Joe

It was like I’d been hit by a bus, and then the bus kept coming, driving over my abdomen again and again, crushing my insides. Squeezing them. Twisting them. And then clobbering me around the head with a hammer for good measure.

I’d always been shit at staying put when I was hurt. The nurses kept telling me to lie down, to rest and wait for the doctor to come back and give me more tramadol—whatever the hell that was. But I couldn’t stay still. It hurt too much. Besides, however badly Shadow had fucked me, I couldn’t blame him. He was wild—always had been—and I had to get back to him before someone else did something stupid . . . like walk into his field with a phone in their pocket.

For the hundredth time, I curled my arms beneath me and tried to push myself up.

For the hundred-and-first time, the butcher in my belly kept me down.

Someone touched my shoulder—a nurse. “Come on now, sweetie. You need to lie down and rest. You’re going to hurt yourself more if you don’t keep still.”

I shrugged her off. Her hands were light but felt like spikes against my heated skin. My head swam and I gasped for breath, despite the tubes blasting arctic air up my nose. The panic that had consumed me when I’d come round amped up a notch. I’d been kicked by horses before—even knocked out by them—but I’d never felt pain like this. I was dying, I was sure of it.

Dramatic? Possibly, but it hurt so fucking much.

I curled up on the bed again, cringing against waves of cramp-wreaked havoc in my gut that spread through my torso and shoulders. Jesus-fucking-Christ. The doctor had warned me that it would get worse before it got better, but that didn’t make it any easier to take. I buried my head in my arms and longed for Harry. The time between Shadow kicking me and waking up in this damn, fucking bed was a blur, but Harry had been with me for a while, I was sure of it, and I craved his touch now more than I ever had. Harry, I need you.

Sometime later, gentle hands cupped my face, stroked my cheek, and rubbed the back of my neck. The sound that escaped me in response was piteous, but I didn’t care. Harry was inexplicably perched on the edge of the bed from hell, and nothing else mattered. My battered body was instantly drawn to him, seeking out his warmth like it could soothe every ache and pain. I collided with his muscular thigh and fumbled for any part of him that I could reach. He smelled like the farm, of horses and hay. He smelled like home. “Harry?”

“It’s me. Easy, mate. I’m here.”

“Harry—I can’t—it hurts so much.”

“I know.” Harry found my hand and squeezed, then he spoke over me to someone else. “Is he up to date with his pain relief?”

“Yes,” the familiar nurse said. “He can’t have any more until the consultant has seen him again.”

“When will that be?”

“Within the hour.”

Horror coursed through me. I couldn’t handle another fucking minute of this, let alone an hour. I started to squirm again, but Harry held me still, his grip on me absolute.

He forced me to look at him, distracting me with his liquid gaze as he drove his thumb into a tender spot on my wrist. “Can you feel that? It’s a powerful acupressure point, and I’m going to press down hard into it, okay? It won’t take the pain away, but if you can focus on it—on me—for a little while, it will help.”

“Harry—”

“Trust me, Joe.”

* * *

Harry

Listen, focus, faith. It was a technique I’d often used on patients with severe nerve and muscle pain, and I repeated it over and over to Joe until some of the agony seizing his body finally eased.

By then he was curled around me, his head in my lap. I thought the doctor might’ve made him move when he stopped by to prescribe more drugs. But he said nothing. Merely signed the order and moved on to his next patient.

A nurse shot more pain relief into Joe’s IV. Another notch of tension faded in him—like a slowly deflating balloon. I rubbed his neck to see if he was awake. He blinked up at me, and for the first time in however long it had been since I’d found him in the field, I recognised the man staring back.

I chanced a smile. “All right?”

He grimaced. “I’m so fucking mashed.”

“Better than the alternative, eh?”

“Yeah.”

I helped him unwrap himself from me, even though I mourned the loss of his head from my lap, and eased him onto his back. The bed had been flat when I’d arrived to find him in such a mess, but I raised it up now, hoping the relative change of scenery would pull him another step out of the vortex.

It seemed to work. He lay propped up and gazed around like he’d had no idea of his surroundings before. I touched his cheek, brushing away some of the dirt that was somehow still there. “Do you need anything? The nurse said you can drink water if you can keep it down?”

Joe blanched. “No, thanks. What time is it?”

“Eight o’clock.”

“In the morning?”

“Yup. You’ve been here all night.”

“Feels like a week.” Joe licked his dry lips, his head lolled to one side, and it seemed like he might doze off, but then he jerked awake again. “Shit. I need to get out of here.”

I steadied him. “Nah. You’re gonna be in here a couple of days, mate.”

“Fuck that.” Joe pushed my hands off his shoulders. “Shadow—”

“Shadow’s fine.”

“No, he’s not. He’s got a splinter . . . that’s why I went into his field.”

“I know. But he’s fine now. Last I heard he was chilling in his stable.”

Joe’s eyes gleamed briefly, like he knew there was a giant gap in my reassurance, but then he brought his hand to his face and rubbed his eyes. “Even if Emma somehow has Shadow under control, there’s still so much to do. Those ponies need round-the-clock care.”

“And they’ll get it. Everyone’s pitching in. George is sleeping on your mum’s couch.”

Again, it was half the truth, but it seemed all Joe could handle right now. He dropped his head again. “My stomach hurts.”

“I know, mate. I know.”

* * *

It was lunchtime when Sal woke me up. At some point, I’d laid my head on Joe’s bed and somehow fallen asleep.

“Rise and shine,” Sal said softly. “They’re moving him to a ward in a minute. Visiting hours don’t start until two, but they said I can stay with him a little while longer.”

I sat up, dazed and confused. “What?”

Sal smiled. “Bless you. I should’ve sent you home hours ago but didn’t have it in me to prise you apart.”

I had no idea what she meant until I looked down and saw my fingers wrapped tightly around Joe’s. A flurry of conflicting emotions hit me, but I pushed them aside as my gaze darted automatically to Joe. Who cared if I was caught between mortification and wonder? As I studied Joe’s face, I certainly didn’t. He’d always been magnetic in a way that made no sense—when he was aloof or rude, or silent and still, like now. I stroked his face, paying Sal no heed, and wondered if his mind was finally quiet. “Have you been home? He’s been worrying about the horses.”

“No need,” Sal said. “Emma’s much better at holding the fort than she lets herself believe.”

I could second that, but whether Sal knew about Jonah’s overnight presence on the farm, I couldn’t tell. “How’s he been? He was really sick earlier.”

Sal reached around me and rubbed Joe’s arm. “The nurses said that too, but I haven’t heard a peep out of either of you since I got here.”

“What about the doctor? Has he been round?”

“An hour ago,” Sal said. “He’s happy that the bruising isn’t hiding anything worse, so Joe can go to the ward.”

Relief flooded me. I had no idea how long I’d been asleep, but the hours I’d spent at Joe’s bedside, trying desperately to keep him calm, to soothe his pain, would stay with me forever.

A porter arrived. I peeled myself out of my hard plastic chair and moved out of the way. Sal caught my arm as I passed her and tugged me into the corridor.

“Go home,” she said firmly. “He’s on the mend. There’s nothing more you can do, and he’ll be cross if he sees you in this state.”

I scrubbed my face. “I’m fine.”

“Aye. You’ll be better after a week of sleep, though. Go home, luv. I’m his mum . . . I’m not going to let anything happen to him.”

I’d have taken a lot more persuading if the sight of Joe’s bed disappearing into a lift hadn’t reminded me that I couldn’t follow him up to the ward. I rummaged through my tired mind for what he’d ask of me if he was able and turned back to Sal. “Do you need anything? Have you got money? Charge on your phone? What about food?”

“Dear God.” Sal shook her head. “You’re just like him in your own way, aren’t you? Stop worrying about everyone else, Harry. I’m fine. And if I’m not, I’ll call, okay?”

It was all I could ask. I made sure she really did have money and tapped my number into her phone, and then I left. Walking away from Joe was hard, but when I got outside, perspective returned to me. If Joe needed anyone, it was his mum—his family. Who was I?

The dickhead who’d parked Joe’s van in a loading bay, apparently.

I peeled the parking ticket from the windscreen and climbed behind the wheel. My sense of direction let me down, and the half hour drive to Newquay took nearly an hour. By the time I reached the farm, I was ready to drop. A compulsion to check around the farm warred with a desperate need to get my head down.

The what-would-Joe-do instinct won out, and I went straight to the top field. Shadow was in the far corner, stripping the bark from a young tree. He looked the same as he always did—feral and untamed—and didn’t seem to notice me as my gaze was drawn to the patch of mud where I’d found Joe. I breathed deeply, trying to push images of him so badly injured from my mind, to draw on Sal’s parting words instead: “He’s on the mend . . .” But with the same mud still splattered up my legs, it was tougher than I could bear.

I turned away and left Shadow to his botanical afternoon snack. The rest of the farm seemed business as usual—aside from Joe’s absence—and I was on my way to find somewhere to sleep when I stumbled into Jonah.

He smiled, apparently far more with it than I was. “You’re back then.”

“Yup.”

“The boy okay?”

“Getting there. Sal’s with him.”

Jonah nodded. “Good lad. He coming home soon?”

“I don’t know.”

“Aye, well . . . you let me know. Can’t imagine he’d be too pleased to find me kipping on the doorstep.”

“So why did you come?”

The question fell out with little consideration for why I thought it was my business. But Jonah merely gifted me another watery smile. “There isn’t much use left in me, but what I’ve got belongs to this farm.”

A profound sadness washed over me as I stared at Jonah. From what little I knew of him, his fuck-ups were epic, but his love and loyalty, however faded by the burden he’d become, was clear to see.

The contrast with my own father almost broke me. I pushed past Jonah and went into the house. My body was reacting to the clusterfuck of emotions coursing through me like it always did—with adrenaline . . . a misplaced energy that had, in the past, led me to pounding the gym until I blacked out. But I was over that now, right? Besides, even the disquiet having a party in my empty stomach couldn’t overcome the bone-deep fatigue from three days without real sleep.

I took a much-needed shower, and then admitted defeat, and passed out on Joe’s couch.

I slept for hours and hours until George woke me sometime later.

“Dinner’s up,” he said.

“Huh? I sat up, rubbing my face, but George was already gone.

I found a sweatshirt and trailed him to the kitchen, expecting to find the usual suspects crowded around the table, waiting on Sal to dish up. But George kept going, and when I followed him out into the yard, I saw why.

Someone had lit a BBQ in a metal pit. A huge pot was above the glowing embers, and Jonah was stirring the contents. He caught my eye but said nothing.

Lacey grabbed my arm. “Sit with us, Harry. We haven’t seen you for ages. Have you been with Joe?”

“Um, for a little while till Sal got back.”

Lacey nodded, her eyes bright with the kind of excitement that came from dinner in the dark when you were that young, and her innocence soothed me. Her and Jemima hadn’t been on the farm when Joe had been hurt, and I was glad of it. They idolised Joe as much as Toby did, and his tears had been enough.

George dropped down on the other side of me. His gaze was trained on Jonah, and I observed the both of them for a while in an effort to distract myself from wondering where Sal was. Hospital visiting hours usually finished around eight o’clock and it was way past that now. Was something wrong? Had Joe deteriorated?

My fretting was eased somewhat when Emma joined the circle around the fire. Joe’s friend Dex was with her. He met my gaze impassively, and I tried not to stare back, remembering what Joe had said about him not liking men he didn’t know. Dex seemed at ease with the Whisper Farm gang, but his presence reminded me that I was still an outsider, and considering that I only had five weeks left on the farm, would probably remain so.

The thought didn’t sit well. I’d woken feeling refreshed, though worry for Joe still gnawed at my insides, but as the chatter around the fire continued without me, I felt like I was crawling out of my skin until Sal turned up, apparently from the bungalow, clutching a loaf of her homemade bread.

She passed it to Jonah without looking at him and came straight to me, nudging Lacey aside. “You’re awake,” she said. “You were dead to the world when I got back.”

“Sorry. It’s been a long few days.”

“I’ll say. Joe was worried when I told him how long you’d been up.”

Joe worrying about me sent another rush of conflicting emotions sluicing through me. That he cared warmed my bones, but I wanted him, for once, to screw everyone else and focus on himself. “How is he? Did you stay with him all day?”

“Until he was awake enough to answer me back,” Sal said with a smile. “The boy doesn’t like hospital food, so I’d imagine we’ll be feeding him until they let him go.”

“Do you know when that will be?”

“A few days. He’s still quite poorly, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen him so tired.”

The ache in my heart came back. Sal rubbed my arm. “Visiting is at ten tomorrow. I’ve got some shopping to do, and Emma won’t drive to Truro, so I was wondering if you’d sit with him for a bit? I think he prefers your company to mine.”

How she could be so sure of that, I had no idea. After the last few days, snogging Joe on the couch seemed a distant memory, and before that, our interactions had been limited to meal times and awkward encounters in the yard.

It was more than that. But I was distracted from arguing with myself by a steaming plate of the same spicy sausage stew Joe had cooked a few weeks ago. Jonah’s interpretation had more beans and less meat, and as it occurred to me that I hadn’t eaten a proper meal in days, it was the most delicious thing I’d ever seen.

The low murmur of voices in the yard faded away as I cleared my plate. The hot food hitting my stomach was like magic, and the jittery anxiety that had plagued me over the last few days began to ease. Idiot. How many times have you lectured Emma on the effect of blood sugar levels on anxiety? Too many, but with a full belly and Sal’s presence beside me reminding me that I hadn’t answered her question, my mind was too full of Joe to berate myself.

Jonah came round with the pot, doling out seconds with hunks of Sal’s bread. I filled my plate again without much conscious thought and nudged her gently. “Of course I’ll sit with Joe tomorrow. Does he need me to bring anything?”

Again with Sal’s slow smile. “Just yourself, I’d imagine, luv. But I’ll leave some breakfast in the fridge for him.”

I rolled my eyes and kept eating.