Shadow on the Fells (21 page)

“Oh, by the way,” called Tom. She glanced back at him hopefully. “I almost forgot. Will asked me to make you a delivery on my way home, but as you're here I may as well do it now.”

“What delivery?”

“Just a sec...” He walked across to the barn, disappearing inside to return a couple of minutes later with a dog in tow.

“Max!” cried Chrissie, racing over to give the big labradoodle a hug. His tail wagged so madly that his whole body wriggled, and his face was one huge smile. “I thought I heard a dog whining,” she said, extracting herself from his exuberant embrace. “But I figured it must be yours. You can't really mean that Max is the delivery for me. Why would Will do that?”

Tom shrugged. “Beats me. I just do as I'm told. He asked me to deliver the dog to you since there was no place for it in the city, and anyway...”

“Anyway what?”

“He just said, ‘Anyway, she owes me.'”

A wave of emotion hit her hard. “I guess that's true,” she eventually managed. So was that it? Her payback for ruining Will's plans was to have to care for Max? For how long? Well, she loved the dog so it was hardly payback, and she'd find a way to make sure he earned his keep.

Then another thought struck her. If Max was with her, surely she and Will would have to meet up again sometime. She couldn't imagine he'd abandon his dog forever, for he loved Max, too. A prickle of excitement and hope made its way into her heart.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

I
T
HAD
BEEN
well over a month since
Will left the Lakeland hills to take up his life in the city again, but to
Chrissie it felt just like yesterday. She walked the wild fells in a daze,
shadows clouding her vision. Nothing seemed the same anymore, nothing was
enough. The little things that had once filled her every waking moment no longer
seemed quite as fulfilling.

Only throwing herself so hard into her work that she fell
exhausted into bed each night could make her temporarily forget Will Devlin, the
way he'd looked at her, the way he'd held her...the way he had told her that he
loved her. For a while she had hoped he might call to ask after Max and that
maybe he had only left the dog with her as an excuse to stay in touch, but she'd
been wrong. He had left Max with her because it was the right thing to do, no
more and no less, and she had to come to terms with that idea.

Spring was giving way to the beginnings of summer with
bumblebees buzzing in the sunshine and shearing time looming. Chrissie tried to
apply herself to her usual summer jobs, but she couldn't get away from the
feeling that there was something missing in her life.

When Aunt Hilda came to stay for the weekend, she noticed it at
once and ferreted the truth out of her niece before heading home. To her it had
been a no-brainer. “Just go to Manchester and tell him how you feel,” she'd
insisted.

“But I don't know how he'll feel,” Chrissie told her. At that,
her aunt had just shaken her head and told her not to talk nonsense.

Chrissie was thinking about that conversation over a hurried
breakfast when a knock came at the kitchen door. Pushing the remains of her
toast into the bin and tipping her tea down the sink, she went to see who was
there.

To her surprise Roger Simmons stood smiling on the doorstep, a
roll of paper tucked under his arm. “Oh...hi, Roger,” she said with a puzzled
frown, grabbing Max's collar to stop him leaping up in welcome. “Sorry, he's a
bit exuberant.”

“Oh, no problem...” Roger seemed distracted. He was dithering;
she could see it in his eyes. “I'm not sure if I should have come. I mean, I
don't want to intrude but...”

She held the door open, letting Max go. “You're not intruding.
Please, come in and tell me...well, whatever it is.”

Once settled on a chair at the kitchen table Roger seemed to
get his focus back. “I've been meaning to come and see you for a while,” he
said. “But I kept thinking that I should let the dust settle first.”

“Dust?” Chrissie asked vacantly. “What do you mean?”

“It's just that...” Roger leaned toward her. “I think you
should know the whole truth.”

“What truth?”

He hesitated. “Will left because his plans were rejected, or
that is what he led us to believe, but I think there was more to it than that. I
mean, it's none of my business, really, but...”

“Go on,” urged Chrissie.

“Well, I believe his decision to go back to the city had as
much to do with you as it did with his plans being refused. It's only fair that
you know the whole truth.”

Chrissie waited, digging her fingernails into her palms.

He rolled out the paper on her kitchen table. It was a set of
architectural plans. “This is what Will had me working on before he left. It was
his vision for the future. When he found out that his outline planning had been
refused, or more to the point, when he found out that it was down to your
objections, he was upset and angry. He told me to ditch the whole idea and to
just send a bill for what I'd done so far, but I decided to finish off the
drawings anyway. And it works, Chrissie, it really does. It's inspired.”

Chrissie pored over the plans. A group of authentic-looking
cottages were set around the yard at Craig Side, and just beyond them the big
barn and some outbuildings seemed to have been opened out into one larger
area.

“Why,” she cried in surprise, “it's almost like some kind of
schoolroom...and what is this paddock area beyond it?”

“Sheepdog training and handling,” supplied Roger. “Will's
vision was to educate the visitors and cater only to those who had come to the
Lakes for the right reasons, people who wanted to learn about the age-old
traditions here and help them survive.”

Tears choked Chrissie's throat. “Will did this?”

Roger shrugged. “He wanted to, but...”

“I ruined it,” she finished for him.

“That's how it felt to him, I guess.”

“But he's been gone for over a month, Roger, so why tell me
now?”

He seemed to consider his words before speaking. “Because I saw
the for sale sign yesterday,” he said finally.

“Craig Side? Are you sure?”

“It's in the real estate agent's window, too...at a
knocked-down price. Call him, Chrissie...or go and see him. Take these plans if
you like. I know he was angry, but time is a great healer.”

To hide her emotion, Chrissie spread out the sheets again.
“Thanks. I'd like to look at them properly, anyway...not that they really have
anything to do with me.”

“If you don't mind me saying,” Roger remarked. “I think they
have everything to do with you.”

For a long time after he'd left, Chrissie studied the plans.
Oh, why hadn't Will included her in this? Why hadn't he told her that he
respected her beliefs and wanted to try and find a way to work with them?

The answer came at once: because she hadn't given him the
chance. How was he to know that she had gone behind his back to overthrow his
dream? Roger had told her to go and see him now, but what was the point? She'd
lost his trust and, with it, his love. It was too late for them...but not too
late to at least set the record straight and help Will achieve his dream, even
if she was no longer a part of his life.

Reaching for her phone, she scrolled down to his number; all
she had to do was get him back here and then she could persuade him not to give
up.

* * *

W
ILL
HEADED
ACROSS
the fell toward High
Bracken, reliving the first time he'd walked this way, remembering Chrissie
striding out behind the rippling white mass of fell sheep, her dogs under
perfect control...until he and Max had burst onto the scene.

Oh, how angry she'd been that day. And she'd stayed angry at
him for ages; he'd seen it in her eyes...even after she took his money.
Something tightened inside him. He really had believed in her for a
while...loved her, even. He still did, if he was honest with himself, but love
needed trust to make it work.

Her message about him needing to come back and see Max urgently
had arrived when he was in court. He'd tried to return her call later, after a
very satisfying verdict was given, but got no reply. Just hearing her voice had
brought back so many memories and emotions that his first instinct had been to
ignore her...but she'd said it was about Max. What if he was ill? What if he
needed expensive surgery and she couldn't afford it?

It had made him feel sad to see the for sale sign outside Craig
Side. He'd arrived in Little Dale with such hope and left with a sense of
helplessness and failure. He couldn't have stayed, though, not with Chrissie so
close by, and his plans were nothing without her to share them with.

Anyway, she had shown him where her priorities lay. The tearful
apology she'd made before he left was just her guilt talking, he knew that; he'd
seen enough such protestations to last him a lifetime. He had no doubt she'd
felt relief as soon as he left.

But none of that mattered, he told himself. He was here for
Max, and as soon as the problem was sorted, he would be on his way back to the
city. As he took in the glory of his surroundings, though, the idea rankled.

Will had decided to walk across the fell because he'd never
seen it in the summer sunshine, and he realized it would probably be his last
chance. His heart hurt at the thought. He'd set the price so low that there had
already been a lot of interest in Craig Side, and it would quite probably have
been sold by now if he hadn't kept on stalling. Somehow, though, he was finding
it hard to actually let go...especially now that he'd come back. Even this brief
visit was only going to make it worse.

All she had said in her message was that he needed to come back
and see Max as soon as possible. It had sounded serious, and his worry had
increased when he'd been unable to get hold of her. What if she couldn't take
care of the dog any longer? He'd called Roger, but he didn't seem to know
anything. So he'd decided to just turn up at High Bracken and see for
himself.

* * *

C
HRISSIE
HAD
BEEN
waiting since yesterday, when she'd left the message, her
ears tuned for the sound of Will's vehicle driving into the yard. She hadn't
expected to hear his voice first. For what felt like a lifetime, her heart
seemed to stop beating.

“Hello...hello... Chrissie, are you there?”

He was wearing his country clothes, the ones she'd finally
talked him into: scuffed brown boots, jeans and a checked shirt in bright summer
colors. She watched him from where she stood in the barn door. He was shading
his eyes from the sun as he looked for her, his dark hair blowing in the breeze.
When he turned and saw her standing there, time seemed to stop, and then she
stepped forward, breaking the spell. “Will,” she cried. “You came.”

His smile was genuine; his hand on hers was firm and warm and
strong. She wanted to hang on to it, to press his palm against her cheek, to
kiss each of his fingers. Instead, she dropped his hand as if she'd been
scalded, drawing hers close against her chest.

“What is it?” he asked. “I thought something bad had
happened... Is Max okay?”

She nodded. “Yes, he's fine. I'm sorry. I had to see you about
something...and I thought...”

“You thought that I wouldn't come back just for you.”

“Something like that.”

He gazed at her with such emotion in his eyes that she longed
to reach out and stroke his cheek. She settled on taking his hand in hers. “Come
on—let me show you.”

* * *

T
HE
PLANS
WERE
spread out on the kitchen table, and he glanced at them with a puzzled
frown. When he looked up, Chrissie's face was animated.

“Roger brought these to show me,” she said. “He explained how
excited you were by the idea when you first approached him, and how he was
inspired to finish the plans after you left. Don't be angry with him—he really
does seem to believe in the whole concept. I just needed you to talk me through
it, to understand your vision...”

For a moment, she held his gaze, her blue eyes soft. “I didn't
set out to trick you, Will, and I honestly did mean to tell you the truth. Maybe
I have been too immoveable when it comes to tourists, but I really am prepared
to listen now...”

He stared at the plans, running his hand across them. “I saw
this as our future, Chrissie, something that would bridge the gap between
us...and maybe bridge the gap between the old traditions and modern society. I
never meant what I said about the money, you know. I paid you well to train Max,
but it wasn't a bribe. I just wanted to strike out, to hurt you the way that you
had hurt me. I let you into my heart, Chrissie, and when I found out that you'd
gone behind my
back it seemed that everything I'd
believed about you was a lie.”

She took a step toward him, but he held up his hand.
“No...please, I need you to hear me out first, need to you understand all this.
Look, Chrissie, I know you hate tourists and that you want to preserve the way
of life here...and I agree with that. The problem is that the farmers in the
Lake District are struggling, and without tourism to help boost the economy,
things will only get worse.

“More farmers will be forced to give up and the sheep will
slowly disappear from the fells altogether...or become totally wild. The
drystone walls will just become piles of stones and the heritage you love so
much will be gone forever. I believe that the only way forward is to change your
way of thinking. Instead of objecting to tourism, why not embrace it and make it
work for you? That is what these plans are all about. To educate the visitors
about sheep and farming. Teach them to respect the way of life here.

“I wanted to open a kind of education center,” he went on,
pointing to the plans with a rush of excitement. “That's what this larger
building is about. Craig Side could become a working farm where visitors can
stay and learn about respecting the countryside and about sheep and lambing and
all the other aspects of sheepherding. You...er...someone could even teach
people how to work dogs themselves. We could keep the old traditions alive,
Chrissie, through education.”

When Will stopped to gauge her reaction, Chrissie just stared
at him. “So, why did you drop your dream so easily?”

He took hold of both her hands. “Because my dream dropped
me.”

“Your dream is still here, Will, here in these hills...here
inside me. Your dream can be mine, too. I'm so sorry for all the mistakes I've
made, but the truth is, Will, I love you more than anything.”

He wrapped his arms around her, drawing her close. Chrissie
breathed in his scent, allowing her head to fall softly against his
shoulder.

“I want to build this dream with you,” he murmured. “To build a
future with you. I love you, Chrissie Marsh, and I was a fool to ever doubt
you.”