Floss on a long piece of twine, she fed and locked away the chickens and the Indian Runner ducks that she used in the sheepdogs’ early training. It was too early yet to test out Floss’s natural herding instincts, so she kept the young dog close and gave the command to sit on a regular basis.
The two shorthorn cows she kept for her own milk lowed hungrily, and she fed them before milking them in the old traditional way, enjoying the warm feel of their teats and the rhythmic sound of the milk squirting into a stainless steel bucket.
People around here thought she was as mad as a box of frogs to bother milking twice a day. “You could buy your milk from the shop,” Andy, her vet, had reminded her for the thousandth time just the other day. “It would be a darn sight cheaper and a lot less hassle.” Her response had been just to smile and shrug. The truth was she enjoyed it. The age-old task helped her relax.
And after her bad experience with the city dweller and his dog, she definitely needed to relax.
Remembering the poor, broken sheep, a flood of emotion overtook her. If Will Devlin thought he was getting away scot-free, then he could think again. Nothing could bring back the ewe or her unborn lamb, but he could pay for it. That was the least he could do.
Tomorrow, she decided, she’d get an early start and make the gather again. Once the flock was safely down on the lower pasture adjacent to the farm, she’d try to find out where the man was from. She stood, lifting the pail of milk and covering it with a cloth. In fact, she would write out a proper invoice as soon as she went inside. Perhaps she should take it with her in the morning, in case she saw him on the fell again, though surely he had learned his lesson there. Someone in the village must know where he was staying.
No matter what, she was determined to find him and make him pay.
WILL DEVLIN ROLLED OVER in bed, breaking into a sweat as he woke in the darkness, horrible images flooding his mind. He sat up, flinging back his blankets. Would he never get a good night’s sleep again?
There was something heavy on his legs, pinning them down, and he made out Max’s pale shape in a beam of silvery moonlight. The big dog raised his head and flopped around, spread-eagling himself happily.
If anyone had told Will a year ago that he would be living alone in the country and sharing his bed with a dog, he’d have said it was impossible...and yet now here he was. Max slid off his legs and jumped onto the floor, instantly full of life. He was used to his master’s nighttime ramblings; sometimes they even went out for a walk in the darkness.
Tonight, though, Will felt too maudlin for a walk. Pulling on his dressing gown, he ran downstairs with Max at his heels, poured himself a stiff whisky and sat down beside the stove in the kitchen.
Had he been right to come here? Or was life in the Lake District just a crazy notion that he’d tire of soon? Remembering his disaster the previous day with the woman and her sheep, he realized he had an awful lot to learn if he was going to stay around here.
Max sat on his haunches, watching Will’s every move, his tail waving.
“Perhaps I should get you some proper training, Max,” Will said thoughtfully. “Assuming you’re even trainable...”
Max just looked at him, his brown eyes glowing with trust and happiness. That might have been what had drawn him to the pup in the first place, thought Will—the joyous innocence in his eyes. Innocence had kind of faded from Will’s life of late.
On the other hand, it had been Max’s innocence that caused the chaos on the fell today. Though Will doubted Chrissie would call the big dog “innocent” after what she thought he’d done to her sheep.
Taking another sip of his whisky, he pictured the straight-backed woman with her long blond braid. Chrissie. She didn’t really look like a Chrissie—more a Lorna or an Alice. A smile curled up inside him, warming the cold, hard place in his heart...
He shook his head. What did her name matter? In fact, the last woman he’d dated had been called Summer, and there wasn’t much about her that reminded him of the season—unless you counted how short-lived the relationship was. The shepherdess was no Summer, either. More of a Winter, he thought with a smirk. Remembering her honey-colored skin, though, he changed his mind to Autumn, with its golden tints and beautiful browns.
Summer had soon stopped getting in touch when he’d told her he’d given up his job and was moving to the country. He’d been put off at first, but now he was glad; he needed to be alone, for the time being, and he couldn’t see a future with her anyway.
Sighing, he dropped his empty glass into the sink and headed back up the narrow staircase. Tomorrow, he guessed, the architect would be on the phone. Will was so exhausted that it crossed his mind to put the whole project on hold, completely rethink the decisions he’d made recently.
He stood at the bedroom window, staring out at the formidable dark mass of the fell etched against the pale moonlit sky. This place held his future, he was sure of it. Fading dreams tumbled back into his consciousness, taking form again, meaning something. No, he couldn’t stop now. He needed this. Maybe he would have to rethink some of his plans so they would fit in with the environment here, but he wasn’t going to give up on the one thing that had carried him through these past dark weeks. Somehow he was going to make this work...no matter what the locals thought.
* * *
THE MORNING DAWNED bright and sunny, one of those early spring days when the whole world felt as if it was filled with promise. Is filled with promise, he corrected himself, feeling a resurgence of last night’s positive thinking. He glanced at the clock as he flung open the small window and leaned out to gulp in the sweet, clean air. There was a fog down in the valley, obliterating the rest of the view. Thick and white, it made the fells seem even more majestic as they loomed toward the clear blue sky.
“We are kings in our castle, Max,” Will said. “And when we are here, no one can touch us.”
Max just wagged his tail and twirled in a circle, impatient to go outside. Will smiled, feeling more lighthearted than he had in a long while. “Well, I’m a king... You’re probably more a court jester.”
He needed to get his head straight before meeting with his architect, so Will grabbed a piece of buttered toast and headed for the back door, remembering to take Max’s long leash from the hook. “No sheepherding for you today, young man,” he said, clipping the leash onto the dog’s collar.
The fog was lifting now, evaporating into nothingness to reveal the silver, sparkling lake and gray stone buildings way, way down in the valley. Will went through the gate that led onto the fell, noticing the patches of fresh white snowdrops coming up at the edges of the garden. They must have been there yesterday, announcing the arrival of spring, but he’d missed them. Funny how every day he seemed to see a new thing. It felt as if he’d just removed a blindfold that he’d been wearing for years, and now nature’s beauty was being revealed to him little by little.
Max pulled on the leash as they headed up the steep slope behind the house. He had decided not to go the same way as yesterday, just in case Chrissie—or Autumn, as he’d started thinking of her—was bringing the sheep down again. Today he wore sturdy boots, blue Wrangler jeans and a thick cream-colored sweater. Today, he was prepared; if he did come across her, she could keep her smiles to herself. He was dressed
