Loving Lucy: A Prickle Farm Romance Read online

  Loving Lucy

  By

  Melody Edmonds

  A Prickle Farm Romance

  Book 1:

  Lucy’s story

  Loving Lucy

  Copyright © November 2015, Melody Edmonds.

  NOTE: This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Epilogue

  Coming Soon

  Gran’s Prickle Farm Recipes

  A chocolate cake just like Gran used to make...

  Pop’s Favourite Lattice Slice

  Gran’s Minted Pea Salad

  About the Author

  Prologue

  Lucy Peterkin rested the phone between her chin and shoulder keeping both hands on her computer keyboard as the incoming call beeped. Her eyes were focused on the large computer screen as she tweaked the graphic she was working on.

  ‘No, don’t answer it, Luce.’ Her head flew up as Seb, her colleague, best friend and cousin, hurried past the low wall into the small booth that was tucked into the back corner of the open office. He shook his head and pointed to the phone and put his hands over his face as she automatically answered the call.

  She lifted one hand and pressed answer with a frown in his direction. ‘Lucy Peterkin.’

  ‘You’ll be sorry,’ he muttered staring at her over the low partition.

  ‘Hey, Gran,’ Lucy said as she rolled her eyes at him.

  ##

  Across town, Jemima Peterkin ignored her ringing phone as the stylist touched up the last of her make-up. She was next on the catwalk and if she took the call, she’d miss her cue and Roger, the volatile stage manager, would go berserk. She glanced down at the screen and frowned as a familiar number flashed onto the screen.

  Oh, bloody hell, why was her grandmother calling?

  ##

  The strains of ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ filtered through Liam Peterkin’s sleep. He jerked awake and reached for his phone in the dark. God, he hated calls in the middle of the night. Always bad news.

  ‘Liam Peterkin.’ He cleared his throat; his voice was gravelly from the one too many drinks he’d had when the news desk staff had wandered down to London’s West End after last night’s shift.

  ‘Is that my favourite grandson?’ A sweet voice chimed over the line, all the way from down under. But Liam wasn’t fooled. That sweet little voice belonged to a woman with a backbone of steel.

  ‘Hey, Gran.’ He leaned back against the bed head and reached for a cigarette. ‘What’s new?’

  Chapter 1

  ‘You are the softest touch, Luce.’ Sebastian rolled his eyes when Lucy hung up the call. ‘Did I really hear you agree to spend your summer holiday out in the bush with the old battle axe?’

  ‘You did. And you’re as hard as nails.’ She pointed at her cousin and ignored his cheeky grin. Any sympathy he had for her while she took the call fled the instant she agreed to go home to see Gran and Pop.

  ‘Of course, I’ll come, Gran. I hate to think of you out there by yourself.’ A note of worry had crept into her voice. ‘Pop is okay, isn’t he?’

  ‘Y..e…es. He’s fine.’

  ‘But?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Really?’

  Sebastian shook his head when Lucy told him Gran had been teary. ‘The old battle axe has you sucked in, hook, line and sinker.’

  ‘They’ve only got us, remember.’

  ‘Yep, and the old cow will use us for whatever purpose she has in mind. And you fell for it, baby.’

  ‘Bugger off, Seb. There are times when I don’t like you very much.’

  But instead he walked into her office and straddled the chair on the other side of her desk. He ran a hand through his long hair. ‘Just because her own kids are gone, doesn’t give her rights to the next generation. You know what a controlling witch she is. She wants something from all of us and you know it. That’s why I wouldn’t talk to her when she rang. I tried to warn you.’ He stared at her. ‘Think about it, flies, smelly cattle, prickles and red dust. You loved it . . . not!’

  Lucy’s attitude to the farm had been a standing joke in the family when they’d visited Gran and Pop’s property. Dad loved to tell the story of her standing in a cow pat when she was about ten, and looking down her young nose with disdain.

  ‘I so hate farms,’ he mimicked her perfectly. ‘When I grow up I’m going to live in an apartment in the middle of the city.’ So no one had been surprised when Lucy had hightailed it to the big smoke straight after high school. And then when Mum and her two sisters had been killed in a car crash on their European holiday, Dad moved to Canada and now he was working at a university in Vancouver. Lucy had a new life, far away from family until Seb arrived in the city after he came home from Europe.

  The Pilliga Scrub hadn’t been home for a long time. Eight years, in fact.

  University, overseas trips and her career had taken precedence over a visit back to Spring Downs, the small western New South Wales town where they had all grown up. Prickle Farm was fifty kilometres west of town in the Pilliga Scrub but the four cousins had spent most weekends and school holidays out at the farm.

  If the truth be known, it was the thought of going back to the town, and to the old farm, knowing she’d never see Mum there again, that had kept Lucy away, not Gran.

  ‘Two weeks of keeping Gran company won’t kill me,’ she said as Seb looked at her in disbelief.

  ‘So what does she want you to do? I ended the call before she could tell me that she wanted me out there too. Said I’d call her back later but I’m not going to.’ Seb’s lips were set in a mutinous line.

  ‘Pop’s in hospital in Spring Downs.’

  That got his attention, and his eyes narrowed. ‘I didn’t know the old codger was sick.’

  ‘It’s nothing dire; he’s having a knee replacement and Gran needs a hand on the property.’

  ‘So what are you going to be doing?’ A smile cracked his face. ‘Gawd, Luce, you hated the farm when we were kids. I can’t see you helping out in the paddocks. Liam, Jemmy and I loved it, but you? I can still seeing your nose wrinkled up from the stench. ‘Eww, smelly cattle’! I remember you used to compare the cattle yards to the Bog of Eternal Stench on that movie you loved.’

  ‘Labyrinth, and I won’t be going anywhere near the yards. I’m simply helping Gran out with the cooking for the contract workers. I won’t have to go anywhere near the cows.’

  ‘Cattle. Steers and heifers,’ Seb said distractedly. ‘Cows are in dairies.’ He frowned and stared through the window behind her head. ‘It’s wheat harvest time, if I have the right farm calendar in my memory still. There’ll be a dozen men working day and night with bloody big headers in those never-ending paddocks.

  ‘I’m impressed. You still know the farm lingo.’ She injected sarcasm into her voice and waved her hand. ‘Cow
s, cattle, whatever.’

  ‘You know what they say.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You can take the boy out of the country . . . ’

  ‘Oh, puh-leeze.’ Finally Lucy let out a giggle. ‘Come on, Seb. Be a sport, come with me.’

  ‘Nup. No way. She’s up to something and I’m not going anywhere near her. You might be naïve but I know dear old Granny and she wants more than a cook.’

  ‘Be a bit kind. The four of us lost our mothers, but Gran and Pa lost their three daughters.’ Her voice trembled a little as she managed to put the past tragedy into words. It was something that they didn’t speak about very often.

  ‘Yeah, but she wants something. Why the heck would she want us out there all of a sudden? I mean, okay, Pop might be having a knee operation but why the heck would she need all of us out there?’

  ‘Maybe she misses us all and needs a hand on the place?’

  ‘And a copywriter and a photographer from the city are going to do cattle work in the middle of nowhere. With a fashion model and a journalist. Give me a break.’ He stood and put his hands on his hips. ‘She can afford to hire someone. They’re loaded.’

  Lucy suppressed a groan. She wasn’t going to let Sebastian see how nervous she was about going out there. ‘Well, I’m going. I can cook and someone can come and get it from the house. I won’t be leaving the air-conditioned kitchen.’

  ‘And what about your big campaign? It’s all you could talk about, how busy you were going to be till Christmas.’

  ‘I’ll work at night.’

  ‘If she lets you. She’ll be manipulating you like she always does.’ He shook his head and leaned against her desk. His shirt hung trendily, loose over his designer jeans. ‘Call me if it gets too bad and I’ll come up with an emergency to bring you back to Sydney.’

  ‘If I do call you, it will be to get your butt out there and help. Although Gran did say Liam has agreed to come home too.’ Lucy glared at him as she played her last card. She didn’t want to go and, yeah, she was a soft touch but it was the right thing to do.

  ‘What? You mean wonder boy, the world famous journalist is coming home from London? Not only will I come up and see that but I’d eat my hat and run around the paddock stark bollocky naked if Liam came home.’

  ‘I’ll hold you to that. Jemima’s coming too,’ she said quietly.

  ‘Bullshit.’ Seb pushed himself off her desk and headed for the door. He turned around and stared at her.

  ‘Get out of here,’ she said. ‘If I’m going to the Pilliga Scrub, I need to get some work done before I go.’

  Sebastian wandered out but not before Lucy saw the guilty look that flashed across his face as he turned away.

  Chapter 2

  Lucy stopped by the small private hospital in Spring Downs on her way to Prickle Farm. Pop was sitting up in bed and teasing one of the nurses as she propped up his pillows. He always had a joke or a story wherever he was, and Lucy knew it was his way of coping with the grief that had consumed the family after the tragedy. One split second, one wrong decision by a drunk driver and their family had shattered.

  ‘Did I tell you the one about the doctor and the—’

  ‘Hey, Pop.’ She walked into the ward and received a grateful glance from the young nurse. ‘You haven’t been annoying the staff, have you, you old joker?’

  ‘Lucy, come and give a sick old man a kiss.’

  She drew in a breath as the comforting scrape of Pop’s grey whiskers brushed her chin when she leaned in to kiss his cheek.

  ‘Sweetheart, it’s wonderful to see you. Gran tells me you’re going to stay and help out?’

  ‘Yep. I’m heading for the farm now. Jules asked me to stay in town for the night, but I’ll catch up with her another time.’

  ‘Got a husband and two kids, I hear.’ Her grandfather flicked a sly look her way. ‘Might get you a bit clucky, love.’

  ‘Don’t go getting any ideas, you old rascal.’ Lucy straightened the cotton blanket before she sat in the plastic chair next to the bed. ‘I’m a career girl through and through.’

  He shook his head. ‘You’ll come back to the country one day. It’s in your blood. We missed you, love.’

  Lucy wasn’t going to get into an argument, especially when he was in the hospital. She pointed to his knee. ‘So what’s with the operation?’

  ‘Gawd, nothing much. Just my rheumy old knee where I got it caught in the cattle crush when you were little. They’re going to give me a plastic one tomorrow. Bloody wonders never cease!’

  ‘That’s good news, you had me worried. You’ll be back at home before you know it.’

  Her grandfather turned to her with a frown. ‘You watch out on that road out to the farm. I don’t want you hitting a roo.’

  ‘They’ll all be asleep in the shade by the time I reach the turn off. I’ll be fine.’

  Lucy rolled into Prickle Farm late in the afternoon. Gran met her at the door, wiping her hands on a floury apron, her iron grey hair pulled into a severe bun. Guilt flooded through Lucy. Her grandmother looked tired . . . and old.

  ‘It’s so good to see you, dear. It’s way past time for our family to be together.’ Gran held her close for a couple of seconds and Lucy fought the tears that threatened. ‘Is that Sebastian going to come?’

  ‘Maybe. You know Seb. Always chasing an adventure with his camera.’ She stepped back and held her grandmother’s cold hands. ‘Although he’s settled down at lot since he’s been at the agency with me. What about the others?’

  ‘Jemima will be here tomorrow and Liam on Monday.’

  Lucy nodded and smiled. ‘Then I’m sure I’ll be able to entice Sebastian up here.’ She looked curiously at Gran. ‘Why did you call us all home, Gran?’

  ‘Come away into the kitchen and let me have a look at you.’ Gran’s English accent was always stronger when she was emotional. Lucy put her bag in the hall and followed her grandmother to the back of the rambling old farmstead.

  The kitchen was the same as ever and a pang of nostalgic memory ripped through Lucy; she drew in her breath at the almost physical pain. Even though she’d hated farm life, the days she’d spent here at the farm with her three cousins had been a huge part of her childhood—and such fun. She’d learned to cook on that stove; she and Jemmy had made lamingtons for school fetes with Gran and they’d pickled onions for the CWA stall at the annual agricultural show until their skin and hair skin smelled like vinegar. The same yellow gingham curtains graced the window above the sink and the large scrubbed table where they’d had many a Christmas dinner together took pride of place on the middle of the flagged stone floor. Trinkets and knickknacks filled the old dresser beside the back door. Nothing had changed apart from two shiny new chest freezers Lucy could see in the little room off the back porch.

  ‘Ralph!’ Lucy crouched down at the dog basket beside the door and looked up. ‘It is Ralphie, isn’t it, Gran?

  ‘It is.’ Gran pursed her lips. ‘Don’t know why your grandfather insists on keeping him. He’s way past his working life. Not good for anything apart from eating.’

  A glimmer of disquiet ran through Lucy. Sebastian was right in some ways. Gran had been raised in a family where waste not, want not, was the code, and her attitude could be a little hard at times.

  ‘Come on, Gran. You don’t mean that.’ She tickled the dog beneath his chin and he gave a soft woof, his brown eyes looking at her lovingly. ‘See, he remembers me.’

  ‘Just looking for food.’ Gran gave an impatient harrumph. ‘Come away with you. Now look how tall you are.’ She put her hands on Lucy’s shoulders and looked up at her.

  ‘I’ve been this tall since I was twelve years old, silly.’ Lucy said with a smile.

  ‘Well, we’ve barely seen you since then so what would I remember.’ Gran clucked her tongue.

  ‘So, why the summons to Prickle Creek, Gran? What’s going on?’

  Her grandmother waved her hand and turned to the stove and peered
into the oven. ‘Time for that later when you’re all here. Go and have a swim in the dam, you look hot. I’ll get some dinner on. We’ve got one day before the rest of the contractors arrive and then the harvest starts in earnest.’

  ##

  Lucy slipped on her swimmers and grabbed a hat. She walked to the dam past the waving fields of golden wheat and sighed as the heat rose from the cracked dirt. The crop wasn’t going to the mill this year; Pop had said cattle prices were up high, making the wheat crop more profitable for the farm if it was baled to feed the cattle.

  ‘And the cattle love it, Luce.’ His old eyes had lit up as he told her the plan for the pasture this summer. ‘Wheat hay has eighteen percent protein and the soft stems are really good for the calves.’ Lucy switched off as he rattled off figures and weights, turning back to him when he mentioned the contractors that needed to be fed. It was a big harvest this year and more contractors were due to hit Prickle Creek with their headers the day after tomorrow. One consolation: they’d be busy feeding the extra men and her time here would pass quickly. And it would be fun to catch up with Liam and Jemmy. It had been a long time since they’d all been together. She caught up with Jemmy for the occasional coffee when she had modeling jobs in Sydney but it had been at least a year since their last catch up.

  Spending two weeks here wouldn’t be too bad. Lucy knew she’d just have to steel herself, and pitch in and help. Twenty-four bloody hours a day, those machines would go up and down, the workers cocooned in their little air-conditioned cabs with ear buds blocking out the monotonous sound of the motors. The dam was a long way from the wheat paddock but no matter where you were on the five thousand acres at harvest time, you couldn’t escape that noise. The first couple of paddocks were already being cut and she waved to the contractors on the way past.

  The brown water was not very enticing but at least it was wet and sort of cool. After having a good look around the edge for snakes, Lucy kicked off her boots and walked into the water, floating as soon as she could to get her feet off the muddy bottom.