A Roll in the Hay, стр. 52
“Don’t suppose your secret passion is fixing cars?” Susannah fumbled around in the glove compartment for a torch. It meant leaning across and inhaling the wood-smoke scent of Tess’s cologne—altogether too tempting.
“You’ve mocked my car. Do I strike you as being one someone would take apart and rebuild from scratch?”
“Maybe with Lego,” Susannah replied. “Sorry. Can’t help myself.”
A hissing sounded, and then wisps of smoke started to rise from the front of the car.
“Shit!” Tess squealed, the sound utterly at odds with her suave look. “Okay, so staying in the car isn’t an option. You do know roughly where we are, right?”
“We can follow the road back or wait for someone to pass and pick us up,” Susannah said as they slammed the doors shut and she pocketed the keys. Flicking the torch on, she was dismayed to see that it was already dim. “Even if I could walk to the house or the village in these shoes, this light isn’t going to get us across the fields. Not far enough.”
An ominous rumble sounds overhead.
“Oh, that better not be thunder,” Susannah tried not to groan. Pulling her phone out, she offered a silent prayer for even one bar of signal.
Nothing. A glance at Tess confirmed the same for her.
“Okay, let’s reassess,” Tess said, not entirely succeeding at hiding her panic. “Where is the nearest shelter you can think of? From there we can try phones and roads and other things again, but I don’t think that rain is far off.”
“We should be near one of the unoccupied tenant farms.” She hoped her internal compass wasn’t far off. She was going to have take this situation—and Tess—in hand. Raiding the boot for supplies, she unearthed a blanket and some bottled water, among other things. A start. “I don’t think much of it is still standing, though. We’ll freeze if we stay with the car, and I’m not wild about that smoke coming from the engine.”
“It should be fine with the engine off,” Tess said. “Although when it comes to smoke and petrol, it’s definitely a ‘less is more’ sort of situation. I don’t think I could relax.”
The rain started then, fat drops falling from the dark sky above.
“Which way?” Tess asked. “Cover is the main thing; we’ll work out the rest.”
Susannah got her bearings, and they started to jog down the road. If only she’d thought to keep boots in the car. Tess steadied her each time the heels made her stumble.
“There!” Susannah picked out the stone building with a wave of the torch. “Just in time too.”
The rain was coming down harder then, reducing what little visibility they had. Just as the first fork of lightning split the sky, they reached what looked like an abandoned barn.
“Hurry!” Tess shouted over the rain.
It was going to have to do.
Chapter 19
This was not the night Tess signed up for, that was for damn sure.
Not that she could quite bring herself to mind, not when they were catching their breath in a dry, solid sort of building, their clothes damp from the rain but not that cold, thanks to the stormy conditions. At least now they were sheltered from what sounded like one hell of a storm.
Susannah’s chest rose and fell sharply, bent over in her formal red dress.
“What is this place?” Tess asked, trying not to stare.
“It’s a bothy. Sort of a bunk house for farmhands or passing campers. I forgot about it. I thought we’d have to go farther to hit the farm, which we probably would.”
“I’m okay here for now if you are?” Tess walked around, not that there was much to explore. The ground floor was fairly flat, with odd stalks of hay withered here and there. There was an old camping stove with a gas canister next to it, a broken hiking pole, and a door leading to some kind of outhouse area. Better than nothing.
“I’m sorry,” Susannah said, keeping close so that the torch lit the way for both of them. “That car has never given me a moment’s trouble before. When the weather eases off, we can try and get some phone signal, because I’ve got nothing here.”
“At least we’re safe inside,” Tess replied, pulling out her phone. Wanting to preserve some of Susannah’s torch, she lit up the torch app. It illuminated a sturdy ladder leading up into a hole in the ceiling. “Loft space?”
“Probably where the bunks are,” Susannah said. “If anything’s left of them at this point. Let’s go up the ladder and have a look around. It can only be more comfortable than all this open space.”
Tess nodded and picked up the tiny stove. She shook the canister to make sure it had gas. “Right.”
Susannah took her shoes off and headed up the ladder, followed by Tess. It was surprisingly well looked after. No leaks in the ceiling, but enough light through small gaps in the walls to make it much less dark inside. A few pallets were laid out, straw-stuffed mattresses with sacks on top of them. It couldn’t have been that long since the place was last used.
Tess took a seat on the biggest “bed”, kicking off her shoes and setting up the stove. A couple of minutes later, they had some light and heat, however long it would last.
“It’s good you grabbed a few things before we left the car,” Tess said.
Susannah came to settle beside her, dropping her supplies. There was a blanket, which Tess put on the mattress beside them. A large bottle of water. A couple of energy bars and an old coat rounded out the collection.
“It wasn’t stupid to walk away from the car, was it?” Tess asked.
“Not at all. We had to get out of it, and hopefully with everything turned off it won’t get any worse. These emergency provisions aren’t great, though.” She frowned. “This wasn’t the hospitality I had in mind for you tonight.”
“Hey, hey,” Tess reached for Susannah’s hand. “This could happen