A Taste of Home by Heidi Swain (the beginning after the end read novel TXT) 📕

‘She’s had a big hand in transforming the place,’ said Annie, eyeing me beadily, ‘just like you’re now doing at Fenview. A little bird told me, that you’re going to be supplying the Cherry Tree Café with their fruit from now on.’

My gaze flicked to Eliot and I wondered if he was the little bird in question.

‘That’s right,’ I smiled at Annie, thinking there was no point denying it, even if I wasn’t sure if Grandad, Jemma or I wanted it widely known just yet. ‘And that’s just the beginning,’ I added for good measure, suddenly deciding to face full on the one issue I’d previously tried to avoid. ‘I’ve got more great plans which will help secure the future of the farm and my role in it.’

Eliot looked at me and raised his eyebrows and I wondered what he was thinking. Had I just raised his hopes and led him to assume that I was hinting that I was staying on, partly so that we could act on our feelings for one another? I hoped not, because that hadn’t been my intention. I was more interested in ensuring that Grandad heard from every possible corner about my commitment to the farm.

I felt my temperature rise as I again remembered Grandad’s now imminent visit to the bank. I hoped these great plans would soon land fully formed in my lap because it was all well and good bandying the words about, but I was going to have to come good on them at some point.

‘Then Bill’s a very lucky chap,’ Annie nodded in approval. ‘It seems to me the women around here are entrepreneurial in the extreme. There’s Jemma and Lizzie at the Cherry Tree and Lottie up the road with her vintage glamping, not to mention the girls with the plant nursery, and that’s just off the top of my head. And now there’s you too, Fliss. The area is very lucky to have you. Don’t you agree, Eliot?’

‘Yes,’ he said, turning slightly pink. ‘Of course, and for good, too.’

That sounded as if my intentions to stay were sinking in, but I hoped for all the right reasons. I briefly met his gaze and he knocked me for six with his thousand-kilowatt smile. Wishing it wouldn’t, but unable to stop it, I felt my face turn far redder than his.

‘It’s a huge comfort to know that Bill has you with him, Fliss,’ Jake joined in.

‘And I couldn’t agree more about us entrepreneurial women, Annie,’ said Amber. ‘We’ve all found our niche and we all work well together. We’re all happy to support each other’s businesses too and I think that’s why we’re thriving. The networking scene in and around Wynbridge is a huge help.’

‘In that case,’ I said, turning my attention back to the conversation and pushing aside my concerns about what Eliot was thinking, ‘I’m even happier to be here.’

A little later, Amber had to go and collect the children from school and Eliot was thankfully expected elsewhere too.

‘Why don’t you show Fliss around properly?’ Amber suggested to Jake once Eliot was no more than a speck on the horizon and I had relaxed again. ‘She might get even more ideas for Fenview.’

‘What do you think?’ he asked me. ‘Have you got to rush back?’

‘I can’t rush anywhere,’ I reminded him, ‘until you’ve revealed what it is that I’m going to be rushing back in.’

‘That’s true,’ he said. ‘Come on then.’

The whistle-stop tour started with the rare breed pigs, which were raised for their prime meat and after that we drove through the immaculately kept orchards which supplied the fruit for Skylark cider and perry.

‘And we let the pigs graze in here too,’ said Jake, as he weaved the Mule between the trees. ‘They clear up in much the same way as your hens will in the fruit cages.’

‘Do you think the apples the pigs eat flavours the meat?’

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Definitely. It’s subtle, but definitely noticeable.’

There were bees too, providing honey and wax and a pretty bungalow called Meadowview, which was a holiday let decorated with a vintage twist.

‘So, there you have it,’ he said when we pulled back into the yard, ‘that’s our place.’

‘It’s fantastic,’ I told him. ‘And I think it’s great that you can sell what you produce on site and I’m grateful that you’ve helped Grandad by selling our fruit here too.’

‘Yes, selling direct has worked out well and I’m happy to keep doing it for you, Fliss. The only other thing we’d like to do is host events where we could cook and serve the food we produce to paying guests.’

‘What like an annual food festival?’

‘No, something more regular than that.’

‘An exclusive supper club?’

I’d recently read about a couple in a magazine. They looked and sounded wonderful.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Exactly that, but unfortunately, we haven’t got the room here.’

The venues I’d seen online were idyllic. One was located in the old glasshouses of a former garden centre, and the menus changed for every event so that the very best of what was on offer in the area could be presented at its peak.

‘Um,’ I said, looking about. ‘I suppose you are a bit tight for space here now, aren’t you?’

‘Yes,’ Jake agreed, ‘and the occasional waft from the pigs probably wouldn’t go down all that well with discerning diners either. We’ve had the odd wedding here in the past, pitching a marquee in the meadow, but we decided to stop when we increased the pig numbers.’

I couldn’t help thinking that if folk were dining or tying the knot in the country then they should perhaps be expecting earthy smells, but I didn’t say so.

‘What you really need,’ I said instead, my heart fluttering as my mind tracked back to the farm’s produce and whirred with the beginnings of an idea, ‘is somewhere, not too rural, that has the capacity to park a few cars and the space to serve food to enough