Josie Metcalfe - Miracles in the Village

So maybe their problems weren’t as private as he’d thought.

Damn.

He pushed the plate away. ‘That was lovely, Mum. Thanks. Right, Joe, are you ready? I don’t want to hold you up, I know you’ve got loads to do.’

‘Tell me about it,’ Joe said, dropping his mug into the sink and handing his brother the crutches. ‘Come on, then, Hopalong, let’s get you scrubbed. Pity we haven’t still got the sheep-dip.’

‘Ha-ha. I need a bin bag and some elastic bands,’ he said, and while Joe found those, he headed upstairs the same way he’d come down.

He turned the shower on, got the temperature right and then Joe trussed his leg up like a turkey and he swung round into the bath, getting awkwardly to his feet and pulling the shower curtain closed. ‘So how are we going to manage this, Joe?’ he asked.

‘Hell, you want me to wash you?’ Joe asked in disbelief.

‘Not the shower—the farm,’ Mike retorted, struggling with the soap and wondering if a little help wouldn’t go amiss.

There was a heavy sigh from Joe, and the curtain twitched back a little. ‘We’ll cope, bro. You get yourself right. Don’t worry about the farm. Dad’s quite enjoying having a bit to do with it again, and at least the weather’s nice.’

‘Yeah—and Mum was probably planning all sorts of work on their house in the next few weeks and it won’t get done.’

‘It doesn’t matter. There’s always another day. Want a hand with your hair?’

‘No, I’m fine,’ he lied, struggling to scrub it with one elbow propped against the tiles so he didn’t lose his balance. He rinsed it quickly, swilled the water over his body one last time and turned off the taps. ‘Might need a hand getting out,’ he confessed, and Joe steadied him while he sat on the edge and swivelled round, grunting with the pain in his side.

‘Your ribs OK?’ Joe asked, giving him a searching look.

‘Not really, but what are you going to do about it? What I could really do with is a good night’s sleep. I couldn’t get comfortable last night.’

Except when I was snuggled up to Fran, he thought, but didn’t voice it. Too much information, and he didn’t want to think about it when he was stark naked. His body was all too keen to betray him at the moment.

Joe towelled off his back and leg, took the bin bag off his cast and washed his toes carefully with a flannel, then looked round. ‘Got any clean boxers?’

‘In the bedroom. It doesn’t matter, I’ll go like this.’

‘What, and shock Mum rigid? You’ve grown up a bit since she changed your last nappy.’

‘Well, then, hopefully she won’t be foolish enough to be in my bedroom.’

She wasn’t. Fran was, bending over the laundry basket, and he grabbed another pair of new boxers out of the drawer, struggled into them and then lay back under cover of the quilt to get his breath.

‘You OK now?’

He nodded. ‘Thanks, Joe. You go and get on. I’m sorry to hold you up—and I’m sorry about all this …’ He waved in the general direction of his leg, and Joe shot him a wry grin.

‘Could have been a whole lot worse, big bro,’ he said softly, and left them.

Alone.

Fran stood up, washing in her arms, and eyed him warily. ‘Are you OK? You have to go to the fracture clinic in a bit.’

He nodded. ‘Can you take me?’

‘Of course I can,’ she said, frowning slightly. ‘I need to put the washing on. Can you manage to dress yourself?’

He nodded again, not wanting to make her do anything intimate for him—not if it was so repugnant to her—and her recoil in the night couldn’t have been clearer. ‘I’ll be fine. I’ll come down in a little while,’ he said.

‘Take your painkillers first,’ she advised, and left the room as if it was on fire.

The fracture clinic seemed happy with him.

He told them he was having trouble getting comfortable, and they gave him some advice for propping up his leg in the night—advice which Fran was relieved to know would make it impossible for her to end up snuggled on his lap, thank goodness, because he’d have to lie on his back. At least it didn’t seem to be swelling, so long as he kept it propped up, and that seemed to be what worried them most.

She drove him home, and when they were almost there, he asked her to drive down to the river. ‘I want to see it,’ he said.

‘What, the tree?’ she asked, a cold shiver of dread running over her. ‘Whatever for?’

‘To know how big an idiot I was?’

She gave a strangled little laugh. ‘Oh, I can tell you that.’

‘I thought you had,’ he pointed out. ‘But I want to see for myself.’

So she detoured, turning left instead of right and running down past Tregorran House to the gate at the bottom of the hill, opening it and driving along the river until they reached the fallen tree.

‘Here you go,’ she said. ‘The crime scene.’

He opened the door, got out with difficulty and swung himself over to the tree on his crutches, standing there and staring down at it for an age.

He could see the depression where Joe had dug away the ground under his leg. It was about five feet from where the tree had ended up—which would put it right across the back of his shoulders, maybe even his head. Whatever, he wouldn’t have survived it.

He felt goose-bumps coming up all over him, and he gave a sudden shiver.

Fran took his arm. ‘Come on, Mike. You’ve seen enough,’ she said softly, and he looked at her and realised she was as white as a sheet.

Poor Fran. He wanted to hug her. Was it wise?

‘Ah, hell,’ he muttered, and turned back to the Land Rover. He couldn’t hug her, could he, with the crutches hanging on his arms? And anyway, she probably wouldn’t want it. He got back in, swung his legs in—he was getting good at it now, although his ribs still hurt like hell to do it—and Fran shut the door.

She walked round the bonnet, giving the tree one last wary look, and slid behind the wheel, starting the engine and heading back towards the road.

‘I’m sorry.’

She shot him a startled look. ‘What for?’

‘Being so bloody stupid. Scaring the living daylights out of you. Making you come back here when you obviously didn’t want to. Take your pick.’

She sighed softly and gave him a hesitant little smile. ‘Idiot. Put your seat belt on. I don’t want you flying through the windscreen if we meet a lunatic tourist. We’ve all got enough to worry about at the moment.’

He fastened his seat belt obediently, tried to find a comfortable position against the backrest as they jolted down the track and then sighed with relief when they hit the flat, even surface of the road again. They were home in moments, and he slid down out of the Land Rover and swung himself towards the back door.

‘Gosh, it’s hot,’ Fran said, following him in. ‘Fancy a drink?’

‘Coffee would be good.’

There was a second’s hesitation, then she said, ‘Oh. I was thinking more of something cold—a fruit smoothie? Use up some of that lovely fruit I sorted out this morning.’

He would rather have had a coffee, but she was right, the fruit needed to be used up and with all the painkillers he was on, if he didn’t have fruit his system would grind to a halt. ‘Sounds good,’ he lied, and eased himself into a chair. Brodie wasn’t around—gone off with Joe and Sarah, probably, so it was just him and Fran and a rather awkward tension between them which he’d never felt before.

She peeled and chopped the fruit—strawberries, a chunk of melon, two bananas and a handful of blueberries—threw in a good glug of locally sourced apple juice and turned on the liquidiser.

At least it drowned out the silence, he thought, and then she handed him a glass of purplish mush, clinked hers against it and said, ‘Welcome home, Mike.’