The Land Girl on Lily Road: Homefront Hearts by Jillianne Hamilton

Author:Jillianne Hamilton [Hamilton, Jillianne]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Tomfoolery Press

Ben

Every smile she threw my way, every exchanged glance, every laugh—almost every little thing Elsie did had me wondering if there was something more to it. Did she smile at everyone like that or was that a smile just for me? Did her eyes always sparkle like that when she giggled?

Had something actually changed between us? Or was it just wishful thinking?

As we milked the cows that morning in early June I could hardly keep my eyes off Elsie. She caught me gazing at her, and I quickly looked back down at my milk pail. When I slowly raised my eyes again she was watching me, a playful sparkle in her eyes.

I wanted to kiss her. I wanted to bury my face in her neck and inhale her entire essence. I wanted to drag my lips across every inch of her. I wanted to taste her⁠—

“I heard the War Office is sending five thousand Morrison shelters to Bath,” Sheila said from behind us, carefully tipping the contents of her milk pail into the larger metal canister.

While the Anderson shelter was an oversized tin can families set up in their back gardens to use as a private shelter, the Morrison shelter was a reinforced bed-sized cage one could sleep in. The sturdy top would protect you from most debris from above and the chicken wire walls kept you safe from most debris that might attack from the sides. These could go in homes and saved people from having to dig up their gardens. Plus they could be built by those who didn’t have back gardens to dig up.

“Sure, now they send them when it’s too late,” I scoffed.

It had been a little over a month since the Germans let loose the fires of Hell onto Bath.

“They could come back,” Elsie said. “You never know.”

I moved down to the next cow. “I suppose.”

She was right. People in Bath and the surrounding villages still watched the skies for signs of danger every night, listening for the droning hum of Nazi planes. We continued to move the herd back inside the barn every evening instead of letting them gather together in the meadow on warm nights.

Elsie left to do the milk delivery after breakfast while Sheila and I headed up to the field to cut hay. I drove the tractor in tight, long ovals with the wide sickle attached and Sheila dealt with the grass sticking to the sickle spikes. Then Sheila took a turn on the tractor and I dealt with the snags.

It was during one of these turns that Mrs. Watkins, approaching on horseback, rode up the hill.

Shielding her eyes with her hand, Sheila turned the tractor off and it clunked aggressively in response.

“Good morning,” she said with a wave as Mrs. Watkins dismounted her thoroughbred.

“Good morning, Sheila.” She nodded to me. “Good morning, Mr. Grainger.”

I nodded in greeting and wiped the sweat from my forehead with the back of my hand.

“I’m just doing my regular check-in with the girls,” Mrs. Watkins added cheerfully, as if she did it all the time.

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