Love Heart Lane Series

‘Ask Rona to throw me in a Full Scottish. I’ll be over in ten minutes.’

Almost immediately her phone pinged, ‘You got it! Reserved your favourite table too.’

Isla knew she could always rely on Felicity. She was her best friend and Isla would be able to vent her frustration about this morning’s argument without it going any further, even though her partner Fergus was Drew’s right-hand man on the farm.

She was maddened by Drew’s behaviour, even more so after she’d woken up feeling quite chirpy. Baby Angus had only woken once in the night for a feed, leaving her feeling refreshed, even though she longed for the time when he’d sleep straight through. Isla knew she would have to tackle Drew’s mood again later and wasn’t looking forward to that. As soon as she picked up Finn from school, the hours were hectic until bedtime. Every night was the same routine: preparing the tea, bathing Finn and Angus, followed by making the sandwiches for the following day, putting the children to bed … the list was endless.

The more she thought about it, the more Isla became even madder with Drew. Who did he think looked after the day-to-day running of the farmhouse? Did he think the food miraculously appeared on the table in front of him the second he stepped through the door after a hard day’s work on the farm?

‘Get a job … get a job,’ she puffed to herself, reaching for the money pot on the shelf and tugging off the lid. She stared inside, shook it, then turned it upside down in bewilderment, but nothing fell out, it was completely empty.

‘That’s strange,’ she muttered, knowing that’s where Drew kept the cash. At the beginning of the week there had been over a hundred pounds stuffed inside.

Hearing Angus cry from his cot, she hurried upstairs and found the baby lying on his back kicking his legs. She reached inside and nestled him into her shoulder. ‘You are all that matters,’ Isla said softly. ‘You and Finn … us … our family. We need to get to the bottom of what’s up with your daddy and put it right.’ Isla kissed his head lightly.

‘Come on, let’s go and see Auntie Flick at the teashop.’

Five minutes later, with Angus bundled up tightly in his blue woven blanket and strapped inside his pram, Isla began to stroll towards the teashop with her argument with Drew still very much on her mind. She spotted him and Fergus thudding their mallets into the new wooden fence panels they were erecting in the bottom field. ‘Let’s hope daddy comes home in a better mood,’ she said hopefully, smiling down at Angus.

As Isla walked along, hearing the woodpeckers drumming against the trunks of the trees and the birds twittering away in the line of blush-pink-blossomed trees that adorned the pavement of Love Heart Lane, she hovered for a second, her nose pointing skyward, eyes closed as she inhaled the earthy spring smell, a perfume of rain, grass and soil. Isla immediately began to feel calmer. Spring had definitely begun to arrive in the small village of Heartcross.

There wasn’t another soul in sight on Love Heart Lane, which Isla was thankful for, as after the argument with Drew she didn’t feel much like exchanging pleasantries with anyone.

As she approached Bonnie’s teashop, she saw Felicity and her mum Rona beavering away behind the counter. Rona swiped Felicity with a tea towel as she pinched a cup cake and shovelled it into her mouth. They both burst into laughter.

Watching them, Isla felt a tiny pang of jealousy. They were both having so much fun and that’s what she missed … fun. The more she thought about Drew, the more she couldn’t pinpoint the last time that they’d spent any quality time together or the last time they’d laughed, and she meant proper belly laughing when the tears rolled down your cheeks and your stomach ached that much, you could barely breathe or move … which made her sad. She missed those times.

Isla manoeuvred the pram through the teashop door, the tinkle of the bell above alerting Felicity and Rona to her arrival.

‘Rescue me, Isla,’ Rona beamed. ‘I’ve been up since the crack of dawn … baking cakes … savouries,’ she swung her hand towards the delicious array of food displayed in the glass cabinets. ‘Not to mention,’ she continued, ‘the homemade carrot-and-leek soup simmering in the pot, rounds of cheese-and-pickle, beef-and-mustard, and tuna-and-cucumber sandwiches stacked away in the fridge, ready for lunch time. Jacket potatoes prepped, and this one … this one,’ she wagged her finger at Felicity in jest, ‘decides she’s already eating the profits before we begin our day!’

Felicity allowed her lips to twitch into a smile and patted her stomach. ‘When life hands you lemon cake … and it was just looking at me! And never mind the profits,’ she added. ‘It’s my waistline I’m more worried about. Since re-opening this place, it’s expanding by the day.’

‘So, stop eating the cake!’ said Rona, laughing.

‘Never mind you pair, I need rescuing myself this morning.’ As a wave of emotion washed over Isla, her voice faltered and she suddenly felt like she was going to burst into tears.

Felicity and Rona exchanged a glance before Felicity quickly pulled out a chair and ushered her friend towards it.

‘I’ll get the tea … always good in a crisis,’ offered Rona, swiping her hands on her apron, leaving Felicity to take care of her friend.

‘I need gin … in fact a double … no, a triple wouldn’t go a miss,’ said Isla, wiping an escaping frustrated tear away with the back of her hand.

Felicity parked the pram next to the table and gently ruffled Angus’s soft hair before sitting down next to Isla.

Isla’s eyes trailed after Rona as she disappeared back behind the counter, before she turned back towards Felicity. ‘You’ve got a good life, haven’t you?’

‘I can’t complain.’

Isla took a breath. ‘Just now, I saw you both laughing through the window, having fun.’

‘I have to admit,’ said Felicity, ‘I do like this time in the morning, the calm before the storm.’

Felicity took a swift look around the teashop that had once been her gran’s life. Bonnie Stewart had converted the front room of her cottage into a tearoom for passing ramblers and had enjoyed every minute of it.

Since she’d passed away Felicity had taken over the running of the family business with her mum, Rona, and felt proud keeping her grandmother’s business and name very much alive in the heart of the village. Being back in Heartcross was where Felicity belonged, and she couldn’t ever imagine leaving it again.

‘But what’s this got to do with why you’re upset?’

Isla blinked away more tears.

‘Come on, Isla, it can’t be that bad?’

‘Drew and I had an argument,’ shared Isla, feeling a tiny bit disloyal to him even mentioning it to Flick. Pouring herself a cup of tea from the pot and cupping her hands around the mug, she added, ‘And I wouldn’t mind, but I’d woken up in a good mood, until he decided to ruin my day.’

‘What were you arguing about?’

‘I’m not entirely sure. Out of the blue he suggested … no, actually he didn’t suggest, he insisted I was sponging off him, wasn’t pulling my weight and that … wait for it … I need to get a job … Can you believe it?’ Isla rolled her eyes.

Before Finn was born Isla had worked at a nursery over in the town of Glensheil and Isla could remember quite clearly Drew suggesting that she should become a stay-at-home mum. They’d discussed it at great length. The children were only young once and neither of them wanted to put them in full-time child care or after-school clubs.

‘He actually said that you were sponging off him?’

‘Well, not in so many words,’ admitted Isla. ‘But basically, that I wasn’t financially pulling my weight …’ Isla whispered, feeling the anger beginning to rise again. ‘And how the hell am I going to fit a job in, as well as taking Finn to school, washing, ironing, shopping etc. etc., and wouldn’t I just be working to pay child-care costs? It all seems ridiculous to me.’

‘But it might be good for you to have a little independence, something just for you,’ Rona said, overhearing a small snippet of the conversation. ‘Maybe a little extra pocket money,’ added Rona, sliding a Full Scottish breakfast towards Isla.

‘Mum!’

‘Sorry … sorry, I was only saying,’ she said, flinging her hands up into the air and quickly scurrying back into the kitchen.

‘Oh, and then, he’s decided I can’t see my friends.’

‘What?!’

‘He said I spend too much time in the teashop and in the pub seeing my friends and wasting his hard-earned cash. What does he expect me to do? Sit in the farmhouse all day, staring at four walls and talking to no-one?’

‘And you have no idea what’s prompted this outburst?’

Isla shook her head, ‘None at all.’

‘And what do you feel about going back to work?’

Isla stabbed the sausage on her plate and poised the fork near her mouth. ‘It’s too soon … look at him.’

All eyes turned towards Angus, who was making sucking noises with his mouth while fast asleep. ‘I’m not handing him over to anyone, and we agreed I didn’t need to work when I had the children. Financially it wasn’t worth it, which is what makes this all so confusing.’

Felicity shrugged, knowing Isla’s frame of mind was justified. ‘And let’s face it, in this small village there isn’t much opportunity for work unless you travel.’