Page 62 of Summer At Willow Tree Farm

‘What solution?’

‘You could help Jacob finish off the house he’s building,’ she said, a little breathless as another solution tried to butt into her brain.

Jumping Art is not and will never be a solution.

Art dragged a hand through his hair, the frown on his face an odd combination of relief and frustration. ‘I haven’t got time for that. I’m up to my tits doing this.’

Fair point.

‘I was thinking of putting the launch back a week. So we could take more time to plan it. But that would give us an extra weekend once the build’s completed. We could all chip in. Get their place finished together, turn it into a social event. Like in Witness.’

‘Like in what?’

‘Witness, the old Harrison Ford movie,’ she explained. ‘He joins the Amish, dances to Sam Cooke with the female lead, who’s Amish and has never danced before,’ she added. ‘In just about the most romantic movie scene ever.’ So not the point. ‘Then they all build a barn, in an afternoon.’ She was babbling and Art’s expression had merely shifted from clueless to completely unimpressed. So Art wasn’t a classic eighties movie fan. Figured. ‘Jacob says they only have a bit to do.’ Forget about Harrison dancing in a barn, it wasn’t helping. ‘If we got it done, they could have their own place. And we’d all get a decent night’s sleep again.’

Art tucked his thumbs into the toolbelt. ‘You want me to pay the crew to work an extra weekend after the build’s finished,

just so Jacob and Maddy can carrying on banging like rabbits?’

‘And we don’t have to hear it,’ she said. Why was he being deliberately obtuse, and putting more X-rated pictures in her head that she so did not need to be there? ‘We won’t need to pay the crew, the co-op residents can do it. Even Toto and Josh know how to slap on a bit of paint. We can put everyone to work. Dee will do food. It can be another great community event.’

‘Because I love those so much,’ he said, but the rigid tic in his jaw had softened.

‘You’ll love this one,’ she said, ignoring the sarcasm. ‘Just think, there’ll be no more midnight moaning and groaning and shouts of “I’m coming, Jay,” for us all to enjoy.’ OK, maybe that was a bit too much information, because Art’s eyes had darkened again, and heat was spreading up her neck like a wildfire.

‘Have you got time to organise this?’ he asked.

‘I’ll fit it in.’ She’d just start a new to-do list titled: ‘Operation Porn No More’.

‘I’ll think about it,’ he said.

She let the air slip out of her lungs – was that relief, or regret?

‘But just to be clear,’ he added. ‘I’m no Harrison Ford.’

As he strolled back across the work area, her gaze slipped over the muscles of his back under the sweat-stained T-shirt and landed on his butt, displayed in battered jeans, the low-slung toolbelt bumping against his hip.

Ellie would have to agree with him. Art Dalton was a whole lot more dangerous than Harrison Ford.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

‘Put the halloumi over there and I’ll give the chickens another turn,’ Dee directed, while Ellie finished setting out napkins and cutlery.

Ellie placed the plate of grilled cheese on the trestle tables they’d set up in a copse of trees next to the stream running in front of Jacob and Maddy’s cabin. Standing back, she brushed sweat-soaked hair off her brow, and took a moment to admire the magnificent spread her mother had brought from the farmhouse. August sunshine beamed through the canopy of trees, illuminating the feast of salads and baked goods.

The sound of birds and insects filled the air around the smallholding. The manic activity of this morning, as everyone chipped in to finish the dwelling, had finally tapered off. She knew Art was inside busy laying the last of the bathroom tiling with Jacob, while Annie and Tess were helping Maddy finish off the painting chores in the sitting room. Josh and Toto had been commissioned to entertain Melody after covering themselves with paint. The two of them scrambled around on the banks of the stream, building a mud palace with Melody for her extensive collection of Frozen figurines. Mike was hauling the last of the debris into the truck to take back to the farmhouse skip, having already made up the bed frame in the newly painted bedroom, while Rob was riding herd on his toddler sons, who had an unenviable knack of always running off in different directions.

After starting at eight the previous morning, they were almost finished, ready to chow down on Dee’s early evening meal in the fading sunshine.

The timber-framed bungalow was perfect for a young couple just starting out, the simple wooden three-room structure topped with a sloping roof of reclaimed slate. Jacob and Maddy had spent their last night in the farmhouse yesterday and there had not been a peep out of them all night. But Ellie still hadn’t slept well – she hoped the quiet wasn’t going to get to her when they were gone. With Josh in his box room between Toto’s room and her mother’s master bedroom on the opposite side of the house, it would just be Art and herself in the east wing of the farmhouse from now on. Thank goodness she had her own en suite bathroom and wouldn’t have to share one with him, because hearing the distant hum of his shower yesterday evening when she’d been lying in bed had been enough of a distraction.

Art emerged from the cabin and unhooked his toolbelt to drape it over the porch rail. She felt the odd bump in her chest that always accompanied sights of Art these days, as he strolled towards the tables across the meadow grass.

‘Food, thank God. I’m starving.’ He rolled up the sleeves of his work shirt. His dark hair gleamed, the stubble on his jaw and the crisp curls of chest hair against sun-browned skin shiny in the sunlight. Her heart bumped again.

No one wore sweat and sawdust better than Art Dalton.

He leant over the table to pluck one of Dee’s feta tartlets off the centrepiece. And got a swift slap on the back of his hand from her mother.

---