Appleby Farm (45 page)

‘Nothing to do with me,’ said Harry matter-of-factly. ‘I’m just the carriage driver.’

Anna and I leaped into each other’s arms and hugged wildly while the two men traded man-stuff.

‘I miss you so much,’ groaned Anna. ‘You look so different, so … I don’t know, together, settled, I suppose.’

‘I am different.’ I shrugged happily. ‘I know where I’m going and I know what I want out of life.’

I couldn’t resist sneaking a look at Harry as I said that and caught him staring at me. Whoops, now I was blushing and he had a big daft grin on his face.

‘Are you sure you don’t mind?’ she whispered. ‘About me and Charlie? Now that you’ve seen us. In the flesh, as it were.’

‘Nooo,’ I protested, meaning it, even though I was feeling the most single person on the planet right now. With the exception of Harry, who was also single as far as I knew, but whose fault was that?

Anna was still talking. ‘I think I might be in love with Charlie.’

‘Oh, Anna, that’s brill. And I’m happy for you, really.’

‘Do you miss Kingsfield even a little bit?’

‘Of course I do!’ I exclaimed. ‘I miss you and my friends but Lovedale is home.’

‘No more flitting round the country, then?’ Anna raised an eyebrow in disbelief.

I pulled away from her side and flung an arm out in a grand gesture. ‘Look at that view! Who needs the rest of the world when you have paradise on your doorstep?’

Harry covered his mouth with his hand and coughed, but it sounded suspiciously like a laugh to me. ‘I’m going to get these horses back to the stables before they get cold,’ he said. ‘I’ll see you later.’

‘OK.’ I smiled tightly. Were we ever going to have a moment to ourselves?

A loud gong sounded and the catering manager announced that dinner was served.

‘Oh gosh,’ I yelped, ‘I’m supposed to be doing things!’

I scampered off to find my clipboard, my heart squeezing for them as Charlie pulled Anna towards him for a kiss as soon as my back was turned.

Four hours later, Lizzie, Ross and I shifted the tables to the edge of the room to make way for a dance floor while Harry, Tom and Steve did their final sound checks on our makeshift stage at one end of the tea rooms. My back was beginning to ache and my legs were shaky from not having eaten more than a mouthful of the delicious beef, but I felt absolutely elated. Tilly and Aidan’s day had been a massive success and I’d even taken another booking for a spring wedding next year.

‘Thanks for all your hard work, guys,’ I said, hugging them both as we moved the last table. ‘I don’t think our first wedding could have been more perfect if we tried.’

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ said Lizzie primly, ‘I’ve made one or two notes for our wedding.’

Ross coughed.

‘I mean our next wedding,’ she corrected herself.

Ross and I looked at each other and shook our heads, and then we all scattered to different corners of the room as Harry dimmed the lights and jumped on stage. Tom, The Almanacs lead singer, grabbed the microphone.

‘Good evening, everyone.’ Tom grinned. ‘Can we have a huge round of applause please as Mr and Mrs Whitby take to the floor for their first dance?’

We all clapped and whistled as my beaming friend and her new husband appeared on the dance floor and wrapped their arms around each other. As the band began to play the introduction to ‘Show Me Heaven’ by Maria McKee, I caught Harry’s eye and we exchanged a secret smile about blokes playing girlie stuff. Girlie or not, Tom was an amazing singer and The Almanacs did a great version of it. I’d never seen Harry play the drums before and now I couldn’t take my eyes off him; he was so absorbed in his music and my heart quickened at being able to watch him unobserved from the edge of the room.

The music filled the old barn and goose bumps pricked at my skin. I leaned up against the wall under the as yet unfinished mezzanine, tucked out of view and watched Aidan twirl Tilly slowly around the dance floor, cupping her face as she laced her fingers behind his neck. The two of them were so wrapped up in each other that it was almost as if they were the only two people in the room and I felt tears spring to my eyes with happiness for them.

As they moved in time with the music, both of them closed their eyes and Tilly rested her forehead against Aidan’s cheek. It was such an intimate moment that I felt bit like a voyeur but, even so, I was so moved that I couldn’t turn away. The song finished and Aidan and Tilly’s parents ran on to the floor and began hugging the happy couple. We all clapped again and my eyes welled up with tears for them.

Tom came back on the microphone. ‘And now before we pick up the pace, by special request, we’re going to do an acoustic version of a Take That number. This one’s called “Back For Good”.’

I sighed heavily as Tom began to sing; I adored that song. But in the absence of someone to dance with I turned away to go and do something useful and bumped straight into Harry.

My heart lifted at the sight of him and we smiled at each other.

‘Hello, drummer boy.’

‘You are the soppiest woman I know,’ he teased, wiping away the tears that had just started their descent down my cheeks with his thumb.

‘Says the boy who cried at
Titanic
,’ I scoffed. Technically so had I, but he was a boy and he had been mortified when I’d spotted his tears and told him he should be impervious to the fate of poor Leo. And anyway, Kate had been lying on a massive piece of driftwood, if she’d truly wanted to save him, surely she could have—

‘Freya?’ Harry’s voice was serious all of a sudden.

‘Yes,’ I said, startled out of my trip down memory lane.

‘I requested this song for you. Will you dance with me?’

Words seemed to desert me so I nodded and then felt a hand in mine: warm and rough, a true farmer’s hand. And my heart began to race as the hand I knew so well squeezed mine. Not once but three times.

I. Love. You.

Uncle Arthur’s secret sign. The breath caught in my throat and I stared at him.

‘It’s true, Freya,’ he murmured close to my ear, sending shivers down my spine.

‘You remembered the secret hand squeeze?’ I asked shakily, as Harry wrapped his arm around my waist. He pulled me close and we began to sway in time to the music.

The nearness of his body sent a surge of electricity through mine. I looked at our fingers still entwined. I must have been about fourteen when I told him that story. Round about the time I was obsessed with falling in love; I recalled sighing a lot and professing everything to be ‘so romantic’.

‘Of course I do.’ His eyes gazed at me with such warmth that it was impossible not to understand their meaning. ‘I remember everything you ever told me.’

‘Oh yeah?’ I murmured, laughing softly. ‘I’m not sure that’s necessarily a good thing. Like what?’

He puffed out his cheeks, his eyes twinkling with mirth. ‘Like the time you said if you had a baby boy you’d call him Nick after the one in the Backstreet Boys unless you actually
married
Nick from the Backstreet Boys, in which case you’d call him Howie.’

I clamped a hand to my mouth and giggled. I’d forgotten that. ‘What else?’

His eyes locked onto mine as he pressed my hand to his chest. ‘Everything. Every memory of you is in here, etched on my heart.’

My whole body melted with love. That was the most beautiful thing anyone had ever said to me.

‘Oh, Harry.’ I caught his other hand in mine. ‘Do you mean,’ I swallowed, hardly daring to believe I was saying the words, ‘do you mean that you love me?’

His face softened. ‘I’ve loved you all my life,’ he said simply. ‘Freya, will you tell me something?’

I nodded, overwhelmed by the intensity of his gaze.

He inclined his head towards the stage and grinned. ‘Are you back for good?’

I beamed at him. ‘Yes. I am.’

He closed his eyes and kissed my forehead. ‘Thank God for that. Now stop talking and let me concentrate on the powerful lyrics of Gary Barlow.’

I giggled as Harry pulled me in tightly and for another couple of minutes the two of us circled in time with the music, cheeks pressed together. As the song drew to a close he leaned away from me and nodded to the door.

‘Come on, let’s go outside. I’ve waited hours to have you to myself.’ His brown eyes twinkled mischievously and I laughed.

‘What about the band? Shouldn’t you be playing?’

‘They don’t need me for the next one.’

And hand in hand, trying not to look too obvious, the two of us escaped into the wintry night, closing the big tea room doors behind us.

‘It’s freezing,’ I gasped, laughing as our breath billowed out in a cloud between us.

Harry wrapped his arms round me and rubbed my back to keep me warm.

‘I’ve got an idea,’ he said, pulling me to the carriage. ‘Jump up.’

I was almost breathless with nervous excitement as the two of us sank down next to each other under the woollen blankets. There was a gentle twanging of guitars coming from the tea rooms, where the tempo had increased a little, and a louder twanging of my heart vibrating against my ribcage.

Harry slid an arm around my shoulders and pulled me close. I reached out a hand and traced a finger along his handsome face.

‘I have to say, Harry Graythwaite, you’ve done a fantastic job of hiding your feelings for me.’

He tilted my chin towards him and stared at me intently. ‘I thought you’d never see me as anything but a friend.’

‘Same.’ I smiled shyly. ‘Especially after that disastrous kiss at Willow Farm.’

He groaned and ran a hand through his already messed-up hair. ‘In all my wildest dreams about you, Freya, I never imagined that when I finally got the chance to kiss you I’d push you away.’

‘So why did you?’

‘The last summer you were here, when we were both eighteen, I felt like my whole life was planned out for me – uni and then back to the farm – and I felt trapped. You, on the other hand, were free to go wherever you wanted with whomever you wanted. And what I wanted more than anything was to be with you. You broke my heart when you left Lovedale that summer and being a bit of a coward, I didn’t want to risk that happening again.’

I frowned at him. ‘Harry, I’m so sorry. I knew that something had changed between us, but I had no idea that you felt that way.’

He shrugged. ‘I know. I was going to tell you how I felt but then you said you wouldn’t be back in Lovedale until you’d seen the world and I remember thinking:
That’s that then, she’ll never be back.
’

I nodded slowly, as the memory from that day came trickling back. I’d barely seen him after that conversation, he’d always made an excuse for not meeting up and then I’d left the farm and not seen him again for years.

‘But I did come back,’ I said. ‘I came home. And I am so glad I did.’

He slid his fingers across my face until his hand was cupping the back of my head. We were so close now that I could feel the heat from his body.

‘Me too. But even then I didn’t think for one moment that you’d stay,’ he said. ‘I assumed you’d be off again on another adventure. And who could blame you?’

I shook my head firmly. ‘Not this time,’ I whispered. ‘I’m not going anywhere. I love you, Harry.’

He lowered his face to mine. ‘Really?’

His breath was on my lips and suddenly my body didn’t feel cold any more.

‘Really.’

Across the yard, lights glowed at every window of the old stone farmhouse. A canopy of stars twinkled high above us and we were surrounded by garlands of ivy, ribbon and mistletoe entwined around the carriage. It was the perfect place to fall in love and my heart swooped with happiness.

I slipped my arms around Harry’s neck and he pulled me on to his lap, all the time holding my gaze.

Slowly he brushed his lips against mine and the moment seemed to hang in the air between us, as if time was standing still in order for us to savour our first kiss.

Harry kissed me and I kissed him back, gently at first and then deeper, as his arms tightened around me. I felt my body melt against his, no longer certain where I ended and he began.

His kiss tasted of home and I knew there would never be anywhere else I would rather be than in this man’s arms. Harry was, I thought dreamily, my perfect match.

Our first kiss lasted for ages, which was absolutely fine by me. When we finally came up for air, Harry looked so pleased with himself that I laughed with sheer joy.

‘I guess that means we’re past the “friends” stage,’ I said, leaning back as far as I could until we both tumbled down on to the velvet cushions.

‘Freya Moorcroft,’ said Harry, his voice gruff with desire, ‘I’ve waited ten years for that kiss.’

And so, I realized, as I pulled him down to kiss him again, had I.

A long weekend away in March was all we could manage to squeeze in. We were so busy, what with Harry’s fledgling biofuels crops to look after and the start of the wedding season nearly upon us. Besides, neither of us wanted to leave Lizzie and Ross in charge of Willow Farm and Mum and Dad looking after Appleby Farm for much longer than that. But as Harry pointed out, a long weekend still constituted a holiday and as we had had an incredibly wet winter – even by Lake District standards – and he hadn’t left the country for five years, we were both revelling in the Moroccan sunshine and savouring every precious moment together.

On our second evening we were sitting on our little mosaic-tiled terrace enjoying the soft breeze and the hazy sun, sipping at cold beers. My skin was tingling from so much unaccustomed sun. Somehow, despite using factor-fifty sunblock, I’d managed to burn both my knees and, attractively, one side of my face. Harry, of course, had turned a delicious shade of brown. He was sitting on the other side of the table, head tilted back, snoozing away, his beer resting on his bare chest.

I clunked my beer bottle on to the patio table decisively, stood up and moved behind his chair, wrapping my arms around his neck.

‘Are you tired?’ I asked.

He opened one eye, raised an eyebrow seductively and sat up straight. ‘No.’

‘Good.’ My lips twitched at the disappointment on his face as I popped a pen and postcard on his lap.