Page 2 of A Fresh Start at Bramble Cottage
With a sigh she switched off the ignition and sat back, closing her eyes.Okay, serves you right for not taking out that rescue service membership. Now she was stuck with trying to find a local garage — which could be a problem. She had no idea where the nearest one was.
But those cows were heading somewhere — further down the hill, and through a gate in a long stone wall.
A farmyard. And where there was a farmyard there was likely to be a nice big tractor. Maybe the farmer would be willing to tow her out of the ditch.
A vague memory stirred in her brain of running up the lane from Aunt Molly’s to visit the calves, or sitting at the big scrubbed wooden table in the farmhouse kitchen eating home-baked scones still warm from the oven.
Her memory of the farmer was even more vague. A nice, jolly dairy farmer with a ruddy face and a warm South Devon accent, who’d called her ‘my luvver’ and given her a glass of milk fresh from the cows.
Though with the luck she was having today her recollection was likely to be well off. He’d probably turn out to be a grumpy old man with a face like a prune and droopy corduroy trousers held up with a bit of frayed rope.
Well, whatever, she needed to ask for help, even if she got her head bitten off for it. Hoisting her bag onto her shoulder, she pushed open the car door.
It was awkward to struggle out of the car — the angle of tilt meant that the door kept swinging shut again. But she managed it — only to land both feet in a deep muddy puddle that swamped her shoes and didn’t want to let go.
“Damn, damn, damn!”
Leaning against the car for support she managed to drag one foot out still with its shoe, but the other resisted all attempts. In the end, she had to slide her foot free and then reach down into the cold puddle to extract the shoe — leaving her with a wet, muddy hand as well as two wet, muddy feet. And nothing to dry it on except her jeans.
The cows at least had reached their destination, turning into the farmyard ahead, followed by a pair of sleek black-and-white collies. One of them ignored her, the other spared her a single look in passing. A look that Vicky had no difficulty in recognising as utter contempt.
It was only fifty yards or so to the gate. In spite of the discomfort of her squelchy feet, she had to stop and gaze in delight. Yes, it was just as she remembered it.
On one side of the wide yard stood a long, low farmhouse, built of the local grey stone, with a grey-slate roof and dormer windows along the upper floor. Bright geraniums and aubretia tumbled out of window boxes and large pots on each side of the red-painted front door.
The second side was stables, which seemed to be mostly used as garages and storerooms, and on the third was a large steel-roofed barn. And, yes, there was indeed a tractor in the yard — large, green and muddy.
The cows were filing into the barn, ushered by the busy collies. She followed — and stood gazing around in surprise. This certainly wasn’t the Old MacDonald’s Farm she had painted into her childhood memories. It was all concrete floors and stainless-steel rails and festoons of rubber piping, starkly lit by strip lights in the high roof.
The air was sharp with the smell of industrial-strength disinfectant mingling with the pungent aroma of cow dung. One row of cows were plodding into their places in the stalls like obedient schoolchildren, as the row on the other side plodded out at the far end.
The two collies had trotted off after the cows that were leaving, presumably to return to their field, and a small, scruffy brown-and-white terrier was snuffling busily around a pile of feed sacks in the corner.
A lanky teenager was shovelling dung into a wheelbarrow. Two men were working their way along the rows of stalls. The one on the right, checking the rubber pipes, looked to be in his late twenties, with a pleasant face and ginger hair that stood up like a brush.
The other . . .
Scrub the jolly cartoon farmer. This one was a hunk — at least from the back. She’d guess at over six feet tall, with wide shoulders and thick, curling dark hair. And the way he was moving with brisk efficiency along the row of cows suggested that he was rather less than middle-aged.
“Excuse me.” She stepped forward. “I’m sorry to bother you.”
“Huh?” He glanced over his shoulder.
“I’ve had a bit of an accident. My car’s in the ditch, just up the lane. I wondered if you could help me?”
He shook his head. “Sorry — You’ve picked a bad time. I’ll be busy here for a while.”
“I didn’t mean right now.” She tried a friendly smile but didn’t get one in response. “I can see you’re busy. But could you help me when you’ve finished? Or is there a garage I could call?”
“There’s a couple, but you’d probably have to wait even longer. Weekends they tend to be kept occupied up on the moor.”
“Oh . . .”
He had come to the end of the row and turned to the steel water-trough in the middle of the barn to wash his hands. “I’ll be another half hour, if you want to wait that long.”
“I don’t seem to have much choice,” she conceded wryly. “Thank you.”
“Sit down, then.”
