This isn’t weird at all,she thought, goose bumps breaking out over her skin.
Edie linked her bare, cold arm through the tanned, muscly arm of her new boss, and tried not to cry out in pain as they walked up the beach towards the crazy dog that had taken her down only moments earlier.
How had she ended up arm in arm with the man whose actions had sent her out for a mind cleansing run in the first place? She risked a sneak peek out of the corner of her eye at his face. He looked so serene, the dusting of stubble he’d sported earlier was now thicker and darker. He had a perfect profile with aquiline nose and large deep eyes, his jaw was defined but, even through the stubble, Edie could see him clenching his teeth. His projected sereneness betrayed by the action.
Edie took a deep breath and turned her eyes forward. Her own teeth chattered, but she wasn’t sure it was anything to do with the coldness that had set in once she’d stopped running. She felt as though she’d consumed about a million and one espressos. And had she not have been covered in the world’s scratchiest sand, she would have been skipping on the balls of her feet. As it was, Finn was walking as far away from her as humanly possible with their arms linked so any sudden movement would have been too difficult.
They made it to the edge of the sand. Archie bounded up to Finn and wound around his legs before sniffing gently at Edie’s free hand. She ruffled his soft ears and drew away from Finn, pulling her arm back from his.
“Even though he sent me flying into the water, he’s very sweet. What is he?”
“He’s a border collie, a sheep dog. He was abandoned as a puppy, can you imagine?” Finn shook his head.
They followed the dog as he wound his way through the sharp grass sprouting out of the dunes and up to the top of the dune hill. Edie kept her eyes on Finn’s hands as they gripped the unattached lead, wondering how many people those hands had touched, had operated on, had healed, had loved. Her heart skipped a beat and she shook her head. Treading carefully over the spikes of green grass, Edie kept in line behind Finn and Archie, trying to stick to the soft yellow sand. They reached the top of the dune; Finn had stopped to wait for her and as he looked back Edie saw something in his eyes that looked like fear. He blinked it away and smiled down at her.
“Nearly there,” he said, nodding over the dune hill.
Edie looked in the direction of his nod. There was nothing there but trees, trees, and more trees. Great big oaks and beeches, ripe with green leaves, with smaller witch elms and rowans dotted in between.
The act of trying to scramble down the dune and into the dense trees without her legs touching each other and rubbing sand into what was now quite raw skin, was tricky. On more than one occasion did she stumble and have to bite her tongue. She didn’t want her new boss to think her ungrateful for his offer of a lift home. Only, she didn’t expect his home to be quite so far and now he was leading her into a woods, she was a bit perturbed.
“Do you live in a treehouse?” Edie joked.
Finn laughed but didn’t answer her question. Panic started to bubble in Edie’s chest.
Maybe he does live in a treehouse! Maybe he’s one of those wacky out-there surgeons who lives off grid when he’s not at work.
There was a small, well-trodden path leading between two chestnut trees at the bottom of the dune. On either side were a scattering of poppies. Edie noticed Finn walking carefully so as not to trample any of the beautiful flowers. Her heart flickered a little at his thoughtfulness. She wondered how a man could be that thoughtful about nature yet have the sharp tongue of a serpent when it came to people.
With a shrug she moved forwards through the trees and hopefully further towards the car that was going to take her off her feet and back home. The draw of a scalding hot shower would have been a great incentive to ignore the burning pain in her legs. But now she was pregnant, a scalding hot shower was off the cards. Edie would have to make do with a luke-warm one instead. Anything to get rid of the beach still stuck to her legs.
“Just around the corner,” Finn said from a few feet up ahead.
Archie obviously knew where he was as he’d vanished from sight. Either that or he’d tackled another unsuspecting runner to the floor. Although from what Finn had said before he realised it was her, it sounded as though Archie was normally scared of people. But maybe Finn said that to all Archie’s casualties.
They rounded a thicket of trees and stepped out into the sunlight again. Edie’s mouth dropped open.
“Wow,” she gasped as she took in the sight.
Finn joined her by her side now they weren’t confined by trees.
“It’s quite something isn’t it? I love it,” he smiled at her. “And I’m glad you feel the same. It’s my haven.”
The trees had been hiding a smallholding. What Edie thought must be about two acres of grazing land scattered with sheep and chickens, penned in by solid wooden fencing. Right at the far end of the land Edie could see the back of a farmhouse. A square brick and flint building with a pleasing symmetry of windows, a large conservatory stuck out of the side, a blend of flint and duck egg wood to help it fit in.
Edie spotted Archie running over to a flock of five sheep. She waited for them to disperse to the far end of the field but, to her astonishment they crowded around and welcomed him to the flock. He wagged his tail happily as the strange group ran around the paddock. Edie raised an eyebrow at Finn.
“What?” he grinned at her. “He’s a sheep dog, isn’t he?”
Edie couldn’t help but laugh.
“Yes, but I think that’s supposed to mean he cancontrolsheep, notbea sheep!”
Finn shrugged.
“Tell him that,” he said, gesturing to Archie who was now drinking out of the metal water trough at the opposite edge of the field. “Come on, let’s get to the car and get you home, you’re starting to turn blue.”
Edie’s shoulders dropped as she remembered she was going home. She wanted to get inside the farm and look around, or take a tour of the grounds, the stables, the barns. All thoughts of a cleansing shower had vanished far from her mind, for this was Edie’s ideal home. The home she had been imagining living in since she was a young girl, running around her parents’ tiny back garden with a stuffed animal trailing from a piece of string. She had wanted the vegetable patch, the animals, she wanted the farm house and the barns. She wanted the acres of ground to raise sheep and chickens, to spin their fleeces and poach their eggs with crispy bacon. She wanted to get inside that farm house and never leave.
