Organised chaos was the best way to describe it, Carla thought. Dulcie was in her element, and Carla marvelled at howmuch her friend had changed since she’d won the farm. Once upon a time, Dulcie would have run away screaming if a goat so much as looked at her (in fact, Carla recalled Dulcie doing just that when a hand-reared sheep had demanded to be petted) yet look at her now. She was every inch a farmer.
She was so happy and so in love with what she was doing, that Carla felt a pang of envy. Dulcie was also madly in love with Otto, which gave Carla another pang. Once upon a time, she’d hoped that her relationship with Yale would lead to the kind of happiness Dulcie enjoyed.
Groaning inwardly, she told herself to stop thinking about him, but it was hard not to. If the investigation hadn’t been hanging over her, she might have been able to put him out of her mind completely after the way he’d treated her She had initially thought she was heartbroken, but as the days had dragged into a week, and then a second, she’d realised that what she’d felt was infatuation, not love. As someone who dated a lot but rarely allowed a man to touch her heart, it had been a shock to discover how smitten she’d been. But she’d mistaken attraction, lust and the excitement of keeping their relationship quiet, for love.
Carla would never make the same mistake again.
Milking done, the two friends went indoors for a breakfast of scrambled eggs on toast, as the farm had an abundance of free-range eggs, courtesy of a small army of chickens. There was also a glut of juicy, ripe pears from the trees in the orchard, as well as punnets of glossy blackberries in the large fridge where the milk bottling took place. Dulcie had told her some of Otto’s dishes in his restaurant featured the fruit. She explained that he obtained much of the produce he used in The Wild Side from the farm and its surroundings, including the spinach and other salad leavesgrowing in the veggie plot. As Dulcie had shown her around, Carla admired the couple’s resourcefulness and ingenuity.
‘How do you like the goats?’ Dulcie asked, sprinkling salt on her eggs.
Carla swallowed a mouthful before she spoke. ‘The little ones are cute.’
‘It’s their mums who will be walked.’
‘Can’t I walk the babies instead?’
‘They’ll play up if they’re separated from their mothers. The adults are used to having halters on, so hopefully they shouldn’t find going for a walk too stressful.’
‘Couldn’t you have had dogs instead? Theylikebeing walked.’
‘I’m leaving the dogs to Maisie. Did I tell you she’s opening a boarding kennel? Anyway, owning goats was your suggestion, remember?’
‘I didn’t think you’d do it. I was simply throwing ideas out there.’
‘And that one stuck.’ Dulcie grinned. ‘Go on, why don’t you take Cloud for a walk after breakfast? The fresh air will do you good.’
‘With the whiff of goat in my nostrils? Hmph!’
‘The view from the top is gorgeous.’
‘You want me to walk all the way up the mountain?’ Carla was incredulous.
‘It’s hardly a mountain. More like a hill.’
‘I thought I was here for some rest and relaxation?’
Dulcie scoffed, ‘The only time you relax is when you’re sprawled on a sun lounger on a Mediterranean beach with a cocktail in your hand, and even then you’re on high alert in case a fit guy walks past.’
Carla pressed her lips together. The thought of ogling any man right now turned her stomach. Sprawling on a sun lounger sounded good, though. Suddenly, she realised how utterly weary she was and how much the last couple of weeks had taken out of her.
She also realised she had come to the farm for a complete change of scenery, and hiking up the mountain while towing a goat was as complete a change as she could possibly get.
‘Okay,’ she agreed with a sigh. ‘Saddle her up.’
‘You can’t ride her,’ Dulcie warned, looking alarmed.
‘I wasn’t going to. It was just an expression.’
‘I wouldn’t put anything past you. You’re always up for a laugh. My mum used to call you the wild one. I was the sensible one. Talking about being wild, how about we go out for dinner this evening? Otto suggested we go to the restaurant so he can cook you some proper food. He didn’t think much of me shoving a supermarket pizza in the oven last night, although I thought it was a perfectly acceptable meal. We can come back here afterwards and crack open a bottle of wine. What do you say? I know it’s not the party lifestyle you’re used to, but it’s the best I can do – unless you fancy a drink in The Black Horse. I’ve got to warn you though, it’s bingo night.’
Carla wrinkled her nose.
‘I didn’t think bingo would float your boat,’ Dulcie laughed. ‘Wine and a natter back at the house, then.’
However, it wasn’t the thought of bingo that Carla disliked. It was the thought of going out. She hadn’t been out – as in a bar or a pub – since that night. Not only had Yale’s deceit given her heart a knock, but her confidence had also taken a battering.
It didn’t help that she’d had too much time to dwell on what she was doing with her life, and how it had gone so horribly wrong. One minute she had been having fun, enjoying her job, loving her social life, and with the prospect of being in a relationship with someone she really liked, and the next minute, everything had come crashing down around her.
