Page 1 of The Perfect Blend
Chapter One
“Beanie! Heel!” I called for my dog as I crunched across the frosty field. I clutched my to-go mug of special blend coffee in one hand and Beanie's lead in the other. It was past lunchtime and back down in the town by my coffee shop the frost had melted. But up here in the hills the air still had that crisp chill to it. The end of my nose was no doubt red where the wintry air nipped at it and my breath came out in cloudy little huffs. A small swirl of steam meandered out from my coffee cup. This was my absolute favourite kind of weather to walk in. That said, I’d reached the end of the field and it was a little too chilly to be standing around waiting for my dog to selectively choose to hear my calls.
“Beanie! Come on! I’m waiting for you now!” I turned back and scanned the field for any sign of my girl. Suddenly, she popped up from where she had been investigating the reeds and came bounding over. Her trademark blonde tail swished in the air behind her and her tongue lolled out as she grinned. A classic golden retriever, she was a very good girl - usually. But sometimes things were just too interesting for her to come back the first time I called.
“There you are. Come on, let me put you on your lead before we go into the next field. There’s sheep in there and we both know how much you’d love to be friends with them.” Beanie had a fascination with sheep, especially when they ran. She wouldn’t hurt them, but they didn’t know that and letting your dog terrorise the local livestock is very bad form.
Beanie waited patiently as I clipped on her lead, one long enough to allow her to go off and sniff around but still gave me complete control if she got too interested in the poor woolly beasts. Together we climbed the stile in the wall - an arrangement of bigger stones sticking out as steps to allow walkers to pass through on the public footpath. Each stile had been made differently, adding a little personality to each section of a walk. Some were more like ladders made of wooden slats, others were just two pieces of wood crossing to create steps. But I liked the stone ones the best, they had more history. You could almost feel the countless people that had passed before as you positioned your feet and climbed up and over the worn stones.
Beanie was just hopping down the other side of this stile with greater agility than I could ever manage, when my phone rang. That was a near miracle up here where the phone signal seemed to work on its own terms and rarely when you actually needed it. Up ahead I spotted more sheep and a walker, so I hitched Beanie’s lead further up my arm to keep her secure whilst I juggled to hold my coffee and fish my phone out of my pocket.
I smiled when I saw who was calling. It was Zoe, my best friend, animal groomer extraordinaire and very passionate gossip.
“Zoe! Speak quickly if it’s important, I’m in the hills and don’t know how long my signal will last.”
“Ma’am, Yes, Ma’am!” Zoe chanted down the phone, before breaking into a laugh.
“Actually Robin, I’m ringing with some very intriguing gossip.”
“Juicy!”
“Potentially. Remember a few months back we heard that Bluebell Ridge Farm got snapped up?”
“Oh yeah, some of the old boys were muttering about it in the pub, saying how it should have stayed in the family.”
“Right, well, I heard today from Mrs Hughes - you know I groom her little dog, Pomfrey.”
“Hilarious name for a chihuahua.”
“Actually, once you get to know him I think it suits him. He’s a dignified fellow.”
I snorted at that.
“Anyway, Mrs Hughes said some bloke from down south has bought up the farm and is sweet talking the parish council into supporting a bid for it to get ahugeextension and remodel into one of those massive mansions the footballers have.”
“In the middle of the Peak District? No way!” I gasped. This was indeed juicy news, if this was true the village would speak of nothing else for the next decade at least. Situated inside the Peak District National Park, the farm would have strict planning regulations to go with the even more conservative locals.
“No, I swear, she was absolutely adamant. She even suggested that he was going to bribe the planning department to let him convert the old barns into some sort of swanky home cinema.”
My heart ached a bit at the thought of that. At the moment, Bluebell Ridge Farm needed a serious cash injection to bring it into the 21st century. But, I had many fond memories of the farm from when I was a young girl and the idea that someone would come and strip the soul from what had been a working farm for generations stung a bit. I’d wished someone, maybe even me if I won the lottery, would give it some love and bring it back to life, but not like this.
“I bet Mrs Hughes was being a bit liberal with the truth there,” I said, hoping to be right. “Some rich and snooty southerner might have bought Bluebell Ridge Farm, and they may even have the cheek to try something so tone-deaf. However, there’d be a bloody uproar and you know it, the silly sod would find himself kicked back down south by a pitchfork wielding mob. I might even join in.”
On the other end of the line, Zoe laughed and was starting to reply when a few things happened all at once. As I spoke on the phone, Beanie and I had been making our way across the field. We had just reached level with the walker coming the other direction when there was an almighty yank on my arm. The wrench caught me mid step, flinging my arm forward, my phone flying out of my hand and sending me stumbling across the grass - straight into the walker. We collided with a thump and his arms shot out to steady me as I bounced off his chest. I had a split second to think, which my brain used to determine that:
A) This walker had a solid chest,
B) And great reflexes,
C) And he was pretty gorgeous too.
And because my brain had been focusing on such obviously important things like that, I didn’t react quickly enough to catch Beanie, whose enthusiastic chase had pulled me off balance. The damn dog was hurtling after some sheep that were running around us. Too panicked to think logically, they were circling us like we were a maypole. The result was that, within a couple of seconds, Beanie was rendered unable to continue chasing the sheep as she had successfully wound her lead round me and the walker, binding us together with my now leaking coffee sandwiched between us.
“Oh, my gosh - so sorry,” I sputtered, “let me just -”
Maybe because my brain was still feeling stupid from gazing at Mr Tall, Dark and Handsome, I thought it would be a good idea to take a step backward. The lead had bound the bottom half of my legs to his and the movement sent me toppling backwards. The hands braced at my waist held firm, but with our feet so close together there was little else the poor man could do but follow me down as I fell. I landed with an oof, but the walker had twisted a little to land with his torso just next to me with our feet all crossed at the bottom. If it weren’t for the weather, and the bindingsà laBeanie, we could have been a cute couple relaxing on the grass after a picnic.
I ushered my brain out of its sluggish, distracted state and tried to make amends.
