Summer with the Country Village Vet

‘So you’ve got your own house and a place to rent? Can you afford that dear?’

She could almost see her mum’s worried frown. ‘Yes Mum, it’s just short term.’

‘But I thought you were too busy to have a pet, darling? And didn’t you say you liked keeping the house neat and tidy? When I came over with your Aunt Steph you made her tie Bono to a tree at the bottom of the garden.’

Lucy rolled her eyes as the memory of Bono, a very shaggy bearded collie who’d just been for an unscheduled dip in the canal, came to mind. ‘I had just bought a new cream carpet, Mum.’

‘That’s the trouble with these modern plain carpets, you need a pattern dear, hides a multitude of sins.’

Maybe that’s what her busy job had done, hidden the cracks in her life, but she didn’t want to ponder on that one. What was the point? ‘I like plain.’ Keep it simple. ‘Anyway, this job will be different, I don’t need to commute.’

‘And I hope you won’t need to be working those long hours any more. When I was your age…’

Lucy gritted her teeth, but some part of the retort she was biting back must have escaped and travelled over the airwaves. Her mum might not have worked long hours at her age, but she’d made up for it later on in life. Surely it was better to put all the effort in now? To be independent and secure.

‘Well yes I suppose times have changed.’ She could imagine her mother’s pursed lips. ‘But you work too hard, being a teacher used to be a nice job for a girl and now it’s all rushing round and paperwork. I always wanted an easier life for you, love.’

‘All jobs are like that, it’s about accountability.’ And Ofsted.

‘Well that is nice anyway dear,’ she could tell her mother was about to brush over that. ‘It’ll be nice for you to get out of the city for a bit. You did have fun when you were little in Stoneyvale, do you remember?’

‘It was horrible. I hated it.’ The words were out before she could stop them.

‘Oh, Lucy.’ Lucy felt a pang of guilt at the regret in her mother’s voice. ‘You didn’t hate it. There were some good times, I used to love our time feeding the ducks, and picking you up from school. It was a pretty place, even if life wasn’t quite as perfect as I’d hoped.’ She sighed. ‘You were such a happy toddler.’

‘Yeah, and then I grew up.’ And life had been turned upside down, and all her friends turned out to be nasty, small-minded people who only cared about themselves.

‘It wasn’t all bad, Lucy.’

‘Mum, I didn’t belong there, I didn’t have any friends.’

‘Oh you did, darling. It was just, after your party when your father got a bit cross I think some of their parents thought it better if they didn’t come round to play. He just didn’t like…’

‘The mess, yeah I know.’ She’d blocked that party out of her mind. Dad had been so cross to come home and find sticky finger marks on the table, and cake crumbs on the sofa. He hadn’t shouted like some of the other dads did, he’d just laid the law down very softly. Even as a child she’d sensed the slight menace, the uncomfortable air as her mother had wiped her tears and shooed her up to her room. She hadn’t thought about it before, but that was probably when it had all started to go wrong. When children stopped coming round to play in their garden. When all the party invites started to dry up.

‘He never really wanted me to have people round, did he?’

‘Well no,’ there was a crackle and silence, and she wasn’t sure if it was a bad line. She hated silence, silence at home had always meant bad things, so she’d grown up wanting what some people would think of as chaos.

‘Mum, are you still there?’

‘I am. But you still had friends, didn’t you dear?’ There was a hopeful note to her mother’s tone which she didn’t want to kill. So she didn’t say anything. ‘You saw the others at school. There was lovely little Amy, and…’

‘Exactly.’ She sighed. ‘Just lovely little Amy, and even that was an act.’

‘Lucy, it wasn’t you, your dad…’

‘Forget it, Mum. I have. Langtry Meadows isn’t Stoneyvale, and I’m only there for a few weeks, I like working in the city.’ She did. It was less claustrophobic, more impersonal. Where people came and went, where nobody was an outsider.

‘Anyway,’ her mother’s voice regained its normal no-nonsense brisk edge, the ‘let’s make the most of life’ tone. ‘A bit of country air will do you good, you’ve been looking a bit peaky lately. A change is as good as a rest, as they say.’

Lucy chatted to her mum for a bit longer then pressed the end call button and stared at her phone, suddenly wishing that she hadn’t told her mum to forget it.

She hadn’t, she couldn’t.

There were questions that had peeked their heads over the self-protective barrier she’d built around herself as she’d driven home. Questions about her dad she’d never dared ask. Questions that the absolute peace and quiet of Langtry Meadows had poked out of their slumber at the back of her mind. Questions about the almost obsessive tidiness that her father had insisted on.

It hadn’t hit her until today just how different their new life had been. As though her mum had been determined to wipe every last trace of Stoneyvale out of her system.

But maybe it was time she tried to move on. To shift the ache that had settled in the centre of her chest once and for all.

Chapter 3 (#ulink_0847739d-5f7f-516f-984c-16f8aaba2ad0)

Charlie stared at the small white van. Whoever had parked, or should that be abandoned it, at such a crazy angle, couldn’t have done a better job of blocking him out if they’d tried.

He was knackered. All he wanted was half an hour’s peace with his feet up and a cup of coffee before his patients for the day started to arrive – and some delivery man had decided there was nothing wrong with blocking the entrance to his surgery.

His day had started at 5 a.m, a farm dog had been run over, and despite battling with every bit of experience and knowledge he had, they’d lost it. However long he did the job, he hated that bit.

Losing a battle to save a life that was ending far too early always left him feeling he’d failed. Owners that understood and thanked him destroyed him even more. They shouldn’t have to be thanking somebody for losing the battle, and along with the sour taste in his mouth there was always the curdling doubt in the pit of his stomach. What if he’d missed something obvious? What if he’d acted quicker?

The farmer had offered sweet tea, and a bacon sandwich, apologising for calling him out at such an ungodly hour. He’d not wanted to churn out the same old words – for the best, not suffering now – but he had because he didn’t know what else to say.

He clambered out of his car, feeling drained, and marched towards the van. One of the benefits of living in a village was the lack of road rage, nobody was ever in that much of a hurry. The worst that could happen was that you had to follow a herd of cows down a lane as they ambled from field to farm, which he had found slightly frustrating the first week he’d been back here, then he’d realised he just had to go with the flow. In fact, he walked now whenever he could – but most farms visits meant taking the car.

‘I can’t get in my car park.’ He rounded the open door, just as a girl backed out at speed, dragging a large cardboard box with her. Without thinking he grabbed her waist with one hand, and the van door with the other to stop them toppling.

She glanced up.

Oh shit, he’d been here before. In a tight clinch. Her soft lips were slightly parted, eyes wide staring straight into his own, his hands were only inches from her breasts. And he had an almost uncontrollable urge to kiss her.

Again.

It was the girl he’d nearly flattened by the village green. The teacher.

The one who’d asked him to go into school. The one who’d irrationally sprung to mind every time he walked past the village school – wondering when she’d be back.

Last time he’d had his hands on her he could have blamed the surge of adrenaline for the way his body had reacted, but he’d have been lying to himself because it was doing exactly the same this time round.

The smell of her perfume, the brush of her soft skin against his cheek, and the gently quivering body pressed against his had turned him on something rotten. And she’d known. From what he remembered he’d solved the problem last time by practically throwing her back into the road. And now he was staring at her like a simpleton. Which he could, being logical, put down to lack of sleep, and emotional upset.

She blinked, and pulled herself together before he could. ‘Oh hi, it’s you. We must stop meeting like this.’ She looked down pointedly and he realised he still had hold of her.

‘Sorry, er I’m not in the habit of…’ He let go, waved his hands in the air, glanced down to save the embarrassment of looking her straight in the eye. ‘Good God, what are those?’

Bright pink wellingtons, which were more than just bright, they were positively glowing. They were ridiculous, but they suited her, in a cute kind of way. Oh God, what was he thinking? Cute? Where had that come from? He didn’t even call day old kittens cute.

He glanced back up and she was grinning. She lifted a foot. ‘These? Awesome aren’t they? They’re my secret weapon. If I don’t wear them I’m in trouble. Serious GBH type of trouble.’ She wrinkled her nose. How had he missed her slightly upturned nose last time they’d met?