Page 73 of Finding Home in Hartfell
‘Serves you right,’ she screeched, glancing at the bemused farmer still clinging on the cow objecting to the situation with a wildly swishing tail. ‘If you’d like to come here, I’ll do it for you. Quite happy to stick a needle in you right now.’
‘Oh, are you?’ Gil straightened up. His waterproofs were covered in mud and worse, and his eyes narrowed. ‘Why don’t you come over here then?’
‘No way,’ she shouted, eyeing the stout ginger cow and its stubby horns. ‘I’m not coming near that.’
‘Would you excuse me for a minute, please?’ Gil said politely to the farmer. The older man nodded gleefully and let go of the rope to lean against the wall, settling in to enjoy the additional source of amusement in his day. Gil crossed the pen to face her over the metal bars. ‘Why don’t you explain what you’re doing here?’
‘No, you’ve got some explaining to do!’ It might be summer but at this height the wind was catching at her hair and whipping it into her eyes, making them smart, and she pulled it from her face impatiently. ‘You’ve accepted another job, and the practice is closing down! Elaine told me an hour ago. I thought we meant something to each other. I thought we were making plans, thinking about a future.’
‘Well, one of us was. It just wasn’t me, until I realised I had to.’
‘Can you please stop talking in riddles and tell me what’s going on? Or I really will grab one of those needles and jab you until I find out! Is it true?’
‘That I’ve accepted a new job. Yes.’ Gil wiped a hand smeared with a splash of blood on his waterproof top.
‘But why?’ She wanted to add more but couldn’t find the words. Wanted to tell him again what his hanging her sketches in the gallery had meant and how much strength his confidence in her had produced. But she couldn’t, not now that her heart was shattering because he was leaving, and she was staying.
‘What did you expect,’ he said roughly. ‘That I’d stay here forever, getting called out at crazy o’clock to deliver a calf or a lamb? Spend weekends working when I could actually be having a life?’
‘But you love that life. Why would you give it up?’ she asked hollowly.
‘Why do you think I’m giving it up,’ he shouted. ‘Why do you think I’m moving to another practice? In London, of all the bloody places? Why, Pippa?’
‘London?’ She took a step back, straight into another metal hurdle, and righted herself hastily before she face planted in the yard. That wasn’t the look she was aiming for here, but then neither was hollering windswept mad-woman. ‘But why would you move to London? You hate the city. Is it because the farm isn’t yours? I’ve got news about that, I just needed—’
‘It’s got nothing to do with the house, or the practice. Sell it, turn the farm into a petting zoo, do what you want with it. Even if it is the only real home I ever had here, I don’t care anymore. Shall I tell you why I’m moving to London? Even though I loathe feeling vulnerable or showing how I really feel?’
‘I think you’d better,’ she said shakily. ‘Because none of this is making any sense.’
‘For you, Pippa Douglas. Entirely for you. You’re the reason I’m moving to London. Because that’s where you’ll be.’ He huffed out a laugh and she was astonished to see tears hovering in his eyes. ‘It’s utter madness. I’ll be spending my days clipping claws and spaying cats, and I don’t even know if you’ll have me.’
‘As what,’ she whispered.
‘As the man in your life who loves you so much that he’s prepared to follow you anywhere. Even to bloody London and I hate the city.’
‘You love me?’
‘Just a bit.’
‘But you hate the city.’
‘Loathe it. With a passion.’
‘But you’ll never be happy there.’
‘I will,’ he said simply. ‘If you’re there. There are some benefits, I might even get a full night’s sleep now and again. But there won’t be any cows, sadly. I’ll miss my bovine patients. And the farmers, obviously.’ He glanced at the farmer, who grinned back and tipped him a wink.
‘Gil?’
‘What?’
Pippa was beaming and she grabbed a handful of his waterproof top to haul him close over the hurdle. ‘I love you too. And seeing as we’ve already got three kids, two dogs and one grumpy pony, you need to know I’m not leaving. I’m staying in Hartfell, so you can cancel your new job.’
‘Seriously?’ Relief was rushing into his eyes, and he touched his forehead to hers. ‘But that snake Miles was there the other day, looking for you and asking when you were available to sign contracts.’
‘And you assumed the worst?’
‘I did.’
