Hope Blooms in Tuppenny Bridge (Tuppenny Bridge #5)

Chapter 18

EIGHTEEN

The annual sheep fair was one of the biggest events in Tuppenny Bridge, greatly looked forward to by the residents. During the last weekend of each September, the market square became a hive of activity, as pens were set up and sheep herded into place. Vans selling fast food were doing a roaring trade, and the air was full of the smell of fried onions and burgers, the sound of bleating sheep, and regular announcements over the tannoy.

Daisy had enjoyed herself at last year’s fair, until the moment she’d spotted Eliot Harland. It was the sort of event she’d attended a lot when she was younger—first with her father and brother, and then with Eliot. She was actually rather fond of sheep, and looked forward to hanging out by the pens, casting her eye over the various breeds and trying to guess which animals would be successful in winning a prize.

She, Rowan, and Tess had agreed that they would take an hour each to spend at the fair, starting with Rowan. Daisy had said she would take her turn last, and as the day wore on she was so busy in the cafe, which had a constant stream of customers, she almost forgot about the time, until Tess nudged her and pointed out that if she didn’t get a move on, the fair would be closed for the day.

Heading outside she was immediately back in that familiar world of sheep and farmers. She leaned over one of the pens, stroking a Swaledale ewe who was munching on hay and seemed unperturbed by the busy scene around her.

‘Aren’t you a beauty?’ she murmured, remembering the many Swaledale sheep that had been atCrowscarand Wildflower Farm. ‘I hope you win a rosette, my lovely. You deserve it.’

‘I’ve been looking for you.’

Daisy glanced up. Noah was standing at her side, staring down at the sheep.

‘Have you? Well, you’ve found me.’

She looked furtively around her, wary of people spotting them together.

‘Isobel’s at work if that’s what you’re worried about,’ he said. ‘She wouldn’t close Petalicious for anything, and she’s not interested in sheep, believe me.’

‘Why doesn’t that surprise me?’ she said.

They stood in silence for a moment and Daisy pretended to fuss the ewe. ‘How are you?’ she asked him. ‘How are the bruises?’

‘I’m coping,’ he said. ‘More to the point, how are you?’

‘Me?’ She straightened, giving him a disbelieving look. ‘I’m not the one who’s been beaten up, am I?’

‘You were upset,’ he said gently. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘I don’t want you to be sorry for me,’ she told him. ‘I want you to be sorry for yourself. This is breaking my heart, Noah, and I’m scared for you. Can’t you see that?’

‘I—I can,’ he said. ‘Daisy, did you mean what you said?’

She didn’t have to ask what he meant. She knew all too well. She’d been going over it in her mind ever since, wondering if she’d done the right thing telling him how she felt. Even so, she knew she had. She wasn’t about to start playing games with him.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I love you. It’s very inconvenient all round, isn’t it?’

‘Oh, Daisy…’ He turned to fully face her, and she saw the conflict in his expression.

‘Noah! There you are.’

He groaned under his breath as Miss Lavender approached, clearly not pleased to see the two of them together.

‘It’s okay,’ she said. ‘You’d better go.’

‘I want to talk to you.’ His eyes pleaded with her. ‘I want to be with you.’

‘I know, but we can’t?—’

She broke off as Miss Lavender pushed her way between them.

‘Noah, Ross is looking for you. He wants you to mind the art stall for half an hour while he grabs something to eat. I said you wouldn’t mind.’

She gave him a meaningful look.

‘I was in the middle of a conversation, Aunt Eugenie,’ Noah said pointedly.

‘I’m aware of that,’ she said. ‘However, I’m quite sure Miss Jackson can spare you for half an hour. Family first, Noah. Remember that.’

She clearly wasn’t budging. Noah shook his head, but Daisy decided enough was enough. The last thing he needed was more hassle.

‘I’m busy anyway,’ she said. ‘I must be going.’

She left Noah and his great aunt to argue about his poor life choices and headed down Little Market Street, where there was a trailer parked up, on which shearers were giving a demonstration.

Daisy folded her arms, intent on watching the display. Her blood boiled at the way Miss Lavender had looked at her. If she only knew what was really going on she’d be begging Daisy to take him away from Isobel!

‘Daisy?’

She jumped and spun round, her heart racing as she saw Eliot Harland standing behind her.

‘It is you! I’ve been looking round for you all day, hoping to see you again. Oh, Daisy, it’s that good to see you. How have you been?’

Daisy swallowed and looked around for a means of escape. He lightly touched her arm, his eyes full of sorrow.

‘Aw, don’t look like that. Please, Daisy, it’s been so long. Can’t we talk?’

‘I don’t think there’s anything to say, is there?’

‘Really?’ His brow furrowed. ‘After all this time? You can’t spare an old friend half an hour for a catch up?’

Daisy slumped. What was she so afraid of anyway? Everything she and Eliot had gone through was years ago. She’d moved on. She had enough to think about in her life right now, and holding on to old grudges was pointless. Besides, he’d done nothing wrong. And he was an old friend when it came right down to it. She had to admit she’d missed him, and it was good to see him again.

‘All right,’ she said, mind made up. ‘But not out here. Do you want to grab a cup of tea?’

‘That’d be grand,’ he said, his face lighting up with pleasure. ‘Do you know anywhere we can go?’

Daisy grinned. ‘As a matter of fact, I know just the place.’

As Eliot looked around him at the café, Daisy took the opportunity to study him. It had been more than half a decade since she’d last seen him up close, and she noticed he had a few more lines on his face but was as handsome as ever. Those dark curls had threads of silver running through them, but his deep brown eyes held a contentment that even his obvious nervousness couldn’t mask. If anything, she thought he looked better than ever, but was surprised to realise at the same time that looking at him now didn’t give her butterflies.

‘And this is really your place?’ he asked at last, turning back to face her.

‘It is,’ she said, glad she could say she’d achieved something at last. ‘All mine. What do you think?’

‘It’s grand, Daisy,’ he told her, sounding genuinely pleased for her. ‘You always were a good cook. I reckon you’ve found your vocation at last, and good for you. I’m right pleased for you.’

‘Thank you.’

‘And you live around here?’

‘I do. Just across the square. I rent a flat. It’s not much but it’s home, and it’s my own space.’ She gave him a wry smile. ‘After living with our Tom and his girlfriend all that time I can’t believe my luck, honest I can’t.’

He wrinkled his nose in the way she remembered. ‘Aye, I couldn’t imagine you living under his roof for long. To be fair, I couldn’t imagine you living in Leeds at all, nor any city come to that. It’s not you, is it? I’m glad you found your way back to Skimmerdale, one way or the other.’ As she nodded, he smiled and continued. ‘It’s that good to see you, Daisy. I’ve been worried about you, you know. And when I saw you last year, I really wanted to talk to you, make sure you were all right, but you took off like a fox with hounds on its scent.’

‘I wasn’t ready to face you,’ she admitted.

‘But why?’ His eyes crinkled in confusion. ‘Did you really still hate me that much?’

‘Hate you?’ Daisy stared at him in shock. ‘I never hated you! Is that what you thought?’

‘What else was I supposed to think? I let you down, Daisy, I know that now.’

She shook her head, laughing sadly at his mistake. ‘Let me down? Why? Because you couldn’t love me back the way I wanted you to?’

‘Well…’ His weatherbeaten face coloured in embarrassment and she realised he was still genuinely concerned about her feelings even after all this time.

‘Oh, Eliot. None of that was your fault. You never told me you cared about me. You never gave me any reason to believe you loved me. I saw what I wanted to see, simple as that. I realise that now. If anything, it’s me who let you down. I let my feelings get in the way of our friendship, and you were a good friend to me, all those years when Dad was being—well—Dad, and Tom had cleared off and left me to deal with him alone.’

‘Still can’t bloody believe he did that,’ Eliot admitted. ‘Not sure I’d ever forgive him for it if I were you.’

‘It’s water under the bridge now,’ she said heavily. ‘He had his reasons I suppose. He couldn’t cope with Dad, you know that.’

‘But he expected you to!’

‘Yes, well…’ Daisy sipped her tea. ‘Let’s not go into all that again.’

‘No,’ he said at last. ‘Let’s not. Any road, it’s you who were a good friend to me. All the things you did for me after Jemima died. I can never repay you for that. What would I have done without you, eh? I know it must seem I didn’t appreciate it at times, but I did, Daisy. I appreciated it all.’

‘I know, Eliot, honest I do. It’s okay. We’re good.’ She hesitated then asked, ‘So how are things at Wildflower Farm? Are you and Eden…’

She saw the light in his eyes and didn’t need him to answer.

Even so, he leaned forward, unable to disguise his happiness. ‘We’re really good,’ he told her. ‘We’re running a sort of hostel now, you know. Like, bed and breakfast for hikers and the like, in one of the big barns. It’s doing well, and Eden’s doing cream teas for passers-by an’ all. Well, you know how many people we get cutting through our land on them walks of theirs, especially in the summer when they want to see the wildflowers. And, would you believe it, we’ve got a pony trekking business started up. We don’t run that, but we rent the stables and some land to a nice couple who do.’

‘I’m glad. So you’re doing better financially then?’ She remembered how much he’d always worried about making the farm viable.

‘We are.’ He paused and added, ‘We got married, you know. Did you hear?’

‘No,’ she said, ‘but it doesn’t surprise me. I’m glad it worked out for you, Eliot.’

‘Thanks, love. Hey, I’ve got summat to show you.’

He fumbled inside his jacket pocket and pulled out his wallet. Daisy didn’t have to wonder what he was looking for. No doubt he kept a photo inside that he wanted to show her. She wondered how it would feel to gaze down on a picture of the happy couple.

In the event though, she was wrong. It wasn’t a picture of himself and Eden on their wedding day Eliot was looking for. He passed her a photograph and she gazed down at it, her eyes clouding with tears as she recognised some of the children she was looking at.

‘Is that—oh my word, Eliot! Look how they’ve grown! Libby’s a young woman!’

‘Aye, they have, haven’t they? Libby’s eighteen now, and Ophelia’s sixteen. And young George, he’s ten.’

She smiled in wonder at the children she’d loved so much looking so grown up. Liberty and Ophelia weren’t really children any more she realised, feeling a lump in her throat at the thought of how much she’d missed. Once she’d seen them every day. Now they were strangers.

Her gaze wandered to a little blonde girl in pink wellies, and a boy with dark curls and Eliot’s scowl.

‘Are these two…?’

‘Mine and Eden’s,’ he confirmed. ‘That’s Rosie. She’s five now. And that’s Sam. He’s nigh on three and a right handful.’

He grinned at her, and she saw the pride and happiness in his face and realised she was genuinely happy for him.

‘I’m so pleased it worked out for you,’ she told him. ‘And I’m glad I was wrong about Eden. Clearly, you’re very good together.’

‘Aye we are. She’s not what you thought at all, honest she’s not. You’d love her, Daisy, if you got to know her properly. It’d be smashing if you’d visit one day, and I’m sure the girls would be over the moon to see you again.’

She handed the photo back to him. ‘Maybe one day,’ she told him.

He put the photo in his wallet and slipped it into his jacket pocket. ‘Aye, well, I hope you do. It would be grand.’

‘I should never have jumped to those conclusions about Eden,’ she admitted. ‘I still feel hot and ashamed when I remember some of the things I said.’

‘Fair’s fair,’ he said, shaking his head, ‘you weren’t to know, were you? She had me right confused an’ all, with the daft shenanigans that were going on thanks to the Carmichaels and their bloody weird ways. You were only looking out for me, and I appreciated that.’

He sipped the tea she’d made them and said, ‘Not a bad brew that, Daisy. Not bad at all.’

‘Wow!’ She burst out laughing. ‘I’ll take that as a compliment, knowing how picky you are about your tea.’

‘You know me well,’ he agreed. ‘But that’s enough about me. I want to know about you.’

‘As you can see,’ she said, ‘I’m very well settled now, with my flat and my own business. You don’t need to worry about me.’

‘But are you happy?’ he asked earnestly. ‘Is there anyone special in your life?’

‘There are lots of special people in my life,’ she told him. ‘I have some amazing friends here.’

He eyed her knowingly. ‘That’s not what I meant.’

‘I know!’ She sighed. ‘There is someone if you must know.’

‘Aw, Daisy! That’s—that’s fantastic.’ He beamed at her. ‘Who is he? Tell me all about him.’

‘Shhh!’ Daisy cast a frantic look around the café, but no one was taking any notice, thankfully. She leaned closer to him. ‘It’s complicated.’

The smile slid from Eliot’s face. ‘Aw no. In what way?’

‘What way do you think?’ she said, feeling foolish.

He shook his head slightly. ‘Not a married man? Aw, Daisy, no. After everything you went through before!’

‘It’s not the same thing,’ she said quickly. ‘For one thing, he feels the same way about me as I do about him. It’s not in my head, Eliot. Not this time.’

‘Then why is he still with his wife?’ Eliot asked reasonably. ‘Unless—are there bairns involved?’

‘No. Nothing like that. Like I said, it’s complicated,’ she said sadly. Part of her wondered why she found it so easy to talk to him. They hadn’t seen each other for years, after all, yet somehow it was like it had only been last week, or last month. She’d always found it easy to chat to Eliot, confiding in him when she was very young about her miserable time on the farm. It seemed natural to slip back into that mode somehow. He was a very easy man to talk to.

‘Complicated, how?’ He seemed confused, and no wonder. She was confused, too, and she had far more insight into the situation than he had.

‘I can’t explain it,’ she admitted. ‘You’ll have to take my word for it. Thing is, I do really love him, Eliot, but…’

‘But you’re wondering if you should hang around waiting for him to be with you or if you should cut your losses and walk away.’

She didn’t reply to his question but instead said, ‘I’m so sorry for the way I nagged you. First about Jemima then about Eden. It was none of my business, was it? I was just so worried about you.’

‘Daisy.’ He put his hand over hers and gazed earnestly into her eyes. ‘I never saw it as nagging. I saw it as concern from a friend who cared about me, and I was always grateful for that concern, even if I didn’t always want to hear everything you said.’

‘Really?’ she asked doubtfully.

‘Really. I know I didn’t act when you warned me about Jemima, but the fact is I had to process it all in my own time. Deep down, I knew what you were saying was right, but I had to figure out what I was going to do for myself, you know? Sounds daft now, and by God, I’ve come to regret not acting sooner, but even so. I was allus very grateful for your support, I hope you know that. Fact is, the way you listened to me, let me pour out my worries and fears—Daisy, I’d have been lost without you. Honest, I would. It made all the difference, having someone to talk to. I’d have gone mad otherwise.’

‘It was really that important to you?’ she murmured.

‘Daisy, love, when you’re drowning you need some sort of life belt to cling to. You were mine.’

‘But you took no notice of what I said,’ she reminded him. ‘You didn’t leave Jemima and she broke your heart.’

‘No, I didn’t leave her, but it doesn’t mean I wasn’t taking in everything you said. You saved my sanity by letting me work it all out in my mind. God, I’m trying to imagine what it would have been like if I’d had no one to confide in. I can’t even begin to think about it.’

Daisy thought about Noah, and all the years he’d suffered in silence, confiding in no one about what was really going on at home. How, she wondered bleakly, had he got through that?

Eliot drained his mug and glanced at his watch. ‘Heck, I’d better be getting back to the sheep. Adey’ll have my guts for garters.’

He got to his feet and Daisy stood, too.

‘None of the family are with you?’ she asked, half hopefully. ‘Not the little ones maybe, but I thought maybe the older three…’

‘No. Our Libby’s at university,’ he told her proudly, ‘and Ophelia’s got a weekend job as well as being at college. Oh, and George is spending the weekend with his grandma.’

‘His grandma?’ Daisy asked, puzzled.

‘It’s a long story,’ Eliot told her, rolling his eyes. ‘Maybe if you come up to Wildflower Farm, we can tell you all about it.’

She grinned. ‘How would Eden feel about that?’

He put his hands on her shoulders. ‘She’d be chuffed to bits,’ he told her seriously. ‘She did like you, you know, despite everything. She’ll be really glad I’ve seen you and put my mind at rest, and you’d be very welcome at the farm, trust me.’

‘Then maybe,’ she told him, ‘I’ll drop by one day after all.’

‘See that you do. And,’ he added, his eyes suddenly serious, ‘I hope you’re able to bring that fella of yours with you. I hope it all works out for you, Daisy. I really do.’

‘Thanks, Eliot.’

He kissed her lightly on the cheek and they said goodbye. Who knew how long for this time? Daisy thought, maybe not so long after all. It would be good to go up to Wildflower Farm again. As she watched him running down the stairs she sat back down and stared into the middle distance, reflecting how amazing yet how comforting it was to finally realise she was well and truly over Eliot Harland. He was a good man, and she would always care about him, but her feelings for him now were strictly platonic.

With Noah, though, it was very different. The whole time she’d been talking to Eliot her thoughts had continually strayed to the man she knew she loved and talking to someone who’d been through something similar to him, albeit without the physical violence, had made her realise that her continued support was vital.

Eliot had told her she’d kept him sane by listening to him and being there for him, and she realised that was all she could do for Noah right now. It was up to him to decide when to finally break away from Isobel. In the meantime, she would support him and be his shoulder to cry on. Maybe now he had someone to confide in, he would finally find the strength to leave his abusive wife and start again.

She could only pray it wouldn’t take him long.