Page 38 of The Almost Bride

Danni Franks didn’t consider herself a pessimist. She was a farmer. By nature, farmers had to be optimists. Every year, she planted seeds in the ground with the blind faith that they’d actually grow. Despite the persistent threats of drought, disease, and sheep with no sense of self-preservation. Though this was the first year she’d be reaping the rewards of her very own sowing.

But even Danni’s optimism had its limits. Today, that limit was reached when her ancient tractor let out an almighty wheeze, shuddered violently, and died in the middle of the back field.

Ten minutes later, she threw her spanner down into the mud and stood back, hands on her hips, glaring at the offending machine. “You’re a bloody menace,”

she growled through gritted teeth.

Tommy Ellis, her farmhand and occasional source of unwanted wisdom, stood nearby, leaning against a fence post with all the urgency of a man watching paint dry. “Try hitting it,”

he said, nodding sagely toward the tractor.

She turned her glare on him. “Oh, brilliant idea, Tom. Why didn’t I think of that? It’s not a vending machine that’s eaten your last Crunchie.”

Tommy shrugged. “Sometimes a bit of tough love works.”

Out of sheer desperation, Danni slammed her boot against the side of the tractor. Predictably, nothing happened, except for a loud clang and burst of pain through her ankle.

Tommy sniffed. “Looks like you’ve scared it into submission,”

he said. “That should do the trick.”

Danni sighed and wiped a greasy hand across her face, only realizing too late that she’d just smeared oil across her cheek. Perfect. It would match the mud on her overalls. And the straw in her hair. Her life was a mess and now she had the appearance to match. “I haven’t got the cash to fix this thing, Tommy.”

Tommy chewed thoughtfully on a blade of grass. “Could plow by hand, I suppose. Or get some oxen. That’s what my grandda would have done. Yours too, come to that. Or I suppose you could always sell the farm.”

Danni’s eyes narrowed. “Have you got a death wish?”

“Just saying.”

He held up his hands, a lazy grin on his face. “It’s almost been a year now, Dan. And when the wolves are at the door, sometimes you’ve got to open the window and jump out.”

“Not helpful,”

she said, looking over the old tractor. “To be honest, though, I’m a bit short on solutions right now. Unless a money tree miraculously starts growing in the front paddock, that is.”

Tommy paused, as if genuinely considering the possibility of a money tree. “Yeah, could really use one of them. Still, dunno where we’d get the seeds from, and even if we did, things like that always take years to mature. Like apple trees. Wouldn’t get any fruit until we’re too old to do anything with it.”

Danni groaned and rubbed her temples. “Right, well, standing here isn’t fixing anything. Help me push this pile of junk back to the shed before I have a breakdown of my own.”

LATER THAT AFTERNOON, Danni was in the small farmhouse kitchen, treating herself to a cup of tea before going back to work, when Hector strode in without knocking. Her brother ran the family farm up the hill, the one she’d grown up on and hadn’t stood a chance of inheriting. He was freshly showered and smelled of deodorant, unlike Danni, who still had oil on her cheek and mud under her fingernails.

“You got another,”

he said, dropping a letter on the kitchen table. “And I brought the small tractor down. Tommy said you needed it. You can keep it until you get yours fixed.”

He looked at her seriously. “It’s not a gift, it’s a loan, alright?”

She nodded, aware that he was helping her when he didn’t have to, aware that he, more than anyone except herself, really wanted to see her succeed. “Thanks,”

she muttered, even though she wished she didn’t need the help at all.

“You need to have your post re-directed down here,”

he said, nodding at the letter. “I can’t be bringing it down from the big house every day.”

“Nobody asked you to,”

she said mildly, picking the letter up and looking at it. She didn’t need to open it to know what it was. She glanced toward a growing pile of similar envelopes behind the kitchen clock, all from the same investor who’d been trying to buy her farm for months now. “Still anonymous?”

she asked, knowing Hector would have opened it.

“Still anonymous,”

he said. “And still offering more money than this place is worth.”

He crossed his arms, and Danni knew that he was preparing himself for the same old argument.

For something to do, she ripped the letter open and skimmed it. Yep. Another generous offer. Another vague promise to ‘preserve the land’s legacy.’ And, as always, no name attached, just a generic solicitor’s officer address. She let out a short laugh. “Unbelievable. Someone must really want this place.”

“You should at least consider it,”

Hector said. He was always the practical one. Mind you, he could afford to be. “You’ve got a broken tractor, a barn that leaks like a sieve, and enough debt to sink the Titanic. Maybe it’s time to be realistic.”

“The Titanic is already sunken,”

she said. “And I am being realistic. Realistically, if I sell, I lose everything I’ve worked for. This farm is my dream. I’m not giving it up because some fancy-pants investor wants to turn it into a bloody country retreat or…”

She gestured wildly. “Or… a llama sanctuary.”

Hector snorted. “A llama sanctuary?”

“You don’t know, it could be.”

“Mmm, because llamas are in such high demand in rural England.”

Danni huffed and downed the rest of her tea in one dramatic gulp. “Point is, I’m not selling.”

“You won’t lose everything,”

he said, more softly now. “You could come home. There’s always a place for you at the farm. There’s a job for you the minute you say you want one. A room for you. We’d be glad to have you back.”

Which was, to be fair, true. What he wasn’t saying was that going home would mean admitting to everyone, her mother in particular, not to mention the various farm-men she’d grown up around and who had scoffed at her ideas of farming herself, that she’d been wrong. That she’d over-estimated herself. That she couldn’t do it. “Not selling,”

she said again, truculently.

Hector leaned against the counter, eyeing her with that older-brother concern that was both touching and, mostly, annoying. “Look. I get it. You don’t want to give up. But if you don’t find a solution soon, Dan, you might not have a choice.”

Danni groaned and thunked her forehead against the table. “Why must you always speak in ominous truths?”

“It’s my job as your brother.”

He came over and patted her on the head like she was a wayward puppy. “You’ll figure something out. You always do.”

“Do I?”

she asked, needing some positivity in her life.

“You’re sitting in the middle of your own kitchen, aren’t you?”

Hector said with a grin. “And I’d better be getting back before someone sets the grain silo on fire, or falls into the muck pit, or something equally bad.”

“Alright. Love to everyone up there.”

He patted her head again, and left her sitting at the table, staring at the pile of letters, bills, and a financial situation that looked about as hopeful as a hospital patient circling the drain. Oh, and now she needed to add in a tractor repair bill. Assuming that it could be repaired, and she didn’t need to replace the entire thing. She sighed. Maybe Tommy had a point. Maybe she should get a couple of oxen.

She had no intention of selling. But equally, she had no idea how to fix her current predicament. She’d saved where she could, she’d cut corners where she could, but the truth of the matter was that farming was a dubious proposition these days. Most small farms didn’t make money. She’d thought that she’d be the exception. And it was looking more and more like she wasn’t.

“Right,”

she muttered to herself. “Options. I need options.”

She could take out a loan. Except she already had one, and she was unlikely to find anyone else willing to give her another at this point.

She could apply for grants. Except those took time to come through, and, honestly, by the end of a hard day on the farm, she couldn’t bring herself to look at the complicated forms and attachments that she needed to provide to get her hands on some money.

She could, she supposed, win the lottery. That would definitely work. Well, except for the part where she’d have to find the money to buy a ticket. Maybe if she scrounged down the back of the couch she might come up with fifty pee.

“Danni?”

Tommy’s voice came from the doorway. He poked his head in, looking far too cheerful for someone who had spent the morning watching her descend into financial ruin.

“What?”

“Just checking to see that you haven’t topped yourself out of financial desperation,”

he said. “Or finally decided to sell.”

She grabbed the nearest thing to hand, which happened to be a used tea-bag, and lobbed it at him. Tommy ducked, laughing, and the tea-bag splatted on the wall behind him.

“I take it that’s a no, then?” he said.

“Get out of my house, Tommy. Make sure that hole under the chicken fence has been filled in and stomp it down well. Those bloody foxes think they’re digging their way out of Colditz.”

“I think that was Stalag-luft,”

Tommy said doubtfully. “Colditz was a castle on a hill, wasn’t it?”

She glared at him.

“Alright, alright, I’m going.”

Danni sat back in her chair, staring at the ceiling, every crack of which belonged to her and her alone. Well, ninety percent of the cracks technically belonged to the bank, she supposed.

She didn’t need a miracle. She just needed a break. She wasn’t asking for a fortune. She was willing to work hard. She needed something, anything, to get her through this rough patch.

She had a terrible feeling that whatever was going to happen next was going to be dramatic.

Little did she know, she was absolutely right.