in reality he wanted to be free of it. No wonder Charlie was so against his ideas and shut his suggestions down! Clearly the youngest Upton brother was still a rebel, and now he’d found himself a very lucrative cause.
‘Do you want tea, Tess?’ he called from the kitchen, making my heart leap into my mouth.
I had been so absorbed in the paperwork I hadn’t heard him end the call.
‘Yes, please,’ I swallowed, hastily rearranging the pile with a magazine on top, ‘that would be great.’
Now I was harbouring two bits of bad news for Hope. Not only had I kissed her boyfriend, but her ex was set to change the face of the landscape that she, and everyone else living in Wynmouth, loved so much. Joe might have told me that his being back in the area was difficult, and that driving by the crash site was painful, but obliterating it all – because having seen Sunny Shores handiwork I knew that’s what would happen – was extreme. Was he really that desperate?
‘How’d you sleep?’ he asked as he appeared in the doorway with mussed-up hair and a tray holding mugs of tea and slightly overdone toast.
‘Badly,’ I said, sitting back down again. ‘But given how long the storm raged and how early Charlie got up, that was only to be expected.’
I felt a whole jumbled-up mix of emotions as I watched him arrange the tray. I was still frustrated that he couldn’t remember me from former holidays and desperate to find out why he and Sam had swapped places when it came to my first kiss, but I couldn’t ask because then they’d know I had lied about visiting before. And now, as if that wasn’t enough to contend with, my head was full of the farm situation too.
I knew the finances needed fixing, but to go to such lengths, for Joe to turn up and set about selling off everything his father had worked to create, especially when he had presented it to me so proudly yesterday, just didn’t make sense.
‘It hung around for a while, didn’t it?’ he said. ‘You often find that here. Bad weather can hug the coast for hours.’
I wondered if the Sunny Shores team had factored that into their plans.
‘Well,’ I said, ‘at least it’s moved off now and the power’s back on,’ I added, holding up my steaming mug of hot tea. ‘No harm done.’
‘If only,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘I dread to think how many acres of crops have been flattened and right before we’re due to gather them in. It couldn’t have been worse timing as far as the harvest’s concerned.’
I hadn’t thought of that. Farming was certainly a precarious business. A whole year’s profits at the mercy of Mother Nature.
‘Is that why Charlie went out so early?’ I asked.
‘Yes,’ said Joe, offering me a slice of toast, ‘he wanted to assess the damage.’
‘Do you think it will be that bad?’
‘It might be,’ he explained. ‘Low yields and high drying costs can have a huge impact on the bank balance and if the quality isn’t there this year and it all has to go for feed, well . . .’ he said, swallowing hard, ‘it doesn’t bear thinking about. This is exactly why I want to diversify a bit more.’
Sunny Shores didn’t seem like your everyday farm diver-sification project to me, but I was beginning to understand the temptation of it when faced with odds you had absolutely no way of tipping in your favour.
We both jumped as the back door flew open and then banged shut.
‘Joe!’ Charlie roared and Bruce scuttled out of the kitchen and back to the sofa.
‘I’ll just go and see what he has to say,’ said Joe.
‘You can leave Bruce with me if you like,’ I suggested.
‘Thanks,’ Joe nodded, ‘that might not be a bad idea.’
The two men were in the kitchen for quite some time. I could hear their voices through the closed door, but I couldn’t make out what they were saying. There didn’t seem to be any escalation in volume, so I didn’t think they were arguing. The stack of papers was just beginning to tempt me when Joe came back in.
‘How’s it looking?’ I asked.
‘Not great,’ he said.
‘It’s a bloody disaster,’ Charlie shouted in response.
Joe shook his head.
‘I’m guessing you’re going to have your work cut out this morning,’ I said, ‘and I’ve really enjoyed my visit, but if you want to run me back now, I don’t mind.’
‘Are