Page 1 of A New Family at Puddleduck Farm (Puddleduck Farm #6)

The annoying thing was there was probably no need for her to be awake now.

She wished she could stay asleep, but she couldn’t.

Her mind and body were totally attuned to the tiniest sound.

It was as though in the last six weeks she’d become an entirely different person.

She supposed she had. She’d gone from being a smart, organised and capable veterinary professional, owner of her own vet practice with four staff working for her, to being a mother.

She’d known it wouldn’t be an easy transition – the world and his wife had a view, a somewhat smug view, as far as Phoebe could see, on the shock of new parenthood – but she’d thought she was prepared.

That illusion had been smashed on day one.

Becoming a mother was by far the hardest thing she’d ever done.

Looking back, she likened herself to someone who’d just learned to swim a width at the local pool thinking they’d have a stab at swimming the English Channel.

It didn’t matter how many pep talks you gave yourself, or how much back-up and support you had, at the end of the day you were alone, floundering in a dark sea.

Well, not quite alone. The creak of a floorboard in the old farmhouse alerted her to Sam’s presence, and she turned to see her partner emerge, yawning, from their bedroom. Gorgeous, dependable, dear, kind Sam. She couldn’t imagine life without him.

‘It’s my turn, isn’t it, Pheebs?’

‘I was awake anyway, and you were snoring. I didn’t want to disturb you.’

‘It’s cool.’ He rubbed his eyes. ‘Although it’s a bit early for their next feed, isn’t it? Were they crying?’

‘I think so. Something woke me anyway.’

They went together across the dim landing and Phoebe pushed open the door of the spare bedroom. The familiar warmth and smells of the room hit them as her eyes adjusted to the velvet darkness.

Sam squeezed her hand. ‘Thank God there’s only three of them.’

‘I know.’ Phoebe leaned over the open-top crate and saw that one of the puppies had crawled blindly away from his littermates and was snuffling around on the newspaper, trying to find his way back to them.

Hence his cries. With no mother to suckle them, the pups were more vulnerable than usual and more reliant on each other for warmth and security.

‘Do you think we should move them into our room?’ Phoebe murmured. ‘Then we could virtually feed them in our sleep.’

‘Nice idea, but I think if we did that we’d just double the time we’re up. They’d wake Lily up every time they were hungry and she’d wake them up every time she was hungry. No, I think they’re better off in here. I’ll get the bottles to do their feed, it’s only a little bit early.’

‘I’ll help you.’

‘No, it’s fine. You go back to bed. Keep your strength up for Lily’s next feed.’

Phoebe smiled and the smile turned into a snort at the ridiculousness of their situation. ‘We must be totally bonkers, Sam. Taking on three orphaned puppies when we’ve got a newborn baby of our own. I’m so sorry. I didn’t think it through, did I?’

‘You just did what you always do. You agreed to take the pups because you’re the kindest, loveliest, most compassionate woman I’ve ever met.’ He curved an arm around her shoulder. ‘Now, be off back to bed with you. I’ll sort out these babies while you go and sort out ours. Try and get some sleep.’

For a moment Phoebe leaned into his arm, drawing strength from him. She wished she could stay there. She felt overemotional and weepy, which she knew was down to lack of sleep and hormones, with maybe a small slice of guilt.

She shouldn’t have taken in the pups, but it was hard to say no when the woman who’d brought them in with their mother, who’d been past saving , had clearly been at her wits’ end.

Phoebe knew the pups would have died too if she hadn’t agreed.

It had been a case of ‘say yes, and think about the consequences later’, as it so often was when you oversaw the running of an animal sanctuary.

Even so, it had been a crazy decision. She and Sam were only just keeping things on an even keel as it was.

She might be on maternity leave from her practice, Puddleduck Vets, and they might have a manager in charge of the rescue, Puddleduck Pets, but that didn’t remove the heavy weight of responsibility she felt for it all.

From their bedroom across the landing, Lily began to yell and Phoebe gave herself a little shake. Her baby, who was all the more precious because she’d lost the first baby she’d carried, needed her. Enough of this self-pity.

By the time Phoebe got back to the crib, Lily was crying fitfully, as if she’d somehow become aware that both her parents had gone AWOL. Her little red face was screwed up in distress.

‘It’s OK, my darling. Mummy’s here. It’s all right, my baby.

’ Phoebe scooped her up in her sleep sack and held her tightly until her crying eased.

‘Are you hungry, little one?’ As she spoke, she carried Lily over to the bed.

She’d decided to breastfeed her from the outset, because there was a very strong tide of opinion that proclaimed breast was best. This also seemed to be accompanied by a lot of smugness, Phoebe had found.

Or maybe that was just her exhausted, somewhat jaundiced view of the world, right now.

Because breastfeeding wasn’t the lovely, bonding, natural routine Phoebe had always envisaged.

It was flaming hard. They had persevered and it had got better, but if anything, lately it had been getting worse again.

Apparently, the six-week struggles weren’t uncommon, but that didn’t make her feel any less of a failure.

Lily didn’t always feed very well and often seemed as though she was still hungry.

Phoebe was beginning to wonder if she had enough milk for her baby.

She glanced at the breast pump on the dressing table and winced.

That had been a disaster too. It was hard enough getting a decent amount out of her useless breasts to keep Lily satisfied, let alone using that torture implement as well.

Her nipples were sore as hell and Phoebe was convinced they weren’t up to the job.

Cabbage was the answer apparently. Someone had said that cabbage leaves would soothe the soreness. But Phoebe couldn’t remember if you were supposed to cook the leaves or leave them raw. When was she supposed to have time to cook flaming cabbage, let alone go to the shops and buy it?

That was something else to look up on Mumsnet or ask the health visitor – her worries about the quantity of milk she was producing, not cabbage.

Mumsnet was the quicker option. Except that whoever she asked, she got a different opinion.

There were plenty of people around her to ask too – her best friend, Tori, had a little one who’d be two in December, and her brother and sister-in-law, Frazier and Alexa, had twin four-year-olds and a fourteen-month-old.

They all seemed to have coped perfectly fine.

Alexa was the archetypal earth mother. She made everything to do with children and babies look effortless.

Alexa her sister-in-law, not Alexa the virtual assistant, although the computer was definitely an earth mother too with her calm as a cucumber, self-satisfied voice.

Alexa the virtual assistant sounded way too pleased with herself if you asked her a question about babies.

As if everything was entirely simple. There had been several times when Phoebe had been tempted to throw Alexa on the floor and stamp on her.

Even Tori, who’d always proclaimed she was the least maternal woman on the planet, seemed to cope fine with little Vanessa-Rose. Phoebe had never heard her complain. It was clearly just Phoebe who couldn’t cope with her precious, precious daughter.

In her arms, Lily arched her back and refused to even try to latch on, and Phoebe felt a tear drip down her nose and land on her baby’s soft downy head. She had never felt so useless in her life.

‘I’m sorry, my darling. I’m sorry if I’m not doing it right.’

Her overtired brain whirred. Maybe it was because she was an older mother. She was thirty-eight. But lots of women had babies later than that. Tori was thirty-eight too.

Maybe she was trying too hard. Maybe they should get some formula after all. It was something else to put on her list to discuss with Sam. Along with who they might be able to find who could help with the feeding of the orphaned puppies. There must be someone who’d help.

Every four hours day and night was a hard ask, but it shouldn’t be that difficult to find someone.

There were plenty of volunteers at Puddleduck Pets.

Phoebe racked her brains over who might be suitable.

She thought briefly of her grandmother, who until recently had owned and run Puddleduck Pets.

But Maggie was seventy-seven, and her health wasn’t brilliant. It wouldn’t be fair to ask Maggie.

Phoebe ran through other possibilities. Maybe one of the practice staff – they all loved animals – or Natasha, who was the full-time manager of the sanctuary.

Alongside every name there were reasons why it wouldn’t work.

Or maybe she was just too tired to think straight.

Phoebe suspected that might be the case.

This was day three of four-hourly puppy feeding and a baby who barely slept. She lay back on the pillows with Lily in her arms. She would work it out in the morning when she could think straight.

* * *

When Sam came back into the room, he saw that Phoebe had fallen asleep on her back on their king-size bed with Lily sprawled on her chest. He wished he didn’t have to wake them. He stood for a moment looking down at the woman he loved most in the world and his new daughter.

The love he felt for them both was so fierce that it hurt. He’d never imagined he could feel like this. He’d never imagined fatherhood would be so hard either.

If you’d have asked him to pick the one thing in the world that would make him supremely happy, he would have picked this.

He’d loved Phoebe for as long as he could remember.

Their mothers were best friends and Sam and Phoebe had grown up together.

He’d been over the moon when Phoebe had agreed to marry him – not that they’d got round to that bit yet.

Although Lily hadn’t been exactly planned, Sam had always wanted his own family too, and let’s face it, neither he nor Phoebe were spring chickens.

But prior to becoming a dad, Sam’s life had consisted of working at Hendrie’s Post Office and Stores, run by his mother, giving riding lessons at Brook Riding School, which was in the New Forest half an hour from Puddleduck Farm, and riding his own horse Ninja, as well as living with Phoebe, Roxie, their hyperactive dalmatian, and Snowball, his black fluffy cat.

This was before you counted any of the dozens of animal waifs and strays that lived at Puddleduck Pets.

He’d thought life had been busy before Lily’s birth, but he realised now that he hadn’t known the meaning of the word ‘busy’ back then.

Lately, all the days seemed to blur into one another.

He’d cut down his hours at Hendrie’s Post Office.

Luckily Ma had insisted on it, although it hadn’t been their original plan.

Their original plan had been that Phoebe would look after Lily in the day until she finished maternity leave and Sam would do the nights, helped by Phoebe expressing her milk.

It had looked so simple on paper, but nothing had gone according to plan. They both did the nights. Phoebe had cried when she’d tried and failed to use the breast pump and she told him she couldn’t sleep anyway so what was the point in her not feeding Lily directly?

Sam had given up doing any riding lessons. Trying to teach kids when you couldn’t stop yawning wasn’t a good look and fortunately Ninja wasn’t at livery at Brook Riding School any more. He was stabled here at Puddleduck Farm, so Sam didn’t feel obliged to teach lessons.

He missed it sometimes. The pink horses.

The yellow spotted dogs. Pink horses. Yellow spotted dogs.

Oh my God. Sam realised, with a small start of shock, that he’d actually dozed off on his feet and he’d started to dream.

Luckily the bedroom wall had been behind him, solid and real, and he hadn’t actually fallen over.

Good grief, he didn’t remember ever feeling this tired in his life.

He crossed softly to the bed. What were the rules about sleeping with your baby?

He seemed to remember it wasn’t good. Horror stories of crushing them accidentally jolted him properly awake.

Very gently he lifted Lily into his arms and carried her back to her crib.

To his relief, she didn’t wake. She just punched out with a tiny fist in her sleep.

He’d got all the way to her crib and laid her in it before she opened her eyes, saw his face and began to cry softly.

His heart sank as he picked her up again and rocked her in his arms.

‘It’s OK, sweetheart. Daddy’s here.’

It was another fifteen minutes before she was sleepy enough to put down again without her eyes springing open.

Sam laid her in her crib and tiptoed back to the bed.

It was 4a.m. With a bit of luck he could get in another two hours of sleep – or unconsciousness, as he and Phoebe had taken to calling it.

He covered them both over with the duvet and closed his eyes.

It would be OK. Tomorrow was Wednesday. Well, technically today was Wednesday, but tomorrow would be Wednesday proper.

The sanctuary’s quietest day – if there was a quiet day.

Nothing much ever happened on a Wednesday in September.