Luke gritted his teeth, fists clenched as he walked away from Ted’s rant on how to load the pickup properly. ‘For God’s sake,’ he muttered under his breath. ‘Does it really matter?’ They were going to sort out some broken fencing round the bottom pastures, a job that needed doing before they could let the lambs out, and it was a fag to come back if they’d forgotten anything. He understood that, but Ted liked everything to be in its particular place so he could double check before they set off, and Luke had apparently got it all wrong. Again. Talk about OCD! Ted had made it into a fine art, and he got so worked up and aggressive if things weren’t exactly right he was a pain to be around.

After a month back at the farm, Luke was wondering if he’d done the right thing. Can you ever move back home once you’ve been away for so long? Every day, the reasons why he’d left all those years ago came into sharper focus; the claustrophobic nature of living and working with family, the remoteness of the farm, the lack of social interaction. It all simmered within him, making him edgy and irritable. He hooked his hands in his pockets to stop himself from hitting something, or someone, and went back into the house, needing to calm himself down before he could trust himself to go and work with Ted for hours on end.

His mum and dad were making the cannabis capsules in one of the outbuildings and only Ceri was in the house. Which was an opportunity he’d been waiting for. There were several things that had puzzled him since he’d come home, especially with regards to Ceri, who had turned from a bubbly extrovert into a little mouse, who scurried around looking after everyone’s needs and very rarely spoke, except to the children or the animals. He wanted to ask what had happened but he was never alone with her for any length of time and the right moment hadn’t presented itself. But now here she was, in the kitchen, on her own, sorting out the crates of shopping that had just been delivered from the supermarket. He could hear a voice chattering in the next room and knew that’s where his nephew and niece would be, watching some home-schooling video that Ceri had put on for them. Tessa and Callum were at school. This was the best chance he was going to get.

She looked up and frowned as he walked in.

‘I thought you were fencing with Ted this morning.’

Luke gave her a quick smile. ‘Yes, well, I will be once he gets his head out of his arse. He’s just thrown a fit because I wasn’t loading the pickup properly.’ He sank into a chair by the kitchen table. ‘Tosser.’

Ceri giggled and he realised that it was a sound he’d rarely heard since he’d arrived. What’s going on with her? He decided to find out. ‘So how are things with you, Ceri?’

She looked at him, flummoxed, as though she had no idea how to answer his question.

‘Look, tell me I’m being nosy if you like, but how come you’re here on your own? What happened to the father of your kids?’ She’d never really mentioned him in her messages, but Luke had seen pictures of him when the babies were born, recognised him as a guy he used to go to school with, but couldn’t quite remember his name. He’d assumed he would still be around, given that she’d never said anything to the contrary.

Ceri put the tin of tomatoes she was holding on the table. Then unloaded another and another, keeping her eyes away from Luke’s keen gaze. A blush coloured her cheeks and he could see that he’d made her feel awkward.

‘It’s okay, you don’t have to tell me.’ His voice was gentle. ‘I don’t want to upset you. I was just curious.’ Luke stood and started loading the tins into the cupboards while Ceri carried on emptying the crates, an uneasy silence surrounding them as they worked.

‘I suppose I better get back to Lord Muck before he starts making a fuss,’ Luke said when they were finished. He watched Ted through the kitchen window as he checked over the contents of the pickup, adjusting the position of things.

‘Wait, Luke.’ Ceri grabbed his arm. ‘We probably need to have a quick chat before you go.’

‘Okay, but I don’t suppose I’ve got long before Ted comes looking for me.’

She swallowed. ‘The children’s father… Dylan. You remember his dad had the music shop in town?’

Luke nodded. ‘Oh yeah, I know who you mean, just couldn’t quite get to his name.’

Ceri sighed, a wistful expression on her face. ‘It worked for a little while. Us living here was only supposed to be temporary, while we got some money together to travel. Then the babies came along, which added a different dimension to everything and…’ She looked down at her hands. ‘Well, he wanted to be a DJ. Not a lot of work round here, so he had to travel away and was doing well. He started to earn some good money, but the more he was away, the harder Ted made it for him to come back.’ She looked up at Luke. ‘Basically, he and Ted didn’t get on and it all got a bit nasty. That’s why he’s not here.’

‘What? Ted scared him away?’ Luke sounded incredulous and he wondered how extreme Ted’s behaviour must have been to make a father want to leave his children.

‘It was a bit more complicated than that. There were other reasons why it wasn’t going to work.’ She shook her head, sadly. ‘He wasn’t ready to settle down and be a dad. That was the main problem. And Ted’s always been so protective of the kids, Dylan couldn’t live up to his standards.’ She let out a big sigh, laced with regret. ‘Anyway… what I wanted to say was… there’s no point winding Ted up. It just makes him lash out. Just… try and get along, will you? For your own sake. If you want to stay here, you’re going to have to let him be in charge. Then everything will be fine.’

Luke huffed. ‘What? I’ve got to let him treat me like shit, is that what you’re saying?’

Ceri frowned, her voice snappy. ‘No. No, I’m not saying that, but he’d be a lot nicer to you and life would be better for all of us if you two could stop sniping at each other all the time.’ She put a hand to her forehead. ‘I can’t cope with it. And it might set Mum off and we really can’t have that happening. Stress is the one thing that makes her struggle, you know? Emotionally as well as physically.’ She gazed at him and he saw the weariness in her eyes. ‘You haven’t been here to see it, but she’s been getting worse, and now the cannabis isn’t working as well as it used to and Dad won’t let her take the tablets the doctor has given her, not after what the last lot did to her.’ She took a big breath. ‘So, do it for Mum, Luke.’ She took his hand, her voice quivering, on the edge of tears. ‘Please?’

He felt bad then that he hadn’t been thinking about anyone else and how the niggling between him and Ted would affect them, hadn’t considered the repercussions, just slipped back into their old patterns of behaviour. But he could see it now and squirmed inside.

He nodded and squeezed her hand. ‘God, I’m sorry, Ceri. I didn’t mean to make things difficult for you. Or Mum. It’s…’ He stopped himself from justifying his behaviour and sighed. ‘I’ll try harder. I will, I promise.’

And that’s what he did.

He tried not to rise to the bait when Ted goaded and belittled him, told everyone how useless he was. He tried. But he was only human and it didn’t always work. Even though he could hear the annoyance in his mum’s voice when she had to act as referee, there was something in him that couldn’t let Ted get away with being a bully, trying to control everyone’s lives. To his shame, there were times when he did lash out, and he was back to being a teenager again, scrapping with Ted, spurred on by a rage in his heart that he couldn’t control.

Over the weeks, the tension built like thunder clouds gathering in the sky, threatening one humdinger of a storm, the air crackling with things unsaid and pent-up emotion. On several occasions, he saw his mother talking to Ted – animated conversations that he couldn’t hear – and Luke knew they were talking about him, that some form of negotiation was in process. Luke was coming to realise that he resented Ted’s dominance and he hated the flurry of anger that swirled within him. Instead of settling in to farm life, it seemed to itch at him like a rough shirt, making him twitchy and unsettled.

The kids loved life on the farm, though, and it was so different from the suburbs where they’d lived in Aberdeen, it made a proper new start for them, with plenty of distractions. Not least their two cousins, Ella and Finn. Callum loved five-year-old Finn, and was delighted to have a playmate younger than him, who he could boss about. Tessa, on the other hand, was all about the animals. She’d adopted one of the ponies as her own and Ceri was showing her how to look after it. They had a bit of girl time together every morning – no boys allowed, she’d earnestly told her father, when he’d asked if he could come along. Yes, the kids were happy enough. School was a bit tough though, given that they were taught in Welsh, but on the whole they’d settled in well. Even Bernie had made himself at home, and clearly enjoyed having the farm dogs to play with when they weren’t working. It was Luke who was struggling, each day making him feel more and more like a trapped animal, pacing around his cage, unable to escape.

I can’t stay, he realised after four months at the farm. With the best will in the world, I can’t stand it much longer. And that was a problem, because he had nowhere else to go.