One Minute Later: Behind every secret is a story, the emotionally gripping new book from the bestselling author. Susan Lewis
Friends, families, even Shelley and Jack, whose plan it was, thought they were crazy, but hey ho, they’d gone ahead and done it anyway. Why not? They’d spent holidays at Deerwood Farm as far back as when they were knee-high to tadpoles, as Shelley’s uncle Bob used to call them. They’d continued to come as teens, helping out in the barns, running wild and loving every animal as if it were a pet – and every mouthful of Aunt Sarah’s home bakes as if they were the very best in the world, which they were.
Even when Jack and Shelley had started going further afield for their holidays they’d continued to count those halcyon summers at the farm amongst their happiest memories. The place was as special to them as any place could possibly be, for it was at Deerwood that their childhood friendship had blossomed during their teenage years into an embarrassed and fumbling romance, and was also where Jack, aged fourteen, had first asked Shelley to marry him. (He’d asked several times after that and she’d always readily accepted. It was just something they used to do every now and again for the sheer joy of it.) Jack even swore Deerwood was magical, and Shelley, whose aunt and uncle owned the farm, had earnestly assured him he was right.
Jack had grown up in the semi next door to Shelley on a shady, red-brick street in Ealing. They’d been best friends forever, so it was no surprise to anyone when they’d married as soon as their uni days were over. By then Jack was a qualified veterinary surgeon, and Shelley was already teaching at a West London primary.
With a little help from Jack’s parents they’d scraped together a deposit for a two-bedroomed house in Brentford, and their first child, Hanna, was born a year after they moved in. Their second, Zoe, came along eighteen months later on the same day that Princess Diana gave birth to Prince William. They were happy, blessed, had little to complain about, with Jack’s popularity as a vet growing and Shelley’s role as a full-time mum keeping her occupied, if not entirely satisfied.
Then Uncle Bob died, four years after Aunt Sarah, and to Shelley and Jack’s amazement it turned out that Deerwood Farm, together with Bob and Sarah’s meagre savings, were now theirs.
‘Why didn’t Bob leave it to you?’ Shelley asked her father, still reeling from the unexpectedness of it that was already turning into something that felt vaguely like excitement. ‘You’re his brother.’
‘I’m no farmer,’ her father chuckled, ‘and Bob knew that.’
‘Well you can hardly say that I am either,’ Shelley pointed out. ‘Or Jack.’
‘Ah, but Bob knew you loved the place, and that’s what would have mattered to him and Sarah. I’m sure she was behind the idea, and when Jack decided to become a vet it would have made up her mind. Having said that, there are no conditions attached to the inheritance. You can sell it if you like and use the money to get a bigger house, or put it aside for the girls’ education.’
Jack and Shelley looked at one another, not needing words to know what the other was thinking, but not yet ready to confide those thoughts in anyone else.
Less than six months later they were in the depths of the rolling countryside, the proud new owners of a rambling, draughty, leaky farmhouse, several ramshackle barns, half a brick shed (the other half had collapsed like an old drunk into a pile of desolation around its own feet); seventy-five acres of untended fields with any number of streams passing merrily or sluggishly through them; ancient woods that Shelley and Jack remembered playing and camping in but were now filled with bindweed and brambles; and heaven only knew how many miles of unkempt hedgerows, rotting gates and clogged ditches. Added to this were five batty sheep of varying ages (breeds yet to be determined, four ewes and a vasectomized little runt of a ram); ten cheery hens very generous with the eggs, three Aylesbury ducks also generous with the eggs (so they were told, yet to see any); a hamster that they’d brought with them and an ageing border collie called Todger whom everyone instantly adored and who was swiftly renamed Dodger (soon to be known as Dodgy). There was also a lot of machinery they had yet to identify, an ancient tractor with a missing steering wheel, a broken trailer, a 1960s Land Rover with more miles on the clock than the clock had numbers, a few dozen bundles of very useful wire fencing, and enough furniture inside the house to keep an auctioneer busy for weeks.
By now Shelley and Jack were in their early thirties and had all the energy and belief in themselves – and each other – that was required to turn this place into a dream home, a thriving farm and an educational paradise for their girls. From the instant Hanna and Zoe arrived their eyes had glowed with excitement and wonder; the fact that there was another brother or sister on the way wasn’t anywhere near as thrilling as the apparent imminent possibility of lambs. Yes, all four ewes were expecting, Giles, the next-door farmer and interim custodian of Deerwood, had informed them on arrival (and yes, there really was a farmer Giles in the area, although that was his first name), and if they wanted any help with the lambing he’d be happy to send someone over when the time came.
They readily accepted the kindness. Jack might be a qualified vet, but it had been a while since his work experience on a farm in Cheshire, so he was definitely open to a refresher course. And if the girls wanted to watch the miracle of birth then so they should, because they might be on duty next year, by which time they were likely to have a flock of thousands. Well, dozens – or at least twelve, depending on how things went.
‘You are absolutely loving this, aren’t you?’ Shelley murmured one evening, gazing into Jack’s midnight-blue eyes and feeling (strangely, given how long she’d loved him), how wonderful it was to love him. She was lying on her side – so large with her pregnancy by now that even rolling onto her back was an effort – and he was lying on his side looking at her.
‘Aren’t you?’ he asked, smoothing damp tendrils of her fine sandy hair back from her face. It was late February and freezing outside, but for tonight at least the generator was working, making them so hot indoors that in a few minutes they might just take a moonlight stroll.
‘Yes, I am,’ she whispered. ‘I really think we’re going to be happy here.’
‘I know it,’ he murmured. ‘I’ve been looking for a way of saying this since we arrived, and now I think I have it. The minute we turned in from the road, all the way along the drive to the farm, seeing the fields, the huge sky and humpback bridge, the cattle grids, trees, hedgerows, I felt as though we were fitting back into a place we’d only ever left temporarily. Then, when I saw the house, this house, sad and neglected, I thought, I swear this, I thought it gave a little sigh of relief when it realized it was us – and if you laugh I’ll leave you.’
How could she not laugh, and at the same time not cry, because he’d just found a far better way of putting into words their return to Deerwood than she ever could. That was her husband all over, as romantic as a poet, as rash and tempestuous as the wind, and as attuned to his surroundings as the wildlife that shared every nook and cranny. And how lucky she was to have him as her lover; her rock; the father of her children, her best friend forever and now her partner in this mad, challenging and exhilarating new dream.
A week later things had moved on at such a pace at Deerwood that Shelley was struggling to keep track of it all. Builders, plumbers and electricians were assessing the cost of repairs and rebuilds; Jack had signed on with an urban veterinary practice for three days a week in order to ensure some sort of income; the girls were enrolled at a nursery school in the nearest village – six miles away – and Shelley was registered at a small health centre on the outskirts of the same village, where she’d had a long and enjoyable chat with the midwife about country living. She was due to give birth at the maternity unit of Kesterly Royal Infirmary – fifteen miles from the farm – sometime in the next two weeks.
Meantime, she and Jack were devouring all the books they could find on farming, sheep, land cultivation, understanding organics, slaughter, local markets; there was so much to learn that they’d probably never take it all in, but at least it was a start. With the support of their families, who’d descended to help out during this crucial period, they’d started to clear the cluttered farmyard of all the rusty paraphernalia, brambles and build-up of filth that had accumulated since Sarah’s passing. Giles and a couple of his workers came to ferry the junk to