I’m going to buy a nice big box of rat poison. I’m giving you a choice, mate, all right? If you pack up now and move out, we’ll say no more about it. If you stay, I promise an untimely and probably painful death. You might have been living in comfort here, but I’ve bought the place now, and I don’t know what you are, but I suspect you’re the unwelcome kind of lodger.’ I take another step and tap the side of the battered old caravan. ‘And if buying a Christmas tree farm without thought was insane, god knows what a one-sided conversation with an unseen rodent about the ins and outs of squatters laws would be considered. So go on, matey, off you go.’
I whack the side of the caravan again with the flat of my hand, and there’s a thunk and a scrabbling noise from inside. I peer into the window again to see what my squatter is, and a squirrel suddenly drops down from the ceiling and hits me square in the face.
I scream and stumble backwards as the end of a bushy tail flashes through the window, dashes onto the roof of the caravan, and hurls itself into the grass and scarpers to safety.
Bloody Nora. I expected rats scurrying around the floor, not a squirrel going for the World Gymnastics title.
At the sound of my scream, a dog starts barking, and there’s a shout of ‘Gizmo!’
My heart is pounding from the shock and I put a hand on my chest and try to catch my breath. Of all the things that have been a surprise about Peppermint Branches so far, a squirrel to the face was definitely the most unexpected of them.
There’s still a dog barking, and I look up to see the farmer racing across the rows of pumpkins in the next field as a tiny white and brown dog dashes towards me.
The pumpkin field is fenced in by a short picket fence, but the dog leaps over it easily, and I back out of my garden and crouch down to intercept him before he reaches the road.
The Chihuahua barrels straight into my outstretched arms, barking and spinning in excited circles.
‘Oh, aren’t you adorable?’ I hold my hand out and he licks all over my fingers with his tiny tongue, making me giggle as he puts both paws on my hand and stands up on his back legs, his whole body wagging with excitement. The farmer jumps the fence surrounding his pumpkin field and slows to a walk as he reaches the grassy verge that runs along the edge of the road. He lifts a hand in greeting and I do the same, and while I’m distracted, the dog paws at my trouser leg like he wants to be picked up.
‘You’re so friendly. You don’t even know me and you want me to pick you up?’ I glance behind – there’s no traffic and doesn’t look like there’ll be any anytime soon, but better to be safe than sorry. The dog clearly runs a lot faster than his owner, and it’s a good excuse for a doggy cuddle. It’s been ages since I had a doggy cuddle.
I pick him up and carefully settle him under my right arm, and he licks my chin and his wagging tail tickles my arm, making me giggle again. ‘You are just too cute, aren’t you? Yes, you are, you are. What’s a good boy like you doing out here all by yourself, hmm? Aren’t you a lovely little boy?’
I rub his ears and coo at him, and he turns his head towards every ear rub. I don’t realise I’ve degenerated into baby talk until someone clears their throat and I look up to see the farmer standing in front of me with his arms folded across his wide chest and a dark eyebrow raised.
And he is way hotter than he looked in the distance.
I take in the long dark hair in waves around his shoulders, the red plaid shirt and faded denim jeans that make his thighs look like they’re made of solid steel. Since when are farmers this gorgeous? I thought farmers were all old scruffy types with bits of hay in their grey beards and a faint smell of cow dung. I catch a waft of juniper aftershave. Definitely not cow dung.
I climb to my feet with the dog still under my arm and look up into eyes halfway between blue and green, set off by the darkness of his almost-black hair and unshaven dark stubble. If I was interested in men right now, it would be enough to make me go weak at the knees, but I’m not, and my knees are completely steady. I stamp one foot against the ground because it’s clearly uneven and that’s what’s causing any shakiness there happens to be.
‘Sorry about that,’ he says in a deep Scottish accent, and I can’t take my eyes off the piercing in his lip. It’s just one silver ball nestled in the dip of his upper lip, but it looks so out of place with the outdoorsy clothes that my eyes are drawn to it as he speaks. ‘Usually I trust him to stay with me but he heard your scream and came to rescue you.’
His accent makes ‘to’ sound like ‘tay’. I’m so fixated on the piercing that I forget he’s standing there waiting for a response while I pet his dog’s ears and stare vacantly at his upper lip.
I swallow a few times but my voice still comes out as a squeaky remnant of the baby talk. ‘Yeah, sorry. There was a squirrel.’
‘Utterly terrifying.’ His voice is sarcastic but the expression on his face doesn’t change.
‘It made me jump. I’m not scared of squirrels, I just didn’t expect it to hit me in the face.’
‘If you’re here for a viewing, the place is off the market, it was sold a couple of weeks ago.’
‘Yeah, I know. I bought it.’
‘You?’ That eyebrow rises again. ‘You bought Peppermint Branches?’
I nod, wondering if he needs to sound quite so incredulous.
‘Oh, right.’ He sounds a bit taken aback. ‘Are you in the Christmas tree industry?’
‘No, I’m a data entry clerk. I worked for a company that analyses retail sales figures in London until a couple of weeks ago.’
He looks completely confused. ‘So what are you doing here? Some sort of admin?’
‘No. I’m going to run it.’
‘Run it?’ He scoffs. ‘Run it as what?’
‘As it is. As a Christmas tree farm.’
His eyes flick towards the patch of trees in the distance. ‘But it isn’t a Christmas tree farm. It was, once, but it’s been abandoned for over four years now. As the owner of the adjoining land, I can tell you it’s in a hell of a state. How on earth do you intend to sort it out?’
‘Four years?’ I say in surprise. ‘It didn’t mention that on the auction site either.’ I avoid his question because I have absolutely no idea how I’m supposed to sort it out, and I try not to think about the little stone of dread that’s settled in my stomach at his words. It confirms the niggling fear I’ve had since I arrived: that this isn’t a viable business and it will need a hell of a lot of work and investment – work I know nothing about and money I don’t have – to make it viable again.
He ignores my ignoring of his question. ‘You’re not what I expected at all.’
He runs his eyes down me from the cable-knit bobble hat weaved with sparkly thread to my black coat which I now realise is no match for the Scottish autumn air, and my muddy winter boots that were clean before I got out of the car.
‘What did you expect?’ I feel myself bristling, certain this conversation is going down some sort of sexist route.
‘Well, I had this daft idea that someone buying a Christmas tree farm might know the first thing about Christmas trees.’
‘How do you know I don’t? I could be the world’s leading expert on Christmas trees for all you know.’
‘You could.’ He gives a nod of agreement. ‘But your pristinely sparkly car has clearly never seen a dirt track before, your shiny boots have clearly never stepped in a puddle before now, your nails are clean, and from the look of horror and confusion on your face, I’d guess that this place is not what you thought it was going to be.’
I try to arrange my face into a non-horrified, non-confused look, but it probably makes me