‘What’s up?’ Lucas enquired.
‘Nothing, it’s just Fern letting me know about picking something up for lunch.’ But her grin gave it away that it was more than that. ‘Apparently she forgot the cranberry sauce.’
‘She must know I make it up at the farm.’
‘Of course she does.’
Lucas pretended to look over Ginny’s shoulder, first one and then the other.‘Where is she? Is she watching?’
Ginny laughed. ‘Exactly what I wondered. I wouldn’t put it past her.’
‘So how about it? You could head up to the farm with me now.’
She held his gaze. ‘I suppose I could.’ And she tilted her head in the direction of the path that led them out of the square.
As they walked, Lucas turned the conversation back to her family. ‘Your mum mentioned that this is thelongest you three have all been home together for a while. Certainly for Christmas. Why the change this year?’
‘I’m not entirely sure. Mum summoned us home, she’s starting to worry it might be Grandad’s last Christmas.’ A lit-up squirrel in the flowerbed looked up at her as they passed the end of the square and crossed the road.
‘He’s not sick is he?’
‘No, he seems fine. More than fine actually.’Lucas and Grandad had always got on well. Lucas had taken him fruit and vegetables at the end of the day twice a week long after he and Ginny split up. ‘Fern and I think Mum might be hiding something.’
‘Your grandad would tell you if he was sick,’ Lucas reassured her.
‘I happen to think you’re right.’
He surprised her by reaching out a finger and touching her forehead briefly as they walked.‘Then why the frown?’
She tried not to make it obvious the effect his touch had on her, the same it had when she’d got chocolate on her lip. It was as though he couldn’t stop doing it and she found herself not minding in the slightest. ‘I’m worried Daisy might be up to something too. She seems to spend a lot of time up at the lodge.’
‘You don’t think she’s going where she says she is?’
Ginnyfrowned. ‘Well no, I think she’s there, but … Oh I don’t know, maybe I’m reading too much into it.’
‘She was always wild, your sister. But …’
‘So you think I should trust her, let her be an adult?’
He shrugged. ‘She’s a lot calmer these days. I don’t know if hearing that from me helps you or not.’
He’d always been able to reassure her, be a voice of reason. ‘Actually it does.’ Perhaps it wastime to give Daisy the benefit of the doubt, something neither she nor Fern had managed in a long time. ‘It’s probably nothing.’ It was more likely that she was on high alert just waiting for something to go wrong.
As they reached the farm gates she felt a rush of nostalgia. ‘I’d forgotten how beautiful this place is.’
‘Florida had its blue skies but you can’t beat the British countryside, nomatter what time of the year it is.’
Beneath the clouds and despite the lack of sunshine to highlight its best features, the farmland spread out before them, the dips of the undulating land took your mind on adventures and the sound of farm equipment or voices calling out were all a part of it.
Lucas pulled his key out of his jeans pocket as they neared the farmhouse and nodded over at his dadwho waved at him and Ginny. If he was surprised to see Ginny up here after all this time he didn’t show it. He just took her presence in his stride. He was one of those men who’d found his place in life and drew happiness from those around him. She’d not seen it before but Lucas appeared to have fallen into the same role after all this time. Perhaps his parents had been onto something sending theirsons away to see what another side of life was like. And perhaps getting away from the shop and Butterbury had worked in the same way for her.
Lucas’s mum was less reserved and beamed at Ginny before racing over to kiss her on both cheeks. Her own cheeks were rosy in the cold and she wore a purple beanie on her head and matching fingerless gloves. She told her son they were down to their lasttwelve jars of cranberry sauce.
‘That’s what I’ve come for,’ Ginny confessed.
‘Everything’s weighed out in the kitchen, cranberries are washed and ready to go. Make some more, would you, Lucas?’ she said before squeezing Ginny’s arm and hurrying back to the shop.
‘Shouldn’t I grab a jar now before they sell out?’
