Page 20 of Sunrise over Strawberry Hill Farm

She waited for the witty comment, but it didn’t come. All she could feel was him turn his head towards her.

‘What’s the matter?’ he asked softly.

‘Nothing’s the matter,’ she told him quickly. ‘Haven’t you got one of your many girlfriends to call up or something?’

‘I can always do that later,’ he replied in a breezy tone.

Flora didn’t reply and found, to her horror, that the tears were starting to fall again.

‘Cristo,’ he swore, and she knew that he could tell that she was crying. ‘What’s wrong?’

‘Why? What does it matter?’ she replied, finally turning her face.

‘Because I might be able to fix it,’ he told her. ‘I’m not the enemy, if you can believe me this one time.’

She thought back to what her friends had been trying to tell her the previous evening about trusting him and decided that perhaps it didn’t even matter any more.

‘It’s the farm, isn’t it?’ he finally asked into the silence.

She gave a shrug of her shoulders and looked away once more.

‘How bad a financial mess is it in?’ she heard him ask.

Her shoulders sagged. ‘About ten Ferraris’ worth of mess,’ she replied, still looking out across the view and not at Nico. ‘Maybe add in a couple of Porsches as well. Not that any of this is anyone’s fault. The farm was built on a floodplain, unknown to us.’ She gave a shrug. ‘In the early days, we had the odd bad year of weather but never like this. Year after year of heavy rain over the winter. All the fields behind us are submerged most of the year. Can’t farm the land in that state. And any dry summer doesn’t last long enough to make a difference.’

‘I’m sorry,’ he murmured. ‘That must be hard for you and Grams.’

‘It’s the truth, so we can’t hide from it,’ said Flora, trying to sound strong, but her voice cracked on the last word.

‘Will you lose your home?’

It was the question that she had asked herself over and over to no avail. ‘I don’t know,’ she told him simply.

There was a short silence before he suddenly sprang up and began to pace up and down. ‘Well, there must be something!’ he said, before standing in front of her and crossing his arms across his chest. ‘What are your options?’

Flora looked up at him. ‘Well, I thought I might go to Hawaii, maybe even Monaco for a long holiday,’ she began to say.

But she was surprised to see that there was no sarcasm or derision in his expression, merely concern as he crouched down in front of her.

‘Is there nothing else that you can do with the land?’ he asked softly.

The tears pricked at her eyes once more as she shook her head.

‘Well, it’s not over yet,’ he told her in a determined voice. ‘We must be able to think of something?’

‘We?’

He looked at her, his dark eyes unreadable. ‘Yes. We,’ he stated simply.

Despite her better judgement, for a second Flora felt a moment of reassurance. That she and Grams weren’t alone in their struggle. That there might just be someone else to share the load with.

But that was ridiculous, right? Because Nico was a playboy with a flashy car who would be leaving soon. How could he possibly help them?

12

Flora stayed seated on the log as Nico began to pace up and down once more at the top of the wildflower meadow.

‘There must be some kind of business which would bring in some income for the farm,’ he said, walking back and forth. ‘You’ve got all this land, haven’t you?’