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

Rob waved an explanatory hand. “It’s a spring. And the pool.” Laurie nodded. He could see. “It’s good for the stock when it’s hot, the shelter of the trees. But when there’s no stock in here—or even if there is, sometimes—I come here just to sit. There’s the stone, you see.”


He gestured again as they stepped through the trees, close to the edge of the water. The pool wasn’t large. About twenty or thirty feet across in all directions. Following the direction of his waving arm, Laurie saw to one side of the pool, a standing stone, nearly as tall as he was. It wasn’t like the ones he’d seen pictures of at Stonehenge. It wasn’t as assuming as that.


Chapter 28