Evan and Elle Read Free Page A

sound of that—I bet she’s hot stuff. I bet she wears black lace corsets—Frenchwomen wear that sort of thing, you know.”
    “And how would you know that, Barry-the-Bucket?” Betsy’s voice was scathing.
    “I’ve been around.”
    “You’ve never been farther south than Birmingham,” Betsy said triumphantly.
    “I wouldn’t mind seeing you in a black corset, Betsy.” Barry grinned at her.
    “And I wouldn’t mind winning the lottery. The chances of either happening are about equal, I’d say.”
    Evan laughed with the other men. He had always admired Betsy’s quick wit.
    “Well, I’m not going near any French restaurant,” Evans-the-Meat said loudly. “There are too many foreigners here already. Planting stupid fir trees and wrecking the hillsides, buying up all our cottages . . . If I had my way—”
    “You’d build a bloody great wall around Llanfair and make people show a Welsh passport before they were allowedin,” Evans-the-Milk chuckled, getting a general laugh.
    “I would indeed,” Evans-the-Meat agreed. “Same again, Betsy love, if you don’t mind.”
    Betsy refilled the pint glass. “Tell Evan Evans about your van, Reverend,” she said. “He’s bought himself a big van—”
    “To bring in the people from down the valley,” the minister said. “I’ve been worrying about those poor people who’ve had no chapel this past year and no way of getting up here on a Sunday when the buses don’t run. The van was the answer to my prayers.”
    “You’d better ask Farmer Owens here to be your driver,” Barry-the-Bucket said. “He’s good at rounding up sheep. Maybe he’ll lend you his dogs.”
    “Speaking of dogs, how is your bitch now, Mr. Owens?” Roberts-the-Pump asked. “All right, is she?”
    “Luckily,” Mr. Owens said.
    “Why, what happened to her?” Betsy asked, leaning across the bar and stretching her neckline enough to make the patrons stop drinking again.
    “She almost got run over by that Englishman, didn’t she?” Roberts-the-Pump said. “And not even on the road either. Driving up the track to the cottage.”
    “And he had the nerve to shout at me and tell me to keep her under control,” Mr. Owens said. “On my own land, too!”
    “I knew we were in for trouble when Rhodri sold his cottage to foreigners,” Evans-the-Meat said angrily. “I told you, didn’t I? No good can come of it, letting foreignersinto the community. It’s not as if they patronize the local shops, do they? Only once I think she’s been in to my shop, and then she had the nerve to ask me if I spoke English and she waved her arms around as if she was speaking to an idiot.”
    “Perhaps she thought you were Evans-the-Post’s brother,” the milkman chuckled. “Perhaps she thought daftness was in the family.”
    Evans-the-Meat put down his glass with a bang. “If anyone’s related to that daftie, it’s you!”
    Evan had been standing at the bar, downing his drink, too tired and relaxed to feel like joining in the conversation. Now he stepped out between the two men, just as Evansthe-Meat raised his fists.
    “Easy, Gareth
bach
. I’m an Evans, too, remember,” he said lightly.
    Evans-the-Meat lowered his fists. “I just wish I’d known Rhodri’s cottage was for sale. I’d have bought it myself.”
    “And gone to live up on the mountain? Don’t be daft, boyo.”
    “Anything to stop foreigners buying it!”
    “Too late now, anyway,” Farmer Owens said. “They’ve put a lot of money into that place. They’re not going to leave in a hurry.”
    “Unless somebody makes them,” Evans-the-Meat muttered.
    “Well, they’ve gone now for a while,” Farmer Owens added. “And they won’t be coming back so often when the weather turns nasty. A few good rainstorms and that trackwill be a rushing stream. Let’s see him get his Jaguar up there then!”
    “I don’t see what all the fuss is about,” Betsy said. “They don’t bother us. It’s not like they’ve ever been in