by Debbie Mason
Owen looked at Abby like she wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed. Hunter had thought the same, but he was beginning to think he may have misjudged her.
In her next breath, she proved she’d misjudged Owen. “And, Mr. Chief of Police, don’t think you can scare me away. My great-aunt left me the farm. Not you. Or you.” She looked at Hunter with fire in her eyes. “So you both can take your sour grapes on out of here and leave me alone. I have work to do.”
Hunter grimaced. In his old friend’s eyes, she’d just thrown down the gauntlet. Owen wasn’t a bad guy but he’d loved Liz, and he was still hurting over her loss. He didn’t just resent that Abby had been left the farm instead of him or Hunter; he didn’t feel she deserved it. Not only was she an outsider, she’d never had anything to do with Liz. Hunter understood where Owen was coming from. He felt the same way.
“Don’t worry, Fancy Pants. We’ll leave you to your work as soon as Eden arrives with the paperwork for you and Hunter to sign.” He looked up at the farmhouse. “Word of advice: you might want to start with the roof. You never know what sort of animals found their way into the house.”
Hunter sighed at the shadow of panic that crossed Abby’s face. It was all well and good for Owen to scare her—he wouldn’t be the one who had to deal with her. Then, as though to cover her reaction, she struck a confident pose, flipping her braid over her shoulder, cocking her hip, and thrusting out her chest. The watermark from her braid had rendered the white part of the dress see-through, reminding him of the view from the bedroom window a short time ago.
His fingers curled into fists when the image that was seared into his brain caused the muscles low in his belly to tighten with desire. All bets were off now. Self-preservation overrode his ingrained need to protect her.
So he met her challenging stare with one of his own. “Owen’s right. I know for a fact you’ve got mice; spiders are a given. But I wouldn’t be surprised if you’ve got squirrels and raccoons. Hope your rabies shot is up to date.”
“There better not be squirrels or raccoons in the house or you two have some explaining to do,” Eden said as she stepped onto the patio with a large cellophane-wrapped basket in her arms. Hunter’s younger brother’s wife was a beautiful woman with wavy, caramel-colored hair. And like the rest of Hunter’s family, she could be a pain in his ass when she wanted to be.
“Don’t you go giving us crap, Eden. You’re the one who told us the farmhouse was off-limits after Lizzie’s funeral,” Owen reminded her.
She had, but other than today, he and Owen had steered clear of the place anyway. It wasn’t the same without Liz. There were too many reminders of her here.
Ignoring Owen, Eden handed Abby the basket. “Welcome to Highland Falls. You mentioned you were taking the red-eye from LA so I figured the last thing you’d want to do is go to the grocery store. I had them put extra muffins, sausage, crackers, cheese, and fruit in the basket. It should tide you over until tomorrow afternoon at least.”
“Oh my gosh. That was so nice of you. Thank you so much.” Abby hugged the basket, clearly touched by the gesture.
“It was my pleasure,” Eden said with a smile as she removed her purse strap from her shoulder and walked to the table. “We’ll get the legal stuff over with, and then we’ll get better acquainted. I’ll give you the lowdown on who’s who in Highland Falls.”
“That’d be great,” Abby said as she put the basket down beside Eden’s purse.
Hunter’s sister-in-law pulled out a stack of papers and two pens. “You probably know by now that you share Liz’s inheritance with Hunter.”
“Yes. He says he owns most of the property and the barn?” She said it in a way that suggested she thought he was lying. Or at least hoped he was.
“He does. I can walk the boundaries with you later, but you own the farmhouse, the property behind it, in front of it, up to the main road—which you share—and then to the top of the meadow, or hill, you could say.”
Abby cast a self-conscious glance from him to Owen, then squared her shoulders. “Did my aunt happen to leave any money for repairs? There’s quite a lot of work that needs to be done.”
Owen clamped his cigar between his teeth, speaking around it. “Don’t you go changing a thing. Lizzie loved the old place just the way it is. She didn’t change anything when her grandmother left it to her, and her grandmother didn’t change a thing when her mother-in-law left it to her.”
Hunter imagined there was some truth to what Owen said, but there’d been repairs that he’d offered to take care of for Liz that had nothing to do with the aesthetics of the farm, and she’d always refused. She’d gotten downright ornery when he’d taken it upon himself to repair the porch. Threatened to throw him off her property if he didn’t leave it be, so he had. He’d thought maybe her putting things off had to do with lack of funds and pride, but during the six months before she’d died, he’d begun to suspect something else was at play. He just hadn’t figured out what.
Eden cast Abby an apologetic smile before saying to Owen, “Would you mind going to my car and getting my tape measure for me? I want to mark off the property line for Abby.”
Owen got to his feet muttering about knowing when he wasn’t wanted. He’d know as well as Hunter did that Eden wanted to get rid of him.
His sister-in-law waited until Owen disappeared around the side of the farmhouse to say, “Please don’t be offended. Owen adored Liz, and he’s having a difficult time dealing with her death. My brother-in-law is too, though he’d deny it under torture. You’re not fooling anyone, Hunter. We all know how much you loved Liz. She felt the same way about you. She adored him,” Eden told Abby. “Hunter took care of your aunt the entire time she was sick.”
Okay, he’d heard enough. “I’ve got things to do. Call me when you want me to sign the papers.”
As he walked away, he heard Eden explaining that while there was no money for repairs, Liz knew what a softie Hunter was, and she’d been sure he’d lend Abby a hand.
Eden brought the papers over for Hunter to sign before she headed for home, repeating what he’d overheard her telling Abby earlier. Liz would expect him to lend her great-niece a helping hand. And his sister-in-law expected him to be a good neighbor.
It was after midnight when Hunter heard his neighbor scream. He was sitting on a tree stump, leaning against the barn, the logs burning in the open fire pit filling the warm night air with the smell of wood smoke. The moon was high and bright above him as he sketched his vision for the eagle that had come to him in a dream.
Wolf sat up and nudged his thigh. Hunter ignored him just like he ignored Abby’s second and third screams. As much as they’d teased her, other than spiders, a mouse or two, or possibly a bat, she wasn’t in any danger.
Chapter Four
Abby stood bleary-eyed and exhausted near a small patch of grass sipping a cup of coffee while she waited for Bella to do her business. Birds flitted from tree to tree nearby, twittering and chirping. Abby squinted into the early morning sunlight to ensure they were little birds and not birds big enough to carry off her dog. While searching the branches, she caught a glimpse of canary yellow just beyond the trees and glared at the barn.
She’d found a mouse on the foot of her bed at midnight. Then, as if her screams had opened the gates of the wild kingdom, a bird dive-bombed her. And while she and Bella hid under the covers with the flashlight on her phone, she came face-to-face with a giant spider.
She shuddered at the memory of the terrifying encounter. She’d spent the rest of the night sitting in the rocking chair in the living room with a blanket pulled tent-like over her and Bella.
But if Hunter thought he could scare her off, he’d learn soon enough that she didn’t scare easily. Well, she kinda did, but her perfect Instagram-worthy life would remain just a dream unless she got the funds from the sale of Honeysuckle Farm, so she wasn’t going anywhere.
He was deluded if he thought he could get rid of her that easily just bec
ause she was a city girl. She was made of sterner stuff and had a few tricks of her own up her sleeve. She’d take a page from his book. She couldn’t afford to buy him off so she’d scare him off instead.
And not with mice or spiders or the terrifying sounds of wild beasts that came around two in the morning. She highly doubted that anything in the great outdoors would scare the former Special Forces solider. That unsurprising Hunter Mackenzie tidbit had been provided by his sister-in-law, who was so much nicer than her brother-in-law and Owen.
Abby raised the mug to her nose, inhaling all that caffeinated goodness. Along with the rich, nutty fragrance she detected a hint of lavender. She took a sip and hummed with pleasure. She could see herself becoming addicted to the exclusive cup of joe from Highland Brew. Eden’s best friend was one of the owners, and the place sounded exactly like something Abby would’ve been all over before Puppy-Gate.
Located in an old mill, Highland Brew served their exclusive brands of coffees by day, and their craft beers at night. They also featured live bands on weekends and had an open mic. It sounded like fun, something Abby hadn’t had in months. But high-end coffee beans and fun weren’t exactly in her budget and wouldn’t be until the farmhouse sold.
The hope that she’d be putting Honeysuckle Farm and Hunter and Owen in her rearview mirror by the end of next week had gone out the window when her to-do list hit fifty. Her revised goal was to have it on the market in three weeks and sold by the second week of July, which was four weeks away. After that, she imagined the housing market would die off until September. If she had to stay that long, she was pretty sure she’d die too.
Tackling the to-do list on her lonesome would probably lead to her untimely demise, but that’s where Hunter and her plan came into play. While nothing in the great outdoors would scare the six-foot-four manly man, she was betting that a helpless city girl who was afraid of her own shadow and who could talk until the sun went down would have him running for the hills. Better still, doing whatever she asked him to do to get rid of her.
She smiled at Bella, who was doing her impression of a baby bull, pawing at the grass with her hind legs, and scooped her up. “Time for us to get our girly girl on, Boo. We have a mountain man to terrify.”
She froze at the warm tingle low in her stomach. Surely she wasn’t excited at the prospect of seeing said mountain man again? She brushed the thought aside, telling herself not to be ridiculous. It was the idea of Hunter taking care of her to-do list that had brought on the warm tingle.
But the image that immediately popped into her head suggested it was the former rather than the latter. In her mind, Hunter appeared shirtless. His drool-worthy sculpted back was to her, his golden skin glistening, his muscles flexing as he hammered the ceiling above her bed. When a wanton redhead who looked uncomfortably familiar appeared in said bed, Abby quickly blinked the image from her mind before it became not just uncomfortable but X-rated.
Any further thoughts about hot times with hunky Hunter and his hammer ended when her cell phone rang and she picked it up to check the screen—a FaceTime call from her mom. Obviously, Abby’s texts reassuring her mother and her stepsisters that she and Bella were fine and enjoying the spa treatments at the resort hadn’t been enough to alleviate their concerns.
She looked around for a suitable location to take the call and caught a glimpse of a flowering bush with sweet-smelling trumpet-like flowers of orange and yellow at the side of the farmhouse. She hurried over to pose in front of the picture-perfect bush.
As she pressed Accept, she realized her lack of sleep had messed with her thinking (her first clue should’ve been her hot-contractor fantasy). She should’ve been focusing more on what she looked like than the backdrop. Although both could trigger an over-the-top reaction from her mother.
Abby forced a wide smile. She’d blame the bags under her eyes and her pasty-colored skin on a spa treatment that had gone wrong. She raised her hand to her head as the call connected. She wasn’t sure what she’d blame for her hair. It looked like she’d stuck a wet finger in a light socket—either that or the wanton redhead in her fantasy had had some off-the-charts sexy times in bed. It seemed no amount of hair product could tame her wild curls today or the wild fantasy she couldn’t stop thinking about.
Her stepsisters appearing on the screen without their mom took care of it right away. “What’s going on? Is everything okay?”
The only time Haven and Haley called without Abby’s mother was when they needed her advice. As perfect as they were, they were still teenagers, and there was stuff no teenage girl wanted to talk to their mother about. Especially a mother who thought the sun, moon, and stars rose in you. Not in her, obviously, but in her sisters.
Haven and Haley stared at her. “What happened to you, Abs?” Haley asked, as she was the more direct of the two.
Abby touched her face. “You’re not going to believe this, but I’m allergic to seaweed. Maybe it happens when you eat as much sushi as I do. Who knows?” She shrugged. “Anyhoo, they tried to counteract the hives with a soothing milk treatment, and that didn’t work either. And my hair…” She looked around and lowered her voice. “I swear the woman must’ve had shares in Chandler’s cosmetics company. Can you believe…?” She trailed off at the expressions on their faces. “What is it?”
They shared a glance, then Haven nodded at Haley. “We know, Abs. We know everything.”
Abby’s heart dropped to her feet. They couldn’t know everything she’d been telling them was a lie. “What are you talking about?” She tried to force a confused look onto her face but was able to manage only a strained smile.
“Everything. We know that Chandler sued you and that he divorced you.”
As though she read the panic on Abby’s face, Haven interrupted Haley, “Mom doesn’t know. We didn’t tell her, and we won’t.” She touched her baby finger to the screen. “Pinky swear.”
Abby let out a slow, leaky breath. She could get through this. The worst hadn’t happened. Her mom had no idea what was going on, and Haven and Haley didn’t know she was broke or that she’d been homeless.
“I’m sorry. I should’ve told you guys but you were out of the country, and I didn’t want to worry you.”
“We’re not babies anymore, Abs. We’re your sisters, and we want to be there for you as much as you’ve been there for us. If it wasn’t for you, we wouldn’t have been able to take a gap year or travel the world with Mom and Dad.”
“It wasn’t like I footed the bill for you guys to jet around the world staying in five-star hotels. You lived in remote villages, helping to make a difference for girls, and I was honored to be able to play a small part in that.” It was because they’d been living in remote corners of the world for the better part of a year that Abby had held on to the hope that they wouldn’t find out what happened to her.
“Are you sure you’re okay, Abs?” Haven asked.
“Of course I am.” She pointed at her hair and made a face. “Despite what it looks like, I’m fine. Honestly, you guys don’t have to—”
Haley cut her off. “They said you lost everything. That you’re broke.”
So they knew more than she’d given them credit for. “Okay, listen, I’m not going to lie to you. The last few months have been pretty awful, but things are looking up now.”
She stepped away from the bush, let Bella down to explore, and turned the phone toward the farmhouse.
“I know it doesn’t look like much,” she said as she took them for a tour of the grounds. She didn’t want to take them inside in case she ran into a mouse or a spider or a rabid racoon. Plus, if they thought the outside needed work…
“Did your great-aunt leave you enough money to hire a contractor?” Haley, ever the practical one, asked.
Both girls looked at her, and she couldn’t bring herself to lie to them, at least about this. Besides, it was a teachable moment. They could be on this journey virtually with her as she got back on her feet and reclaimed her
dream. Everything came so easy to them—she was as much to blame for that as her mother (not to mention they were blessed in the beauty and brains departments)—but one day their luck might change, and her journey would provide them with a road map.
“No, she didn’t. But I’m resourceful, and I have it all figured out. You’re not going to recognize this place once I’m finished with it.”
“But, Abs, you have no money, and you don’t know anyone there,” Haley said.
“Uh, do you remember who you’re talking to? I didn’t know anyone when I moved to LA and I barely had any money. All I had was passion and persistence, and look how well that worked out for me.” The reminder was good for her. She had to stop thinking about all she’d lost, let go of the past, and focus on the future.
“You still would’ve been living the life if you hadn’t married Chandler,” Haley said.
“I know. I should’ve listened to you guys. But you were fourteen and in love with Justin Bieber, so I didn’t really trust your taste,” she teased. Her mother had loved Chandler, but Haven, Haley, and her stepdad hadn’t been fans.
“You can joke all you want but it’s not fair you lost everything because of him. If it weren’t for you, Chandler’s company would still be experimenting on animals with no one the wiser. You saved Bella. And now you’re living all by yourself in the middle of nowhere.” Haven chewed her thumbnail. “Are you sure you’re going to be okay? Haley and I can come stay with you. We can help.”
She had no doubt they could—they’d built schools in Africa and India. And the nights would be less scary with them there. But as much as she could use their help and company, she didn’t want to ruin their summer. “You guys haven’t seen your friends in months, and I’m sure you have a list of volunteer projects in Shady Mills as long as my repair list. I want you to enjoy your summer. Besides, I’m fine. I’m not alone.”
She told them about Hunter, leaving out the part that he’d most likely terrorized her last night. In her version, he was the neighbor of every woman’s fantasy instead of what he actually was: the neighbor from hell.