It's 1972. Fifteen years earlier, teenage Laurie Henshaw came to live at Webber's Farm with his elderly uncle and settled in to the farming life. Now thirty-two, Laurie has a stroke in the middle of working on the farm. As he recovers, he has to come to terms with the fact that some of his new limitations are permanent and he's never going to be as active as he used to be. Will he be able to accept the helping hands his friends extend to him?<br><br>With twenty successful years in the city behind him, Phil McManus is hiding in the country after his boyfriend set him up to take the fall for an insider trading deal at his London stockbroking firm. There's not enough evidence to prosecute anyone, but not enough to clear him, either. He can't bear the idea of continuing his old stagnating life in the city or going back to his job now everyone knows he's gay.<br><br>Thrown together in a small country village, can Phil and Laurie forge a new life that suits the two of them and the makeshift family who gathers round them? Or are they too tied up in their own shortcomings to recognise what they have?

Taking Stock

By the time McManus had finished his business, Laurie had put his empty mug down and unobtrusively edged out of the door, taking advantage of Patsy’s occupation with a phone call. He was standing in the weak sunlight, relishing it on his face after the long months indoors despite the sharp March wind that accompanied it, when the other man followed him out. What Laurie assumed was McManus’ car was parked along the lane. It was a smart sports car of a make Laurie had never seen before.


“Yours?” he asked, nodding at it as the other man came up beside him, just for something to say.


“Yes. TVR Vixen. A bit of a self-indulgence really, ‘specially out here.”


“She’s beautiful,” said Laurie. And she was. Painted an unobtrusive dark green, she gleamed sleekly in the spring sunlight.


Chapter 14