Appleby Farm Read online

  Her face softened as she leaned forward to hand Parker back the toy he had just dropped.

  ‘Aww, thanks, Freya. Are you getting broody, by any chance?’

  I thought about it for a moment.

  ‘Yes and no,’ I replied honestly. ‘I’m not ready to do the whole settling-down thing yet. But at some point, yes. I can see myself with a couple of munchkins, cottage in the country, a horse and a dog … But at the moment, I’m happy to borrow Parker every now and then.’

  No idea why I’d suddenly blurted all that out. I felt my face redden. I’d never been conscious of this plan before. I did want to be a mother at some point, though. And at the risk of sounding a bit 1950s, I wanted to be the sort of mother who was there when my children got in from school, with a kiss and a cake straight out of the oven. Like my Auntie Sue. I’d have to work on the cakes bit; my repertoire consisted of one thing – scones.

  ‘Does Charlie know how you feel?’ Gemma asked, gazing at me wide-eyed.

  The only problem with Kingsfield is that everyone else has been here for donkey’s years. I might only have met Charlie a few months ago, but Gemma’s known him for ages from Ivy Lane allotments. Unlikely as it seemed looking at those nails, Gemma had her own allotment plot until Parker came along.

  ‘Whoa! Steady on, Gem, we’ve only been together five minutes!’ I bent to brush my lips against Parker’s head to hide my hot cheeks. ‘I’m sure we’ll broach the subject when the time comes.’

  ‘It’s just that … oh, nothing,’ mumbled Gemma. She lifted the mug to her lips and sipped at her tea.

  My stomach lurched. Just that what? But before I had chance to ask, Gemma squealed and reached into her bag.

  ‘I nearly forgot to show you this!’ She handed me a postcard with a picture of a tortoise on a deserted beach on it. ‘Came this morning, from Tilly and Aidan. Sounds like they’re having an amazing time in the Galloping-wotsit Islands. Aww,’ she sighed, lifting Parker from me and arranging him back in his pushchair, ‘they are such a perfect match, those two.’

  My friend, the lovely Tilly Parker, the baby’s namesake, was another of the Ivy Lane allotment posse. She was the girl I credited with getting me and Charlie together and she met her fella, Aidan, when he came to Kingsfield last year as part of a film crew making a documentary about the allotment. He was filming something else now, in the Galápagos Islands, and Tilly had joined him for a holiday.

  A perfect match. The words ran rhythmically through my head while I read Tilly’s postcard and Gemma prepared to depart.

  I waved her and Parker off with a smile. I didn’t feel overly smiley on the inside; I felt a bit churned up. Gemma hadn’t uttered the exact words and I might have been putting two and two together and making a fuss about nothing, but it felt as though she thought that in some way Charlie and I weren’t a perfect match. And as Shirley had pointed out only a few minutes ago, Shenton Road Café wasn’t my future.

  My stomach flipped queasily. When I woke up this morning my life had seemed quite straightforward, but now … well, I wasn’t sure of anything.

  Chapter 2

  By the time I’d finished up at the café, scurried along Shenton Road, into All Saints Road, down Ivy Lane and made it as far as the allotment gate I was back to my normal happy-go-lucky self and smiling at my own daft thoughts. What had all that self-doubt malarkey been about?

  I pushed open the heavy gate and closed it behind me.

  It wasn’t like me to over-analyse things; life’s far too short to agonize over my career choice or to worry about the state of my relationship. Or anything else, for that matter. Far better just to go with the flow. I loved my life and anyway, no one really has the perfect job and the perfect partner. Charlie and I were fine. No, better than fine – we were great, we made each other happy and we had a laugh together. And that was what made us so well-suited.

  I half-walked, half-ran along the road towards Charlie’s plot and waved to Peter, the allotment committee chairman, as he appeared at the pavilion door, fastening the buttons of his anorak.

  ‘Afternoon, Freya. It’s a cool breeze, isn’t it? I think we might be in for a light frost tonight.’ He pulled a tweed flat cap out of his pocket and settled it on his balding head.

  ‘Hi, Pete. Yes, it is a bit chilly.’ I smiled and supressed a giggle. I’d yet to meet one member of the allotment community who wasn’t totally obsessed with the weather.

  ‘Changed your mind about joining the waiting list for your own plot yet?’ he called.

  I laughed and shook my head. ‘No time, these days. I’m too busy being Charlie’s assistant gardener.’

  Peter gave me a disappointed smile and touched his cap in a cute old-fashioned gesture, and I carried on my way.

  He asked me the same question every time I saw him, hoping to change my mind. I’d toyed with the idea of having my own plot last year and he had shown me round. But I was glad I didn’t go for it in the end; helping Charlie on his plot was a much better solution. I got to spend time outdoors, which I loved; I got to spend time with Charlie-boy, which I also loved; and I only had to do the nice bits (planting seeds and picking stuff) and not the grotty bits (spreading muck and digging up weeds).

  My stomach flipped as I spotted my gorgeous man further ahead in his greenhouse and I jogged the last few metres to join him. He was lifting huge bags of something or other onto shelves and didn’t spot me at first.

  The air in the greenhouse was warm and tinged with the fragrance of tomato plants. I leaned on the open door frame and watched him for a couple of seconds while he arranged growbags in rows with his back to me. He was wearing his old gardening jumper with holes in the sleeves, a woolly hat, jeans and an old pair of boots.

  ‘Hey.’

  Charlie turned around and grinned. ‘Hello, beautiful!’

  I squealed as he scooped me up and spun me round, knocking over a watering can and several plant pots in the process.

  ‘Put me down this instant and kiss me,’ I giggled breathlessly.

  ‘I love it when you’re bossy,’ he murmured, his blue eyes crinkling with humour as he did as he was told and lowered me to the ground.

  He unzipped my jacket and threaded his arms around my waist, pulling me close. I lifted my face to meet his and felt my body sigh as we kissed. His face was rough with stubble but his lips were full and soft. He smelled of earth and wood smoke and something sweeter … vanilla, maybe? Whatever it was, I approved. His kiss deepened and I stopped wondering about anything and reached up on my tiptoes to wrap my arms around his neck. When it was just us, him and me, close like this, it felt as if nothing could ever come between us, like we were the only two people in the universe who mattered.

  ‘What’s on the job list today, then?’ I asked, pulling back and smiling up at him. I snuggled my head against his chest and wriggled my fingers into the back pockets of his jeans while he rested his chin on my head.

  ‘Tomatoes,’ he said, easing us apart and dropping a kiss on my nose. ‘I thought you’d never come and help me plant them. I’ve got about twenty good ones to get in this afternoon. If you do a good job I’ll buy you a pint at The Feathers after.’

  ‘Payment in cider?’ I laughed, striking a pose and resting my hands on my hips. ‘What sort of girl do you think I am?’

  Charlie winked at me. ‘The best sort. Come on, Green Eyes, here’s a trowel.’

  He showed me the trays of seedlings and demonstrated how to lift them without damaging the soft stems and how to transplant them into the waiting growbags.

  ‘Is it me, or are there two different types here?’ I asked, looking from one tray to the other.

  ‘Clever girl,’ said Charlie, placing a soft kiss on the side of my neck, which gave me a warm feeling in the pit of my stomach. ‘These are Sungold, they’re sweet little cherry tomatoes. I’m hoping to get Ollie to try them. He reckons he doesn’t like tomatoes, but I might convert him with one of these.’

  The warm feeling grew a bit b
igger. Yet another reason to adore him. ‘The world’s greatest dad, you,’ I said, nudging him playfully. ‘What are these other bigger ones?’

  Charlie cleared his throat. ‘Um, they’re Outdoor Girl. I saw the packet and thought of you.’

  ‘Me?’ I gasped. I threw my arms around his neck and kissed his cheek.

  He shrugged and turned his face away but I could tell he’d gone a bit pink.

  OK, so growing a variety of outdoor tomatoes in someone’s honour might not be everyone’s idea of a romantic gesture, but I knew how Charlie’s mind worked and my heart bounced all over the place. He worshipped his six-year-old son Ollie, who was quite literally at the centre of Charlie’s universe. So if he’d been thinking about both of us when he’d made his tomato choices, that must mean that I was special too, mustn’t it?

  More than that, I loved the fact that he knew me so well. My favourite jobs have been those where I could spend time outside. My idea of absolute hell is being desk-bound like my housemate, Anna, who is a web designer and barely moves more than five metres in an entire day.

  ‘Can I plant them outside, then?’ I said, dragging my eyes back to the seedlings. ‘I quite fancy a bit of fresh air.’

  Charlie rolled his eyes and chuckled. ‘I don’t know why you work in a café when you’re so mad keen on the great outdoors. You should be a park ranger or a policewoman or something. But no, sorry, they’re not hardened off yet. Here, stick these in instead.’

  ‘Peas! Oh, I love these!’ I said as he handed me a tray of sturdy pea plants. A picture of me hiding in Auntie Sue’s veggie patch floated into my head, sitting in the sunshine, popping fat peapods with my thumbs and eating the contents like sweets.

  Charlie chuckled indulgently. He dispatched me towards a wigwam of bamboo canes and we both settled into our tasks. I knelt down in a patch of low sun and began to dig a small hole. I sprinkled a bit of fairy dust into it and then placed a tiny pea plant into its new home. I knew it wasn’t fairy dust. Obviously. It was just far nicer to think of that than what it actually was, which might have been very nutritious for plants but absolutely stank.

  Policewoman. I started to laugh.

  ‘It’s the handcuffs, isn’t it?’ I shouted over my shoulder.

  ‘What is?’

  ‘That’s why you imagined me as a policewoman. So that you can play with the handcuffs. I know your game, mister.’

  ‘Er, excuse me, Miss Moorcroft,’ Charlie laughed indignantly, ‘it wasn’t my idea to stay in bed all last Sunday and look at pictures of you naked. That was entirely your doing.’

  The patch of sunlight that had been warming my back suddenly disappeared and I heard a discreet cough. A prickle of embarrassment ran along my spine as I turned around to see Christine, the allotment secretary and coincidentally Gemma’s mum, standing at the end of Charlie’s plot. My eyes made their way from her wellingtons to her quilted jacket and up to her bobble hat. I scanned her face, holding my breath in case there was a sliver of hope that she hadn’t overheard.

  ‘Lovely looking beetroot, so it is,’ said Christine in her broad Irish accent, smirking away to herself.

  ‘Oh, yes,’ I said, unsure whether Charlie grew beetroot or whether it was simply a blunt observation about the state of my face. ‘It was my baby album,’ I spluttered. ‘That’s why I was naked. And not in all of them, obviously …’ I trailed off as Christine’s shoulders began to shake with laughter.

  ‘Ah, you youngsters. It’s a long time since my husband Roy and I spent the day doing that.’

  I gulped and laughed nervously. TMI, as Shirley would say.

  ‘Hello, Christine,’ said Charlie, joining us both, totally oblivious to my discomfort. ‘Everything OK?’

  ‘Grand, so it is.’ She nodded. ‘Just came by to remind you about Sunday. The Easter egg hunt. Great fun for the kiddies. Gemma will be here. Come if you can, won’t you? Ollie would love it.’

  Charlie and I made the right noises and Christine bustled off in the direction of the pavilion.

  ‘You’ve got the weekend off, haven’t you?’ I said, a picture forming in my head of him and me under a huge blue sky with no buildings or people for miles.

  ‘I have.’ He nodded, his expression knotted in concentration as he took a piece of string from his pocket and gently tied my newly bedded pea plant to its cane. ‘Four days off. Can’t wait.’

  ‘Remember that deal we made, when I came cycling with you even though I didn’t want to and in return you promised to come horse riding with me?’

  ‘Ye-s,’ Charlie replied, not meeting my eye as he straightened up. I abandoned my planting, hooked my fingers through the belt loops of his jeans and stepped towards him, closing the gap between us until I could feel his warm breath on my cheek.

  ‘Well, we could do that, this weekend. I found some stables just outside Kingsfield that said I could go and ride their horses. What do you think?’

  I stared up at him and held my breath. I knew what he thought. He thought horses were all teeth and nostrils, but a deal was a deal and there was nothing – nothing – I’d rather do over the Easter weekend than canter through fields with the wind in my hair and Charlie by my side.

  He pressed his lips to my forehead and shook his head. ‘No can do, I’m afraid. I’m having Ollie over for a few days. In fact, I might bring him here to the Easter egg hunt. What do you reckon?’

  My happy bubble burst and I felt my shoulders sag.

  But you had him last weekend.

  Eek! I very nearly said that out loud! Luckily my one diplomatic brain cell jumped in first and stopped me from making a huge mistake. Charlie would always choose Ollie over me. Quite rightly. I wished my own dad had shown even a tenth of the enthusiasm Charlie had for spending time with his son. So I wasn’t complaining – well, maybe a bit.

  ‘He’d love it.’ I nodded. ‘Perhaps we could all …?’ I swallowed and waited for Charlie to pick up on my thoughts and dive in with a suggestion that the three of us spend Easter Sunday together.

  Charlie was a fab dad. I’d have loved a dad like him. Reading between the lines, I don’t think he’d always been such a good father, but he certainly was now. And Ollie was a delight. He had big blue eyes just like his dad, was cute, well-mannered and had an inquisitive streak that made me laugh and kept Charlie constantly on his toes.

  I have met Ollie twice. Both times when Charlie brought him into the café for something to eat.

  I wasn’t introduced. Well, strictly speaking, I suppose I was. Although ‘Say thank you to the nice lady, Ollie’ wasn’t exactly what I’d had in mind when I’d envisaged meeting my potential stepson for the first time.

  Charlie blinked at me, pulled off his woolly hat and scratched his head, dislodging my hands from his waist as he did so.

  ‘Why don’t you go horse riding on your own?’ he asked gently. ‘I’ll come another time, I promise. But I think Ollie and me will just have a quiet one this weekend. It’s too soon …’ His voice petered out and he shrugged awkwardly.

  That was a no, then.

  I struggled to get my feelings under control, but there were no two ways about it. Charlie didn’t want to tell Ollie about me and that stung. Was I an embarrassment or something?

  Bright smile, Freya.

  ‘Honey, you and I have been together four months. Haven’t I earned my girlfriend badge yet?’

  ‘Oh, come here.’ He wrapped me in his arms and I burrowed my face into his jumper. ‘I know it’s tough. Believe me, I’d love to spend time with the three of us all together. But I want to be the best dad I can be. I’ve only been in Ollie’s life properly myself for a few months and it’s still early days for you and me. I don’t want to confuse him by bringing a girlfriend into the equation.’

  Four months was longer than some of my relationships, but I didn’t think that admitting that would be particularly helpful to my cause.

  I bit my lip. ‘Yeah, but Tilly and Aidan have only been together a couple of weeks lo
nger than us and they’re already halfway across the world together.’

  And they’re a perfect match.

  Charlie puffed out his cheeks and a frown wrinkled his brow. ‘That’s different.’

  I flushed, wishing I hadn’t said that.

  Tilly’s first husband had died in a car crash a couple of years ago. I could totally see why she was ready to get serious with Aidan so quickly; she had settled down once and she wanted to do it again. On the other hand, Charlie had had his fingers badly burned by his wife and I could understand why he was treading cautiously; apart from having a crush on Tilly last year, I was the first woman that Charlie had let into his life since splitting up with his ex. I just wondered how long I’d have to wait until he let me into Ollie’s life too.

  I let out a long sigh. Charlie tilted my chin up to meet his gaze and I managed a weak smile.

  ‘Hey, cheer up! We have fun, don’t we?’ he said, breaking into a cheeky grin.

  A wave of disappointment washed away my smile. ‘Is that what I am to you, Charlie? A bit of fun?’

  My heart was pounding all of a sudden. How had the conversation got so heavy? Only two minutes ago we were talking handcuffs and nude photos.

  We stared at each other as a weird sort of tension crackled between us. His expression faltered and I scanned his face, willing him to say that I was more than that. I could see him battling to find the right words but before a suitable reply occurred to him my mobile phone rang.

  I loved the lyrics to Pharrell Williams’s song ‘Happy’. Hence choosing it as my ring tone. Normally I indulge in a full thirty seconds of clapping along as per Pharrell’s instructions before accepting the call.

  This time I fumbled in my jacket pocket and stabbed at the green button sharpish.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Freya, is that you?’ The voice was higher than usual and a bit tremulous, but I recognized Auntie Sue instantly. My heart, already beating at top speed after the uncomfortable conversation with Charlie, thudded louder.

  ‘Yes, it is. Is everything all right?’

  ‘No, lass. It’s Uncle Arthur, he’s had an accident.’