“Follow me.” About the Author Title Page Dedication CHAPTER ONE CHAPTER TWO CHAPTER THREE CHAPTER FOUR CHAPTER FIVE CHAPTER SIX CHAPTER SEVEN CHAPTER EIGHT CHAPTER NINE CHAPTER TEN EPILOGUE Copyright

“Follow me.”

“We’ll go and ring the rescue services for your car,” Jemima told him.

“I can’t see you, never mind follow you,” Sam said bitterly.

Oh, dear. She reached out her hand and groped for his, coming up against a hard masculine thigh and—oops!

“What the hell are you up to?” he yelped, jumping backward.

She giggled before she could stop herself. This whole thing was in danger of deteriorating into farce. “Sorry. I was trying to find your hand to lead you to the house,” she explained lamely.

She reached out again, and after a second of distrustful silence she felt his fingers contact hers.

Caroline Anderson has the mind of a butterfly. She’s been a nurse, a secretary, a teacher, she once ran her own soft furnishing business, and has now settled on writing. She says, “I was looking for that elusive something. I finally realized it was variety, and now I have it in abundance. Every book brings new horizons and new friends, and in between books I have learned to be a juggler. My teacher husband, John, and I have umpteen pets, two horse-mad daughters—Sarah and Hannah—and several acres of Suffolk that nature tries to reclaim every time we turn our backs! When I’m not writing, walking the dogs or waging war on the garden, I’m often driving around Suffolk behind the wheel of an ancient seven-and-a-half-ton horse lorry. Variety is a two-edged sword!”

A Funny Thing Happened…
Caroline Anderson

www.millsandboon.co.uk

To Gill and Russell Darbyshire, who have

been a fount of vital and not-so-vital information!

Without them this book would not have been the same.

Thanks, guys !

CHAPTER ONE

‘TYPICAL! Now where do I go?’

Sam opened his window and a blast of snow worthy of the Arctic plastered itself on his face. He lifted his hand to shield his eyes, ignoring the stinging bite of the blizzard in a vain attempt to see the sign.

Useless. It was obliterated by the snow, flying horizontally and sticking itself to every available surface—including him. Still, he was pretty sure he knew the way...

He pressed a button and the window slid noiselessly back into place, shutting out the howling wind. He brushed the snow off his sweater and sighed. There was always the option of getting out of the car, of course, but just now it had about as much appeal as crawling naked through a trough of maggots.

Possibly less.

He glared balefully at the now white window. ‘I thought it was supposed to snow at Christmas, not in February,’ he growled, and peered through the windscreen. With the supremely effective heater on full and the wipers doing their nut, it was just about possible to see through it—to the white-out beyond.

‘Brilliant,’ he sighed. ‘Just brilliant.’

His car radio automatically searched for local traffic information, and would override the CD player, but there was nothing, so he sat back and listened to Verdi and waited for the snow to ease. It took about half an hour, but by then it was almost dark and the howling, shrieking wind was still blowing the snow.

‘Might as well give it a go,’ he muttered. He eased the car forward, testing the traction control for the first time in the soft, thick snow, and to his relief it pulled slowly away. He could feel the automatic system checking the power to the wheels, giving them just enough to move and not enough to slip.

He smiled grimly. He’d bought a car with traction control because he was sick of being stuck on construction sites, but there had always been enough big blokes around to shove the car out if necessary.

Here, though—here he was totally reliant on the car’s ability, and although it had passed this test, for the first time he began to have serious reservations about arriving at his grandparents’ farm tonight and in one piece.

He was only able to move at a slow crawl because the snow was blowing off the field to his right and drifting onto the lane, and then suddenly the hedge on the right thickened up and he was able to put his foot down a bit.

‘Progress, finally,’ he muttered. He passed a farm on his left, a little cluster of brick and flint barns and red-tiled roofs next to a cottage that had seen better days. Tatty though it was, it looked welcoming, he thought. The lights were on and it looked cosy—a warm haven in this suddenly inhospitable landscape. Even the farm buildings looked cosy, with lights blazing in the barn and the yard outside.

Humanity.

He left the lights behind and was swallowed up in the eerie darkness, and he shivered, suddenly feeling very alone.

How odd. He was sick of people, sick of crowds of sycophantic hangers-on and idiots with grandiose ideas and no common-sense. Indecisive idiots, for the most part. He hadn’t been able to get out of London fast enough.

So why on earth did he feel lonely now just because there was no one about? He cast one last longing glance at the little farm in his rear-view mirror as he went round the corner.

Not a good idea.

He hit the snow drift at the end of the hedge at twenty miles an hour and came to a grinding halt, his nose inches from the steering wheel, his chest crushed by the seat belt pre-tensioner. He sat back and glared at the drift.

‘Well, I suppose I should be thankful for small mercies,’ he muttered. ‘I could have been looking at an air-bag.’

And he had traction control. No problem. He put the car into reverse—and listened in defeat to the grinding of the wheels.

‘Damn!’ He thumped his hands on the steering wheel and glared at the snow. It was piled up over the bonnet, the wind even as he watched piling it higher—and on his side it was hard up against the door.

He tried again to reverse out, but it was pointless. After several fruitless attempts even Sam admitted it was pointless. Traction control or not, he was stuck.

Perhaps the farmer could give him a pull out with his tractor—or, failing that, put him up for the night in that cosy-looking farmhouse. Crazy. He was only a couple of miles from his grandparents, if that—

‘Oh, damn,’ he muttered again, cutting the engine and sliding across to the passenger side. It wasn’t easy with his long legs to negotiate the transmission tunnel between the front seats, and he nearly did himself a permanent injury on the handbrake lever.

Swearing and muttering, he climbed out of the passenger door—straight into several inches of snow. It took all of three seconds to realise how cold and wet his feet were going to be by the time he’d walked back to the farm, but it was too late to worry. He slammed the door, opened the back door and retrieved his coat and shrugged into it.

Hell’s teeth, that wind was cold.

He turned up the collar on his coat, pulled his head down as low as he could and headed towards the friendly glow of the farm. If he’d thought it looked welcoming before, it was nothing to how it looked now!

It would have been all right if the lights hadn’t gone out just as he reached the farmyard...

Jemima was at the end of her tether. It was bitterly cold, her chapped and frozen hands were starting to bleed, and as if the snow wasn’t bad enough Daisy the Third had mastitis again.

Some hopeful punter drove past much too quickly, and she lifted her head and listened. There was bound to be a drift at the end of the hedge—yup. She listened almost in satisfaction to the dull whump of the car hitting the snow, then sighed.

They’d want to be pulled out, of course—and that would have been fine, only the tractor was out of action.

She listened with one ear to the revving going on round the corner, while the rest of her attention was on Daisy’s painfully inflamed udder.

‘Poor old girl,’ she murmured softly, massaging the cream into the reddened quarter. She had to hand-milk her, stripping out that quarter to relieve the tension. It was a painful business for both of them because Daisy was inclined to kick out at her saviour.

‘Gratitude isn’t your strong point, is it, Daisy my love?’ Jemima crooned, dodging another kick. ‘Steady, girl. There’s a good girl. Well done.’

She straightened, pressing a hand to the small of her back and easing out the kinks.

The revving had stopped. Any minute now some townie would come tiptoeing round the corner of the barn and apologetically ask for help—

Without warning, they were plunged into total darkness.

‘Damn. That’s all I need.’

She waited, giving her eyes a few moments to adjust to the sudden loss of light before she went over to Bluebell and took the no-longer-sucking cluster of suction cups out from underneath her and moved them to safety. Would the power come back on? Possibly. Or possibly not.

Oh, hell. She really didn’t need another power cut, especially not at milking time. She’d been talking to the electricity company about the dodgy supply for ages, but they hadn’t got round to stringing her a new line.

It was that tree, of course, that was the trouble—a dead oak, hugely tall and inextricably tangled in the wires, and every time the wind got up it snapped the line. Naturally they wouldn’t put in a new line until the tree was cut down. The owner of the tree was responsible, they said, and the problem was, she was the owner.

She’d asked a firm to come and quote her for cutting it down, and they’d gone away without the contract. She just didn’t have hundreds of pounds to spare on something so trivial.

It didn’t seem so trivial now, though, not with thirty cows to milk by hand—!

There was a noise, a crash followed by a stream of words that should have made her blush. Should have done, but didn’t. She’d just used a few of them herself.

It was the car driver, of course, floundering about in the yard and setting the dogs off in a volley of frenzied barking. She took the bucket out from under Daisy, put it by the wall and opened the barn door a crack. The wind shrieked and plastered her with tiny granules of ice, and, tugging her woolly hat down further over her ears, she plunged out into the yard—full tilt into a hard and undoubtedly masculine chest.

‘Ooof—’

‘Sorry!’

He stepped back, rubbing his chest where she’d head-butted him and muttering under his breath. She had to lift her head to see his face, and the snow lashed against her chapped and stinging cheeks, making her eyes water.

‘Can I help you?’ she yelled into the wind.

He peered at her, his face just inches from hers but barely visible in the last scrap of daylight.

‘I need to see the farmer—is that your father?’

Crisp, incisive, used to giving orders-and having them obeyed. Jemima smiled, and inwardly leant back and folded her arms. She loved this type.

‘I’m the farmer,’ she told him.

‘Don’t be ridiculous, you’re about sixteen.’

She wasn’t sure whether to be flattered or annoyed. She decided it was dark enough to let him get away with it, and anyway, she was only knee-high to a grasshopper. ‘Hardly,’ she said drily. ‘Stuck?’

‘Yes.’ The word was tight and clipped, and her mouth twitched again. He obviously hated being at a disadvantage. ‘I need a tow—I wonder if your father would be kind enough to pull me out with the tractor?’

She stifled the chuckle. ‘I’m sure he would,’ she said agreeably, ‘but he’s in Berkshire at his house at the moment, and anyway the tractor’s broken.’

‘Broken? What do you mean, broken?’

He sounded disbelieving, as if it was too much to accept that a machine might dare to be broken. She sighed. Now she was going to have to admit her stupidity. ‘Just—broken,’ she told him.

‘Permanently?’

‘Well, I can’t fix it in the next ten minutes, anyway,’ she snapped.

He sighed and stabbed his hands through his hair, dislodging the snow. ‘Look, can we get out of this vile weather?’

‘Be my guest.’ They ducked into the barn, and the soft lowing of the cows brought his head up sharply.

‘Are they tied up?’ he asked, and there was a certain anxiety in his voice. Our city friend doesn’t like cows, she thought with a smile.

‘You don’t need to worry,’ she assured him. ‘They’re more worried about you than you are about them.’

‘I doubt it.’ A cow lowed nearby, and he stepped back hastily. There was a squelching noise, and he swore again.

‘I should look where you stand,’ she advised, and brought forth a volley of muttered curses.

‘I should love to,’ he bit back, ‘but in case you hadn’t noticed, it’s as black as ink in here and I can’t even see the end of my nose.’

Nor could Jemima any more, and she realised that the last of the light had gone. A flurry of snow followed them in on the howling wind, and she shivered.

‘I’m sorry, I would help you,’ she told him, her compassionate nature overriding her sense of humour at last, ‘but the tractor really is out of commission at the moment and I don’t have a four-wheel drive. Is it worth trying to push it?’

He snorted. ‘I doubt it. It’s buried up to the windscreen in a snow drift.’

‘Oh, dear. Well, suppose we go and find some lamps and call the rescue people—I take it you do belong to a motoring organisation?’

‘Of course,’ he replied tartly. ‘Not that I ever need them.’

‘Of course not,’ she said blithely, tongue in cheek.

‘It hasn’t broken down,’ he growled, picking up on her dig.

‘No—and of course the snow drift was totally unexpected.’

Did she imagine it, or did he grind his teeth? Too used to having his own way—and his car wouldn’t dare break down, she was sure! Much too well-trained.

Unlike hers, but she couldn’t afford a recovery service, so she’d taken to making short journeys and then only if absolutely necessary. ‘We’ll go and ring them,’ she told him. ‘Follow me.’

‘I can’t see you, never mind follow you,’ he said bitterly.

Oh, dear. She reached out her hand and groped for his, coming up against a hard masculine thigh and—oops!

‘What the hell are you up to?’ he yelped, jumping backwards.

She giggled before she could stop herself. This whole thing was in danger of deteriorating into farce. ‘Sorry. I was trying to find your hand to lead you to the house,’ she explained lamely.

She reached out again, and after a second of distrustful silence she felt his fingers contact hers. They were cold, but not as cold as hers. They were also considerably softer.

‘You’re freezing, child,’ he muttered, and his fingers squeezed hers protectively.

‘I noticed, and I’m not a child. Come on.’

She tried to ignore the warmth and strength of his grip, but it was hard. It had been over a year since she’d had any male company, and she’d forgotten just how hard and strong a male grip could be. And warm. And gentle, on occasions—

‘Just stay close,’ she warned, and went through the barn door, sliding it shut behind her. She didn’t want the snow blowing in there before she got back with a lamp to finish the milking.

It was only a few steps across the yard to the cottage gate, but she managed to smack her shin on the tow-hitch of the muckspreader and blunder into the hawthorn hedge surrounding the garden before she found it. She pulled him up the path, stamped her feet off and threw open the door. ‘Come in, quick, and take your things off in here,’ she yelled over the barking of the dogs in the kitchen.

He followed her, shrugging off his coat and shoes in the little lobby, and trailed her into the kitchen. A flurry of fur and lashing tongues greeted them, and she bent down and patted the dogs automatically. ‘Hello, girls. Say hello nicely—’

They dodged past her and leapt at him and he backed away, crashing into something and swearing savagely.

‘Jess, Noodle, get down. Bad dogs! Don’t move, I’ll find some light,’ she told him, and reached for the torch and switched it on.

He was propped up in the corner in amongst the broom handles and dangling dog leads, clutching his groin and fending off the eager dogs.

‘What the hell is it with you lot that you keep attacking my genitals?’ he muttered through gritted teeth, swatting at Noodle yet again. Noodle, a Bichon Frisé and first cousin of the floor-mop he was leaning on, leapt up his leg again, grinning eagerly, the silky cords of her wild off-white coat falling around her like tangled spaghetti.

‘I’m sorry.’ She stifled a laugh and slapped her thigh. ‘Noodle, come here, sweetheart. Stop it.’ The dog came, quite unrepentant, and her guest straightened and looked at her. She couldn’t quite read his expression, so she shone the torch full in his face and he ducked his head, flinging his arm up to cover his eyes.

‘What the hell are you trying to do now—blind me?’ he snapped.

‘Sony,’ she said again, but she wasn’t. In that split second before she’d lowered the torch she’d seen enough to make her pulse do stupid and erratic things. His eyes were startling—dark blue, almost navy, stunning against the winter white of his skin and the dark slash of his brows, and just now they were spitting sparks. His hair was thick, upended by the wind so that he looked rumpled and sexy and gorgeous, and that mouth, if it wasn’t snarling—

She swung the torch round and hunted for the lantern and matches, then fiddled for ages trying to light it while he stood waiting in the shabby kitchen, frustration coming off him in tangible waves.

Thank God it was dark, she thought. Maybe by lamplight the tired room would look cosy and romantic—and maybe she’d look a bit more presentable and less as if she’d been tumbled in the haybarn, but it was unlikely. She finally got the wick to burn, and trimmed it and put the glass globe back. The flame spluttered and steadied, and she held it up and looked up at him—and up, and up...

‘You’re tiny,’ he said accusingly, as if it were a fault in her that she should have tried to overcome.

‘Sorry, but the best things come in little packages,’ she quipped, and tried to ignore the race of her pulse. ‘Now, why don’t you go in the parlour and ring the rescue people before it’s so bad they won’t come out?’

She handed him the lantern and pushed him towards the parlour door. ‘Phone’s in there.’

‘Where am I? I need to tell them how to get here.’

She met his eyes and knew this was going to be embarrassing. It had seemed fun at the time when she’d changed the name, but now—

‘Puddleduck Farm,’ she told him, and felt her chin rise challengingly.

‘Pu—right,’ he said, letting out his breath. Humour danced in his midnight eyes, but to his credit he kept it in—to a point. Then he blew it. ‘Don’t tell me—your name’s Jemima.’

She breathed in and drew herself up to her full five feet nothing. ‘That’s right,’ she told him, and dared him to comment

His mouth twitched but he said not another word. ‘Nice to meet you, Jemima,’ he said with a courtly, mocking little bow. ‘Samuel Bradley. At your service.’

‘I thought I was at yours,’ she said drily.

His mouth twisted in a wry smile, and her heart did a crazy hiccup. ‘You are—and I’m very grateful. I’ll ring them.’

She left him to it and went back into the kitchen, filling the kettle and standing it on the hob by torchlight. She could hear his voice rising, but she guessed it was fruitless. Against the window she could see the swirling snow, bright in the torchlight, falling now in great fat flakes that would cut them off without doubt She threw the dirty crockery into the sink and ran hot water over it, trying to hide it.

Hopeless. She needed to spend hours in here, but there just wasn’t the time in the day, and by the evening she was bushed—

He stomped into the kitchen, a look of disgust on his face, and set the lantern down with a little smack. The flame flickered and steadied.

‘Problems?’ she said mildly. She knew there would be.

‘They can’t come,’ he growled. ‘They’re flooded with calls and they can’t do anything until tomorrow.’ He glanced at his watch, a thin flat disc of gold on a plain leather strap, simple and tasteful—and why was she even noticing?

‘Mind if I ring the people I’m going to? They’ll be expecting me and I don’t want them to worry.’

‘Of course. Be my guest. You can stay the night, if you like.’

‘Oh, that won’t be necessary. I’m sure I can walk to them from here; it can’t be far.’

‘In this?’ She shone the torch at the window again and he swore. He was doing that rather a lot. Obviously a man who liked things his own way. He’d better not take up farming, then, she thought with an inward sigh. She’d got thirty cows out there to milk without power, not to mention the calves to feed and water to fetch and eggs to collect, and it was going to be hell—starting shortly.

‘I’ll ring them,’ he muttered, and went back into the parlour with the lantern.

‘Hi, Gramps, it’s Sam. Look, I’ve had a minor hiccup. I’ve got the car stuck in a drift at Puddleduck Farm. How far is that from you? Can I walk?’

‘Puddleduck? Oh, that’s only—’

‘Puddleduck?’ his grandmother said in the background. ‘Give that to me. Hello, Sam?’

‘Hello, Grannie. I was just telling Gramps I’m at Puddleduck Farm. The car’s stuck in a drift, so I was going to walk—’

‘Oh, no, not in this! It’s much too far! You stay there, Jemima will look after you—’

‘You know her?’

‘Oh, yes, we’re neighbours—well, sort of,’ she rushed on. ‘It’s quite a distance, though, a good two miles, and in this snow and the dark—no, darling, it’s not safe; you stay there with Jemima. Perhaps you can give her a hand—she’s on her own and with the power out she’ll have to milk by hand—she could probably use your muscles to help with the other chores.’

He heard his grandfather snort in the background, and could have groaned aloud. Help her—in this? He hated the cold, and most particularly he hated cows. He looked down at his socks and trousers, covered at the ankle with a malodorous plastering of dark green, courtesy of one of the aforementioned, and sighed. He could just see the look he’d get at the dry cleaners!

‘I’m sure she can cope—’

‘Oh, Sam! She’s on her own and she’s a tiny slip of a thing. You can’t abandon her!’

He crumbled. ‘OK, Grannie,’ he surrendered. He knew when he was beaten, and if there was one thing his grandmother had always been able to do, it was to sort out his priorities. That, after all, was why he was coming to see her now.

‘Will you be all right?’ he asked belatedly.

‘Oh, yes. We’ve got a lovely warm house, and lots of wood inside the porch. We’ll be fine—after all, we’ve got no animals to worry about now apart from the dogs and cats. We’ll just wait it out. You just look after Jemima, and keep in touch. Give her our love.’

He said goodbye and cradled the phone thoughtfully. Look after Jemima, eh? From the brief glimpse he’d had of her that wouldn’t be necessary—she seemed more than capable of looking after herself, tiny though she might be. He went back into the kitchen and set the lamp down, just as she poured the tea.

‘All right?’ she asked brightly, and turned round.

The lamplight caught her eyes, golden brown and mellow with a hint of mischief, matching the smile on her chapped lips and the chaotic tumble of curls that rioted around her head. She looked young and vulnerable and incredibly lovely, and he had a sudden shaft of suspicion about his grandmother’s motives.

‘My grandparents send their love,’ he said, watching her closely. ‘Dick and Mary King.’

Her eyes widened. ‘You’re their grandson?’

‘Yes. I was on my way to stay with them, only it’s apparently too far to walk, my grandmother said. She suggested I should stay here and help you—if you really did mean it when you offered me a bed for the night?’

Jemima looked hard, but she couldn’t see a thing where his halo ought to be. It must be on Mary’s head, she thought, and stifled a smile. It was barely three hundred yards over the fields to Dick and Mary’s little farmhouse, and Mary knew it. So would Sam, when he realised where he was, and who she was.

Help her, eh?

She eyed her captive farmhand with interest. Six foot, at least, and well muscled under the sweater. He’d grown up nicely...

Yes, he’d do. A bit soft, of course, but he was proud enough to work through that. All she had to do was appeal to his ego.

Bless Mary. What a regular sweetheart!

‘Thanks—that would be great,’ she agreed, and smiled the first genuine smile since he’d arrived.

‘I’ll pay you for the accommodation, of course,’ he said quickly—doing things correctly again, of course. Her smile widened.

‘That’s OK—I’ll take payment in kind.’ She ran her eyes over his body, openly assessing him, and to her delight he coloured. He really hadn’t changed much at all. ‘You look fairly useful,’ she went on, a smile teasing round her lips. ‘Have you got stamina?’

‘I’m sure I can keep up with you,’ he said blandly, recovering his composure. His lips twitched, and her eyes were drawn to the fine sculpted lines of his mouth. Not too full, but not skimpy, either. She’d lay odds he’d learned to kiss—

‘I’d better find you something to wear—unless you’ve got anything you want to get from the car?’ she said hastily, backing off from this banter before she talked herself into more trouble than she could handle. After all, they were trapped alone together. Just because he’d been a nice boy didn’t mean he was a reliable adult He could be a serial killer, or a rapist—! ‘Perhaps some jeans?’

‘I’ve got some—thank God. I can just see me squeezed into a pair of your tiny little jeans. Yet another assault on the family jewels,’ he said drily.

She blushed, ignoring his remark, or at least the last part of it. ‘I was going to offer you something of my uncle’s, but if you’ve got things in the car we might as well get them before it gets worse.’

He looked at the snow swirling up against the window and his face was a picture. He obviously didn’t relish going out in it any more than she did, but the difference was she had to and he didn’t.

She had a sudden pang of conscience, and stifled it. He was big enough and ugly enough to look after himself, she decided, and anyway, they were his clothes. Whether he would help with the cows had yet to be seen.

‘Well?’

‘I wonder if it might make more sense to do it in the morning?’

‘You might not find the car in the morning,’ she pointed out in fairness, and then added, ‘I don’t suppose you thought to tie anything on the aerial?’

‘Like what?’ he said wryly. ‘Party balloons? Anyway, it doesn’t have an aerial.’

‘Oh.’ Funny, with those expensive-looking clothes she would have thought he could have afforded a car with a radio, but whatever. ‘We ought to mark it with something red, so a snow plough doesn’t come along and upend it into the hedge. It’s been done before.’

He went pale, poor love. ‘Oh,’ he said tightly. ‘I haven’t marked it. Do you have anything red?’

She thought, and the only thing that came to mind was a bra—a lacy confection that she didn’t wear any longer. After all the cows didn’t give a tinker’s cuss if she wore sexy undies, and frankly the plain cotton croptop style bras were more comfortable when she was working.

Still, she wasn’t sure she was ready to let him tie it to his car!

‘Maybe,’ she conceded. ‘I’ll have to look. We’ll tie it to a stick and shove it in the drift. If it’s attached to the car it might get covered.’

‘Covered?’ he exclaimed.

She shrugged. ‘Whatever, we need to get your gear out. I think there might still be a pair of boots here your sort of size—here, try these.’

She turned them upside down and banged them, and a huge spider fell out and ran across the floor.

‘What the hell was that?’ he yelled, backing up into the kitchen. The collie chased the spider and cornered it, then barked at it.

‘Just a spider—Jess, stop it! You’re daft. Here, try them on.’

He took the boots suspiciously. ‘Any cousins down there?’ he asked, peering down the tops.

‘Possibly. Tuck your trousers into your socks, just in case. Is that the best coat you’ve got?’

He pushed his feet into the wellies with a shudder and stood up. ‘Yes. Why?’

‘Because apart from the fact that it’ll get filthy, it’s not waterproof, and when the snow melts on you, you’ll get soaked and freeze. ,

‘I can hardly wait,’ he muttered.

Jemima took pity on him and banged out an old waxed jacket, checking the sleeves for spiders before handing it over. ‘Here, try this.’

He pulled it on and looked instantly more like a farmer and less like a townie. Amazing what the right uniform could do to a man. He almost looked as if he could cope with a cow—except for the fine wool trousers that were going to get hopelessly ruined unless he changed.

‘What about the red thing to tie to a stick?’

‘Ah.’ She ran upstairs, found the red bra and a matching suspender belt, and stuffed them into a pocket. She’d tie them on when he wasn’t looking...

‘Let’s go and get your gear,’ she said, arriving back in the kitchen and pulling on her own coat and boots. She told the dogs to stay and headed out into the blizzard, torch in hand. She picked up a couple of stakes from the corner by the shed, and headed across the yard towards the lane.

He followed her, not more than a few inches away all the way to the car, and so she heard his muttered exclamation when they found it almost totally buried under the snow drift.

‘Where’s the case?’ she asked.

‘In the boot.’ He eyed the smothered boot with jaundice. ‘I suppose I’d better brush the snow off first.’

‘Probably,’ she agreed, and held the torch while he swiped at the light powdery heaps. It reminded her of why you couldn’t make a decent sandcastle with dry sand—it just kept on pouring down. In the end he swore in exasperation and just opened the boot, hauled out a smart garment bag and a monogrammed leather sports bag, and slammed the lid before the entire snow drift slid inside.

And so much for him not being able to afford a car with a radio, she thought, eyeing the BMW logo on the boot lid with jaundice. It probably had a gadget to pick up radio waves by telepathy!

‘I’d better lock it,’ he muttered, pointing the remote control at the car, and Jemima stifled a laugh. City types, she thought, and tried to forget that until just under a year ago she’d been one too.

‘I’ll put these sticks up,’ she told him, and, rummaging in her pocket, she pulled out the underwear, tied it to the sticks and then took one to the front, ramming it in by the side of the bumper where it would stay up and show.

She struggled back past the car, grabbed the other stick and was pushing it into place when Sam took the torch from her hand and pointed it at her ‘flags’.

‘What the—?’

‘Don’t you dare laugh,’ she warned him, but it was too much.

A chuckle rose in his throat, and without thinking she scooped up a handful of snow and shoved it down his miserable neck.

He let out a yell that would have woken the dead and returned the favour, and a huge glob of snow slid down her front and lodged in her bra.

‘Touché!’ she said with a laugh, and backed off, pulling her clothes away from her chest and shaking the snow out.

‘Pax?’ he asked warily, hefting a fresh snowball just in case.

She considered revenge, and then decided she’d get her own back on him in the next few hours anyway—in spades!

‘Absolutely,’ she agreed. ‘I’m cold enough without snow in my underwear. You can drop that.’

‘Not yet—just look on it as insurance,’ he told her, and she flashed the torch at him and caught a lingering smile that transformed his face and did odd things to her insides.

They headed back down the lane, bent over to shelter from the driving blizzard, and made it back to the cottage without incident.

‘I should change into jeans,’ she advised as they shed their outer gear and went back into the lamp-lit kitchen. ‘It can get mucky in the barn.’

‘Mucky?’ he said with suspicion, and she smiled.

‘That’s the one,’ she said cheerfully. ‘I should change in here—I’ll go and dig out some sheets and make up your bed while you do that.’

She pulled off her hat, shook the snow off her hair and ran upstairs with the torch, her socks soundless on the threadbare carpet. She decided to put him in the room over the parlour. After hers, which was over the kitchen, it was the warmest.

It was also right beside hers, which might not be such a good move. She eyed the doors of the other rooms, but they were small, cold and full of boxes that she still had to sort out.

She’d have to put up with his proximity, and not get into any more playful snowball fights with him that might lead on to other things. She was finished with all of that. She didn’t need it—or rangy, sexy men with wicked smiles and attitude. She made the bed up and tried not to think about what he was doing downstairs with those incredible long legs of his.

She tugged the quilt straight, patted the pillows and went back down, taking the torch with her. Again, her socks made no sound, and she arrived in the kitchen to find him crouched down in his designer jeans, scratching the dogs behind their ears.

Amazing.

‘I should watch Jess, she doesn’t like men much,’ she warned.

‘Jess?’

The collie pricked her ears and looked longingly at him.

‘Short for Jezebel,’ she muttered. Faithless mutt. Apart from Sam’s grandfather she’d bitten every other man who’d crossed the threshold since Uncle Tom had died!

‘Come on, let’s go and get this milking started. The sooner we start, the sooner we’ll finish. Ever milked a cow before?’

He shuddered. Not a good sign. ‘No, thank God.’ ‘Oh. Oh, well, you’ll learn, I suppose. I wonder how long this power cut will last?’

‘Phone the electricity board. They usually have an idea.’

Stupid. She should have thought of that. If she hadn’t been so distracted by him, she probably would have done it ages ago. She took the torch into the parlour and rang up. It did nothing for her mood.

‘Unknown fault,’ she told him disgustedly. ‘Could be hours—it sounds like a huge area’s out. I thought it was my tree.’

‘Shorting out the whole of Dorset? It must be a hell of a tree.’

She laughed. ‘In its day, maybe. Now it’s just a pain. Come on, let’s turn you into a country boy. Ever seen the film City Slickers?’

He gave her a dirty look. She deserved it. It was a cheap shot.

‘Come on, townie,’ she said more kindly. ‘Let’s see what you’re made of. I’m sure I can find you something safe to do.’

She grabbed her coat, shoved her feet into her boots and picked up the lantern. ‘OK, cowpoke. Let’s be having you.’

He met her eyes without a word, and she saw him pick up her challenge like a gauntlet. Oh, lawks. She was in way over her head.

She tugged her hat down hard and went out into the blizzard...

CHAPTER TWO

HER revenge for the snowball came sooner than she expected. It took Daisy ten seconds to check Sam out and decide he needed butting in the ribs, and he leapt backwards with a grunt and smacked into the wall.

‘Daisy, that’s not nice,’ Jemima chided, and turned her attention to her crippled farmhand. ‘Are you OK?’ she asked, eyeing his pinched mouth and closed eyes with concern. After all, it would be such a waste of all that God-sent muscle if he was really injured—

‘Oh, I’m fine, just peachy,’ he wheezed, and his eyes flickered open and speared her. ‘Can’t you—tie her up, or something? In fact, can’t you tie them all up?’

‘I don’t need to. It’s milking time. If I feed them they’ll go and stand in their stalls ready.’

‘Well, feed them then, for heaven’s sake!’ he pleaded, and levered himself off the wall, feeling his ribs cautiously.

Jemima gave a little shrug and grabbed a pitchfork, then started forking silage into the trough in front of each cow. They knew the routine, and lined up patiently waiting as she worked her way down each side of the barn.

‘Can I do that for you?’ he offered, eyeing her safe position on the other side of the barrier.

He certainly could. She handed him the fork, took another one and cleared away the straw under each animal’s udder, ready for milking. Now all she needed was the hot water. She handed Sam a bucket.

‘Could you go into the house and bring some hot water, please? Not too hot—it’s to wash their udders.’

His eyes widened, but he took the bucket and the torch and headed for the door. ‘I am going out—I may be some time,’ he murmured theatrically, and then the door opened and the Arctic screamed in on a frigid blast. He ducked his head, shot out and slid the door back into place, shutting out the blizzard.

Jemima grinned and set up the milking stool and bucket, then looked round the barn and lost her smile. She’d have to muck out in the morning, so she hoped the power would be back on because milking by hand took so long she’d be hardly finished before she had to start again, and she didn’t think for a moment that her intrepid explorer was going to make much of a milkman.

He reappeared, hair on end again, a steaming bucket in his hand and Jess by his side. ‘She was desperate to come—is that all right?’

‘Sure.’ She smiled and held out her hand, and Jess came running up for a quick pat before finding a cosy corner and flopping down, one watchful eye open. Jemima took the bucket and the old flannel she used to wash them, and started on the first udder.

Normally she’d connect them up to the old Fulwood milking plant Uncle Tom had bought in 1949 and never got round to changing, but without power she had no option but to crouch on the little stool by each cow in turn, and strip the milk out of all four quarters by hand. It was a slow process, and she could see Sam was bored, so she cocked her head round towards him and grinned.

‘So, what do you usually do for entertainment on a Friday night?’ .

.He laughed and hunkered down beside her, watching. ‘Oh, this and that. Murder a few grannies, rob the odd bank—nothing special.’

‘There’s a picture of you in the police station—or was that Buffalo Bill?’

‘Probably—we’re very alike,’ he said, absolutely deadpan.

‘Mmm—except he can milk cows, of course.’

A brow arched—just ever so slightly—and she wouldn’t have noticed if she hadn’t been taking such a close interest in his features. However, she had noticed. Was it a challenge? She wasn’t sure, but she stood up anyway and gave him the stool.

‘Come on, Buffalo Bill, your turn.’

He folded himself up onto the stool and gave her a steady look that spoke volumes. Her estimation of him went up a notch, and she folded her arms and propped herself on Bluebell’s nicely rounded rump.

He reached for the udder tentatively, and Bluebell turned her large, gentle head and eyed him in surprise. It was odd enough being milked by hand, something that happened very rarely, but this stiff, taut man—well!

‘Rest your head on her flank,’ Jemima instructed, and he gave her an old-fashioned look.

‘Rest my head?’ he said, as if she’d suggested he should put it in a lion’s mouth. She stifled a laugh.

‘Yes—you know, lean on her.’

He arched an eyebrow disbelievingly, and allowed his head to touch her side. ‘Now what?’

‘Pull the teat down, and then close your fingers from the top down to the bottom, as if you’re squeezing the milk out like toothpaste—that’s it!’

A little squirt of milk shot out of the teat and splashed on his jeans.

‘Now try and get it in the bucket.’

He gave her a dirty look, shook his head despairingly and carried on. He was doing really quite well until Bluebell moved and knocked the bucket over.

‘Hell!’

He leapt to his feet, ducking out of the way of the flying milk and startling Bluebell, who shot across the barn towards Jemima, rolling her eyes and snorting softly.

‘It’s all right, sweetheart, he’s just a city boy,’ she crooned comfortingly, squashing her laughter. ‘Come on, my love.’

‘Come on my love, nothing,’ he muttered, watching her balefully as she led the anxious cow back across the barn to her stall and gave her more silage. ‘Why did she do that?’

‘I expect you tickled her—they’re very sensitive.’

‘Sensitive!’ he exclaimed. ‘They’re a bunch of loonies!’

‘Just ignore him, darlings,’ she told the cows. ‘He’s only a man; he can’t be expected to understand.’

One of them lowed at her, a warm, soft sound of agreement, and Sam snorted in disgust. Smiling, Jemima went back to her place beside Bluebell, quickly finished off and moved on to the next cow.

‘Why do you wash the udders?’ he asked, following her but standing safely out of range. ‘They don’t look dirty.’

To clean them, of course, just in case, but also because it helps the let-down.’

‘Let-down?’

She smiled into Ruby’s side. ‘They have to give you the milk. If it was just a tank it would run out. You have to persuade the udder to relax—’

‘Right.’

He didn’t sound convinced. Ruby understood the system, though, and was easy to milk, but then she’d had mastitis quite recently and had had to be hand-milked for some time. There were others who were much harder to do.

‘What happens to the milk once you collect it?’

‘It gets filtered and poured into the cooling tank—oh, no!’

‘What?’

‘No power! The cooler won’t be working, and the paddles won’t be stirring, so the milk will separate and go off—not that they’ll be able to collect it anyway...’

‘And?’

‘And so I won’t get paid for it, and I’ll lose money.’

‘Much?’

She thought of the useless tractor, the state of her car and the even more precarious state of her bank balance.

‘More than enough,’ she said grimly.

‘Is there anything you can do about that?’

She straightened up, looking at the placid cows waiting patiently for her attention. It would take for ever to milk them all, and it would all have to go down the drain—

‘I need to put the fresh calvers back with their calves. That will feed the calves, stop me having to milk their mums until the power’s back on and save the wasted milk until the tanker can get through again.’

‘How many are fresh calvers?’

She sighed. ‘Only ten.’

‘So you’ve got—what, twenty more?’

She nodded. ‘Yes. Twenty-one, in fact. We ought to sort them out now; they’re getting uncomfortable because I’m late.’

It was another half-hour before the fresh calvers and their offspring were reunited, and then the others needed milking urgently. Jemima looked into the water trough and sighed. Already it was almost empty—

‘What is it?’

‘The water trough. It needs filling up—the well water pump is electric.’

‘Wouldn’t you know it?’ he muttered. ‘Where’s the nearest tap?’

‘The water in the house is electrically pumped. We don’t have mains.’

‘What!’

‘The water’s beautiful—it comes from deep aquifers and the taste is so clear, so pure, you—you just wouldn’t believe it.’

‘But mains is so easy.’

She shook her head. ‘The milk wouldn’t taste the same, and I sell it to a specialist firm—they make clotted cream and yoghurt with it. The quality of the milk is everything.’

He sighed. ‘What are you telling me?’

The water has to come from the stream. There’s a little step to stand on while you dip the buckets. I’ll show you.’

‘I can hardly wait,’ he muttered under his breath, but he came with her, saw the stream, hung up a lantern between the barn and the stream and started bucketing the water while she milked.

‘How many do I need to bring?’ he asked after the tenth trip or so.

She looked up and took pity on him. He was propped against the wall, breathing hard, and he’d hardly started.

‘About a hundred and fifty buckets,’ she told him.

His eyes widened. ‘How—? A hun—! That’s ridiculous,’ he said flatly.

‘They drink about ten to fifteen gallons a day. That’s at least three hundred gallons, or a hundred and fifty buckets. It’s only seventy-five trips a day.’ She relented at his look of horror. ‘It won’t need that many tonight, and I expect the power will be back on by the morning.’

He shouldered away from the wall without another word, and went back out. The wind was still howling, she noticed, and although it had stopped snowing there was a fine stinging spray of snow being carried off the field and straight into his face as he came back to the barn.

She finished the last cow, poured the milk into the cooler just in case the tanker was able to get through tomorrow by a miracle and the power came back on soon, and then went to help him.

They finished the water at ten o’clock. By that time her hands were bleeding freely from the many cracks in her fingers, her palms were raw, her back was screaming and if she’d been on her own she would have curled up and wept.

She wasn’t, though, so she didn’t.

Nor did Sam, and, casting him a quick look, she thought that left alone he’d probably want to do the same!

‘You’ll be stiff in the morning,’ she warned.

‘Tell me about it. Anything else to do tonight?’

‘Only eat, if I can find anything worth cooking.’

‘Shall I nip out for a Chinese?’

She met his eyes, and was amazed to see humour lurking there still, after all they’d done. All he’d done, and him just a city boy.

‘Good idea. I’ll have special chow mein.’

‘OK. I’ll have rice and lemon chicken—fancy a spring roll?’

She looked round the barn one last time, took the lantern down and glanced at him. ‘Oh, yes—and prawn crackers.’

His stomach rumbled loudly, and she gave a quiet, weary laugh. ‘Come on, cowboy, let’s go and raid the larder.’

Sam was dog-tired. He didn’t remember ever being so tired in his life, but he supposed it was possible. His hands hurt from carrying so many buckets, his back and shoulders ached with the unaccustomed exercise and he was so hungry he had the shakes.

‘Anything I can do?’ he offered, hoping to speed things along.

‘No—there’s some bread and cheese and there’s some soup left in the fridge—I’ll heat it up. Wash your hands, but be frugal with the water, the tank won’t refill—in fact, use my water, here.’

She shook her hands off and picked up the towel, and he went over to the sink and looked down into the bowl of water. The bar of soap was streaked with red, and he looked over his shoulder and watched as she pressed the towel against her fingers cautiously and winced.

He scrubbed his hands clean, wiped them on the towel and then went over to her, taking the cheese from her and putting it down, then lifting her hands in his and turning them over.

They were cracked and ingrained with dirt, the skin rough and broken although it had stopped bleeding, and she stood there with her eyes closed and said nothing.

‘Jemima?’ he murmured.

‘The dirt won’t come out,’ she said defensively. ‘You can get your own supper if it worries you.’

‘It’s nothing to do with that. Have you got any cream?’

‘I want to eat.’

‘Have you got any cream?’

‘I’ll put it on later. I want to eat first so my food doesn’t taste of gardenias.’

He let her go, and she bustled about, cutting bread, laying the table, feeding the dogs, making tea—

‘Jemima, come and eat.’

She plonked two mugs of tea on the table, sat down and attacked the cheese. He ate his way through a bowl of chicken soup and two doorsteps of bread with slabs of cheese, and watched as she ate at least two bowls of soup and three chunks of bread.

‘Where the hell do you put it?’ he asked in amazement as she started on a slab of fruitcake.

‘No lunch,’ she said round a mouthful of cake. ‘Have some—your grandmother made it.’

He did, and it was good. Very good. He had more, with another mug of tea, and wondered if the cold or the exercise had sharpened up his appetite.

Finally he ground to a halt, and his hostess took the plates and stacked them by the sink.

‘Hands,’ he said to her, catching her on the way back from her second trip to the fridge.

‘OK.’ She reached for some handcream by the sink, ordinary handcream that wouldn’t cope with a good bout of spring-cleaning, never mind what she’d been doing, and he took it from her and put it down.

‘Antiseptic?’

‘What?’

‘Antiseptic cream—the sort you put on cuts.’

‘Oh.’ She opened a cupboard and took some out, and he sat her down, pulled up a chair opposite and spread some into her hands. ‘Why are you doing this?’ she asked.

He wasn’t sure. He didn’t tell her that. He didn’t say anything, just rubbed the cream gently into the sore fingers until it was all absorbed, then put more on. ‘Got anything tougher than that?’ he asked, tipping his head towards the handcream.

‘No. Well, only the bag balm that we use for cracked udders. It’s in the barn, on the shelf by the door. That might do something.’

‘I’ll get it.’

‘Tomorrow will do—’

He stood up and put her hands back on her lap. ‘I’ll get it,’ he repeated, and pulled on his coat and boots. He took the torch, leaving her with the lantern, and went across the yard to the barn. The snow was still flying horizontally, but whether it was fresh snow or just drifting he couldn’t tell. Whatever, it was freezing and he was glad to reach the shelter of the barn, cows or not.

It was warm inside, comparatively, warm and full of soft rustlings and sleepy grunts, and the grinding of teeth as they chewed the cud. One of them—Bluebell?—came up and sniffed at him cautiously, and he held out his hand and she licked it, her tongue rough and curiously gentle.

Perhaps cows weren’t all bad, he thought, and scratched her face. She watched him for a moment before backing off and rejoining the others, and he thought her eyes were like Jemima’s—huge and soft and wary.

He found the cream on the shelf where she’d said, and went back across the Siberian wasteland to the welcoming light from the kitchen window.

It really was bitterly cold in the wind, even colder than it had been an hour before, or perhaps it was because he wasn’t working. He went into the lobby, shucked his coat and boots and opened the kitchen door.

She was asleep, curled up in the chair by the fire, Noodle on her lap, Jess at her feet, and he stood there for a moment enjoying the warmth and watched her. Did she need her sleep more than the cream? If she did, would she even wake up if he just put it on?

He unscrewed the lid, eased one of her hands out from under the little white dog and smeared a dollop of cream onto the palm of her hand. She mumbled something in her sleep, and then went quiet again, and he massaged the cream into the cracks and fissures of her hands while Noodle sniffed the cream and went back to sleep.

She didn’t move again, just lay there with her head on one side, propped against the wing of the chair, while her chest rose and fell evenly in sleep.

She was exhausted, he realised. Exhausted, overworked and under-funded even without the snow and the power cut.

What would she have done without him?

Coped, was the answer. He knew that, just as he knew he couldn’t have left her to fend for herself alone.

He made more tea and drank it, sitting in the other chair by the fire, Jess leaning on his leg while he fondled her ears and watched Jemima sleeping and thought how gutsy she was and what a contrast with the superficial and fickle women he dealt with in his normal daily life.

She had that pioneering spirit that had conquered the Wild West, he thought—grit and determination and sheer bloody-mindedness, coupled with resourcefulness and humour.

. Interesting.

It was a shame they were going to be so busy that he wouldn’t have time to get to know her!

Jemima woke at midnight, a crick in her neck and Sam asleep in the easy chair opposite her. She watched him for a moment, enjoying the sight of him stretched out in front of the Rayburn, legs crossed at the ankle, his dark hair tousled and boyish above those sinful black lashes.

He had good bones, she thought idly—good bones and stamina. She pushed Noodle onto the floor, opened the little fire-door in the front of the Rayburn and shovelled in coke and slag to keep it on overnight.

The last thing they needed was that going out!

Sam stirred and mumbled something, and she looked down at him and wondered what she would have done if he hadn’t stayed.

Coped, of course, but only just barely and not for long. A day? Two, maybe? No more than that.

She reached out and shook him gently, with a hand that no longer hurt.

‘Sam? Time for bed.’

His eyes flew open and locked with hers, and the message in them was warm and sleepy and unmistakable. Then he smiled, a lazy, sexy smile that made her pulse hammer and her mouth go dry as he unfolded out of the chair with a groan.

‘I don’t suppose you meant that the way it sounded,’ he said regretfully, and a smile played around his eyes, taking away any offence.

She smiled back. ‘No—I wouldn’t have the energy.’

‘I wouldn’t notice—I’d be asleep.’

They laughed softly, and she put the dogs out for a moment before heading up the stairs. It was much colder in the bedrooms, and she hoped he was a tough and hardy type, or he’d freeze to bits. She remembered her first taste of winter here. It had taken a bit of getting used to, but she’d managed.

‘You’re in here,’ she told him, and pushed the door open. The bed looked neat, the room quite welcoming, but it was cold. ‘I’m sorry it’s not warmer. I’ll get you some extra blankets. If you leave the door open the heat’ll come up from the kitchen.’

She reached into the airing cupboard, pulled out a couple of blankets from the bottom and handed them to him. ‘I’ll leave the lantern hoe—don’t flush the loo, because we haven’t got any water. I’ll get some buckets in the morning. Anything else you need?’

He shook his head.

‘Right, I’ll see you in the morning.’

‘What time’s milking?’

‘Five, usually.’

His jaw sagged slightly, then he nodded. ‘Wake me.’ ‘I can manage—’

‘Just do it.’

She smiled. He wanted to be a hero? Fine, he could be a hero. ‘See you at five, then. Goodnight, Sam—and thanks.’

She went into her room, leaving the door ajar so she had some light, and changed quickly into her pyjamas. Her teeth were scrubbed in a dribble of water, she wiped her face with a cleansing pad and dragged a brush through her hair, then curled up under the covers, rubbing her feet inside the thick bedsocks to keep them warm.

Five o’clock was going to come awfully soon...

Sam was freezing. He pulled on a sweater over his one pair of ‘just-in-case’ pyjamas, put on a second pair of socks and threw the other blanket over the bed before huddling back under the covers and shuddering with cold.

He must be even more spoilt and pampered than he’d realised.

The wind rattled the window, shaking the glass in the frame and swirling cold air round the room. So much for the warmth coming up from the kitchen!

He tucked his face under the blankets and blew on his hands, trying to warm them, but all he managed to do was make the bed tepid and damp. In the end he tucked the blankets round his head, curled up in a ball and lay still.

There were no night sounds other than the wind. It was strange. He’d stayed with his grandparents just down the road in the summer once, and he could remember the sounds of the night—the owls hooting, the rustling of countless little animals—he’d used to sit on the windowsill and listen to them, and try and imagine what they all were.

His bed dipped, and something cold and wet pushed into his face. His eyelids flew up and his mouth opened to yell when a loud purr echoed round his head.

A cat.

Dammit, he’d nearly died of fright! It nudged him again, and he reached out a hand and scratched its ears and chuckled, the tension draining out of him. A cat he could cope with. It curled up against his chest, and after a moment the purring slowed down and stopped. The warmth seeped through against his chest, and, seconds later, he was asleep.

It was light when he woke—light with the sort of brightness that only happens with a full moon on snow. He shoved the cat out of the way, got stiffly out of bed and went to the window, peering at his watch.

Five-thiriy-and there was a light in the barn, a thin sliver of yellow seeping round the sliding door. He pulled on his clothes in the moonlight and limped down the stairs, hideously aware of every muscle, to find a note from Jemima propped up against a mug on the table.

‘Gone fishing,’ it said. ‘Didn’t want to disturb the cat.’

He smiled and put the kettle on. However busy she was, she’d have time to sip a cup of tea. The Rayburn needed revving up, and he studied the controls for a minute and decided that it probably needed some breakfast. He found logs in the lobby and pushed them through the little door of the firebox, and once it was packed he opened the vent to allow more air in.

The dogs watched him uninterestedly. Was he eating? No. Therefore they might as well sleep, curled up on the twin chairs. He scooped Noodle up and sat down, and she washed him vigorously before settling down again on his lap.

It reminded him that he needed a shave, but water was short and a beard might keep his face warm in the wind.

Not that it would have much chance to grow before the power came back on, whenever that might be. He put Noodle down and went into the parlour to phone the electricity board.

Still no further news, except that it would be some time and thousands of homes were out. He fiddled with a little radio on the kitchen windowsill and found a local station, which told him that a helicopter had flown into some power lines in the blizzard and knocked out half of Dorset.

So, still hand-milking, then—and hauling the water.

Great.

The kettle boiled and he made tea, pulled on his coat and boots and went out. It was cold and crisp, his breath making little puffs on the bright moonlit air, but the wind had dropped and the sun would be creeping over the horizon in an hour or so. Strange how fickle February could be.

He trudged across the yard towards the barn, slid the door back and was greeted with a smile that warmed him down to the bottom of his boots.

‘My hero!’ she said with a laugh, and she got stiffly to her feet, pressed her hands into the small of her back and stretched, giving a little groan.

‘Sore?’

‘Am I ever. I thought I was fit. How about you?’ He grinned. ‘Oh, I can feel muscles I didn’t know I had.’ He gave her her tea. ‘How are the hands?’

‘Better.’ She smiled ruefully. ‘I never really thanked you—I fell asleep while you were doing it.’

‘It’s my magic touch—and anyway, you were already asleep.’

‘I wonder why?’ She buried her nose in her mug and drank a huge gulp of tea, then sighed. ‘Gorgeous. I was dying for tea. I thought I might finish the cows and come and get some, but they’re being really awkward. They just won’t let down for me this morning. I don’t think the water’s very warm any more, that’s the trouble.’

He drained his mug. ‘I’ll get you some. I put the kettle back on the hob.’

‘You’re just a regular sweetheart. Remind me to thank Mary for lending you to me.’

He leant back against the wall, arms folded. ‘Just as a matter of interest,’ he said slowly, ‘where is their farm?’

She coloured slightly. ‘Over the hill.’

‘About three or four hundred yards?’

‘Something like that.’

‘So I could have got there last night.’

To her credit she met his eyes. ‘Possibly.’

He smiled slowly. ‘Just think,’ he said, ‘what I might have missed.’

Something sad and a little desperate happened to her eyes. ‘Yes, just think. You could still have been in bed now.’ She handed him her mug. ‘Better get on.’

He went back to the kitchen, filled the bucket with hot water and poured her another mug of tea. She’d drunk the first almost in one gulp. He wondered why she’d looked sad when he’d talked about getting to his grandparents. Did she think he’d go? And leave her, with this lot to do?

She didn’t know him very well, he thought, picking up the tea and the bucket. After he’d delivered them he carried water into the house, some to the kitchen, some to the bathroom, and then he went back to the barn.

‘Fill the troughs?’ he suggested.

She looked at him in amazement. ‘Aren’t you going?’

‘Without my car? You have to be kidding,’ he joked, but she nodded, as if she thought it was perfectly reasonable.

‘In which case...’

Hope flickered in her amber eyes, and if he’d cherished any illusions about being able to escape, they evaporated like mist in the early morning. He couldn’t abandon her—and if he did, his grandmother would kick him straight back down here again before he was even over the threshold!

‘I’ll fill the troughs,’ he said, and wondered why the thought of shifting a hundred and fifty buckets of water made him want to whistle...

CHAPTER THREE

THE dawn, when it came, was glorious. The wind had gone, the sun sparkled on the snow and if she hadn’t been so phenomenally tired Jemima would have loved it.

Sam, for all his bucketing, seemed full of energy this morning, and she wanted to hit him for it. She’d listened to him whistling cheerfully as he brought the water up from the stream—seventy-five times, or thereabouts—and now he was shovelling snow away from the barn doors and making paths from the house to the hens, the calves and the stream.

Still, she wasn’t surprised. As a boy he’d never sat still for a minute. ‘There’s some sand somewhere you can put down on those paths,’ she told him, sticking her head out of the hen house.

He looked round at the farmyard. Snow had come straight off the field across the road and dumped itself on the yard, and Jemima took one look at his expression and hid a grin.

‘Any helpful suggestions where I should start looking?’ he said mildly.

‘Ah.’ She gave up and grinned. ‘How about ash from the bottom of the Rayburn?’ she offered.

His expression cleared. ‘Good idea. Got a metal bucket?’

‘By the back door—it’s got ash in it. If you’re going in, could you take these?’

She handed him a basket of eggs and he peered at them and cocked his head on one side with a quizzical grin. ‘I wonder what’s for breakfast?’ he murmured.

She laughed. ‘Put the kettle on, too. We’ll do the paths together in a minute.’

She ducked back inside the hen house, collected and packed the last of the eggs and checked the water, then shut them up and went across to the house. She wondered when he’d remember who she was, if he ever did, and decided to let it go on a bit longer before saying anything. It made the day more interesting, waiting for the penny to drop, she thought as she kicked off her boots.

The warmth wrapped itself round her like a blanket as she went in, and she dropped into a chair by the Rayburn and propped her feet on the front edge. ‘Oh, bliss,’ she groaned, and shut her eyes.

A hard, lean, masculine hip nudged her ankles. ‘Come on, out of the way. I’m trying to cook.’

She cracked an eye open. ‘Cook?’ she said disbelievingly.

‘Cook. Put some handcream on and keep out of the way. Is there any butter?’

She got up and found butter, then milk, then cut some bread and put it in the toaster.

‘When did you intend to have breakfast?’ he asked drily, and she muttered and flipped the bread back out of the lifeless tool and plopped back into the chair.

‘We’ll have bread,’ she suggested, and he. laughed, turning those astonishing navy eyes on her so her heart hiccuped. Wow, she thought, if he really set out to be charming he could be a real stunner—

‘How do you like your eggs?’

‘Soft and creamy.’

‘Ditto. Right, up you get.’

She was suddenly ravenous. The heap of rich, golden scrambled egg was cooked to perfection, and she stabbed her fork into it, forgetting all about Sam and his gorgeous dark blue eyes.

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