Head First (Quinn Brothers Book 1)

by Samantha Black

  She missed him.

  She wondered if he missed her just as much.

  The valuer turned up late that week as promised, in a low-slung car and a sharp suit. He looked around the cottage with a distinct lack of enthusiasm, and then headed on out to the garden. “It’s a bit run-down, the inside,” he remarked to Alexis, as she showed him around the outside. “You haven’t done it up at all.”

  His attitude rubbed her up the wrong way. It was as if he were accusing her of living in a dump and making no effort to fix it up. She thought of all the hours she had spent scrubbing every surface until it shone, and bristled. “My grandfather lived here on his own for years,” she reminded him, exaggerating her American accent just a little. “I inherited it when he died.”

  “How many sheep do you run here?”

  She told him.

  He shrugged. Without another word to her, he launched a drone to do a flyover of the rest of the farm. His attitude warmed up by the time his drone had got back.

  “Well, the property at least looks in good nick. It’s a good size, too, and farm land like this is in demand at the moment. You should find a buyer quick enough.”

  A process that she had thought would take all day was done in under an hour. She walked him back to his car and gave him a hand to pack away his drone. “The drone must make your life easier.”

  “Saves me getting my feet muddy,” was all he said, and he peeled out onto the road.

  Mason dropped over that afternoon. He looked uncertain of his welcome, but his face cleared when she invited him inside with enthusiasm.

  She felt her heartbeat quicken when he leaned down and gave her a quick peck, which somehow turned into a lingering kiss. “You had visitors earlier, city girl.”

  It was a statement, not a question, but Alexis knew what he was really asking. It was hard to keep anything from anyone in a town this small, let alone hide a visitor when her neighbor had a clear view of her driveway and could see the billows of dust from the fancy car wheels.

  “The valuer came,” she said, busying herself with the dishes on the kitchen bench. Anything to avoid looking at him.

  Mason’s eyes met hers with keen interest. “What did he say about the farm?”

  “He said the land looked good, said it was in high demand at the moment.” She didn’t want to mention what he’d said about the state of the farm house. It still irked her.

  “Did he mention any figures?”

  She frowned. “No. It will take two weeks for him to come back to me.” She still had two more weeks’ reprieve before she had to think too hard about putting her place on the market. Two more weeks before she had to start making concrete plans to go back to New York. That is, if she really wanted to go back.

  His forehead creased. “Two weeks? So, you’ll be selling up then? Going back home?” His voice was flat.

  Her stomach did an uncomfortable backflip. He could at least pretend to be upset that she was going. “It’s not too long to wait. I guess the place will go fast enough once I put it on the market. He said I should have no difficulty in finding a buyer.”

  He reached his hand out and placed it on top of hers. “But what about selling to someone you know? Someone local? Someone you trust to look after it the way that all land deserves to be cared for?”

  She shrugged. “Someone I trust? Well, I trust the valuer to tell me what the place is worth, and then I will trust the realtor I choose to get me an acceptable price for it.” She knew she was being catty, but she wanted to get a reaction out of him. Any indication at all that he was going to miss her when she left.

  His smile was more like a grimace. “Spoken like a true city girl.”

  “That’s what I am. It’s what I’ve always been. I’ve never tried to pretend I was anything else.”

  “Don’t you trust me to buy the land from you? I’ve been nothing but good to you since you arrived here. I thought I would have proven myself to you by now.”

  “By sleeping with me? Is this, is this all that the other night was about to you?” This stung her more than she wanted to let on. She willed herself not to cry. She was not going to cry over another man again, not after she was finally moving on from James.

  “Of course not. I care about you. More than I probably should, given that we have no future together. But I’ve been open with you from the start that I wanted to buy the farm. You came over here because you were hurting, and you wanted to escape the city, and this is all a bit of fun for you—me included. I know that. You’ve made it pretty clear, and I can take the hint. Clearly the novelty is wearing off and you’ll be heading back to your fancy city apartment soon enough. I don’t want you to sell the place to some cashed-up stranger who isn’t going to care about the land like Georgia and I do. I did think that you’d have some respect for what I want, too.”

  “So all this time you were planning to befriend me, to sleep with me, to manipulate me into selling this farm to you? And you think I need to respect you more? What an absolute joke. I bet you’ve been dying to come over here the minute you saw the valuer arrive. Strike while the iron’s hot, and all that.” She wrenched her hand away and stood up. “I think you need to leave now.”

  He stood up and glowered at her. “I didn’t use you. I like you. As I said already. And the sex the other night was hot.”

  Her hands were on her hips. “You said we had no future.” That was what grated on her the most.

  We don’t,” he said baldly. “You are a city girl through and through, and I’m not going to get attached when I know you’re going to leave. Two weeks, two months, two years, it doesn’t matter. It’s the same in the end. We both know you never wanted a farm, and don’t know what to do with it now you have one. I’ve wanted to buy this place for years. But it seems like I’m good enough to sleep with, but not good enough to do business with.”

  Alexis crossed her arms and glared back at him. “If that’s what you think of me, then I think it’s time for you to get out of my house.”

  “Gladly.” He stalked out, taking care to stomp louder than usual, and slammed the door behind him so hard it rattled in its frame. He pulled out of her driveway with a loud screech and shot down the driveway, revving the engine obnoxiously loud.

  Alexis wanted to punch something. She had promised herself that she wouldn’t let this happen. She’d been stupid to sleep with someone she hardly knew, someone that she knew wanted something from her and was determined to get it. What an idiot. If she was going to fall over herself for every handsome man that gave her a smile, then maybe she deserved this.

  What upset her almost as much as his betrayal was the snarky comment he’d made about her capabilities as a farmer. When she recalled her early optimism about getting the farm back on track in a couple of weeks, she wanted to cry at how different her hopes were from reality. She didn’t need a reminder that she was struggling and out of her depth. She had daily reminders of her own every time she was confronted with a new problem that needed to be sorted out: a new broken bit of fence, a sick sheep, a number in the books that didn’t add up.

  She pulled open her laptop on the kitchen table, where it sat next to neatly stacked farm reports. She minimized the multiple spreadsheets of farm accounts she had open and opened Facebook instead. It was far too long since she had spoken to Phoebe and if there was one person in the world right now who she wanted to see it was her best friend.

  Though it was very late, Phoebe answered immediately. She looked as though she had just returned home after a night out. Her hair was curled into bouncy waves that cascaded over her shoulders, a style that Alexis knew had taken at least an hour to get right, and her face was impeccably made up.

  Alexis’s own face was bare, and now her eyes were red rimmed from the tears that she fought to keep at bay. Her hair was messy.

  She felt impossibly ugly all of a sudden.

  She took a deep breath to stop herself from crying. “Oh Phoebe, it’s so good to see your face.”
/>
  Phoebe’s smile dimmed. “Is everything okay?”

  These are the words that you never ask someone that looks upset. Alexis felt her facade crack and the tears she had been trying so hard to hold back spilled down her cheeks. “Oh Phoebs, I’ve made such a mistake coming here. I just want to come home.”

  Her voice broke on the last word and images of her tiny but comfortable apartment back in New York made her feel almost sick. Her rental was small, modern and everything inside it was new. The kitchen was well designed for the size, with a modern stainless steel and black-accented cooktop and oven. She’d chosen the very best kitchen accessories and was proud of her matching sets of high-end cooking utensils.

  In fact, everything in her apartment matched.

  You could hardly find something that contrasted more with Bert’s old, ugly, and mismatched farm house. She looked around her at the cracked linoleum and stained tiles on the kitchen bench and felt a surge of dislike for the farm house, and the tiny town, and the whole tiny New Zealand. “I want to be back in New York. I’m not a farmer.”

  Phoebe’s eyes widened in surprise. “I wish I could give you a hug. Where has this all come from? You said you were starting to get the hang of the farm. What’s made you so upset?”

  “It’s so much harder than I thought it would be. I have an employee who was stealing from me and I fired him, but it was scary, Phoebs, I was honestly scared. And my neighbors hate me, and everyone thinks I’m an idiot coming here.”

  “I don’t think you’re an idiot,” Phoebe said consolingly.

  “Yes, you do,” Alexis said, half laughing and half sobbing. “You told me as much when I left.”

  “Well, that’s true, but I’m trying to make you feel better now.”

  She reached for a tissue and blew her nose. Phoebe always knew how to make her laugh.

  “Have you thought about coming home?”

  “I really want to now. It’s getting too much for me here. But I’m stuck here a bit longer. I really need to get the books in order before I can sell it. They were such a mess.” Even as she said the words, she knew deep down that if she wanted to it would be easy to pack up and leave today, and just tell Mason it was his to buy.

  Phoebe made a sad face. “I miss you too. I think you should just toss it in and get on the next plane home. You’re on a farm of all things, in a tiny country in the middle of the ocean, and the nearest Macy’s is a continent away. You live in a dirty old shack in a grass field surrounded by killer sheep. I don’t understand what’s keeping you there.”

  Alexis ignored her disparaging comment about the farm. She had felt the same before she had been here for a week or two and had fallen in love with the space and the freedom and the fresh air. “Just sorting the books out, now, that’s all that’s keeping me. They were a mess, and I know I can make a better sale just with another week or two of untangling the farm’s finances. And it’s been…nice…to be away.”

  “Is there something you’re not telling me?” Phoebe's voice was mock suspicious but under the joking Alexis knew she was genuinely curious.

  “I—I sort of kissed the neighbor.” She felt her face turn pink. This was the real reason she was staying. She knew it herself, even if she wouldn’t tell Phoebe, not yet.

  “The neighbor that hates you?” Her voice was challenging.

  “He kissed me, but he wants to buy the farm. I think he was just using me. We argued. He thinks I’m a city girl.”

  “Well, you are a city girl. He’s not wrong there.”

  “You’re not helping,” she protested.

  “After the way James treated you, it's only natural that you’d look for comfort from another guy.” There was a pause and Phoebe cleared her throat. “About James though, he did ask me about you the other day…” Her voice trailed off.

  Alexis felt her heart skip a beat. James had asked about her? “What did he ask you?” she asked in a rush.

  “Oh, he just wanted to know how you were. I told him you were managing a sheep farm. You should have seen his face.” Phoebe giggled. “Anyway, I wanted to tell you that. I think he might regret letting you go.” She looked at Alexis in earnest. “I won’t tell him about the kiss with the neighbor, but he’s asked me if you were seeing anyone else yet.”

  Alexis’s heart was now beating very fast and she felt heat rising to her face. She wasn’t sure how she felt about this. She had missed him so much when she had first arrived. “It’s been weeks, weeks and weeks. And he hasn’t tried to contact me.” Her voice was getting higher and higher. “Tell him he made his decision and I made mine, and mine was to come to New Zealand and run a sheep farm and he can leave me alone because I’m over him.”

  Phoebe quirked an eyebrow at her. “Okay, okay, settle down. If he asks me again, I’ll tell him how you feel. I just thought it might make you feel better to know that he is wavering.”

  “Well, it doesn’t,” Alexis retorted. She felt petulant as soon as the words were out of her mouth and only the hurt look on Phoebe’s face made her follow up with an apology. “Sorry Phoebs, thanks for telling me. It’s a bit much to take in right now, to be honest. I was so hurt for so long, and I’m back on my feet now. And I can’t let myself think about him again because I’m setting myself up to be hurt again.”

  “I know.” Phoebe’s voice was thick with sympathy. “He hurt you so badly that you ran away from everything.”

  She choked down another bout of tears. “I really had thought he was going to propose. I’m a double idiot. Idiot for thinking that, and an idiot for running away over here.”

  Phoebe smiled reassuringly. “I thought you were crazy, but I’ll be glad to have you home again. And I think, if you wanted it, that James would want to see you when you get home, too.”

  By the time they ended the call, Alexis was feeling slightly better. She had been trying to keep her thoughts off James since she had arrived and seeing Mason had ensured the hurt from James had well and truly faded.

  Now, after her fight with Mason, knowing that James had asked about her gave her a warm feeling in her chest.

  Alexis rolled out of bed at 5:30 a.m. on the dot, with thoughts of her first cup of coffee on her mind. Her sleep had been fitful and restless, punctuated by dreams of Mason kissing her, then of James in her New York apartment telling her he loved her, then Mason demanding she sell her farm to him for three quarters and a nickel, then James telling her he’d been joking all along and didn’t care about her, and then images of a hundred sheep running through her New York apartment, tearing up the floor with their hooves and splattering mud across the pristine walls and over the ceiling.

  When she woke, she was drenched in sweat, as though she had just run up the seven flights of stairs to her Manhattan apartment.

  Downstairs, the kitchen was dark and cold. Despite being wrapped in a fluffy dressing gown, she shivered. Her feet were encased in large, woolly socks, the type of thing she would have never worn at home but felt were very much needed in this chilly farmhouse. The wood floors, while they certainly looked beautiful (after her week-long cleaning spree) were chilly on her feet even through the thick socks, and she lifted them off the floor and tucked them under her bum on her chair at the kitchen table, pulling her dressing gown tighter around her shoulders.

  Her morning routine now was comfortable and even the early mornings were starting to feel normal. Her routine consisted of cooking two eggs for breakfast, sometimes with toast if she was extra hungry but mostly without. She was still watching her carb intake after all. She would then drink an entire French press pot of coffee, which came to about two full, large cups, then an extra bonus half-full cup if she’d poured too much water in. She would then read the news, both the local New Zealand news and CNN, check her Facebook account, read her personal emails (most of which were promotional material from various clothing stores which were now deleted after a mere glance), and check the online Farmer’s Choice magazine for new articles. She’d look over the calen
dar for the week, check that she was up-to-date with ordering supplies, pay staff invoices and bills, and read updates from Trev’s notes about the sheep. By this time it would be nearly seven, and time for Alexis to throw on her clothes and do a quick round of the farm to check on the sheep.

  This morning, Alexis flicked on the kettle and boiled water for her French press. She didn’t feel hungry, but she took out a pan and quickly made scrambled eggs, which she ate with a sprinkle of salt and a crust of her homemade loaf of bread. The food felt heavy in her stomach and she could barely swallow down half of it before she pushed her plate aside with a sigh and gave it up as a lost cause. She would eat later. The coffee went down easier and she was starting to feel a bit more alive by her second cup.

  She had checked the news this morning but her mind was elsewhere and barely took in a word of the New Zealand news articles: “Pensioner trips over crack in pavement, bruises shin, and sues council for not fixing potholes,” and “Local drug dealer turns up to police station high, complains his marijuana plants were stolen, asks police to track down thieves.” She didn’t even open her Facebook page and as she was up-to-date with invoices and staff payments, she didn’t bother to open her farm worksheets. She was restless, and had a nervous, sick feeling in her stomach. It was barely after six when she threw a coat on straight over her pajamas, tucked her socked feet into her gumboots and headed out onto the farm.

  The first rays of sun were starting to peek over the horizon, throwing golden rays across the heavily dewed grass. She inhaled deeply, breathing in the fresh smell of the farm. In the distance she could hear rustling noises of trees, birds chirping, and this morning, a strange mewing and bleating sort of sound of multiple animals in distress.

  She ran. Down the driveway to the field where the farmhands had moved about a quarter of the sheep a couple of days ago to give them fresh grass to graze. As she ran, the noises got louder and louder, high-pitched bleating noises that made her heart beat rapidly. She arrived at the edge of the fence, panting and with a stitch in her side.