It died with Mama, and along with her died any last reason I might ever have had to feel sentimental about this grubby old shack.
I cross to the porch, planning to go inside — might as well get the worst over with. That's when I hear a deafening cracking sound, followed by two wooden clatters. After a pause, I hear it again, and it resolves into a familiar noise.
Someone is chopping wood out back.
I frown. Not exactly the type of activity I expect to find my property assessor engaged in. Then again, country folk are strange. Maybe he wanted to take home some bits of one of the dead trees as a souvenir.
I abandon the front door for now and follow the hole-pitted path around back, ignoring the way the semi-hard mud squishes underneath my toes and the occasional rock that jabs against my bare soles. I used to have tough feet, the kind I could run straight across gravel with. Now I’m a tenderfoot again, wincing at every stray pebble.
It only makes my resentment grow. I’ve grown strong in other ways since I left this farm. I built a life for myself, a career I'm proud of. A career that keeps me up all night and then again first thing in the morning, burning the candle at both ends, but still.
I round the edge of the house and stop dead on the path, forgetting for a moment about my rage. Hell, even about the pebbles I'm standing on.
In front of me, shirtless and sheened in sweat, is the most perfectly sculpted man I have ever seen.
He could be made of bronze the way he's posing now, weighing the axe over his shoulder as he eyes the stack of wood in front of him, balanced on the same tree stump where my Mama used to chop her own wood years ago. I can count every single muscle on his chest, from his pecs down his washboard abs to the perfect V that points like an arrow straight down, to a faint line of dark hair that I can't help tracing to the fly of his jeans.
Damn jeans.
It takes every ounce of my self-control not to drool when he swings the axe all over again, distracting me with the surge and flow of his biceps, the way even his back ripples with strength. He's got longer hair than I'm typically into, bound in a tight bun at the nape of his neck, dark and curly, to judge by the few flyaways that have escaped the hair tie.
I'm still gawking when he turns to look at me.
Holy shit. No way.
My jaw threatens to drop completely open because I realize—only when he looks straight at me head—I know this guy.
Grant Werther. The formerly scrawny kid who used to chase me around this lawn every summer while our parents talked shop. His dad owned a farm up the road, had the same business problems to deal with as Mom.
I have to say, he’s filled out nicely. His face, which used to be all thin angles, now features sharp cheekbones, a cut jaw and a fine nose. His eyes are dark too, piercing where they catch mine and lock, and his dark, full beard only accentuates his looks.
I swallow so hard I nearly gulp down my tongue in the process.
As for him, he shows no signs of recognizing me at all. Fine, if he wants to play at that game. “What are you doing here?” I manage to ask, finally recovering my wits.
“I could ask you the same thing.” He runs a hand over his hair, taming a few of those wisps, and narrows his eyes. “This is private property, Miss.”
Miss. So he really doesn’t recognize me. How is that possible? We hung out every summer until we hit high school. Until he started hanging with the cool athletic crowd and left me in the dust.
He keeps his voice cold and formal, but I don't miss the way his gaze drops over my body, lingering on my chest and my hips. I dressed the same way I do every day this morning — to kill. The tight pencil skirt and the designer top that hugs me just close enough to display a hint of my curves isn't the worst thing I could be caught wearing by a handsome blast from the past. Serves him right for not putting the pieces together. If he’s on this farm, he has to have some inkling of my identity. Doesn’t he?
I shake myself back to reality. What am I thinking? This jerk is trying to order me off my own lawn. I don't give a damn if he remembers me or finds me attractive.
“No shit it is,” I reply, shifting my hands to my hips and drawing myself up to my full height. I'd be taller with the damned heels on, but... “It's my private property, so I'll ask you again. What are you doing here?”
“I have just as much rights to this land as you do, Sasha.”
The sound of my name stuns me silent for a second. Okay. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe he does still have a few fond memories of me.
Then he keeps talking and spoils the illusion. “That is who you are, right? Sasha Bluebell, only ungrateful daughter of Maryanne Bluebell?”
Okay. That does it. I ball my fists. “Listen, Mister —“
“Grant Werther,” he answers, butting across me.
I laugh that off. He thinks I’m as forgetful as him? Fine. “You can’t just come storming in here acting like you own the place. I have the deed to this land —“
“And half of that deed belongs to me, you’ll find.”
That draws me up short. I finally process what he said earlier, before my name. I have just as much rights to this land as you do. What does that mean?
Grant wipes his palms on his jeans and reaches into his back pocket. There's a rustle as he unfolds a piece of paper, then crosses the grass to my side, paper extended before him.
I accept it with a pointed glare.
“My father loaned your mother money seventeen years ago,” he's saying. “In exchange for 50% ownership of the farm.”
I ignore him and skim the paper instead. Dealing with Mama’s accounts has left me better versed in legalese than I'd like to be. But unfortunately, the contract in front of me, signed and notarized in Mama’s unique handwriting, agrees with everything he's saying.
“Pop left me his share when he passed,” Grant is saying, his tone irritatingly arrogant. “Which means I own his half.”
I refold the paper, mouth pressed into a thin line. I don't want to admit he's right. I don't want to concede defeat. So I just pass him back the paper and fix him with another long glare. “Fine. So we’re both part owners. That doesn't mean you can stand here on the lawn where I grew up and insinuate things about my relationship with my Mama or act like you know the first damned thing about me.”
His eyebrows rise, just a little.
“Ungrateful daughter,” I say, for emphasis, in case he forgot the insult.
But far from looking reprimanded or taught his place, he only seems to look more… amused. “That's me told, then,” is all Grant says.
For some reason, that irritates me even more. I cross my arms and lean on one leg, heels still dangling from one hand. His gaze darts to the shoes in my fist, then my bare feet, but if he has anything to remark about my state, at least he keeps it to himself. “What's your intention with your half of the share?” I ask. “Because my plan is to clean the place up as best I can, as fast as I can, and then sell it for whatever I can get.”
He tears his gaze from me at last — an event that both relieves and frustrates me at the same time, for reasons I don't want to think too hard about — and eyes the house behind me. For a moment, it seems like there’s something else in his expression. A cloud I can’t quite read or understand. Then he shakes his head. “Clean the place up. Sell it for whatever we can get, once we’re ready. Sounds good to me.”
I press my mouth into a thin line, even as relief floods me. At least he wants the same thing I do. “Good,” I reply. “Then we’re agreed. We have the same goal, make this place look as good as she possibly can, and sell her to the highest bidder. Equal split to both of us for whatever we make.”
He nods.
“That makes us partners, then,” I continue. “We should work together.”
A short, cursory laugh escapes him then. He glances at me once more, but this time his gaze lingers on my heels, my skirt, my bare, pale feet which haven't seen sunlight since my last beach trip, way back at the beginning of the summer because I never found time to go again. “I doubt you can do much work at all,” he replies, smirking.
I toss my head, shoulders squared. “Oh? And you're basing this opinion of me on what, exactly? Whatever bullshit town gossip you've clearly swallowed hook line and sinker?”
He shrugs, not bothering to deny it. “Generally when enough people believe something, they have a decent reason.”
“So you just always believe the mob mentality about a new person, no matter what it is?” Or even a person you used to know?
“People around here always said you looked down on us. Hated the country life, and not just the life, but also anyone who wanted that life for themselves. They say you thought you were too good for this town and everyone in it — that's why you turned heel and never once looked back.”
I laugh once, soft and bitter. “Who knows? Maybe they're right after all,” I mutter. “I certainly am too good for this,” I add with a glance at my now mud-spattered feet.
“If the golden shoe fits…” Grant shrugs again.
“I earned that shoe, I’ll have you know,” I snap.
“Never meant to imply you didn't,” he replies easily, yet somehow it feels like another snub. I side-eye him as he bends down to collect the wood he's chopped — a small, tidy pile that’ll be just enough for the stove to last a day or two. When he straightens again, wood cradled in his arms, he raises a single eloquent eyebrow. “Well? You want to see the interior?”