‘She’s fine,’ Rory jumped in to answer before I could, waving a half-eaten Jammy Dodger in the air. ‘Cal’s panicking over nothing.’
Both parents considered me as I bared my teeth in a grimace of a smile. Derek looked annoyed but relieved. Lizzie, on the other hand, looked ready to swing.
‘We thought something terrible had happened,’ she said. ‘With the food poisoning.’
‘The what?’
‘The food poisoning,’ Callum replied with wide eyes. ‘The food poisoning that kept you up all night.’
‘Oh, that.’ I shrank down in my seat, trying not to look at a bemused Rory. ‘No, I’m fine now. All good.’
‘You’re fine?’ she replied.
I nodded.
‘Then what you’re telling me,’ Lizzie said, turning her ire on Callum, ‘is that we left your Auntie Jean’s, so you could race back for no reason whatsoever?’
‘Not no reason,’ he protested. ‘How was I supposed to know Caroline was safe when she wasn’t answering her phone and Elsie didn’t bother to reply?’
‘Selfish, inconsiderate idiot,’ Elsie muttered under her breath. ‘Classic Cal.’
I’d heard enough. Shooting to my feet, I slapped both hands on the table and five heads swivelled in my direction.
‘Stop having a go at him, all of you!’ I yelled, silencing everyone else in the room. ‘I got stuck in the tower and dropped my phone and if Rory hadn’t come home when he did, I’d probably have hypothermia by now and would have to go to hospital because Elsie certainly didn’t rush to help me and I really don’t think you should be angry at Callum for being justifiably concerned about someone he loves!’
I blinked, stunned by the torrent of words that rushed out my mouth, the last of them echoing through the room. Loves, loves, loves. Directly across the table, Callum stared at me as though he’d never even seen me before, his pupils dilated, his jaw hanging slack and, as my heart pounded in my ears, I thought I heard him whisper:
‘Thank you.’
No one else said anything but as I recovered myself, I couldn’t help but notice they were all looking me up and down.
‘Caroline, what’s that you’re wearing, hen?’ Derek asked.
I looked down at my bare legs and the jumper that just barely covered my backside. In my freezing panic and the rush for tea, I’d forgotten all about what I was or rather wasn’t wearing.
‘This?’ I opened my mouth and hoped something believable would come out. ‘It’s a dress. They’re all the rage in London. Everyone’s wearing them.’
‘No wonder she almost caught her death,’ Lizzie muttered. ‘God help the southerners.’
‘Caroline, can you come with me, please?’ Callum cocked his head towards the door. ‘I’ve got something for you.’
‘Aye, his toorie,’ Rory muttered, earning a scolding slap around the back of his head from his mother.
Derek pressed one hand into his lower back. ‘I need a bloody drink. And don’t any of you tell me what time it is, I don’t bloody care, my back is killing me.’
‘What have I said about leaving the farmwork to Elsie,’ his wife said as she helped him into a hard-backed chair, his eyes closed, teeth clenched together. ‘He was up at the crack of dawn, chasing those bloody sheep around again. Now you’re going to be in agony all Christmas.’
‘Dad, I’ve told you, if I want help I’ll ask for it,’ Elsie snipped, something like embarrassment or guilt pulling at her features. Suddenly, her face smoothed out and she looked up, smiling right at me. ‘But I know what’ll sort you out. Caroline, why don’t you give my dad a massage?’
All the blood in my body drained down to my feet, fixing me to the spot.
‘Sorry?’
‘Why don’t you give my dad a massage?’ Elsie repeated, carefully enunciating each and every word. ‘The man is in pain. You’re not going to stand there and watch a man suffer when you could help, surely?’
‘Don’t be foolish, Elsie,’ Callum answered when I couldn’t. ‘She’s not here to work.’
Derek arched his back, eyes closed in anguish before he opened one to peep at me.
