Christmas at Fox Farm: A heart-warming and uplifting Christmas romance by Pollard Helen

Author:Pollard, Helen
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781800199538
Publisher: Bookouture
Published: 2021-09-29T00:00:00+00:00

* * *

Alex was looking forward to seeing his aunt again. While his mother was around, he hadn’t needed to, although he’d phoned every day. But Aunt Jean had been moved to a rehabilitation ward, to reteach her the skills she needed before she could come home, and he wanted to check up on that.

‘Aunt Jean, you’re looking so well.’

She had more colour in her face and sat upright in her bedside chair without slumping.

‘Thank you.’ She beamed. ‘I can go up and down the ward with the walking frame now. Do you want to see?’

‘Of course!’ He made a move to help her out of her chair, but she batted him away. ‘I have to do it myself.’ Using more strength from one arm than the other, she pulled herself up to grip the walking frame and shuffled slowly down the length of the ward and back.

Alex applauded, cursing the tears in his eyes that he knew his aunt would think were soft.

She was tired when she sat back down, but triumphant. ‘They’re talking about stairs next. They have a little set to try – just two or three. I have to do it,’ she said, determined, ‘or they won’t let me go home – I’d have to do stairs morning and night there.’

‘Thank goodness you have a downstairs loo, eh?’

‘And they took the lid off my beaker.’ She indicated her tea on the bedside table. ‘I feel less like a child now.’

Her speech was clearer and less monosyllabic. Alex hadn’t noticed that on the phone. Face-to-face was so much better.

‘Nicky showed me Fox Farm on her mobile,’ Jean said. ‘You’ve done a fant… A great job. Thank you.’

‘You’re welcome. I’m really pleased with it, and it’s busy – both the café and the gallery. Takings will be higher than last year.’

‘Good. They say I’ll need carers for a while, for showers or baths. A cleaner, too. So, you were right about money.’ She paused. ‘Seb came this afternoon.’

Alex smirked at the idea that Aunt Jean still called his cousin by the shortened form he hated – but the news that Sebastian was back startled him.

‘I didn’t know he was up here.’ What does he want now? He’s made it clear he doesn’t approve of anything we’re doing. He’s also made it clear he has no intention of pitching in.

‘He asked what we were up to. I told him to see for himself. Told him it’s grand.’

‘Good for you.’ Although I could do without him inspecting it and telling us how we could have done it better if he’d been in charge.

‘He asked about the main house. About the upstairs. The holiday flat.’

Ah. ‘You told him?’

‘No choice, if it’s going to happen.’

Alex bit down irritation that his aunt assumed that could go ahead. It had been a suggestion, made in haste. He hadn’t costed it out yet, but it would need a kitchenette, and the old bathroom, unused for decades, would need replacing – a complete overhaul, in other words.

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