she said somewhat unsteadily.
“Well, he’s not anybody else’s—that’s for certain,” Harriet replied.
Rachel knew, absolutely, that she shouldn’t fish for information, and yet she couldn’t quite help it. “He’s dated women, though, over the last twelve years,” she said, more of a statement than a question. More than she’d dated, surely, although that wasn’t saying much. A handful of first dates, men she’d matched with online and never saw again, one or two who had made it past that, but only by a little.
Harriet shrugged. “There’s been a few casual girlfriends, it’s true, but no one’s lasted more than a few months, if that.” She glanced back at Rachel, her eyes glinting. “Are you still holding a candle for him, then?”
“What?” Now her cheeks really were scorching. Rachel resisted the urge to press her hands to them. “No. Absolutely not. And I wouldn’t think he was for me. I’d—I’d hope he wasn’t.”
“Well, you were the one who left, after all,” Harriet replied, without any sting to the words, although Rachel felt it all the same. “You broke it off.”
“That’s not—” She stopped, took a breath. She wasn’t going to go into the breakdown of her relationship with Ben right now, with Harriet. Some things were better remaining private. “It’s all water under the bridge,” she said instead, her tone dismissive, final. “Wayunder the bridge. But I will talk to him about the mortgage.”
*
Rachel didn’t geta chance to talk to Ben until the next day, when she finished work a little early and headed down the lane to the Mackey farm just as dusk was settling. Her dad was settled inside with his newspaper, having finished the afternoon milking, and Harriet was on supper duty, so Rachel had slipped out with Fred, trying to act as if she were just taking him for a walk rather than heading straight over to the Mackeys’.
“That dog has never had so much exercise,” Harriet had remarked rather shrewdly as Rachel had clipped on the lead, making her think her sister suspected where she was going.
She was just talking about business matters, she reminded herself, even as Harriet’s matter-of-fact statement kept echoing through her head.Ben’s always been yours.
He certainly hadn’t felt like hers when she’d waited, in agony, for him to tell her not to go, or at leasttalkabout it, figure out a future they could both have, and he’d stayed determinedly, obdurately silent. All it would have taken was a single word, at that stage, and she would have stayed. All her dreams would have been wrecked in an instant. Why hadn’t he said it?Don’t, Rach. Stay with me.She would have melted like butter—she knew she would have. She would have stayed in Mathering, and then what?
She wasn’t really regretting the choice she’d made all those years ago, was she? No, Rachel decided as the Mackeys’ farmhouse came into view, she wasn’t. But that endless moment of silence when Ben had shown just how little he thought of her still had the power to sting, to wound. A lot.
