On Tuesday morning as there was a temporary window of calm in the weather, Natasha Baker saddled her horse to try and expunge her frustration, and that frustration was twofold.
Firstly the snow had kept her
confined indoors for five days and secondly her three failed attempts to use
her womanly wiles on Oliver Kingham.
Warren Bramble was also out
and about that morning, but he had spent a very busy weekend going from farm to
farm, if a beast was ill, they couldn’t wait for good weather to be treated.
That Tuesday morning he had
been to Beacon farm tending to an ewe and drove towards Spaniards Creek with
the intention of visiting Terrell’s Acre’s where he had treated several goats
in November, and he thought he might pop in to see how they were doing.
Terrell’s Acre’s was a Small
Holding on the outskirts of Spaniards Creek which had been in the Terrell
family for a hundred years and was now owned by 32-year-old Sarah Terrell and
her widowed younger sister Ava Adderley.
They were perfect partners in
the business, Sarah was the energetic dynamo always on the move and never
pausing on her purposeful pursuits, whereas Ava was the quiet
studious one who kept the business on an even keel and the books balanced.
As good as he was as a Vet
Warren wasn’t actually concerned for the goat’s welfare, he just wanted to see
Sarah Terrell again, he had only met her once and he lost his heart to her, so
concern for the goats seemed to be his chance of seeing her again.
It was just at that minute he
got out of his car that he spotted Sarah Terrell with her unmistakable
gawky gangling gait and her shock of red hair heading off in the opposite
direction, so he set off in pursuit and saw her stride off along the tow path
and was struggling to keep up, but then he caught sight of her crossing the
footbridge.
He lost sight of her for a
few minutes and when he was across the bridge he didn’t know if she’d gone left
or right, so he took a gamble and went left, just as a girl on horseback rode
by, it was Agnes Starr, riding one of his patients.
While he watched her trot out
of sight, he lost track of his quarry so decided to retrace his tracks back to
his car, he would just try again another day.
She did meet up with them for special occasions, but
for the most part she stayed on the island, and although she had no need to
work, she looked after her Cousin Oliver Kingham’s horses which where stabled
at his yard adjacent to Kingham’s Saddle and Tack, which was also where she
kept her own horse.
Agnes was a pretty lass and
looked such a tiny little thing sat astride her great chestnut colt, the
additional height gave the appearance that she was looking down her nose at the
peasantry, and because she was socially awkward, she never spoke to anyone
except to respond to hellos or good mornings, so those who didn’t know her
might of thought she was a stuck-up little rich bitch, but nothing could have
been farther from the truth, she was a lovely sweet natured girl, with an A*
little figure.
Agnes often rode out alone,
but that morning she had left the yard with her cousin Oliver, but they
separated after he caught sight of another rider, and that rider was Natasha
Baker.
Oliver spotted Natasha and he
knew it was her even though she was some distance away, so he took a different
path from Agatha and set off on the track through the woods in the hope of
getting ahead of her, but they were much thicker than he was expecting, and the
branches got lower and lower so much so that he had to dismount.
He led the horse though the trees and emerged on the edge of a small clearing and there was someone in the
clearing, it was Natasha and her horse which was tied to a tree by the reins,
and she appeared to be grooming the beast.
He tied up his own horse and
moved a little closer and as he crossed the clearing to close the distance between
them, he said
“Is everything ok?”
He got no response and even though he was on her blind side he wasn’t walking very stealthily but it was only when he was about five or six
paces from her that she suddenly became aware of his presence.
“You made me jump” she gasped and looked
very flustered indeed when she saw him and by an unexpected liaison in the
woods with the object of her affections.
“Sorry I did call out” he said, and she nodded knowingly in response and
removed her ear buds.
“Is everything ok?” he asked.
“She’s gone lame” Natasha replied, “I think it’s her fetlock so I’m
going to have to walk her back to the farm.”
“I’ll walk with you if you like.”
“Oh er yes” she said “That
would be nice”
Of course she was more than
happy to spend some time with him but inside she cursed the circumstances.
“It was a bit of luck running
into you” Oliver said
“Oh?”
“Yes, Matt and Jac said you
were looking for me last week”
“It was nothing important”
she lied
“Well, it must have been
important last week” he persisted, and she snapped crossly
“Yes, well last week I wasn’t
dressed like this, and I wasn’t wet, windblown and spattered with mud”
“Well I think you always look
lovely” he said before she could speak again and then when he saw her reaction
he mustered all his courage and leant in and kissed her.
“I’m sorry if that was
presumptuous” he said when the kiss ended but when she locked onto him again,
he took it as a sign that his attentions were not unwelcome.
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