Page 27 of Second Chances at the Farm on Muddypuddle
‘I don’t expect you to. Amos or Petra will see to it.’
‘So why don’t you askthemto check the animals?’
‘They’re busy.’
‘And I’m not?’
‘No, you’re interfering.’
‘We’re back to that, are we? Come on Peg, let’s go for a walk and leave your ungrateful master to stew in his own juice.’
Honestly, some people! She would have thought he’d be glad to be back in his own house, being waited on hand, foot and finger. But no… all he could do was sit there with a sour expression on his face and berate her for trying to help.
Sod him. If he wanted to live in muck, then so be it. She would do the minimum necessary until he could cope on his own, and then she was out of here.
‘Blinkin’ heck,’ Walter muttered as he opened first one cupboard, and then another. That damned woman had rearranged all of them. Where the hell were the tea bags?
He found them in the same cupboard that the coffee was in, which might seem logical to her, but it was the cupboard furthest away from the magic tap. He knew that wasn’t the correct name for the tap that spat out both boiling and freezing water, but he’d joked with Otto that it was magic when Otto had renovated the kitchen prior to Walter and Otto moving in, and the name had stuck.
The tea bags should live on the shelf underneath it. As should the mugs, which were now in the cupboard with the plates.
Hopping awkwardly and cursing as he went, he put his cupboards back the way they were. And if she moved any of his stuff again he wouldn’t be accountable for his actions.
As he popped a tea bag in a mug, movement beyond the kitchen window caught his attention.
A woman was sitting on the topmost rung of the gate leading to the paddock. She was swinging her legs, her face turned away as she gazed into the field. For a moment he couldn’t place her and he wondered whether she was one of the riding school mums. Then it hit him.
The woman wasBeth.
His breath lodged in his throat and he feared he was hallucinating because she looked years younger, and he caught a glimpse of how she must have once looked: vibrant, carefree, not yet weighed down by time and age.
Then his focus sharpened, and she was Beth Fairfax again: pensioner, cantankerous, disagreeable.
She must have been striking once though. And as she sat there, her face lifted to the sun, he could see a younger version, one that had echoes of her beautiful daughters etched on her face. Walter, despite his dislike, had to admit (as he had done previously) that she was still a handsome woman. If only she wasn’t so difficult and obstinate…
Walter paused, wondering where he was going with that thought, but the destination eluded him.
Whatever fanciful notion she had generated in him, swiftly disappeared when he watched her clamber gracelessly down from the five-bar gate. His heart was in his mouth. If she were to fall… And she had the cheek to accuse him of being silly when he’d gone up the ladder! She was just as bad. One slip of the foot and she could have broken her hip.
Irritated at her carelessness, he hobbled to the back door as fast as his cast would allow and yanked it open. ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’ he bellowed, feeling rather satisfied when he saw her startled expression.
‘Checking this lot,’ she called. ‘You asked me to. Don’t you remember?’ She began walking towards him. ‘Or is your memory going?’
‘I didn’t ask you to climb a bloody gate,’ he yelled back. ‘And my memory is fine.’
‘I was enjoying the sun. Or is that not allowed?’
‘Don’t be so silly.’
‘Who are you calling silly?’ She was close enough to see the flash of anger in her eyes.
He said, ‘You, obviously. You could have fallen.’
‘So says Spider Man. You’re the one who fell, not me!’
She was daring him to contradict her. ‘Which is why I know what I’m talking about. Breaking a hip is no laughing matter.’
‘You didn’t break a hip. Are you sure you’re not losing your memory?’
