The Yuletide Child by Charlotte Lamb (latest ebook reader TXT) 📕

her bag. At least she would be able to ring for a taxi. She could only be a few miles away from her sister’s house. Her fingers skidded over the keys to tap in the code—but when she tried to ring her sister, meaning to ask Jenny to look up a local taxi firm for her, she got the ‘No Service’ signal. Frantically she tried again. ‘No Service’. She closed her eyes, groaning. Oh, no! Ross was always complaining about that. This could be a blind spot, or the weather might be breaking up the radio waves or something. She didn’t quite understand how mobile phones worked; they were a bit of a mystery to her.

She leaned on the car, considering her options. Well, she could get back into the car and wait for another vehicle to come along, but what if no other car went past? She would freeze to death out here.

She could force herself to walk back up to the busier road she had driven along a few minutes ago. The hill looked steeper than ever as she stared up to the top.

Surely there must be a farm or a cottage somewherearound here? Her desperate eyes hunted over the countryside again and stopped as she saw a gleam of light across the other side of a field. A house! And somebody was living there because she saw, too, a faint wisp of grey smoke curling up from a chimney.

Somehow she was going to have to make it to that house, and the sooner the better. She was getting colder every minute. Dropping the phone into her bag, she shut the car door, locked it, and set off.

It was very hard going with only one good foot. It was going to be painful, and slow, getting across that field. She leaned on the stone wall for a second and suddenly realised there was a tree growing a few feet ahead. Dylan had no idea what sort of tree it was, except that as it was leafless at the moment it must be deciduous, but to her delight one of the lower branches had half broken off, hung loosely downwards from the torn edge where it joined the trunk.

That would make a very useful walking stick to lean on. Gripping it firmly, she pulled and the branch came off in her hand. It was almost as tall as Dylan herself, thicker than she had expected, and pretty strong.

Leaning on it, she limped to the gate, but had a tussle to force it open because so much snow had built up behind it. At last she managed to get through, but closing the gate was almost as much of a problem. When she had managed that she leaned there for half a minute, breathing roughly while she peered through the blizzard.

Were there cows in this field? Under the coverlet of snow it was impossible to guess if a crop was being grown in there, or if this was a meadow where animals grazed, but she couldn’t see any animals, so she started off again. She was halfway across the field when she found herself sinking into a snowdrift.

Close to tears, she leaned on her stick and tried shouting. ‘Help! Hello? Hello, can you hear me?’

The wind took her voice away; nobody answered at first, and then suddenly something moved a few feet from her. Dylan gave a startled cry.

What was that? A cow? No, too small. A sheep? Could be. The shape moved again, came closer. She saw small bright eyes staring back at her. And horns.

Horns? Did sheep have horns? She kept very still, waiting to see if this creature was dangerous. In her condition she couldn’t run away. A second later she realised what it was—a goat! Wearing a leather collar and trailing a long chain. Obviously it had been tethered somewhere, but had escaped.

Dylan knew nothing about goats. Warily, she tried to assess this one—was it likely to attack her?

The animal bleated at her, curling back a long, mobile lip. The yellow-blue eyes were a little alarming, there was a wildness in them which worried her, but she risked patting it. The goat bleated again and leaned against her legs. Having company, even that of a mad-looking goat, was better than being alone in this wilderness of snow.

‘Hello, goat,’ she said chattily. ‘Are you as cold as I am?’

The goat stared up at her. She had the distinct impression it was looking at her bump.

‘Yes, I’m going to have a baby,’ she told it, feeling feverish. It was beginning to get dark now; night would soon fall. She had to find help soon; she would die of exposure if she didn’t.

The goat must come from that house over there. Turning the animal back in the direction from which it had appeared, Dylan leaned on it, taking hold of thethick, curly coat which, despite the covering of snow, was warm to touch.

‘Nice goat,’ she flattered. ‘Lovely goat. Come on, show me the way to your home.’

The goat began to move and she clung on to it, but the pace it set made her sprained ankle hurt more. ‘Don’t trot so fast. I can’t keep up!’ she gasped, as if it could understand every word she said. She didn’t care if she was being ridiculous. She was too terrified that she might give birth out here in this snowy field with only a goat for a midwife.

Ruth had been doing housework for two hours, and was dying for a cup of tea. As she stood at the kitchen sink filling the kettle she gazed gloomily at the blizzard still raging. She had meant to do last-minute shopping tomorrow—the local shops would be shut for three days over Christmas. Of course you might find some of them open in tourist spots like Windermere, but that was quite a drive from here, and parking was difficult there even in winter. She would have preferred to make sure she had everything