Summer At Willow Tree Farm: The Perfect Romantic Escape. Heidi Rice

He shot out of the room and Ellie heard him racing up the stairs.

      ‘Do you really think the head teacher will go for the idea?’ she asked her mother. ‘I don’t want to get his hopes up.’ Especially as she’d never seen Josh this enthusiastic about the thought of attending school.

      ‘Toto’s school is a new school, so they have places to fill at the moment. And Marjorie is the local organiser for the Women’s Institute – if there’s a way to make it happen, she’ll find it.’

      ‘I’m sure she will but what if…’

      ‘We’ll find something else for Josh to do,’ her mother interrupted gently. ‘There’s a million and one chores round here. Maybe he could help Art out in the workshop?’

      ‘And risk getting his hand chopped off? I don’t think so.’

      Plus, she couldn’t see Art going for that idea. Art had taken his trademark sullenness to a whole new level in the last few days, skulking at the opposite end of the table during supper time as he picked at his food with his uninjured hand, his beard growth starting to make him look like a particularly disreputable pirate. Only last night, he’d chastised Toto for giggling too much at one of Jacob’s jokes. Toto had taken the harsh comment in her stride, obviously used to her father’s moods, but Josh had looked terrified. Her son tended to get anxious around men at the best of times, probably because he’d spent so much of his childhood trying and failing to attract Dan’s attention. And Art, with his no-frills parenting, was a great deal more intimidating than Dan.

      ‘It may surprise you to know that Art is actually great with kids,’ Dee said. ‘And he’s never usually clumsy. I still can’t imagine how he cut himself so badly.’

      Ellie was reserving judgement on Art’s way with children. Toto and Melody might adore him, and Josh was clearly in awe of him, plus she could remember how he’d managed to hypnotise the other children at the commune when they’d been teenagers together, but that did not mean she was going to expose a child as sensitive as Josh to Art’s moods.

      And she didn’t trust Dee’s opinion on Art, because it was fairly obvious she was a founder member of the Art Dalton Appreciation Society.

      Ellie carried their used dishes to the sink and rinsed them off. ‘Here’s hoping the school visit pans out, so we never have to consider the nuclear option.’

      ‘I’ll go ring Marjorie now and see what she says,’ her mother announced as she placed the rest of the dishes in the sink. ‘Could you do me a favour while I’m handling that?’

      ‘Sure,’ Ellie said, placing a rinsed plate on the draining board.

      ‘Would you take some salad and bread into Art in the study?’ Dee opened a drawer and rummaged around. ‘And check up on him while you’re at it. I’m worried that hand may have got infected, he’s been so grumpy the last couple of days.’

      Ellie dried her hands. ‘Isn’t that his natural state?’

      What exactly did her mother mean by ‘check up on him’? She’d already done her shift as Art’s keeper.

      ‘I’m worried about him.’ Dee pulled a thin pencil-sized leather case from the drawer then held it towards Ellie.

      ‘What’s that?’ Ellie stared at the case as if it contained an unexploded nuclear warhead.

       Please don’t let this be what I think it is.

      ‘A thermometer,’ Dee replied, shattering Ellie’s hopes. ‘All you need to do is take his temperature. It won’t take you a minute and it will put my mind at rest.’

       Yeah, but it’s liable to make my mind explode.

      ‘I’m not sure I’m comfortable taking his temperature.’ Like, at all.

      ‘Why not?’

      ‘Because I hardly know the guy.’ And what I do know is only going to make this situation more supremely uncomfortable.

      ‘Don’t be silly.’ Dee lifted Ellie’s hand and slapped the thermometer into her palm. ‘Just get him to hold it under his tongue for two minutes. He’s more likely to do it for you than me.’

      ‘Why on earth would you think that?’ Ellie asked. Was her mother delusional?

      ‘Because he let you drive him to the hospital,’ Dee said, as if that made any sense at all. ‘And he hates hospitals.’

      So saying, Dee rushed off, leaving Ellie holding the nuclear warhead.

      Shoving the thermometer into her back pocket, she trooped down the hallway towards the office at the back of the house and rapped on the door.

      ‘Go away. I’m busy.’

      Apparently, Mr Grumpy had gone from cranky to super cranky since yesterday evening.

      With the nuclear warhead branding her bottom through her jeans, Ellie opened the door, certain that no superpower on earth was liable to stop this situation blowing up in her face.

      She braced herself as she stepped into the cramped room. Art sat crouched over some papers, his hair swept back in untidy rows as if he’d spent the day running agitated fingers through it. An ancient desktop computer hummed in the corner like a demented bumble bee. The once white bandage was now an unhealthy shade of grey where his hand rested on the table.

      ‘Hi.’

      He swung round, looking surprised for a moment. And then pissed off.

       Quelle surprise.

      ‘What do you want?’

      She whipped the thermometer out of her back pocket like Harry Potter preparing to do the Expelliarmus Spell.

       If only.

      ‘I’ve got good news and bad news,’ she said. Time to go on the offensive. There was no point being a wimp around Art, because he would stomp all over her. So he was having his temperature taken now even if she had to shove her wand right up his bum.

      He eyeballed the thermometer. ‘What’s the bad news?’

      ‘The bad news is I’m here on a mission from my mother to take your temperature.’

      ‘So, what’s the good news?’

      ‘You’re going to hate this even more than I do.’

      *

       I do not believe it!

      Art stared at the thermometer – and wanted to punch a wall. Unfortunately, he couldn’t, because one hand was throbbing like a rotten tooth and damaging the other one would leave him helpless.

      Damn Dee for siccing her daughter on him. And damn Ellie for looking like she was enjoying this. ‘I don’t have a temperature.’

      ‘Tell that to my mum, she’s worried about you.’

      ‘Go back and tell her yourself.’

      She stepped into the room and closed the door, making the space feel even more claustrophobic than usual. He could smell her, that fresh spicy scent that had enveloped him while he’d dozed off in the car on the way back from the clinic.

      ‘Unfortunately for both of us –’ she propped her bottom on the desk ‘– that’s not going to wash when you haven’t eaten a full meal in days.’

      ‘I’m not hungry.’ Like he was going to tell her the real reason he wasn’t eating. She’d probably crack a rib laughing.

      She shook her head. ‘Nope, that won’t work either. Unless you’ve suddenly become a closet anorexic. And I’m afraid if you have that’s only going to make Dee worry more.’

      ‘She’s not my keeper and neither are you.’

      ‘Yes,