Page 13 of A Wedding in a Week

“To what?”

There’s that tooth digging into his lip again. “Prove I match their ethos.”

“Which is?”

“Caring about Cornwall,” Marc says plain and simple in that way I’ve always liked about him. He gets to the point. “About its future, like you’ve done here, yeah? Making changes to keep the farm from…” He doesn’t say sinking, but I imagine we both hear it. Then his gaze drops to my elbow as if what he still has to say might bruise me. “You could make even more changes, Stef. A lot more, if you wanted. Get ahead by being proactive instead of having to be reactive.”

And isn’t reactive exactly the right word for each of my farming pivots? But getting ahead once and for all involves more than my pipe dreams. It’ll take investment, so I can’t help shaking my head. “The bank won’t lend to me, not without putting the land on the line. I can’t do that.” Not when it isn’t only my home, but Mum’s future pension and security for Lukas that I can’t risk losing, not if his health takes a turn for the worse.

“No, no, I get that.” Marc winces. “And sorry for calling what you’ve done reactive. That must sound as if I think you don’t know—”

“What I’m doing?” It’s my turn to let out a laugh. “Don’t worry about hurting my feelings. It’s only the truth. Might help if I could see into the future.”

“That’s where this Penzance practice comes in. If I worked for them, I’d get to help local businesses do that kind of analysis.” He pauses, his next look sympathetic. “Which I bet you don’t have time for.”

And just like that, we’re talking the same language.

I pull my laptop over. “Analysis like this?” I show him my pet project, one that could make one hell of a difference to our income if I can swing it. One that also raises the spectre of risk. There’s no easy way to finance the start-up costs without using the farm as collateral.

Marc scans a spreadsheet, then reads the proposal I wrote for my last loan application. “You want to host weddings?”

I nod, waiting for criticism, but Marc only sounds interested. “That’s what you want to diversify into?”

“People have got to get married somewhere. Why not on the farm?” I touch the laptop trackpad to open another page of projections, and maybe Marc doesn’t have a monopoly on nerves today. I hesitate before sharing what crosses my mind every single time I look through these plans. “I can’t think of anywhere better to promise to share my life with someone special.”

Heat crawls up my throat as soon as I say it. Marc can’t notice. He also can’t think my plans are as whimsical as I just made them sound.

He studies them some more, his head tilting, and before I know it, an hour’s passed where we still haven’t eaten but have talked without awkward pauses for the first time in years.

Finally, Marc pushes his chair back. “That’s really the direction you want to go in?” And there’s a lick of warmth that doesn’t come from embarrassment or the stove. It comes from his smile. “Got to say, Stef, I didn’t have you pegged as...”

“As what?”

His gaze drifts to the pasties I made with Mum’s help, his brow furrowing again for a second. “As a romantic.” He meets my gaze, and there’s still a hint of a smile in his. There’s something else I can’t label as well before he switches back to business. “The figures look like they could stack up if they aren’t—”

“Too optimistic?” I don’t think they are. Not after almost a month of wrestling with them while I’ve had time on my hands.

“Maybe,” Marc concedes. “Let’s assume they stack up. I still can’t quite picture how weddings would work here, exactly. Where on the farm do you see them happening that doesn’t impact on your other income streams?” He pulls his chair closer. “Tell me?”

I can do better than that; after all, it’s only what Lukas ordered.

“How about I show you?”

* * *

Marc goes back to his cottage to change. When he comes back, he won’t let me carry the bag I’ve put together. He takes it from me before I can swing it over my shoulder, as if him carrying my load is natural. Walking through the farm with him feels natural too, now that we’re talking like we used to, because this is how we used to be around each other.

Marc points out changes to the farm like he used to at the start of every summer. We must both remember these fields being grazed by a herd I’ve whittled down to almost nothing apart from Mum’s best cream providers. They were part of this farm’s past. This evening, Marc points out its present—crops planted where the land is level, sheep dotting the steeper fields that climb to the edge of the moorland. But he also brings the conversation around to a future I want so much that I almost stumble.

He grasps hold of me until I’m steady, checking I’ve got my footing as though uneven ground is my problem, not the realisation that I’ve missed having someone to share with. Now that I do, I don’t want to stop, especially not with him. That’s as clear to me as the water gushing in the brook we next jump on our way to the tree line that marks where Kara-Tir ends.

Beyond this point, the land turns from cultivated to wild and rugged. But if we head back downhill and keep going, we’ll get to a cliff which I know all too well can be deadly. We’re hemmed in here the same way I felt when I took the farm over, so I clutch the trunk of a tree bent crooked by years of stiff sea breezes and tell him.

“If I don’t do something big soon, I’ll end up like this tree. Or at least the farm will.”

Marc doesn’t call me dramatic like Lukas might have. He nods instead as the evening sun leaves him burnished. He’s stunning. So stunning that I fall silent again until he murmurs, “Go on, Stef. I’m listening.”

Marc’s hand landing over mine on that old tree trunk uncorks everything I’ve kept bottled to shield Mum and Lukas. “I thought I’d lose the farm that first year. Thought I’d run it into the ground when the bank first threatened to pull out. That I’d fuck up what Dad made look easy. It was all…” Even now, it’s hard to admit how out of my depth I’d been. Marc fills that gap for me.

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