Page 80 of Rough Around the Hedges

She nodded sagely. “Good decision. I’ll leave you to it, then.” She paused, glancing at Oliver, then leant over my fence, raising her hand to the side of her mouth conspiratorially. “By the way, Rose, not many people are happy that he’s here.”

Was she supposed to whisper that?

Paula couldn’t whisper if her life depended on it.

“I know,” I replied. “I was counting on that.”

Oliver sighed, running his hand through his hair. Isa blinked at him, but his actions were barely worth my acknowledgement.

After all, I was very familiar with him sighing in my presence. It was pretty much our primary means of communication.

“You still can’t garden in those shoes,” I said, looking at his feet once more. “This is the problem with city people. What, you think sandals are acceptable for this? Do you want my chicken to shit on your feet? Or cut your toe on a sharp stone? What about brambles? They’ve got thorns, you know. There’s also a chance I’ll accidentally stab you with my fork.”

18

OLIVER

The Price of Attraction

Iwas no genius, but I was going to assume there’d be nothing accidental about Rose’s gardening fork going straight through my foot.

Sure, she’d play it off as if it were, but I already knew she’d been plotting some serious bodily harm where I was concerned, so I wasn’t bloody buying it.

“It’s just gardening, princess. I think I can manage in my sandals,” I replied after a moment, noting the way irritation flashed across her face at my use of the nickname

Excellent.

“And you can call me a city person all you like, but I was born here, you know,” I reminded her.

“Born but not raised.”

“Does that make a difference?”

“It does to me.”

I blinked at her.

My God, keeping up with this woman was a full-time job.

So why the fuck couldn’t I bring myself to quit?

“Would you like to get your grievances out of the way before we get started? I’m sure you’ll feel much better if you just unloadyour thoughts right now, and it’ll no doubt reduce the threat towards my feet.” I paused. “From both the garden forkandthe chicken shit.”

Rose cleared her throat, then pushed her wild waves away from her face. “You lot can’t drive. Is it because you’re always stuck in traffic and moving at thirteen miles an hour? Is that why you see an open road and start panicking? Do you even know what an accelerator is? How about a speed limit?”

“You were stuck behind a tourist today, weren’t you?” Isadora asked, amusement flashing across her face.

“Three of!” Rose snapped, jerking around. “On thesameroad! It wasn’t even a single-lane road, nor were they stuck behind a tractor or held up by sheep. Nope. They were just driving thirty-five miles an hour in a fucking sixty. Why do I get a speeding ticket if I drive six miles over the limit, but these bastards can drive twenty-fiveunderand that’s absolutely fine? If there are speeding tickets, there should be slow tickets, too. They’re way more dangerous. I’ve seen tractors drive faster.”

I’d made a terrible mistake asking her to air her grievances.

“I couldn’t even overtake them because they were all bunched up like those little wooden train sets kids have—you know, the ones with the magnets? The only thing worse is bloody cyclists meandering about in the middle of the road. Why can’t they just move over to the side? They’re riding a bike, not driving a tank. And why do they always tut when I overtake? Can’t they calm down? It’s Harry from the corner shop, not Bradley bloody Wiggins!”

A terrible, terrible mistake.

“And don’t even get me started on—”

“All right, we won’t,” I said, interrupting her before she continued her tirade. “That sounds like plenty of grievances aired if you ask me.”

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