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“You need to put a time line in place. Set a financial goal and if it’s not getting there you need to reassess your plans.”
“I’m on top of the paperwork.”
He stepped closer as she struggled to mask her feelings.
“Your business is important. You work damned hard here, I can see for myself, but you should know the figures coming from each acre and the cost to run each acre.”
“I know you’re right, but I don’t have the time.” She winced at her own excuse.
Her words hung there between them.
Josh shook his head. His eyes locked on hers, and her heart rate kicked up a notch. “Heavens, Kristy, you’re on your own, you’re taking a huge financial risk on your own. You don’t have a safety net.” He cocked his head in her direction. “Therefore, it matters more.”
In a blink she stepped back. The intensity of his gaze was too much. “I don’t know why you’re so fired up about it. It’s not your life or your business.”
He shot her a dangerous glare. “I care, and so should you.”
She swallowed hard. Care? What was he talking about?
“You care? Why?” she asked.
“You’re Amanda’s best friend, the godmother to my sons; of course I care.”
Kristy’s body stilled as her heart plummeted to a new depth.He’s not seeing me!She stared at him, hurt to the core. She knew he spoke the truth, that they barely knew one another. But his words hit a painful truth nestled somewhere in her psyche: he saw her as Amanda’s best friend and nothing more.
It was time to go. She definitely needed to find a way to deal with her mixed feelings around Josh.
“Come on, you’re here to pick up your Christmas tree.”
CHAPTER5
Two evenings later Kristy walked out of her Christmas shop carrying a tray of cut-up onions and sausages. The small cottage had been her home for the past five years and this was the first December she’d turned her loungeroom into the Christmas shop.
She didn’t mind that the cottage was still a renovator’s delight – she loved that it sat at the highest point on the property and gave her a clear view of all of the surrounding paddocks. It also caught the breeze of a late afternoon, something she enjoyed during summer.
Her eye spotted some paper wrapping caught around the footing of one of the chairs on the verandah. It kept flapping as Kristy held firm to the tray and managed to bend down, grab it and toss it into the bin.
So far the figures from the sales of her trees were looking good and she hoped that continued. The constant activity and noise around her home were a nuisance and nothing more. As long as her little side hustle made enough to put a dent in her mortgage she didn’t mind being put out for one month each year.
Tonight she had one thing on her mind as she headed back to the stables. A burst of laughter shot out of the courtyard adjacent to the stables. She glanced across to see her polocrosse team mates doing an impromptu line dance without music. Kristy quickened her pace.
As the newly appointed captain and manager of their team, Kristy had decided to start a weekly catch-up in an effort to get them to think and work as a team. They’d all been friends for years, but apart from training once a week and playing on a Saturday morning that’s where it ended.
Tonight she had a surprise. It was time the team seriously thought about how they were going to start winning matches in the new year.
She wasn’t what she’d call a business guru, but she wasn’t green when it came to understanding the relationship between a buyer and a seller. The girls played to keep fit and socialise, but apart from their families, nobody in town came to see their matches. They needed a following, a permanent fan base, to help keep them positive throughout a match. The men’s team had a following, but their fans did not stick around to watch the women.
Kristy saw Zoe climb onto the old rocking chair with a broom and start dancing.
They needed to think like winners.
“Look out below,” bellowed Rex from the roof of the stables.
Kristy froze mid-step, heard a thud from behind followed by the sound of metal clashing. She spun around to see a hessian bag had landed on the lawn behind her. Half a dozen horse-shoes spilled out onto her lawn.
The laughter from the courtyard ceased, and all the girls turned to her. She looked up. Rex shrugged his shoulders as if his “look out below” warning was good enough. The man had a good heart, but she’d asked him to clear out a blockage in the guttering weeks ago and it exasperated her that he was finally getting to it when she had the team over. Kristy kept a lid on her annoyance.
“Rex!”
