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I stand and flatten down my shirt. “Thank you, Matilda. I will go.”
She claps in front of her face frantically. “Yay!”
“And ifheasks…” I jerk my head in the direction of Xavier’s office. “Tell him I’m working from the café today. I’ll be back by nightfall; the checklist for the cabin looks pretty straightforward.”
Matilda sighs and the longing in her eyes returns. “You really think he’ll ask me? Oh, wow. What will I say? He never talks to me.”
I shake my head, grab the file for the inspection and race towards accounts.
CHAPTER TWO
Colt
Acoldraindropfallson my arm and I roll my sleeve up and grip the axe harder. The skies are darker than they were five minutes ago, and maybe for once, those fucking jerkoffs at the weather office won’t be wrong.
“Argh!” I swing the axe and the wood splits in half. Almost dead-eye centered. “Only another fifteen to go.”
I kick aside the split log and stack the next one on the splitting surface. Another whack sends this to the ready pile, and I’ve barely broken a sweat.
A balmy breeze stirs in the trees behind my cabin, but I’ve been up here long enough to know the storm is at least an hour away. I have plenty of time to prepare the garden and secure my tool shed, but as a distant crash of thunder echoes down the mountainside, something about the smell hanging in the air tells me this storm isn’t normal.
I split another log and toss it aside, eyeballing the bend in the trees. Another angry growl rumbles in the sky and I’m second-guessing myself. I know this land better than I know myself, that’s what you get when you put your heart and soul into something for so long.
This land is my life. Literally.
I lift the axe and swing it over my shoulder. When I connect with the wood, a crash louder than anything I’ve ever heard before sends me falling to the ground, shielding my head like a lost child.
“Fuck! What the-”
I look up to the skies and heavy rainfall begins to fall around me. The sky lights up with bright flashes of lightning in all directions. It’s a brilliant light show put on by Mother Nature herself with flashes illuminating the dark sky.
“Fuck me. I was wrong.”
I grab the logs and start tossing them in the wheelbarrow, shoving the wet flannel sleeves cutting into my forearms up. I steer the load across the paddock and quickly latch the tool shed closed. Cascades of rain tumble down the old tin roof that I’ve sworn I’ll replace a million times, but I force the rusty old lock shut across the door and step back out into the rainfall.
With as much hustle as a big man like myself can manage, I go to move quickly but my eyes catch on something gleaming in the far paddock by the roadside. The yellow glow of headlights in the distance appears momentarily. As quickly as it flicked before my eyes, it disappears again.
I hold a hand over my eyes, feeling as if they’re playing a trick on me. Maybe it was just lightning? Surely no one would be so stupid as to drive up the mountain in this weather? I know my hatred of pretty much all humankind sometimes gets in the way of my emotions, I mean, that’s why I escaped to the mountains over ten years ago.
But seriously, the mountains are dangerous at the best of times. And in weather like this, any dipshit who is driving on the slippery roads right now should be shot.
Nah. It couldn’t have been a car.
A glacial burn of devastatingly cold air gushes around me and I’m squinting across the downpour. It’s not in my nature to come to the rescue, but I’m still human after all. I might be a giant, burly mountain man with an impressive beard and ripped flannel shirts, but I’m not a complete asshole. The wheelbarrow is quickly filling with a thin layer of rainfall and the wood I’ve split is getting soaked. The collection of hand-picked vegetables I’ve harvested is getting a good wash but now I’m just looking down at the small pile and hoping I’ve picked enough to last until the storm passes.
I didn’t think it would be this big.
I grab the handles of the barrow and go to head back to the cabin, but then, the lights appear again.
“Fucking hell,” I growl, dropping the wheelbarrow with a thud. It almost tips over. “If these assholes are lost, I’ll give them something to be scared of.”
My long hair is hanging over my shoulders as I stomp across the paddock, squeezing the moisture gathering in my beard. My boots are heavy, a thick layer of mud clinging with each step I take towards the vehicle waiting at the bottom gate of my paddock.
My cheeks heat the closer I get. Seriously, that person is thick. They’re jumping out of the vehicle now. A growl deepens in my throat as I watch them start to unhook the gate while using a fucking clipboard as an umbrella.
“Who the fuck are you?” I shout, my voice booming.
I trek through the mud, watching the figure scuttle back towards the vehicle as the gate swings open.
