The Girl from Honeysuckle Farm / One Dance with the Cowboy: The Girl from Honeysuckle Farm / One Dance with the Cowboy. DONNA ALWARD
off my land!’ he gritted between clenched teeth. ‘And—’ his tone was threatening ‘—don’t ever set foot on it again!’
His look was so malevolent it took everything she had to keep from flinching. ‘Huh!’ she scorned, and, badly wanting to run as fast as she could away from this man and his menacing look, she turned Ruby about and ambled away from the Hall.
By the time she and Ruby had entered the spinney, some of Phinn’s equilibrium had started to return. And a short while later she was starting to be thoroughly cross with herself that she had just walked away without acquainting him with a few of the do’s and don’ts of living in the country.
Who did he think he was, for goodness’ sake? She had always roamed the estate lands freely. True, there were certain areas she knew she was not supposed to trespass over. But she had been brought up using the Broadlands fields and acres as her right of way! She was darn sure she wasn’t going to alter that now!
The best thing Ty Allardyce could do, she fumed, would be to take himself and his big city ways back to London. And stay there! And good riddance to him too! She had now met him, but she hoped she never had the misfortune of seeing his forbidding, disagreeable face ever again!
CHAPTER TWO
SOMEHOW, in between worrying about finding a new home for herself and Ruby, Phinn could not stop thoughts of Ty Allardyce from intruding. Though, as the days went by and the weekend passed and another week began, Phinn considered that to have the man so much in and out of her mind was not so surprising. How dared he order her off his land?
Well, tough on him! It was a lovely early May day—what could be nicer than to take Ruby and go for a walk? Leaving the flat, Phinn went down to collect her. But, before she could do more than put a halter on the mare, Geraldine Walton appeared from nowhere to waylay her. Phinn knew what was coming before Geraldine so much as opened her mouth. She was not mistaken.
‘I’m sorry to have to be blunt, Phinn,’ Geraldine began, ‘but I really do need the stable flat by the end of the week.’
‘I’m working on it,’ Phinn replied, at her wits’ end. She had phoned round everywhere she could think of, but nobody wanted her and Ruby. And Ruby fretted if she was away from her for very long, so no way was Ruby going anywhere without her. Phinn had wondered about them both finding some kind of animal sanctuary, willing to take them both, but then again, having recently discovered that Ruby was unhappy with other horses around, she did not want to give her ailing mare more stress. ‘Leave it with me,’ she requested, and a few minutes later crossed the road on to Broadlands property and walked Ruby through the spinney, feeling all churned up at how it would break her heart—and Ruby’s—to have to leave her anywhere.
The majestic Broadlands Hall was occasionally visible through gaps in the trees in the small wood, but Phinn was certain that Ty Allardyce would by now be back in London, beavering away at whatever it was financiers beavered away at. Though just in case, as they walked through fields that bordered the adjacent grounds and gardens they had always walked through—or in earlier days ridden through—she made sure that she and Ruby were well out of sight, should anyone at the Hall be looking out.
Hoping not to meet him, if London’s loss was Bishops Thornby’s gain and he was still around, Phinn moved on, and was taking a stroll near the pool where she and her father had so often swum when she did bump into an Allardyce. It was Ash.
It would have been quite natural for Phinn to pause, say hello, make some sort of polite conversation. But she was so shaken by the change in the man from the last time she had seen him that she barely recognised him, and all words went from her. Ash looked terrible!
‘Hello, Ash,’ she did manage, but was unwilling to move on. He looked positively ill, and she searched for something else to say. ‘Did you get your camera all right?’ she asked, and could have bitten out her tongue. Was her cousin responsible in any way for this dreadful change in him? Surely not? Ash looked grey, sunken-eyed, and at least twenty pounds lighter!
‘Yes, thanks,’ he replied, no smile, his eyes dull and lifeless. But, brightening up a trifle, ‘Have you seen Leanne recently?’ he asked.
Fleetingly she wondered if Ash, so much in love with Leanne, might have found cause to suspect she was money-minded and, not wanting to lose her, not told her that it was his brother who owned Broadlands. But she had not seen her cousin since the day Leanne had learned that Ash was not the one with the money and had so callously dropped him.
‘Leanne—er—doesn’t come this way—er—now,’ Phinn answered, feeling awkward, her heart aching for this man who seemed bereft that his love wanted nothing more to do with him.
‘I don’t suppose she has anywhere to stay now that you’re no longer at Honeysuckle Farm,’ he commented, and as he began to stroll along with her, Phinn did not feel able to tell him that the only time Leanne had ever shown an interest in staying any length of time at the farm had been when she’d had her sights set on being mistress of Broadlands Hall. ‘I’m sorry that you had to leave, by the way,’ Ash stated.
And her heart went out to this gaunt man whose clothes were just about hanging on him. ‘I couldn’t have stayed,’ she replied, and, hoping to lighten his mood, ‘I don’t think I’d make a very good farmer.’ Not sure which was best for him—to talk of Leanne or not to talk of Leanne—she opted to enquire, ‘Have you found a new tenant for Honeysuckle yet?’
‘I’m—undecided what to do,’ Ash answered, and suddenly the brilliant idea came to Phinn that, if he had not yet got a tenant for the farm, maybe she and Ruby could go back and squat there for a while; the weather was so improved and it was quite warm for early summer. Ruby would be all right there. But Ash was going on. ‘I did think I might take it over myself, but I don’t seem able to—er—make decisions on anything just at the moment.’
Ash’s confession took the squatting idea from Phinn momentarily. Leanne again! How could she have been so careless of this sensitive man’s fine feelings?
‘I’m sure you and Honeysuckle would be good for each other—if that’s what you decide to do,’ Phinn replied gently.
And Ash gave a shaky sigh, as if he had wandered off for a moment. ‘I think I’d like to work outdoors. Better than an indoor job anyway.’ And, with a self-deprecating look, ‘I tried a career in the big business world.’
‘You didn’t like it?’
He shook his head. ‘I don’t think I’m the academic type. That’s more Ty’s forte. He’s the genius in the family when it comes to the cut and thrust of anything like that.’ Ash seemed to wander off again for a moment or two, and then, like the caring kind of person he was, he collected himself to enquire, ‘You’re settled in your new accommodation, Phinn?’
‘Well—er…’ Phinn hesitated. It was unthinkable that she should burden him with her problems, but the idea of squatting back at Honeysuckle was picking at her again.
‘You’re not settled?’ Ash took up.
‘Geraldine—she’s the new owner of the stables—wants to do more on the riding school front, and needs my flat for a member of her staff,’ Phinn began.
‘But you work there too?’
‘Well, no, actually. Er…’
‘You’re out of a job and a home?’ Ash caught on.
‘Ruby and I have until the end of this week,’ Phinn said lightly, and might well have put in a pitch for his permission to use Honeysuckle as a stop-gap measure—only she chanced to look across to him, and once more into his dull eyes, and she simply did not have the heart. He appeared to have the weight of the world on his shoulders, and she just could not add to his burden.
‘Ruby?’ he asked. ‘I didn’t know you had a child?’
He looked so concerned that Phinn rushed in to reassure