Page 66 of Best Laid Plans

‘Dozens,’ he admitted with a rueful smile. ‘Every time I talked to you about friendship I was being an idiot.’

She felt the warmth of his fingers stroking her cheek. He touched her chin, lifted her face so that she was lost in the silver of his eyes. ‘We should have been talking about love, Lucy.’

She couldn’t speak.

‘I love you,’ he said and she tried to smile but she sobbed instead.

‘I love you, Goose.’

Will kissed her damp eyelashes. ‘You’re the most important person in the world to me. That’s got to be love, hasn’t it?’

She could feel a smile growing inside her. ‘It does sound promising.’

His eyes shone. ‘I want to protect you and your baby.’

‘Our baby,’ Lucy corrected and yes, she was definitely smiling on the outside now.

‘I want to make you happy every day. I want to sleep with you every night and have breakfast with you every morning.’

‘That definitely sounds like more than friendship, Will.’ Smiling widely, she reached up and touched the grainy skin ofhis jaw. ‘And I should know. I’ve loved you for so long I don’t know any other way to be.’

His hands framed her face and his eyes were shining. ‘Do you think you could marry me, Lucy?’

A fleeting memory from a time long ago flitted through her mind – pages of a schoolbook filled with her handwriting:Lucy Carruthers. Mrs Lucy Carruthers.

‘I’d love to marry you, Will.’

He punched the air and let out a war whoop. ‘Sorry,’ he said, ‘but I couldn’t help it. I just feel so damn happy.’

And then Will kissed her.

He poured his happiness and his love and his soul into the kiss and Lucy discovered that an old shed with a leaky roof was the most romantic place in the world.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

THEIR baby chose to be born on a crisp clear winter’s day in July.

Will rose early when it was still dark. He built up the fire in the living room, so it could heat the whole house and, with that task completed, he returned briefly to his bedroom doorway. He smiled at the sight of Lucy still sleeping, the tips of her blonde curls just showing above the warm duvet.

He continued on to the back door, donned a thick, fleecy lined coat and heavy boots, and went out into the frosty dawn to the first of his daily tasks – checking the condition the pregnant ewes and any lambs born during the night.

The sun was a pale glimmer on the distant horizon and the sky was grey and bleak, his breath a white cloud. Grass underfoot was crisp with frost. Last week he’d started spreading hay, and feeding their flock with winter grain stored in their silos.

Farming was constant work, but Will loved his new life. Loved being in the outdoors, loved working with the animals and the land, planning the seasonal calendar of tasks required to keep the business running smoothly.

Best of all, he loved sharing every aspect of farm life with Lucy.

His wife was a walking encyclopaedia when it came to sheep and there’d been plenty of times when he’d had to humbly ask for her advice. But lately, Lucy had been endearingly absentminded, her attention turning more and more frequently inward to their baby.

And that was the other grand thing about Will’s life these days – the pregnancy.

Of all the adventures he’d enjoyed, this surely had to be the greatest. Will never tired of watching the happy light in Lucy’s eyes, or the proud way she carried herself as their baby grew and grew. Never tired of seeing the baby’s movements ripple across her belly, or feeling stronger and stronger kicks beneath his hand.

Together Will and Lucy had converted his old bedroom into a sunny nursery, with yellow walls and bright curtains and a farmyard frieze.

‘The kid will only have to look out the window to see a farmyard,’ Will had teased.

But Lucy wanted farm animals, so that’s what they had, along with a wicker rocking chair and a fitted carpet, a handmade quilt lovingly pieced by his mother, as well as a white cot with a soft lamb’s wool rug.

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