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Chapter Two
"Istill don’t understandwhy you left! He’s cute, right?"
Grace huffed out a breath, forcing a bright smile as a tractor wagon of wildly waving children rumbled past. It was camp week, the first of several the farm would host, and greeting the children, processing them in, and explaining the rules of the farm ate up a small chunk of her morning, as it would for the rest of the week. She turned to the dryad once the tractor had pulled the kids out of sight and rolled her eyes dramatically.
Caleia was the farm's recordkeeper, the tree to which she was tied being the largest and oldest on the property. There was no Farmer's Almanac or field manual that could predict seasonal rainfall with the pinpoint accuracy that she could, nor was there any computer system in existence that shared her long memory for soil rotations, late frosts, and annual yields from each and every tree. She didn't concern herself with the animals, but when it came to the trees and crops, Caleia was the farm's most valuable resource. The nymph had been the one to show Grace around on her first day and had quickly become one of her closest friends, but she was also, Grace thought with a scowl, a first-rate instigator.
"So what if he’s cute? What does that even mean? Lots of people are cute. Who cares?! He’s cute, but he’s also slept with half the town.AndI don’t need to be screwing around with someone I see every day," she plowed on, ignoring the tree nymph’s attempt to interrupt. "That will just make work awkward and I like it here too much to screw things up. There are a million guys in the world, I don’t need to fuck around with one I’m forced to see every day. So stop trying to make this happen, because you’re not going to win."
"Ugh,fine! You know, you make it really hard to have fun when you’re so damned responsible all the time."
The memory of the free show she’d given to the mystery watcher in her tree the night before heated her cheeks.Not always so responsible. She'd woken that morning with a slight headache, somewhat surprised to find herself naked beneath the quilt, until the slick slide of her thighs brought the previous night's activities roaring back. She laid in bed pinching the bridge of her nose well past the time she normally got up, contemplating all that had happened the evening before. She'd nearly had sex with her coworker. She'd masturbated in front of an unknown stranger, possibly a creeper, potentially one of her neighbors.Impulsive, irresponsible, incautious. You’re lucky you weren’t murdered.
She'd still been sex-slick as she attempted to shower away the heaviness in her head, reaching a hand out to steady herself against the wet shower tiles as her fingers stroked into her heat, coating themselves in the viscous evidence of her continued arousal. She'd come against the pulsing pressure of her showerhead wand before dressing for the day, trying to put the previous evening behind her. The sight of her neighbor had her face flaming scarlet as she got into her car that morning, returning the balding satyr’s wave, rememberingthosethoughts with a groan.You’re practically ready to turn this into a spectator sport. ‘Come fuck the horny human on Persimmon Street, bring a friend!’ Maybe Caleia's right. Maybe you really should just let Brogan fuck you, get this out of your system once and for all.
"You certainly cut out early last night," he’d breezed casually that morning, approaching her table with his normal self-assured swagger. While the outline of his huge horns cut an impressive shadow across the pavement, her cheeks had still been warm from the previous night's audience, the slick between her thighs caused by the remembrance of a buzzing hum and odd little chirps. The pendulum of her game with her minotaur coworker had once again swung into the 'won't we' direction, and she had her voyeur to thank for it.
"I really wasn't in the mood for much socializing," she'd answered as sunnily as she could. "Like I told Caleia, I really don't like going out on pickup nights." It was innocent and innocuous, but he got the message, leaving her with a small chuckle. She knew his feelings weren't hurt, and it was just as likely that he hadn't gone home alone that night. Brogan's reputation preceded him — he was a well-known fuck boy, but he was still a good guy.That doesn’t mean you need to screw things up at work by sleeping with him.
Cal cantered up the long drive as she shook the thought away. "How big was that troll family?! We restocked enough food to fill the cases again. I'm not gonna lie and say I'm not happy to sell it twice, but can we make sure we get a hold of them?"
"Already did it. Talked to the wife this morning, asked if she wanted anything shipped, and she said no. Didn't even want a refund, so I guess we can think of it as their donation back to the program. I'm pretty sure they had like eight kids, so that's actually a pretty big order off the books, I’ll probably need to book two families into their slot to match the spend."
The big centaur spat in the dirt with a chuckle. His sharp eyes and brusque demeanor had intimidated her when she'd come for her interview, but since that first day, Grace had been delighted to learn that Cal was eager to embrace her ideas on bringing the farm into the current century.
"It's a digital age," he had moaned that day, shaking her hand and welcoming her to the team. "I guess it's about time we at least had a CrowdJournal page."
He enjoyed reminding everyone who would listen that he was a fifth generation centaur farmer, that this land had been in his family’s possession long before Cambric Creek was incorporated as a town, and rather than roll her eyes the way the rest of the staff did whenever the oft-repeated tale was trotted out, she had endeavored to make it a part of the farm's branding.
Saddlethorne was a Cambric Creek landmark, she wrote in their new ad copy — ads themselves that were brand-new, her first budgetary expense — just as historic as the Applethorpe Gardens; just as important to the community as the waterfall's overlook bridge, commissioned a century earlier by Erastus Slade; and far older than the crystal chandelier hanging in the domed foyer of the old public theater building on the center of Main Street where Jack Hemming kept his office, on the center of Main Street. “For five generations, Saddlethorne had been feeding the community,” she wrote, “a leader in Cambric Creek's booming agricultural segment, and a hub of activity for visitors, young and old alike.”
"Who did this?" he had demanded after the first half-page spread had run in the community's small local paper. She’d not been sure how to answer, meekly raising a shaking hand that day, as Caleia and Zeke exchanged confused looks. Her face had been like a tomato as he read the ad aloud, certain she was going to need to find a new job already, when Cal folded the paper down, revealing a sharp-edged grin. "You wrote that bit about Jack's office?" She nodded again, but Cal had already thrown his head back in laughter. "And they said I didn't need to hire someone," he rasped, dropping the paper on her table. "Been here two weeks, and she's already worth every gods-damned penny." When the piece of newspaper turned up in a small picture frame hung on the office wall, Grace realized she was safe.
She wasn't certain if Cal had initially thought she would do anything for his business beyond creating a few social media pages and booking the farm for a handful of weddings each year, but he knew better now, frequently joking that if he were to start an employee of the month program, her face would grace the walls over and over again.
"Well, I have no doubt you'll have those slots filled by the end of the day. Looks like another full schedule for the week."
"Two more camp groups are coming in today, and the Woodlands Scouts want to get something on the calendar. We have six weddings this month, so maintenance really is going to have their work cut out for them."
Cal laughed again. "If maintenance is looking thin, Zeke is going to learn to push a broom. Keep up the good work, ladies!"
They watched the big centaur canter off, heading in the direction of the barns, and Caleia rolled her eyes.
"You really are the biggest kiss ass. Don't think you're off the hook. Just because you know how to book weddings doesn't mean I'm going to let you throw yourself into farm events every single day for the whole summer. You’re going to meet someone if I have to drag you out by the hair every night of the week."
Caleia's words had more than an edge of truth, she knew, but that didn't stop her from preening under the taciturn centaur's frequent praise.If only Torm could see you now.After all, event planning was a dead end career, as her ex had so frequently chided her.
She had been finishing a hotel management and hospitality degree when they'd met, and had fallen into the wedding planning business completely by accident. Tormand was in construction, working his way steadily up the ladder at the company he’d been with since he was practically a teenager, from the grueling labor of the job site to the more comfortable confines of the site office. She was working as the assistant venue manager at a hotel, helping wedding planners every week. Torm worked long days and she was gone nearly every weekend, and it hadn’t been long before the cracks had begun to show. One contact had led to another, and before she'd known it, Grace was spending all of her time planning happily-ever-afters for other people, as her own relationship deteriorated.
"You need to find a real job," he would grumble in the evenings, as she sat before her color-coded spreadsheets, with the neat little boxes she used to compartmentalize every facet of her job, wishing there was a spreadsheet large enough to fit her relationship into as well.
"Thisismy job," she would remind him tonelessly. "This is what my degree is in, remember?"
"The fact that they even offer a degree in party planning is a joke."
"Well, I guess that makes me a clown. But the last time I checked, this joke is paying half our bills." They had been together five years at that point; five years of what she was able to recognize now as emotional abuse — of complaints and gaslighting and tiny insults, like microscopic shards of glass beneath her skin, chafing until she bled, an interior wound that never healed, scraping her raw.
Work had been her escape. She'd thrown herself into her job, finding a headset that fit over her puffy blonde curls without pulling at her ears, a peach-colored leather cover for her tablet which was always in hand as she went over spreadsheets and checklists, and a cheerful shade of cherry lipstick that was neither too garish nor too vampish. She bought a wardrobe of brightly-colored dresses that flattered her pear-shaped figure and heels that were comfortable to run in. She kept an unflappable, sunny smile and a can-do attitude in the face of endless bridal emergencies and rampaging mothers-in-law, rearranged banquet tables herself, and had become fairly proficient at redoing floral arrangements. She arranged veils and straightened torques, moved gumpaste flowers to camouflage slightly smushed cakes, and never went anywhere without a pocket-sized package of tissues to dab at eyes and preserve flawless makeup.
