The Time Rip Read Online Free Page B

by his suggestion. Clearly, they were talking at cross-purposes.
    “Just outside Reading; I was coming back from Hungerford. I went to see a new supplier. I’m a flower seller.”
    Joseph backtracked once more through the conversation. He looked her over, noting the weariness and confusion. “You slept in the field, I take it.”
    She looked down unhappily. “I was looking for the M4. I thought if I could find the main road, I could call from one of those emergency breakdown phones they always have, but it got so late and I was so tired. I just want to go home.”
    Joseph hesitated at her words, a puzzled look crossing his face, but the gleam of tears in her eyes had him abandoning his questions. Instead, he put his mind to how best to help her.
    Having spent the odd night sleeping in a barn in his youth, he had a good idea of what she would need now. He pulled Carter up by the side of his house. The horse’s ears were up in anticipation of his stable, and the girl was looking more lost than ever as she surveyed the quiet town with its water pump at the centre. Morgan’s chickens had escaped their coop again and were now parading around the pump, one having managed to perch on the top.
    Joseph jumped down and held out a hand. “Come down, lass. Privy’s in there,” he indicated a door to one side of the house. “Kitchen’s round the back there. I’ll see to Carter and meet you inside.”
    Joseph led Carter around the back of the building. He wondered about the girl as he looked after the horse’s needs. She seemed very young to have travelled such a distance by herself.
    The Transit was obviously a motorcar, but what was the M4, and what had she said about looking for a breakdown phone? He raised his eyes briefly heavenward at the modern language of the young; expecting an old man like him to know of these new fangled things.
    Still, whoever she was she clearly needed a friend. When she looked confused, she reminded him so strongly of Marie that he could not prevent his need to help her. He flashed on an old image of his wife, helplessly gazing at the sunken loaf she had pulled from the oven. Coming from a wealthy family, she had never baked in her life before their marriage and had not known she would have to leave the dough to rise before baking. He smiled and shook his head.
    He was behind the times, getting on a bit now, with not much knowledge of modern ways. He thought carefully over the girl’s situation as he went inside, trying to decide the best way to help her.
    Sitting at the kitchen table, she gave him a watery smile. “Hi.”
    Joseph shook his head at her. “Where are my manners now? I haven’t introduced myself.” He grinned broadly and held out his hand, “I’m Joe Wilson. Pleased to make your acquaintance.”
    “Freya Keele. Glad to have met you too,” she said, taking his hand and smiling a bit at the silliness of  it, having come so far with him in the cart.
    “And now we have done with the formalities, it is time to break our fast,” he said, and began to pull plates from a cupboard. “We’ll have ourselves a bite to eat, and then see about this van of yours.”
    His mention of breakfast took Freya by surprise, and she suddenly realised how hungry she was. She felt close to tears again at his unexpected kindness.
    “Thank you, but I mustn’t put you to so much trouble.”
    “Ah, it’s no trouble at all. I’m hungry myself, and you must be starved after a night out in the field. We’ll both be better for some breakfast and then we can decide what to do next.”
    “Thanks Joe, I can’t tell you how glad I am to have met you today.”
    “It’s a pleasure to have you here. A proper treat for me to have company at breakfast. I am sure we will find your van. You most likely missed the road in the dark and went round in circles. Women don’t have the sense of direction men do, my dear.”
    Freya’s curiosity pushed aside tears and questions for the moment. His casual sexism