Heidi Rice - Summer At Willow Tree Farm - The Perfect Romantic Escape

Apparently the country air around here wasn’t only good for rest and relaxation. So the activist element may have left the farm, but the free-love element hadn’t? What if Josh had walked in on them? Her son would have had a sex-ed lesson almost as graphic as the one she’d had nineteen years ago, when she’d spied on Art by the millpond.

Ellie cleared her throat, loudly.

The girl squealed, and the couple sprung apart as if Ellie had just lobbed a grenade into the room.

‘Hi, um, I’m Ellie, Dee’s daughter.’ She stumbled over the new introductions.

I can’t even remember their names and I may well have just prevented them creating their firstborn.

‘We met yesterday,’ she added.

‘This is so embarrassing.’ The girl palmed her face. ‘I’m Maddy. This is Jacob.’ She jogged her thumb towards her boyfriend, who was looking more sheepish than embarrassed. ‘And contrary to appearances we’re not into exhibitionism. We thought you’d left with your mum.’

‘Yeah, sorry about that.’ The guy finally spoke, the dimple forming in his cheek suggesting he wasn’t that sorry. ‘Maddy’s insatiable, she can’t keep her hands off me.’

Maddy elbowed him in the ribs. ‘Shut up, Jay. You’re only making it worse.’ The girl rolled her eyes. ‘I’m really sorry. Jay thinks he’s being funny.’

‘Hey?’ Jacob said, placing his hands on her hips to draw her back against him. ‘Who kissed who first?’

‘Stop it.’ Maddy slapped his hands away. ‘You douche canoe.’

‘Douche… What? Now?’

Ellie covered her mouth, but the laugh popped out anyway – at the silly insult and Jacob’s comical reaction. Maddy chuckled too.

‘Why is that funny and I’m not?’ Jacob wanted to know.

‘Will you do us a favour?’ Maddy said, when they had stopped laughing.

‘Sure,’ Ellie said, liking the couple, who were actually cute, in a pornographic sort of way, and feeling about a million years old.

When had she become such a prude?

If Josh had interrupted them, he would have been absolutely fine after he’d got over the shock.

And the only reason Josh would have found it shocking was because she doubted he’d ever caught Dan and her kissing. The thought made her feel a bit sad. But at least he had never caught them arguing either, that was the main thing. Somewhere in the last ten years, she’d stopped wanting to kiss Dan, or do much of anything else with him, but they had both made sure to protect their son from the fallout of that loss of love. Unfortunately, they’d done such a good job, Ellie was finding it next to impossible to broach the subject of the divorce with her son.

If Josh would be shocked at finding two healthy young adults kissing, he would be even more shocked by that news, and somehow explaining the situation felt like having to rob him of the last of his childhood. He’d weathered so much in recent years, thanks to the bullies at middle school, and she wanted to be able to give him a summer without stress. If things worked out in Wiltshire, why not keep him away from that truth until they returned to New York? Because she knew for sure Dan, the king of avoidance, wasn’t going to raise the subject in the weekly Skype chats they’d arranged.

‘Don’t mention you caught us to Art,’ Maddy said, interrupting Ellie’s thoughts. ‘I’m sure he already thinks I’m a nymphomaniac.’

‘Better than being a douche canoe,’ Jacob pointed out.

‘Don’t worry, I won’t say a word to Art.’ Not a hard promise to keep seeing as she intended to speak to Art as seldom as possible. ‘But I wouldn’t worry,’ she added. ‘Art’s not the shockable type.’ Or he certainly hadn’t been at fifteen. Ellie could still remember all the girls who had hung around the farm that summer trying to get his attention – and the long list of ones who had succeeded.

‘You know Art?’ Maddy’s eyes lit with interest.

‘We met when we were teenagers. I spent a summer here in the nineties,’ Ellie replied.

‘How intriguing,’ Maddy said. ‘Was he as scary then as he is now?’

Ellie coughed out a laugh, enjoying the girl’s directness – and her accurate opinion of Art. ‘Actually yes.’

‘Art’s not scary,’ Jacob said. ‘He’s a cool guy.’

‘Didn’t say he wasn’t cool,’ Maddy replied. ‘But he is intimidating. He does the whole strong silent moody thing better than Christian Bale’s Batman. Even without the aid of a black rubber onesie.’

Ellie laughed again, pleased to discover she wasn’t the only one who found Art intimidating – while trying not to imagine him in black rubber.

‘Time to haul arse, Miss Nosey Pants.’ Jacob took Maddy’s hand. ‘We’re supposed to be helping Rob bring the heifers down from the hill pasture.’

‘Nice talking to you, Ellie,’ Maddy said as Jacob dragged her towards the door. ‘We’ll keep our PDAs on the down low from now on. I promise.’

Ellie doubted that when she heard a loud slap followed by Maddy’s giggle of protest before the front door slammed.

Locating a jar of granola in the pantry, Ellie ladled out a generous helping of the toasted nuts and seeds then topped it off with some yoghurt and a selection of the freshly picked berries she found in punnets in the fridge.

Five minutes later, she was rinsing her bowl in the sink, when the crash of the door slamming open made her jump.

Batman himself charged into the kitchen holding his hand aloft, blood dripping down his forearm and splattering Dee’s sand-blasted stone.

‘Move,’ he said as he nudged her aside at the sink.

‘What happened to your hand?’ Ellie asked, as he thrust his hand under the tap.

‘I was sharpening one of the rotary blades and I nicked myself.’

Cold water gushed out, and ran red into the sink.

‘That’s more than a nick.’ Ellie leant over his shoulder – the deep ten-centimetre gash bisected his palm and sliced under his thumb. So much for Art’s useful skills, the guy couldn’t even sharpen a rotary blade without sawing off a hand.

He shot Ellie a caustic look over his shoulder, then shifted to block her view. ‘Get me a tea towel. It’ll be fine once it’s wrapped up.’

‘You’re going to need more than a tea towel,’ she said, as she checked the drawers, finally finding a pile of clean towels and fishing out a fistful. She lifted one from the top of the pile – ominously decorated with pictures of Druid worship at Stonehenge – and handed it to him, the metallic smell of fresh blood making her head swim.

Art wound the towel round his hand, tying the makeshift bandage off with his teeth. The blood started to seep through the fabric.

‘You are not serious?’ Ellie stepped into his path as he went to leave. ‘You need to get that stitched to stop the bleeding.’

‘It’s fine,’ he said through gritted teeth, the mutinous scowl reminding her of Josh when he’d been a fractious toddler. Josh, though, had never been this stubborn, or this stupid.

‘Plus it could get infected,’ she added. ‘And then you’ll lose it.’

‘Get a grip, Princess Drama.’ The old insult might have had more impact if she couldn’t see the greasy pallor beneath his scowl.

‘No I won’t, Captain Dickhead,’ she replied.

What was the guy trying to prove? That he could saw off his hand and keep on going? This was beyond ridiculous.

‘I’m not kidding,’ she continued. ‘You need to go to A and E.’

His face paled even more.

Whipping another tea towel off the pile, she took his hand and bound it more tightly in a vain attempt to stem the blood flow. His breath gushed out against her forehead. She tied two more towels together to create a makeshift sling.