Page 19 of Daydreams at the Farm on Muddypuddle Lane
She licked her lips, her mouth tingling. ‘Saturday,’ she echoed.
As she watched him turn the van around, she wondered whether she might have found another reason to stay in Picklewick.
‘You’re back, then,’ Dulcie said, stating the obvious. She was in the kitchen wiping the counters down, when Maisie entered the farmhouse.
‘Looks like it.’ Maisie managed to refrain from rolling her eyes.
Had Dulcie expected her not to come home this evening? If so, her sister didn’t have a very high opinion of Maisie’s morals. She may have had a fair few boyfriends over the years, but that didn’t mean she had leapt into bed with all of them: she’d only ever had a handful of lovers.
And neither had she kissed all the men she had dated. Many hadn’t even made it to the end of the evening before she had made up her mind that it wasn’t working.
‘How did it go?’ Dulcie asked.
‘It was good. Adam is a nice guy.’
‘I’m sure he is, but...’
‘But what?’
‘Are you seeing him again?’ Dulcie’s expression was disapproving, and Maisie immediately went on the defensive.
‘What if I am?’
‘I don’t think you should.’
‘Why? Is it because he has got long hair and tattoos? You’re such a goody two-shoes.’
Dulcie’s boyfriends had always been vanilla and rather boring. Until she’d met Otto. But Otto was in a league of his own, being a celebrity chef, ‘n’ all.
Dulcie huffed. ‘Just because he’s got a couple of tattoos and a pierced eyebrow doesn’t mean he’s a ‘bad boy.’ Tattoos are ten a penny these days; no one bats an eyelid.’
‘If not that, what is it? Because he’s an odd-job man? You’re channelling Mum.’
‘I am not! I’m nothing like Mum.’ Dulcie snorted and flung the dishcloth at the sink. It caught on the tap, hanging there.
‘That’s the sort of thing Mum would say,’ Maisie insisted.
‘If you’d let me finish… I don’t care if Adam has green hair, a tattoo on the end ofhis nose, and is covered in oil from head to toe. What I care about is that he’s starting work on the pasteurisation shed on Monday and I don’t want you messing it up.’
‘How the hell can I mess it up? He’s hardly going to ask me for advice on how to plaster a wall, is he?’
‘No, but I know what you’re like. You’ll flirt and tease, and lead him on, and then when you’ve had enough you’ll dump him and bugger off back to Birmingham, leaving me to sort out your mess. And I could do without him being distracted, thank you very much!’
‘So, basically, you’re telling me to back off because I’m so irresistible that he’ll do a crap job.’ Maisie put her hands on her hips and glared at her sister.
Her sister glared back.
Then Dulcie’s lips twitched. ‘You do know that you’re not all that, don’t you?’
Maisie’s anger melted away. ‘You seem to think I am.’
Dulcie sagged against the sink. ‘You’ve got to look at it from my point of view, Maisie. You get through boyfriends faster than Princess escapes from her pen.’
‘That’s because they all turn out to be frogs.’
‘Frogs, eh? Does Adam have froggie tendencies?’
‘Not so far.’
