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

‘Bec was moaning earlier that she’s tried ringing your mobile, but it’s switched off.’

‘There’s no point having it on,’ I told him. ‘There’s not enough signal to warrant wasting the battery. Is she all right?’

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘She’s fine.’ Then his tone changed. ‘I think she wanted to ask how you got on last night.’

I pasted on a smile thinking that as everything else had been such a flop, I might as well make the most of this opportunity.

‘Can you tell her it was wonderful,’ I dreamily sighed, hopefully implying that I was reliving a very happy memory, ‘and that I’ll fill her in next week?’

‘Will do,’ he glumly said. ‘Come on then, Bill.’

I knew I would have to give Bec a dramatically doctored retelling of how the evening had gone because I could hardly tell her that her brother had been the hot topic, and not in a good way, could I?

‘Thank you,’ I said to his and Grandad’s retreating backs.

I watched them walk away and along with them went my hopes and dreams for the farm’s new venture. I had no idea why Grandad was so set against my seasonal supper club plans and, as he obviously had no intention of telling me, that was the end of that.

Chapter 19

Later that evening, after Eliot had gone, I couldn’t resist asking Grandad again why he was so against the diversification idea, but he refused to expand on what he’d already said. We didn’t argue about it, but this back and forth continued into the following week and by then, our newly-formed relationship was beginning to feel the strain.

It felt obvious to me that his main concern centred around me making a personal financial commitment – even though he insisted it wasn’t – but I couldn’t shake off the feeling that there was something else too. Something it was proving impossible for me to prise out of him.

We were talking a little less and left to my own devices, by the end of the week, I’d established a routine of picking the quickly ripening strawberries from early morning until lunchtime, then taking the fruit to town, dropping most at the café and the remainder to the market and Skylark Farm, before driving back and working through my share of the household chores and any other farm business.

When I had first arrived, it was the sort of settled lifestyle I had imagined, but suddenly it wasn’t enough. I was determined that Fenview Farm, and the part I had to play in securing its future, would equate to more than just going through the seasonal motions. Selling the fruit was all well and good, but with such a magnificent barn at our disposal, it felt frustrating to not be utilising it, especially now I had struck upon the perfect idea.

As keen as I was, I hadn’t talked to Jake to find out what he thought about it all because with Grandad so set against it, it would have been a waste of time and of course, I didn’t want to aggravate him further by going behind his back when he’d already, unwaveringly, said no.

‘Anyone home?’

It was my first trip to the Randall residence, and having knocked on the cottage door and got no answer, I’d ventured around the side of the house, through the gate and into the slightly overgrown garden. I knew Bec was home because the Banana-mobile was parked on the drive and the sound of music led me to her shed/studio. I knocked hard on the door, hoping I wouldn’t make her jump or disturb her artistic flow if she was in the zone.

There was a momentary lull in the music and I knocked again.

‘It’s open!’ she shouted, and I yanked at the door to find her standing in the middle of what looked like colour splattered chaos, a huge smile lighting up her face.

She skipped over to a workbench overflowing with pots of brushes, tubes of paint and piles of sketchbooks and turned the music off.

‘I’m not disturbing you, am I?’ I asked, the smell of paint filling my nostrils and making me feel a little lightheaded.

She really could have done with cracking a window or keeping the door propped open. No wonder she was smiling like a loon.

‘Where have you been?’ she demanded, pulling off her saffron and cerulean smattered smock and throwing it over the back of an equally paint embellished chair. ‘I’ve missed you every day when you’ve dropped the strawberries off at the café and your phone’s never on. I was beginning to think you were avoiding me!’

I felt a bit bad about that and now I’d come to the cottage because I had an ulterior motive which, given her obvious excitement to see me, made me feel a bit mean.

‘You go out with the best-looking guy in town and then… nothing. I’m supposed to be your new BFF, remember? I want details! And,’ she added, ‘you were supposed to give me a shout about when I could come and give you a hand with the strawberry picking.’

Preoccupied with certain details as well as daydreams about what the barn could look like if I had my way, I’d completely forgotten about her generous offer. And she seemed to have forgotten that she’d hinted that her brother had been about to declare something to me the day of too much champagne. Was she so scatter-brained that she’d misplaced that particular observation – I hoped so – or had she observed him further and changed her mind about what she’d said?

‘I’m sorry,’ I apologised. ‘I’ve been preoccupied.’

‘That good was it?’ she speculated. ‘Have you had round two yet? Is that why I’ve been abandoned?’

Anthony had called about ‘round two’ as Bec put it, one day when I was in Wynbridge and happened to have my phone turned on. He’d said he was sorry for not ringing sooner but he was currently swamped with work. He then ruined the apology by asking if