by Sienna Blake
“That was…”
“…too much?”
He shakes his head. “Awesome.”
I grin at him and he grins back.
My smile falters. “You don’t have to put up with shit like that, you know?”
Aiden shrugs. “It’s hard when I can’t tell them what I think of them.”
“There is a universal nonverbal response to people like that that even she’d understand.”
“What’s that?”
I stick up both my middle fingers.
Aiden bursts out laughing. The sound is glorious; it fills the truck and my heart swells to near bursting.
“Thank you.” He signs to me. And I get the feeling he’s thanking me for more than just telling Red off.
I smile, finally feeling helpful for the first time today. Like I matter. Like I’m useful. “You’re so very welcome.”
Killian
Savannah Wolff is trouble. I can feel it. A city girl running from something—I can tell—who, by the looks of it, had no idea what life was like on a farm.
She barely helped with anything yesterday.
She couldn’t move a single hay bale.
She doesn’t know how to fix a fence.
She barely knows how to clean.
Okay, fine, she helped Aiden with groceries, but that was it. And it hardly saved any time.
I should have read her volunteer application closer. Actually, I should have read even some of it, but to be honest, she was the only one who’d replied to my ad.
I need help.
We need help.
I just can’t afford to pay for it. A volunteer in exchange for food and board is the only option left. I was desperate. Fionn isn’t pulling his weight around here. Aiden is already swamped doing his share of the farm work and all the housework. And when I’m not out here working, I’m in that damn office trying to make all those numbers make sense.
I let out a sigh as I shake grain out into the feeding trough that lines the milking parlor. I’ve been looking at some of the newer parlors online with more space for more cows to be milked at once. It’ll save time and time is money. But we don’t have the capital to invest in a new one. This old one, the one that my grandpop installed when he was still alive, would have to do.
“Hey,” a soft female voice calls.
I look up.
Savannah is standing just inside the barn in the most ridiculous getup I’ve ever seen. The shortest jean cutoff shorts showing off her slender, tanned legs. A red and white checked shirt tied across her breasts, showing off a toned, flat stomach, hair tied in two pigtails with matching ribbons.
Dear God.
Did she watch porn set on a farm and think that should be what she wears to work here?
I ignore the sudden thought of holding her down in the hay and stripping her naked except for her boots. Jesus Christ, her boots. Do those cowboy boots have jewels on them? And a three-inch heel?
Lord help us all.
“What do you want, farm Barbie?” I say.
I could be nicer to her. I should be nicer to her. When my ma was alive she used to always say you caught more flies with honey than vinegar. Something about Savannah gets under my skin.
For a second I think Savannah’s going to give it back to me, but she wisely chooses to ignore my Barbie comment. “I’m here to help.”
I repress a snort.
“Have you ever milked a cow before?”
She stiffens. “No. But how hard can it be?”
I send up a prayer.
“I can do it. Just tell me what to do,” she says, her voice firm, a determined look on her face. “You haven’t even given me a chance yet.”
Fair enough.
I let out a breath. “Fine. Herd the first group of cows into the parlor while I finish laying out the grain.”
I nod towards the cows waiting in a pen.
She turns towards the cows and I watch as her eyes widen. She looks terrified.
I let out that snort I’m holding in. “I’ll fucking do it. You finish the grain—”
“No!”
“Excuse me?”
She turns towards me, her hands on her hips, chin thrust in the air. “I can do it.”
I know I have a dubious look on my face. I can feel the doubt oozing out from every pore.
“Well... Go on, then,” I say, a challenge.
This is a bad idea.
She walks over to the pen, studies the gate for two seconds before swinging it open. The cows, used to this routine, start to amble towards the parlor. Savannah is in their way. She lets out a squeak and jumps aside. I stifle a laugh.
She glares at me as if it were my fault. “Your cows are trying to trample me.”
“Not my fault you got in their way.”
“I didn’t think they’d start moving right away. You didn’t tell me.”
“Excuse you, Miss I Can Do It.” The last of the grain falls out of my bucket and I set it aside.
She makes a humpfing noise but doesn’t say anything more. She just stands there pouting, looking fucking adorable.
Adorable? I shove that thought away.
The cows line up in the parlor and start chewing on the grain. I walk around the parlor to where the milk hoses and teat cups are hanging so I can start fitting them on the cows. I curl a finger at Savannah, come here.
She walks hesitantly to stand near me and chews her bottom lip. Suddenly all I want to do is take that poor abused lip in my mouth and suck it.
Suck it? I slam that ridiculous thought down into a box. What the hell is wrong with me?
“Watch what I’m doing,” I say, tearing my eyes off her and bending down behind the first cow to position the first cup on a teat. “Make sure it’s taken properly before you let go.”
After I finish fitting the fourth cup I turn to her. “Think you can handle that?”
She shoots me a look. “I handled a marketing campaign worth half a billion dollars, I can handle a goddamn milking machine.”
She struts over to the next milk hose and lifts it off its hook. I tense, watching as she approaches the next cow, fiddling with the armful of teats for what feels like hours until she has each one on properly.
She turns to me with a grin, a look of triumph on her face.
Well, I’ll be damned. She actually did it.
I give her a well done nod and move to the next hose and the next cow. She and I work quietly side by side. We’re done in half the time. I feel like some of the weight pressing on my shoulders is lifting.
Maybe, just maybe, things are starting to turn.
I hear a clanking and a disgruntled mooing from the beginning of the line. I look up to find the first cow is free of the parlor and is making a break for it.
“Fuck!” I yell, scrambling after the runaway cow, who’s just yanked the milking teats off her. They’re dribbling precious milk into the ground and sucking up dirt and God knows what into the cups.
“Did you close the parlor gate properly?” I yell behind me as I catch the cow.
“I had to close the gate?”
“Jaysus Christ, woman,” I yell. “Of course you have to close the fucking gate.”
“But—but you didn’t tell me to.”
I ignore her for now, my focus on getting the wandering cow back into the parlor, to stop any more renegade wannabes, and to get these milking teats cleaned up and back on the renegade bovine leader.
It takes me several minutes and a hell of a lot of cussing to set it all back to rights. With the cows back in place again, I slam the parlor gate shut and lock it, glaring at Savannah as I do it.
She’s just standing there wringing her hands.
“You’re lucky you didn’t wreck the machine,” I growl.
“I’m sorry,” she says in such a woeful voice I almost let up.
Instead, I grunt under my breath and point to the farmhouse. “Get. Find someone else to annoy.”
She turns and hurries away witho
ut a single argument.
I rub my eyes with my fingers. Lord help me. What the hell am I going to do with her?
If I were honest, it wasn’t such a disaster. The milking machine is designed not to let too much milk spill even if the teats tug off. It’d take more than a drag through the dirt to break it. I was harsher with her than warranted.
So why was I so harsh?
Truthfully, Savannah Wolff unnerves me.
She makes all the unfamiliar feelings stir inside me. No, not unfamiliar…I just haven’t felt these kinds of things for a woman in a long time.
I shove these feelings aside. Feelings never did anybody any good. Feelings don’t fix problems. Problems I have enough of, which I need to figure out how to solve.
I can’t afford to get distracted. Not by her. Not by anything. Not with everything at stake.
Aiden
They’re fighting again. This time it’s over Savannah.
“She has to go,” Killian says, slamming his fist down on his desk.
I stand in the doorway of Killian’s office, watching. Neither Killian nor Fionn have noticed me. Like always.
“You’re being hasty. You already said she could stay for three days. It’s only the second day.”
“And she’s already caused more trouble than she’s worth.”
“She’ll figure it out, Killian.”
Killian snorts. “You just want to keep her around because she’s hot.”
“You noticed that, too, huh? Good. Proves you still have a pulse.”
Killian bristles. “She is a fecking disaster.”
“Give her a damn chance. You never give anyone a chance. You won’t let anyone be human and make mistakes.”
“She’s never worked on a farm. We can’t afford to keep anyone around if they’re not pulling their weight.”
“She can learn.”
“Who has time to train her? Huh? Who has time to correct her fucking mistakes? Not you and definitely not me. What happens the next time she fucks up and it costs us? We can’t fucking afford any mistakes with the bank breathing down my neck—”
Fionn freezes. “The bank? What are you talking about?”
I can see the panic on Killian’s face. He’s let the cat out of the bag. He has to tell Fionn about our money problems. Fionn won’t let this go.
Killian groans and sinks into a chair.
Fionn walks around the desk and falls to his knees beside our eldest brother, the man who stepped into the role of father when ours died all those years ago.
“Killian,” Fionn says, his voice unnervingly soft, “what do you mean the bank is breathing down your neck?”
“It’s fine,” Killian says. “I’m getting it sorted.”
“Killian, you can’t keep this shit from me. I’m your brother. This is my home too. If there’s something going on—”
“Alright already, calm down. I’ll tell ye.” Killian rubs his face and lets out a deep breath. “Money’s been tight.”
“Money’s always tight.”
“Yes, but…we’re behind on the mortgage payments.”
“What?”
“What money we do have is just enough to keep the farm working. I don’t know for how long, though.”
Fionn staggers over to another chair and flops down into it. As if the weight of the world is now shared between the two brothers and he’s feeling how heavy it is.
They’re silent for a long time.
“What are we going to do?” Fionn asks.
“I don’t know. But I’ll get it sorted.”
“We,” Fionn says. “We’ll get it sorted.”
They share a look. A nod. A whole conversation happens between them silently the way it can only with family.
Fionn lets out a sigh. “Okay, Savannah has to go.”
Killian nods. “Thank you.”
“But you have to be the one to tell her.”
The bottom drops out of my stomach. With Fionn now on Killian’s side, I’m outvoted.
Savannah can’t go.
She’s the first person—the first woman—in years who’s looked at me, really looked at me. Without pity. Without fear or disgust.
Even the women I sometimes pay to spend time with out of desperation send me wary or piteous looks when they think I don’t notice.
She can’t go.
I won’t let her.
I pull away from the doorway, my mind whirring. Killian will keep his word and let her stay until her car is fixed tomorrow. But then she’ll be gone.
Unless I can figure out some way to stop it.
I can’t do it alone, though.
I walk quietly and quickly through the house. This farmhouse is massive, twelve large bedrooms and six bathrooms sprawling across a single level. It was built for several generations of O’Callaghans to live side by side together.
I knock before entering the guest room where Savannah is currently staying.
She’s sitting on the bed, staring into space. She looks up when I enter.
“He’s going to make me leave, isn’t he?” she asks.
I press my lips together.
I sit on the bed next to her, my eyes drawing to her long legs on display. I want to touch her skin, to place my arm around her, but I’m not sure how she’ll react.
To my surprise she shuffles right up to my side and leans into me, wrapping her arms around my waist. This need to protect her intensifies. To look after her. To keep her.
I slide my arm around her shoulder, tugging her closer, and lean my chin on her head.
This feels so fucking good, I almost have the urge to say it out loud. I let out a deep sigh instead. We stay like that for several minutes.
I don’t want to move away, but I need to sign to her. For an instant I think about voicing what I want to say, then fear takes over and my throat closes up.
I pull back so Savannah can see my hands. “I don’t want you to leave.”
“I d-don’t want to leave either,” she says with a sob.
She even looks pretty when she cries, her lashes all dark from the moisture, her hair all mussed up, the end of her nose slightly pink.
I wipe at the tears on her cheeks before signing. “We just have to figure out a way to make Killian see that you need to stay.”
“How?”
“What are you good at?”
“Marketing.” She sighs.
That doesn’t help us.
“Anything else?”
“I…I know how to put together outfits. I can scour out a bargain better than anyone. How to fix fashion emergencies with needle and thread. I know how to network, to throw dinner parties—”
“You can cook?”
She nods.
I brighten up as an idea forms in my head.
Killian
My heart is as heavy as my steps as I trudge through the farmhouse looking for Savannah. She’s not in her room where I thought she’d be.
I don’t want to tell her she has to leave tomorrow when her car is dropped off. I don’t want to be the bad guy. But I have to think about my brothers. I have to think about what’s best for this farm, for us.
I hear noises coming from a particular direction so I head towards there.
I stop in the archway that leads from the family room into the large kitchen.
Savannah is standing at the stove, several frying pans on lit burners. Aiden is standing near her at the bench, chopping something.
She is singing. The sound of it hits me in the solar plexus. Ma used to sing around the house when she was alive.
Savannah has a beautiful voice. Sweet and melodic.
It takes me a moment to recognize the song “Dream a Little Dream of Me” by Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong.
My parents loved those old jazz classics.
Then I notice the second voice. Quiet but deeper, yet soft in tone.
Aiden is humming in harmony with her.
Oh my God.
Aiden is humming.
It’s not exactly singing but…it’s the first real sound I’ve heard Aiden make since the accident that wasn’t grunting.
I watch them both side by side as they work in the kitchen for a few minutes, hidden at the edge of the doorway. She seems to know what she’s doing. And whatever she’s cooking is starting to smell good.
I’ll wait until after dinner. She deserves a full belly. It’s always easier to take bad news on a full belly.
“Come in,” I call when someone knocks on my office door.
I’m surprised to see Savannah sticking her head in. I’m struck by the prettiness of her face before I scowl at myself.
“What?” I snap.
She flinches for just a second before replying. “Dinner is ready.”
“Just bring in a plate.” I tear my gaze off her and stare back to my computer.
Stupid. She probably knows that you were admiring her.
There’s a long pause. My door doesn’t close.
For fuck’s sake.
I glance up. Savannah is still staring at me.
“What now?” I growl.
“I thought we could all eat at the dining table.”
“I’m busy. Bring in a plate.”
She presses her lips together, the softness of her features replaced with something harder. “Let me rephrase that, dinner is ready. If you want some, you’ll come to the table.”
Before I can argue with her, she closes the door behind her.
I sit at my desk, fuming for several minutes, willing the door to open again and for a plate to appear as I commanded.
It becomes very clear that she’s not going to come back with a damn plate like I asked.
My stomach lets out a growl. I am starving. I haven’t eaten since breakfast. After I got my farm chores done, I was distracted with how the fuck I’m going to keep this farm afloat.
Obstinate woman. She’s in my house, staying under my roof, cooking my food and she can’t even do as I say. I’m going to go out there and give her a piece of my mind.
I push back from my desk and storm through the door of my office, blood boiling. My foot falters for a step as I near the dining room, where I hear a soft chatter of voices and clatter of plates.
