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She rubbed a knuckle between her eyebrows, trying to soothe the headache that was pulsing under her skin. Why did everything in her life have to happen so suddenly? She was never given enough time — not when her mom died, not when her dad died, not when Scott decided to pick up and move to Tennessee at a moment’s notice. Life just threw things at her without giving her the opportunity to brace herself, and it was exhausting, like a rollercoaster ride that never gave her the opportunity to get off.
She couldn’t kid herself; she was kind of mad at the guy who’d bought the place. At least if a farmer, someone who knew this world as well as she did, had bought it, then her family’s legacy would live on in some small way. But the estate agent had been almost gleeful when he’d called her about the fast sale, saying some famous real estate billionaire from Houston had bought the place, sight unseen. If they had doubted what sort of money the guy had behind him, he’d gone ahead and paid for it all in full, like a supervillain or something.
Nicole sighed, unable to shake her headache. This Brendan Greenwood, he was probably just going to divide the place up and build a new suburb, selling off homes. She held out hope that maybe he wouldn’t show up, realizing he was making a mistake.
But of course she couldn’t be that lucky. The sound of tires on the dirt drive made her lift her head. The car that pulled up was a sleek black thing, low to the ground with tinted windows.
I’d love to see you drive that when it gets muddy around here, Nicole thought sourly, before standing up, brushing off her jeans and offering a tight-lipped smile to whoever was behind those darkened windows. She could hate him all she wanted but he was the reason she wasn’t up to her eyeballs in debt right now, so she could play nice for just a little longer.
The car pulled to a stop in front of the house, and the engine cut off just a second before the door swung open. In her head, Nicole had expected someone out of a newspaper cartoon. When you thought of a billionaire, you thought bald and fat and red in the face. At least she did, anyway. She thought of some scaly old man who’d hoarded his wealth for decades and was now spending it on stupid things before he keeled over and died. What Nicole certainlydid notanticipate was the man that stepped out of the black car in one fluid motion. He was tall and lean, built like a racehorse, and his hair was so dark it was almost black, save for the auburn strands highlighted by the sun above them.
She forced herself to come back to reality. He was handsome, sure — good for him. He was also wearing a button-down navy shirt and jeans that were so crisp they looked like they’d been ironed. His boots too were out-of-the-box shiny, and Nicole hoped for his sake he wasn’t thinking of working in them. His feet would be torn to shreds within an hour. They were what a city person wore when they wanted to buy “cowboy boots.” They were pretty boots, sure, but they had a wooden heel on them and looked as stiff as a plank of wood. You could tell a lot about a man by his boots, and Nicole had learned more than enough already.
She wasn’t exactly a chipper person at the best of times, but the tight-lipped smile on her face felt as fake as a forged check.
“Hi,” she said.
“Hello!” He approached — much taller than she was, though most people were — and shook her hand vigorously. “Brendan Greenwood. Pleasure to meet you.”
“Nicole. Brooke.”
“It’s lovely,” he said, looking around. “I’m thrilled to be here.”
“Yeah, well, these are for you,” said Nicole, voice flat as she practically shoved the deeds to the farm and the keys at him. If she held on to them any longer, she wasn’t sure she’d be able to bring herself to let them go. Brendan took them, tucking them both away into his jacket, which seemed far too flimsy to deal with the cold out here on the tail end of winter.
“Thank you,” he said. “I’ll be keeping these safe.”
Every word stung Nicole like shrapnel from a bomb, but she smiled through it. What else could she do?
“Well, this is your first time seeing the place, so I’ll give you a tour before I head out.”
Brendan gave her an award-winning smile and a nod. “I’d appreciate it. Thank you.”
Nicole point-blank refused to let his charisma win her over — not an inch, not one little percent. She really hadn’t wanted to even offer to give a tour, just to hand over the papers and keys and leave before she completely broke down. If it had been just crops that grew here, she would have, leaving Brendan to fend for himself and figure it out. But the cattle… God, this idiot was going to be in charge of an entireherdand she at least wanted to somehow make the transition just a little bit easier for them, so she’d show this guy where the feed was and where the light switches were. It was the least she could do for the animals she had dedicated her life to caring for. She wasn’t willing to admit how much she was going to miss the cattle. If she acknowledged that, then she really would be a mess.
“So, the house is there, obviously.” She pointed over her shoulder at her childhood home. “I’m sure you can manage looking through that on your own. And it’s furnished, like the contract said.”
“Makes moving out much easier for you, I guess,” said Brendan. “Not having to haul it all out.”
Nicole hummed, not able to give an answer. Moving out was the hardest thing she’d ever done. But he didn’t need her life story.
She walked off down the path towards the milking sheds, and while she didn’t exactly feel like making small talk right now, she would never forgive herself if she didn’t use the opportunity to sate her curiosity.
“Can I ask a kind of personal question?”
Brendan looked maybe a little amused, a bit confused, but not insulted. “Uh, sure. Shoot.”
Nicole put considerable effort into asking what she wanted to know in the least rude way possible, considering he seemed to have the farming knowledge of a blunt pencil. “What makes someone, well, from your walk of life just buy a property like this? Like, it’s kind of…”
“Drastic.”
“That’s a word for it.”
He laughed a little to himself. “Yeah, my sister had similar questions.”
Well, at least his sister sounds sensible.At first it didn’t seem like he was going to answer after all, but then, as the silence dragged on a little too long to be comfortable, Brendan shrugged a shoulder.
“I don’t know,” he said nonchalantly. “I guess I just needed a change, you know? I was getting bored in the city, doing the same things day after day, just got way too caught up in the rat race, I guess. Needed a change of scenery. So I figured, hey, let’s trade it all in for the simple life.”
