Page 8 of As It Was (Strawberry Springs #1)

CAIN

Strawberry Springs Neighborhood Watch

Kerry Winsor

The group is SO quiet. What’s up with that?

Comments:

Atticus Thompson : Simone got an A on her grad school final.

Kerry Winsor : That’s not news. We all knew she would. (Congrats, though.) What about Gabriel?

Kerry Winsor : Has nothing else happened? Really? No offense, Atticus, but the Facebook group has been DEAD. Can’t someone race down Main Street to give us something to talk about?

Jackie Anne : Do NOT wish that upon me. I need my beauty sleep in order to do your hair.

Kerry Winsor : Okay, fine. Maybe don’t race down Main Street. But can someone do something interesting?

Jade Clark : I could try to make my zombie candle again.

Grace Day : You should add cinnamon this time .

Kerry Winsor : NO. The square STILL smells like a mix of coffee and jasmine sometimes.

Dale Garrett : I liked it, actually. Wanted to buy a few for the store.

Atticus Thompson : That’s physically impossible, Kerry.

Kerry Winsor : Don’t lecture me about physically impossible when your mother said her bones could predict the weather @Atticus Thompson

Jade Clark : Oooh, harsh.

SherriffMike Finch : I smell it too sometimes ...

There was a woman in my house. One with wavy, golden-brown hair and hazel eyes with dark lashes. Her plush mouth hung open when she saw me, but then she screamed.

She was gorgeous. And I probably would have spent more time on that fact if she hadn’t broken into my fucking house .

She grabbed the closest thing to her, a Jade’s Goodies candle that I was saving for special occasions.

My favorite one too.

“Put that down,” I snapped. My first words should have been what the hell are you doing here? or get the hell out , but dammit, the vanilla lavender scent was always sold out. And I wasn’t going to let a woman who was obviously breaking and entering take that from me.

“No!” she snapped back. “Who are you? What are you doing here?”

“I think the better question is who are you ? And what are you doing in my house?”

She slowly lowered the candle. “Your house? This isn’t your house!”

“I’ve lived here for a decade. ”

“No. No. This place is abandoned. Nicely decorated. But abandoned.”

“Does this look abandoned to you?” I asked. I mean, seriously. I’d put a lot of money into making my house feel like a home. “I’m the manager of Bennie Grove Farm, princess. I live here.”

Now her eyes went wide. “You’re the ... You live here?”

“It’s a perk of the job.”

“But I’m ... I own the farm. I’m Bennie’s granddaughter.”

I took another look at her. Bennie’s granddaughter was nothing more than a ghost to me. He’d always said she would come back, but she never had.

And then he’d died, and she’d stayed gone.

I was sure he’d placed his trust in the wrong person, and looking at her now, I knew I had been right.

Her jeans were tailored to fit her perfectly. Her nails were done in a brown color that looked like a pumpkin spice fucking latte. She screamed class and money. Not a single flaw about her.

She wasn’t from here—that much was for sure.

“The last I checked, the house was in a trust and none of his family cared about it.”

She tilted her head. “It was, but it was supposed to go to me, and now it has.”

It had been a decade of radio silence from Bennie’s family. They’d abandoned the place. And now one of them was here ?

Fuck.

“So, where the hell were you for the last fifteen years?”

“I was busy.”

“Let me guess, in the city. Where you should be.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Well, I’m here now. Whether you like it or not. I own this place. ”

“So, owned by a woman who has no idea that it was open or how to run it?”

She winced, and I knew the answer.

I opened my mouth to curse, but was interrupted.

“Begone, bad guy!” Eric yelled. He ran in with a large branch raised over his head. “This is our house and we’re gonna defend it!”

The candle went back up and I glared again. “Do not use that.” I looked to Eric next. “And stand down, Mr. Guard Dog. We’re not getting robbed.”

“B-but there’s a stranger here,” he said, looking at her. “You are a stranger, right?”

“No, this is Mollie. The owner of the farm.”

“How do you know my name?” she asked.

“Bennie talked about you all the time. Said he wanted you to come back.”

“I guess I’m a little late,” she muttered.

“No kidding.”

“Are you gonna tell me your name, or should I address you as whatever sounds fun?”

“Cain,” I said through clenched teeth. “That’s my name.”

“I’m Eric!” He waved.

“Hi,” she replied before her eyes met mine. “Is this the other worker? Do farms allow child labor?”

“No,” I hissed, rolling my eyes before turning to Eric.

“How did you get in here anyway? I changed the locks years ago.”

“Credit card.”

“And how does someone like you know a trick like that?”

She crossed her arms. “I regularly rob people.” Eric gasped. “Kidding. I had a sticky door in college.”

“So, why are you here?”

“Uhhhh.” She drew out the word. “That’s a good question. One I didn’t realize I would have to answer.” Mollie looked out the window and back to me. “So, the farm is open, right?”

“If by open you mean functioning, yes.”

“Then where are the crops?”

I’d grown accustomed to never having to answer questions unless it was about when the next shipment of eggs and milk would be. “I manage the animals.”

“The ones in the back of the farm? That’s all you do?”

“All I do? I keep the farm running.”

“Then it’s less of a farm and more of a ranch.”

I narrowed my eyes. “Seriously?”

“What? If your exports are only animal products, then it’s a ranch. Papa Bennie ran a mixed-use farm and focused on crops.”

“Bennie had far more employees and time. Crops require monitoring and people to pick them?—”

“The farm was U-pick.”

Oh, fuck how pretty she was. I was already starting to hate her.

“Still requires employees, princess.” I was barely able to control my voice, and Eric winced. He knew how mad I was getting. I didn’t ever use this tone with him, but he’d heard it once when Moosley, the resident diva cow, had tried to carry him into the barn to raise him better than I could.

“So, there’s no one else working here?”

“The trust wouldn’t let me hire anyone else. I only have permission to run the farm. Everything else went through the owner.”

“Oh,” she said. “Which is now me.”

“Yep.”

“So, I could just open the farm again?”

Fucking hell. “You would need to find the labor. And the money for the labor.”

“Money. Does the farm have money?”

“What the—did you just come here on a dime? Did you not look into anything?”

“Not really, no. I thought I’d be fixing it to make it livable.”

“Livable for who?” I asked slowly.

“Me.”

My entire body tensed. Her ? Living here ?

“Listen, I’m not trying to cramp your style.

And judging by the look on your face, I’ve stepped on some toes.

I just want one of the four bedrooms to stay in for a bit.

We can talk about running the farm once I figure out .

.. anything more than I know now. But for the time being, I just need a place to sleep. ”

“The hay bales are free.”

Eric elbowed me.

There was nothing more humbling than being told by a child that I was rude.

“Seriously? There’s not one free room? What, do you have a hoard of kids? Or a wife that needs her own bed?”

“If I had a wife, she wouldn’t sleep in a separate room.”

She shrugged. “You look like the kind of guy who would snore.”

Eric covered his mouth to hide a laugh.

He fucking liked her. I could tell. Despite how much I hated her, he likely never would.

“I’m gonna ignore that,” I said slowly. “Or else you will be sleeping in the hay bales.”

“You have a fragile ego, got it.” This fucking woman. She didn’t stop. “And for the record, I’m not usually this much of a nuisance, but ... I don’t know. Being out of the city makes me feel more like myself.”

“So, you are a nuisance. Underneath all of that.” I gestured to her clothes.

“ That ? What’s wrong with what I’m wearing? ”

“I can tell exactly who you are by looking at you.”

“What, that I’m a city girl?”

“Yep.”

“I’m not. Not entirely, at least. You’ll have to explain how to look the part.”

“There aren’t enough words in the English language.”

She rolled her eyes. “You could start with a few of them.”

“I don’t plan on talking to you, princess. So, no. I won’t.”

“Rude.”

“I’ll talk to you!” Eric said.

“Thank you.” Her lips pulled into a grin. “At least someone’s polite. It sucks you ended up with him.”

“Turn the kid against me and you won’t even get hay.”

“What could be worse than hay?”

“Cow patties.”

“Ew!” Eric said.

“Do you usually tell your boss to sleep in shi—” Her eyes moved to Eric. “Poop?”

“Do you usually show up to meet an employee and tell them everything they’re doing wrong?”

“Fair,” she said. “Which room is mine?”

My fists tightened. I didn’t want to show her any room, but I couldn’t kick her out of the damn place she owned.

“Bennie’s. I’ll show you.”

“I know the way,” she said before disappearing up the stairs.

I groaned the second she was gone.

“You have really bad manners,” Eric said.

“What can you expect? I was basically raised in a barn.”

“So was I, but I still know how to be nice.”

I scrubbed my hand over my face. On a good day, Eric tested my limits like no one else.

But now, I had two people in this house to drive me up a wall, and I didn’t know if I would survive.