Chapter 1
Poppy
“It’s a little… rural, but you knew that from the pictures,” the real estate agent said cheerfully as she navigated a frozen pothole in her heels. She was a fancy woman from Fernwood. I wasn’t surehowshe got roped into showing this place.
All of Red Oak Mountain was rural. But she was right. This wasruralwith a capital R. As in, you couldn’t find it on a map if you were looking for it. The driveway was a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it affair.
Rural wasn’t a problem for me. I was used to life here on the mountain. But the condition of the propertywasa problem.
As I looked around, the warmth left the day.
The only thing that looked at home here were the crows watching us from their perch in the big, leaning oak tree.
Somehow, the big old farmhouse was even more derelict than it had looked in the photos.
She unlocked the door and took me inside; the temperature a mere ten degrees higher than the outside world.
“There’s another person putting together a bid right now. So if you want it…”
I knew exactly what that meant. In order to snag this house, I needed to act fast.
And despite the condition of the place, I knew I’d put in an offer.
I sneezed as dust filtered through the air, kicked up by our footsteps.
The first thing I’d need to do was give this place a deep clean. The previous owners had left an old couch in the living room, and it looked like a family of mice might have taken up residence inside it.
Every inch of the house needed some kind of repair. The living room wall was warped and held at least three generations of different paint jobs on its walls. The kitchen… well, let’s not talk about the kitchen. It would be a gut job. Better to start from scratch.
But I could see a bright future for this farmhouse once the old-fashioned window panes had been cleaned, the kitchen repainted, and the old wooden floors lovingly restored.
It would be a rough start, and it would take a lot of elbow grease, but it would bemine. And I’d love it with every ounce of my being.
I shivered and wandered to the window, peering through the dusty glass. It was frosty from the cold, ice forming on the wrong side of the glass. That would be another thing to fix.
“Which way does Corbin live?”
“Uh, Mr. Wallace lives further down, past the bend in the driveway.”
“And that’s the shared driveway?”
Her face fell, and I could tell she thought she was losing out on her commission.
“Yeah. That’s it. But there’s alotof distance between the two structures, so you won’t need to see him except when he drives by. I hear he mostly keeps to himself these days.”
I snickered lightly under my breath.
Both of us knew the reason the asking price was so low wasn’t because of the lack of maintenance or the trash the previous owners had left behind. And it wasn’t because of a few mice who’d set up temporary residence.
It was because of Corbin Wallace.
He was a grouch built like a six and a half foot bear who didn’t get along withanyoneon Red Oak Mountain. He’d chased the last five owners off this property. And his bad moods were infamous.
All my friends thought I was insane for even thinking about buying this place.
But I didn’t have the luxury of looking for a Corbin-free property. And maybe he wasn’t as bad as people said.
There were a lot of rumors. But I’d learned from experience that rumors weren’t always true.
