Page 9 of Sunrise over Strawberry Hill Farm

Nico found himself wanting to know more, perhaps even trying to help if they needed it. His grandfather had told him that the Barton family had paid him a great kindness when he had first come to the farm all those years ago. He hadn’t gone into detail and yet Nico had instantly known that it had meant a huge deal to Lorenzo. And his grandfather had always been a good judge of character.

The guilt over the loss of the vineyard and his own home still hung heavily on Nico. Perhaps if he could help repay the kindness and help out Flora and her grandmother over the next couple of days, then it might feel as if he could still achieve something in this world. That he still had something to offer people.

And maybe it would help ease the constant grief and guilt that he carried with him all the time as well.

5

Flora had heard Nico’s joke about hot dates but had chosen to ignore it.

Anyway, what did she know about hot dates? Not much. Her dates the previous autumn with Tyler Smith, the farmer a few villages along, had been anything but. They had been nice but had been missing the chemistry, the thrill, the quickening pulse. All of which she’d read about but never experienced first-hand. She’d had boyfriends in her first year of art college but no one since then.

Tyler couldn’t ever be described as hot, but at least he was reliable, trustworthy and steady. Everything that Nico Rossi wasn’t.

And now Grams had invited him to stay! Because he had nothing in his diary, he had eagerly accepted. What kind of a person had no plans in life? she wondered.

Of course, as she reminded herself, the irony was that she was the same these days. An unknown future stretched out in front of her, and it was seriously unsettling.

She glanced at Nico as he came around the corner, his long legs emphasised in his fitted jeans and wellington boots. The thought of sitting opposite a man like him in a candlelit restaurant unnerved her. He was too suave and good-looking for her, with his glamorous background. Too much of everything, she thought with a shake of her head to dispel such thoughts.

‘This is the strawberry field,’ she told him, looking at the gently rolling slope in front of them as they walked through the gate. ‘There’s nothing to show yet, of course. But, come the summer, it’ll be packed full of strawberries. Hopefully,’ she added under her breath. Because without the revenue from the strawberries, the farm wouldn’t have any income at all.

‘Have you considered investing in a polytunnel to protect them from the wet weather?’ Nico asked.

Flora turned to look at him in surprise. ‘You’ve used them back in Italy?’ she asked.

‘Sometimes, if there’s going to be a late frost, it helped to protect the vegetable garden,’ he replied. ‘The vineyard was too big to cover, though, so we would light fires amongst the vines to keep off the cold.’

‘I see,’ she replied. ‘Well, it’s never been necessary here so far.’ The truth was that it had been an additional expense, one which their accounts didn’t have sufficient funds for.

She watched as Nico crouched down to touch the soil bed nearest to them and rubbed it through his fingers.

‘Loam,’ he muttered to himself. ‘Sand too for good drainage.’

She was quietly impressed. Perhaps he had a little more knowledge than she gave him credit for.

‘Strawberries don’t like soggy roots,’ she told him. ‘So the hill works well to drain away any heavy rain.’

‘Then it’s the perfect spot, especially being south-facing as well to maximise the sunshine,’ he said, standing up once more.

She went to turn away and get the tour over with as soon as possible, but Nico remained looking at the field.

‘These are the strawberries that Nonno picked,’ he said, in a surprisingly wistful tone.

Flora was reminded that Nico had lost his grandad within the last year and that perhaps underneath that smooth exterior was the grief that she too felt with the loss of her own grandfather.

‘Yes, it’s the same field,’ she replied. ‘The farm was named after it. There’s been strawberries here for nearly a hundred years.’

He nodded and finally turned away to walk with her along the path.

‘And the other fields?’ he asked. ‘What do you grow there?’

‘A variety of crops,’ she replied. She didn’t want to open up to him about how bad things actually were. It didn’t matter anyway. He would be gone in a couple of days and their life would resume, although she wasn’t sure what direction it would follow. ‘So you seem to know a lot about soil?’ she asked, hoping to change the subject away from the farm.

He nodded. ‘Yes. My grandfather taught me everything. About how to take care of the vines and the best weather for the best harvest. But I also went to business college to learn about the newer techniques. Sometimes a mix of old and new is the best way forward.’

They were both quiet then. She wanted to ask more but suddenly the conversation felt awkward.

They walked to the brow of the hill before stopping to look at the view. Cranfield was close by, a tiny hamlet of around fifty houses, all built with the same sandy-coloured brick. It had come to life in the past year. The station had had a complete overhaul and Flora noticed that Katy had added a lick of green paint on the window frames to freshen them up, as well as some window boxes filled with pink and white flowers. Platform 1, the coffee shop and pizza restaurant, had opened and gradually the villagers were beginning to gather there. Some people used it as a home working office, others just wanted to chat or have a little company for a while.