A Yorkshire Christmas (2 page)

Noah Bradford stared
at the thick, white flakes drifting down outside his kitchen window and swore. The forecast had said the snow would hold off until Monday, but he should have known better than to trust the Met Office for an accurate update. The weather forecast changed every five minutes, and the weather in one Yorkshire dale could be different to the next, with each valley possessing its own microclimate. And Ledstow’s microclimate, right now, was experiencing a blizzard.

Grimacing, he reached for the battered, waxed jacket he’d flung on a chair when he’d come in that morning from checking the animals in the barn, including several premature lambs, huddling under incubator lamps. He jammed his feet into his boots and his hat, with its leather earflaps, onto his head, and then headed out into the snow. He had two hundred sheep to move to the barn before they froze to death, buried under the snow, and he didn’t intend to lose even one of them.

It wasn’t easy work, even with Jake, his Border collie, helping to round the poor beasts up. Sheep were easily disoriented, and they milled about in circles, bleating piteously as the snow piled up on their backs and the cold froze their tails.

Slowly, laboriously, Noah herded the animals towards the wooden five-bar gate, and then down the dirt road, now barely visible under the mounded snow, towards the barn. Ayesgill Farm was situated just outside Lestow, with its fields running down to the narrow road that wound its way into the village. His grandfather had been the proud owner of two hundred acres, which Noah’s father had reluctantly whittled down to one hundred and twenty-five before dying last year. There wasn’t much money in farming these days, but Noah was determined not to sell anymore off.

He counted the sheep as they jostled their way into the barn, and with his heart sinking, he saw he was two short. Two ewes he couldn’t afford to lose.

Grimacing, he headed back to the fields with Jake at his side. The snow had turned icy, needling the exposed skin of his cheeks. He pulled his hat down lower on his head, tugged up his scarf over his mouth, and hunched his shoulders against the icy wind as he trudged through the snow that now slopped over the edge of his boots and soaked his thick wool socks. Enough snow had fallen for the huddled form of a ewe to be nearly impossible to find in the endless expanse of whiteness, but he still intended to try.

He figured the ewes hadn’t come back with the others because they were stuck, either by a branch or in a gap in one of the drystone walls. He’d been out for an hour, his stomach growling from too many missed meals, his body frozen and soaked through, when he finally found the first, one hoof trapped by a fallen branch. He brushed the snow off her, everything in him clenching hard when he saw how frozen she was. He wasn’t even sure if she was alive until she let out a pitiful mewling sound. He freed her hoof and trudged with her back to the barn, drying her off, and getting her warm before he headed back to look for the second. He didn’t hold out much hope now; the temperatures were dropping, the snow having turned to freezing rain, but he couldn’t leave her out there to freeze to death alone.

It took another hour of bleakly trudging the empty fields before he came to the ditch by the side of the road, the bottom filled with a foot of rainwater, and his poor ewe trapped there, shivering from both the snow and the icy water.

Noah swore, his voice carried away by the wind. Then he squared his shoulders and started down the steep side of the ditch, his boots slipping on the frozen, icy ground so he fell forward, landing at the bottom with an icy splash. He swore again.

“You had to come in here, I suppose?” he said, the ewe just bleating back. “I know, I know. It’s effing freezing down here.” He grabbed her by the scruff of her neck but she just bleated some more. “Damn it, you need to get back up there!” Talking to sheep was, Noah supposed, a hazard of spending most of his day with them. But this particular ewe didn’t seem to be listening to him. He tried to haul her upwards, hoping she’d get the message, but she dug her hooves into the freezing water and resisted with all her might.

“Do you
want
to die?” Noah demanded in exasperation, and the ewe just looked balefully at him, the snow sleeting into her eyes.

Noah tried again, but with the angle of the side of the ditch and the foot of icy water and the snow, he knew he wasn’t going to get anywhere without her cooperation—or some help. But there was no one to help, no one within miles, and by the time he reached a neighbor the ewe would most likely be dead.

“Damn it,” he exclaimed, his words seeming to be absorbed by the snow, and then to his surprise he heard a voice, faint and tentative.

“Excuse me…”

He blinked up at the woman who had appeared like an angel over the side of the ditch, her long, dark hair dusted with snowflakes, her cheeks bright scarlet from the cold.

She wore a hat, scarf, and parka but she was still shivering as she asked, “Do you need any help?”

‡

C
laire had been
trudging along the side of the road for close to an hour when she’d heard a man swearing. She stopped, shocked by how close he sounded, and how angry. Who on earth was out here in this weather, having an argument with someone?

Then his tone changed from angry to defeated and even despairing, and even though eight years as a New Yorker told her to be careful of crazies, she clambered up the side of the ditch from where she’d heard the voice and peeked over.

The man was talking to a sheep.

Okay, that was a new one. She watched as he wrestled the poor beast for a moment, and realized the animal was stuck in the ditch, refusing to move upwards, towards safety. And even though she didn’t know the first thing about sheep or farmers or anything about this situation she offered to help.

The man swung towards her, and Claire couldn’t tell a thing from his expression, what with his hat jammed low on his head, and his scarf drawn over his mouth. She couldn’t tell much about the man at all, except that he was tall and strong-looking—although clearly not strong enough to shift a reluctant sheep on his own.

“Are you serious?” he asked.

His voice sounded gruff, yet with a pleasant Yorkshire burr, and she blinked back the snow that had become very cold and very wet, needling any bit of exposed skin.

“Yes—”

“Then come here and you can push her backside.”

Claire eyed the foot or so of icy, dirty water that pooled in the bottom of the ditch and realized why the man had asked if she were serious.

Gingerly she took a step down the side of the ditch. The ground was icy and slick and if she wasn’t careful, she’d end up on her backside, as stuck as the poor sheep. Also, she was wearing her Prada leather boots. She’d bought them as treat for herself and they now looked to become totally ruined.

The sheep bleated again, and resolutely Claire continued down the steep side of the ditch. She couldn’t leave the poor animal to freeze to death. She tried to navigate the freezing water pooling in the ditch by stepping on bits of frozen mud and grass, but she quickly saw that this was not the type of endeavor she could be squeamish about. Grimly, she stepped into the water and waded through it towards the sheep, sucking in a hard breath as water seeped into her boots and the cold into her very bones.

“Push her up the backside,” the man instructed and Claire glanced at the sheep’s rear with ill-concealed distaste. Sheep, she realized, were dirty animals. Bits of dirt and poo were stuck on the sheep’s raggedy wool and even with her gloves on, she really didn’t want to touch any of it.

“Are you going to do it or not?” The man asked in exasperation.

With a deep breath and a nod Claire planted her two hands on the animal’s rear and shoved.

The man, meanwhile, had grabbed the sheep around the middle and was hauling her towards him. The sheep bleated piteously, as if it were being murdered, and Claire saw that its legs were stuck in the frozen mud.

“Wait,” she called. “The sheep—its legs—”

With a curse under his breath, the man waded into the water next to her and plunged one arm down, working at the mud around the sheep’s hoof. Claire stood there, her feet soaked, her boots ruined, and probably in danger of contracting hypothermia. Right now coming to Yorkshire felt like a very bad idea.

The man straightened, one arm soaked to the shoulder, and gave her a terse nod. “Let’s try again.”

Claire gave enough push. The man pulled, and thankfully, with an awful sucking sound, the sheep’s hooves came out of the mud. The animal hurtled forward so that the man fell flat on his back, his breath coming out in a single
oof
, his arms still around the wet and muddy sheep, his Border collie licking his face.

Claire let out a single bubble of laughter at the sight of him embracing the sheep and then clapped her hand over her mouth. The man glanced at her, and she thought she saw amusement light his whiskey-brown eyes. His eyes were about the only thing she could see of him.

“Right, then.” He scrambled to a standing position, one hand still on the scruff of the sheep’s neck, the dog by his heels. “Need a hand?” He stretched a hand out which Claire grabbed gratefully. She clambered up the ditch alongside him, until they were all standing, man, woman, dog, and sheep, at the edge of a snowy field without a house or building in sight.

“Thank you,” he said, his voice gruff. “I couldn’t have got her out on my own.” He nodded towards her boots. “You’re soaked.”

“Yes.” Claire glanced down at her ruined boots with a sigh. So much for Prada.

“You’re not from around here,” he remarked and she gave a little laugh.

“Definitely not. Actually, my car is stuck in a snow bank and I was walking to Ledstow. I’m staying at Holly Cottage—you wouldn’t happen to know it?”

“It’s near my farm,” the man answered with a nod. “I can take you there, if you like, after I deal with her.” He nodded towards the sheep, and Claire gave him a grateful smile. She was exhausted, dirty, and wet, and the thought of actually reaching her destination, and a bed she could lie down in, sounded like heaven.

“Thanks so much—”

“We ought to get going before the snow gets any worse,” he said, and set off. Claire followed him across the field, the wet snow slopping into her boots and stinging her face.

Fifteen minutes later they approach a farm, with two stone barns and a low, rambling whitewashed farmhouse making three sides of a square. The man headed into the largest barn with the sheep, and Claire hesitated on the threshold as she watched him dry the animal, as tender now as a mother with her child. He set the beast along with the others and then turned back to her.

“It’s another fifteen minutes to Holly Cottage, and you’re soaking wet. You ought to come in and dry off, have a cup of tea before we set off again. You don’t want to get hypothermia.”

“No…” Claire agreed slowly, because while she saw the sense in his plan, he was a stranger and she was in the middle of nowhere. She didn’t even have the security blanket of a working cell phone.

But this was Yorkshire, not New York, and she’d seen this man take care of a sheep as if it were his own child. She felt, instinctively, that she could trust him. Besides, she was utterly freezing.

He clearly took her silence for agreement for he beckoned her forward. “Come on, then,” he said, and started across the field, the Border collie trotting beside him.

Claire followed, picking her away across the snow-covered farmyard to the house. The man stooped to enter the low doorway with its ancient, blackened lintel, and Claire stepped inside behind him, the warmth of the cozy, cluttered kitchen enveloping her like a much needed blanket.

The man shucked off his wet clothes and boots and after a second’s pause Claire did the same, draping her sopping coat over a chair and tugging down the zipper on her ruined boots.

“I’ll get you some dry socks,” the man said, and then stuck out a hand. “I’m Noah Bradford, by the way.”

Claire looked up, one hand already stretched out towards his, and felt everything in her jolt with surprise and awareness.

Noah Bradford was
hot
.

She swallowed audibly as his huge, callused hand enclosed hers, and tried to yank her gaze away from his face with those warm brown eyes she’d seen above his scarf, and the chiseled jaw she hadn’t. He had a shock of brown hair to go with the eyes, a surprisingly mobile mouth, and a
body
…

Her gaze had dropped, seemingly of its own accord, to Noah Bradford’s well-defined chest. His thermal shirt clung to his pecs, and when she dropped her gaze lower she saw how his wet jeans molded to his thighs and butt.

She’d assumed, underneath all those protective layers, Noah Bradford was an older man, craggy and haggard, the kind of sheep farmer who ate with his boots on and slept in his suspenders.

Not… this.

“Claire Lindell,” she murmured and Noah released her hand and walked over to the huge, battered Aga cooking range that took up nearly a whole wall in the low-ceilinged kitchen. He hefted a large brass kettle from its top and filled it from the tap over a deep, stone sink, a window above it overlooking the farmyard now covered in snow.