Country Loving Read online

  Contents

  About the Book

  About the Author

  Also by Cathy Woodman

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Map

  Acknowledgements

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Copyright

  About the Book

  From city accountant to lady farmer…

  Successful accountant Stevie receives two surprises in one week: a proposal of marriage from her boyfriend Nick and a phone call begging her to return to the family farm in Talyton St George to help out after her father has a stroke.

  But what she thought would be a long weekend in the country turns into much longer as she struggles to bring order to her father’s rundown farm. Finally, she decides to give up her job – and her fiance – and take on the farm permanently. Returning to Talyton St George reminds Stevie of how much she loves the country, and she enjoys the challenge of looking after the cows, especially as this brings her into close contact with local vet Leo.

  Until a life-changing complication throws all her plans into disarray, and destroys her growing romance with Leo…

  About the Author

  Cathy Woodman was a small-animal vet before turning to writing fiction. She won the Harry Bowling First Novel Award in 2002 and is a member of the Romantic Novelists’ Association. She is also a lecturer in Animal Management at a local college. Country Loving is the sixth book set in the fictional market town of Talyton St George in East Devon, where Cathy lived as a child. Cathy now lives with her two children, two ponies, three exuberant Border Terriers and a cat in a village near Winchester, Hampshire.

  Other books by Cathy Woodman

  Trust Me, I’m a Vet

  Must Be Love

  The Sweetest Thing

  It’s a Vet’s Life

  The Village Vet

  Vets in Love

  To Tamsin and Will

  Acknowledgements

  I should like to thank Laura Longrigg at MBA Literary Agents, Gillian Holmes and the wonderful team at Random House for their continuing enthusiasm and support. I should also like to congratulate Grant Cowan on the beautiful cover illustrations, especially the one of the cute brown calf!

  For their moral support and practical assistance while I’ve been writing this book, I’d like to thank Liz and Dave, Alex and Karen and their families, and my parents.

  Chapter One

  Till the Cows Come Home

  There are times when I’m afraid I’ll wake up to find I’ve been dreaming. I have a great career, a flat of my own, at least two foreign holidays a year and a wonderful boyfriend who has asked me to marry him. All in all, I think I’ve done rather well for a farm girl.

  It’s Thursday morning and I’m in the office in Wimbledon with my calendar for the first week of March open on my mobile and a latte from the Starbucks around the corner in front of me, trying to get my head together before I meet a potential client, when the desk phone rings and Caroline, our receptionist, asks me if I can take a call.

  ‘I didn’t catch his name, and I’ve asked if I can take his number for you to ring him back later, but he insists on speaking to you straight away. I’m sorry, Stevie, I don’t seem to be able to get through to him.’

  I check the time. I have a few minutes.

  ‘Thanks, Caroline. Put him through,’ I say.

  The caller is elderly and speaks with a strong Devon accent, the sound of his voice triggering a distant memory of ripening corn and blackberries.

  ‘This is Stevie Dunsford’s office?’ he asks. ‘Only I don’t want to make a fool of myself. It’s bad enough already that I’m doing this. I wouldn’t normally snitch on anyone, let alone the boss.’

  ‘You’re speaking to her – Stevie, I mean.’ Although I’m an accountant and good with numbers, two and two are definitely not making four at this moment.

  ‘It’s Cecil here,’ he says, pronouncing his name to rhyme with thistle.

  ‘Cecil? It’s you.’ I picture Cecil, an old man with a stoop – he’s always seemed old to me – standing in the farmyard in his brown coat and boots, with his tweed cap shading his eyes as he chews on a piece of sweet hay and counts the black and white cows in from the field. ‘Is everything all right?’ It’s a stupid question to ask, I think, because there has to be some kind of problem. He’s never called me before, not like this, out of the blue. ‘What’s happened?’

  I wait for Cecil to respond, a pulse thudding dully at my temple. He never was one for being quick on the uptake.

  ‘It’s Tom, your dad, he’s up to his neck in the muck and the mire.’

  ‘He’s in trouble? What kind of trouble?’

  ‘He’s more than likely going to end up in prison,’ Cecil responds.

  ‘What on earth for?’ I say, aghast because I was assuming he’d been in some kind of accident on the farm. ‘He can’t go to prison at his time of life. He’s seventy-five.’

  ‘Someone reported him for neglect.’

  ‘Who would do such a thing? How could anyone be so nasty?’

  ‘I’m always telling Tom to keep his friends close and his enemies closer, but when has he ever listened to me?’ Cecil says mournfully.

  ‘Or anyone else for that matter,’ I add.

  ‘He hasn’t always been a good neighbour.’

  ‘What do you mean by that?’

  ‘He and Guy from Uphill Farm next door have had a few fallings-out over the years and everything came to a head recently when Guy met your dad to discuss the state of the cows. They almost came to fisticuffs, and it ended with Guy contacting Animal Welfare.’ Cecil pauses. ‘Do you remember Jack Miller?’

  I have a vague memory of meeting Jack at various events in Talyton St George when I used to live there.

  ‘Anyway,’ Cecil continues, ‘he’s the local Animal Welfare officer now and he’s been out to the farm twice to inspect the cattle. He says if conditions don’t improve before his next visit, he’ll have no choice but to recommend Tom’s charged with animal cruelty. He’ll be fined, or locked up, and banned from keeping animals for life.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’ Yes, my father is what many have described as an awkward old bugger, but he would never neglect the cows, and losing them from the farm would break his heart.’ I’m growing angry now at the injustice of the accusation. ‘It’s impossible, Cecil. He loves those cows more than anything in the world.’

  ‘Well, you know how it is, Stevie. It’s been a right struggle keeping the farm going recently. Tom’s hardly in the best of health. In fact, he’s still very poorly.’

  This is news to me.

  ‘What’s wrong with him?’

  ‘I know you and your dad aren’t on the best of terms, but I can’t believe you’ve forgotten.’

  I’m not usually lost for words, but I don’t know what to say as Cecil says in an admonishing tone, ‘Dr Mackie reckons it’s going to be a long time till he’s back on his feet proper-like. He might never come completely right.’

  ‘Cecil, I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about. The last time I spoke to my father he was as right as rain �
� his turn of phrase, not mine.’

  ‘And when was that, my lover?’ I’m seized by a mixture of guilt and regret when I work out exactly how long ago it was. ‘More than three months?’

  ‘Nearer six,’ I confess.

  ‘He hasn’t told you then, his own flesh and blood?’ Cecil continues. ‘I had high hopes you two would put the past aside and move on. It was your mother’s dearest wish.’

  ‘Please just tell me what’s going on,’ I say with a touch of impatience. Any reminder of my mum is painful to me and I don’t want to think about it.

  ‘Tom’s recovering from a stroke. He spent six weeks in hospital but he’s home now.’

  ‘I don’t believe this. Why didn’t he call me? Why didn’t you let me know before?’

  ‘Because he said he’d seen you. I’ve been running the farm by myself, so I didn’t have any reason to doubt him when he said you’d made a couple of flying visits from London.’ Cecil’s voice softens. ‘I was pretty sore when you didn’t drop in to see me and Mary. We were such friends, Stevie.’

  ‘How is my dad? How bad is it?’

  ‘He tries to put a good face on it, but he’s been forced to sleep downstairs in the house and he can’t get much further than the front door on crutches or a stick. Mary cooks and cleans for him and the doctor comes in regular, so he’s all right as far as it goes.’

  ‘So he’s housebound?’

  ‘Pretty much.’

  It’s worse than I could have imagined. ‘What about the milking?’ I ask.

  ‘I’m doing that. I’ve been milking cows twice a day for nigh on sixty years.’ Cecil chuckles. ‘I can do it in my sleep.’

  ‘And the other work on the farm?’

  ‘That will have to be done another time.’

  ‘You need someone to give you a hand.’ I glance out of the window. The sky is clearing. ‘I’ll talk to Dad.’

  ‘It’s no use,’ Cecil says.

  ‘I know how stubborn he is, but really, it’s too much to expect you to run the show.’ Cecil’s older than my father by a few years.

  ‘It’s the money, Stevie. Tom can’t afford to feed the cows, let alone take on another farmhand.’

  ‘I don’t see how he can afford not to.’ I prefer to avoid any conflict with my father, I’ve had more than enough grief from him in the past, but hiding the fact he’s been seriously ill from me, his daughter, and lying about it to Cecil, who’s been the most loyal employee anyone could have, is beyond the pale. ‘I’ll call him after work.’

  My solution to the problem isn’t enough for Cecil.

  ‘Stevie, you have to come and see it for yourself.’

  ‘I’m very busy. I can’t just drop everything.’

  ‘You can drive down tomorrow and stay for the weekend. Mary will make up a bed and make sure you’re fed.’

  ‘I have plans for Saturday night,’ I sigh. It’s my flatmate’s thirtieth birthday and we’re having a bit of a party. ‘Won’t it wait until next weekend?’

  ‘No, because the next welfare inspection is tomorrow. We’ve had ten days to start turning it around and nothing’s changed. Stevie, you have to come back to the farm otherwise everything your family has worked for over the years will be gone.’

  My instant reaction is ‘Why me?’ Why should I have any compassion for my father after how he treated me, rejecting me for my brother?

  I pick up the photo of Nick and me at the firm’s Christmas party from my desk. (I met my boyfriend at work – Nick is one of the partners.) The girl who picked blackberries with Cecil would hardly recognise herself now: a tall, curvy woman of twenty-eight, wearing a short purple bodycon dress, with her rich brown hair pinned up, her brown eyes made up with false lashes and her nail extensions painted with black and silver crackle glaze.

  ‘Have you spoken to Ray?’ I ask.

  ‘I think it would be better coming from you. You know Ray and I haven’t always seen eye to eye.’ Cecil hesitates. ‘Please come home. Your dad’s a very sick man, the cows are going without and, truth be told, I’m struggling. I’m not sure how much longer I can keep going. Some days my back’s so bad I can hardly move.’ For a man of few words, Cecil makes an impassioned speech. ‘I know why you left the farm in the first place – I had many an argument with your dad over it, but he wouldn’t bend, and why should he? I’m only the hired farmhand, when all’s said and done. But you should have been the one who stayed, not that waste of space, Ray. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t speak badly of your brother, but he never loved the place in the same way you did.

  ‘I can’t stand by and see them cows starve no more. It’s breaking my heart to watch them like this. We need you, Stevie. Nettlebed Farm needs you. Please, I’m begging you to come home.’

  I listen to Cecil’s slow rasping breathing before the phone cuts out, then close my eyes, picturing the bony black and white cows waiting patiently outside the milking parlour, asking for nothing and giving everything. I can almost smell their sweet breath and hear the rhythmic pulse of the milking machine and it takes me back to when I was a teenager working alongside Cecil. We made a good team. He was always there for me. If nothing else, I owe it to him and the cows to see what I can do, but I don’t owe my father anything.

  I’m not going anywhere this weekend. I take a sip of coffee. My life is here in London and I’ve made plans for India’s special birthday, but Cecil’s call has disturbed my peace of mind because the very idea of Nettlebed Farm without cows is unthinkable.

  ‘Do you remember that song by the Wurzels?’ Nick says as he drives at speed along the motorway the following morning.

  ‘The one you’ve been singing non-stop for the last twenty miles, you mean, about the combine harvester?’ I say, amused. ‘If you’re not careful, I’ll ask Mary to give you turnips for tea.’

  ‘Dinner, you mean.’ He sighs. ‘I hate root vegetables.’

  ‘I’ve told you before. In Devon, dinner is lunch and tea is dinner, if you get my drift, and we live on turnips and swedes in the country.’

  ‘I remember now,’ he says. ‘It’s like you came down from another planet, Stevie.’

  ‘Thanks, Nick.’ I fall silent for a while, recalling our last trip to the farm for my mum’s funeral last year. They were the worst days of my life, but Nick was at my side, quietly supportive, and I’ll always be grateful to him for that.

  ‘Don’t you think you ought to slow down a little?’ I say eventually, clinging on to my seat.

  ‘I thought there was some urgency about the situation.’ Nick presses the accelerator down a touch, making the engine roar instead of merely purr. ‘You said we needed to get there as soon as possible.’

  ‘I’d like to get there in one piece.’

  I glance towards my boyfriend, who’s in his element behind the wheel of his car. He’s well turned-out, the jeans and blue shirt understated but expensive. His eyes are blue-grey, his short brown hair is combed and waxed into place, his teeth are straight and white and his skin lightly tanned. It’s his natural colour – it isn’t long since we returned from the holiday of my dreams in Mauritius.

  Nick flashes me a smile. ‘I hope you aren’t going to turn out to be a terrible nag, Stevie. You liked going fast when we first met. You said it gave you a thrill.’

  I did because with the first flush of romance I’d felt immortal, but during our eighteen months together, my sense of self-preservation has gradually returned. I’m no longer so wrapped up in us being a couple, which, as I keep telling myself, is only to be expected.

  Nick grows serious.

  ‘I don’t understand the rush, to be honest. Your dad’s hardly been considerate of your feelings over the years and I really can’t work out how a father can forget to tell his daughter he’s had a stroke. What’s that all about?’

  I don’t say anything. Glancing at the speed registering on the dashboard, I reckon it won’t be long before we find out.

  ‘I wish you’d let me drive for a while,’ I say, changing
the subject.

  ‘This is my baby.’ Nick drums his fingers against the steering wheel.

  ‘One day what’s yours will be mine, if we get married.’

  ‘When, I hope. However, this is one of the “all my worldly goods” that we won’t be sharing.’

  ‘If you really loved me, you’d let me have a go,’ I say archly. ‘I’ve always wanted to drive an Aston Martin.’

  ‘You know I love you,’ he says.

  ‘But you love your car more.’

  ‘It isn’t that. It’s just that she’s a bit livelier than what you’re used to.’

  ‘If I can drive a tractor, I can drive your car.’

  ‘What are you suggesting, Stevie? She’s nothing like a tractor.’ Nick floors the accelerator and the car whisks into the fast lane, leaving the other traffic behind. ‘Anyway, it’s me who should be questioning you on your level of commitment.’ His voice grows a little sulky, adding another grain to the slowly growing mound of doubt about where our future lies. ‘I’m beginning to wonder what’s taking you so long.’

  ‘It’s a big step,’ I begin, not wanting to enter into this conversation. Nick is nine years older than me and has been married before. Sometimes I wonder if the age gap will become too much and if he’s just too desperate to get married again. ‘I want to be sure.’

  ‘I’m sure,’ he says, and I notice the creases form at the corner of his eye as he concentrates on the road ahead. I wish I could talk to him about my doubts and fears and my desire to stay as we are, without hurting his feelings. ‘Stevie, when will you put me out of my misery and give me your answer?’

  ‘Soon, I promise, but please don’t keep pressuring me. I have a lot on my mind.’ I pause, waiting for his response which doesn’t come. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘For coming with me. I really appreciate it.’ I’m not sure I can marry him. I’m not sure we’ll last, but we’re together, side by side, and that’s enough for me for now. I reach out and touch his thigh.

  ‘Not now, Stevie. I’m driving.’ Nick flashes me a smile and pushes my hand away. ‘I rather fancy a long weekend in sunny Devon, and it’s always good to have an excuse to take the car for a spin,’ he continues.