Sheltering Rain by Jojo Moyes

apparently now determined to restore herself to shelter and the comfort of a warm Aga. She didn’t know where to look next. She would have to ask Thom. She began to trudge up the hill behind the dog, unsure what she was going to say to Mrs. H, but certain that somehow she would be to blame.
    Bella had disappeared by the time she got to the house. Sabine, pushing her wet hair from her eyes, trying to get her sniveling under control, lifted the latch on the back door, and pushed it open, hearing, as she did, footsteps pounding across the gravel behind her.
    It was Thom, his hair plastered to his head, and his false arm holding the hunting horn awkwardly to his chest. She was about to apologize when she realized he was looking straight past her.
    â€œYou’re late,” came a voice from down the corridor.
    Allowing herself a second to acclimatize to the dark, Sabine stared down the flagstone passageway, where she could just make out the curved back, the third leg of a walking stick, and two chocolate-colored dogs, grunting happily around each other in greeting. “Lunch was at one. One . It’s getting cold. I really don’t see that I should have to tell you again.”
    Sabine stood in the doorway, her mouth agape, subsumed by conflicting emotions.
    â€œHe got back about five minutes ago,” muttered Thom behind her. “We must have crossed paths with him.”
    â€œWell, come on, come on. You can’t possibly sit down looking like that,” scolded her grandfather. “You’ll have to change your shoes.”
    â€œThe old bastard,” whispered Sabine, tearfully, and felt Thom’s good hand on her shoulder in reply.
    Mrs. H, leaning from the kitchen door, mouthed an apology and shrugged helplessly. “Will I get you a dry jumper, Mr. Ballantyne?” she asked, but was waved irritably away. She ducked back inside the kitchen.
    Her grandfather turned stiffly toward the stairs, shaking droplets of water from his hat with his free hand. The dogs pushed past him, so that briefly unbalanced, he thrust out a spindly arm to catch hold of the banister.
    â€œI shan’t tell you again.” He muttered something to himself and shook his head. It was barely visible above the exaggerated curve of his shoulders. “Mrs. H, if you’d be kind enough to bring me my lunch, it seems my granddaughter would rather eat in a corridor.”
    I t had been shortly after tea that Sabine had begun counting up the money her mother had given her, to see if she had enough to get her back to England. Her mother wouldn’t like it, but she couldn’t see how living with her and the odious Justin could be any worse than staying here. This was impossible. Even when she tried to do the right thing, they acted like she’d deliberately done wrong. They didn’t care about her. All they cared about were bloody horses, and their stupid, rigid rules. She could be lying in the kitchen with an ax in her head and they’d tell her off for bringing tools into the house.
    She was scanning her ferry ticket for a booking line number when there was a soft knock at the door. It was Mrs. H.
    â€œWhy don’t you come over to our Annie’s with me this evening? Your grandmother says it would be fine, and it’ll be nice for you to have some younger people around you.” What she meant was, it was probably best if you and your grandparents gave one another a bit of a break. But Sabine didn’t mind. Anything was better than spending another evening in with them.
    Annie was Mrs. H’s only daughter. She lived in the large farmhouse farther up the village, which she ran as a bed-and-breakfast with her husband, Patrick, a much older man who wrote books. (“I’ve never read one—not my cup of tea,” said Mrs. H. “But I’m told they’re very good. For intellectual types, you know.”) Annie’s skills as hostess were less assured—the B-and-B