Page 110 of The Havenport Collection

Violet

“ I ’m sorry. You want me to do what?”

“Just shovel it all up into the wagon on the back of the tractor and then I’ll drive it over to the compost area.” I gave him my most dazzling smile.

He looked at me and then looked at the pigpen. I could see a million thoughts racing through his head as he furrowed his brow.

“You are so sweet!” I exclaimed in my cutest voice. Okay, I wasn’t exactly being genuine.

Since I was a bit angry with Callum, as well as all of mankind for the shit they had put me through, I decided to exact a teeny, tiny bit of revenge.

When he arrived at the farm—all pressed and gelled to perfection—I pretended to be overwhelmed by farm chores.

Being the chivalrous gentleman he was, he offered to help.

In truth, I was behind schedule, and Bob had taken the morning off for a doctor’s appointment, so I did need the help.

But I was also annoyed with him and didn’t want to go out to coffee and pretend that everything was fine.

Everything was not fine. He threw up on my grass, took out an apple tree my grandfather had planted, and almost killed my rooster.

Said rooster was now living in my house in a dog cage, and I had to give him medicine twice a day.

And my darling sons had taken to springing him from his canine prison, which meant that I was cleaning up feathers and chicken shit on the regular.

Last night they hid him in their bedroom closet at bedtime, and it took me an hour to chase him downstairs and back into his crate.

I was busting my ass and getting nowhere thanks to all the collective men in my life, my darling sons included. So, unfortunately for Callum, he was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

I was past all my high school drama. But there was a teensy part of me that was still angry at Callum Quinn for standing me up for the homecoming dance sophomore year.

At the time, I was head over heels for him—he was my first kiss and my first boyfriend.

The memory of me sitting in my living room in a brand-new dress still hurts my heart.

That poor girl had even more heartbreak in front of her, but she didn’t realize it yet.

All the deep breathing and meditation techniques in the world could not quell my rage at the moment. It was all just so much. Too much, really. I was overwhelmed and annoyed, and he was standing right in front of me looking handsome and successful, and I couldn’t stop myself.

So I marched him and his fancy shoes right over to the pigs and handed him a shovel.

You could tell a lot about a person by how they handled pig shit.

And I was unsure of where Callum stood on the continuum.

On the one hand, he had not complained or refused; on the other, he just stood there, staring.

I was fully expecting him to turn around and head back to the car, but then he did the most surprising thing.

He set the shovel down on the other side of the fence and carefully unbuttoned his fancy Oxford shirt, taking it off to reveal a tight white undershirt.

He carefully draped his shirt over the fence post and hurdled right over the fence, landing with a squick sound, and grabbed the shovel.

I couldn’t see his face, but I knew he was smirking.

Why else would he hurdle the fence—when there was a perfectly good gate a few feet away—other than to show off?

I watched as he headed over to Trudie and crouched down to talk to her.

She was nursing several of her piglets and seemed nonplussed to see him in her pen.

Then he got to work. It was incredible. He said nothing and just worked—careful, efficient, and thorough, just like I knew he would be.

Despite my best efforts, I was distracted.

Who knew he was hiding all those muscles under those fancy clothes?

He had broad shoulders that tapered to a narrow waist and sinewy, muscular arms. I could have stood there all day and enjoyed the show, but there was work to do.

I backed the tractor up to the gate, and together, we filled the wagon.

My arms ached and my lungs burned, but I would be damned if I would let him outwork me.

So far he had passed my test. We shoveled amicably for a while.

Eventually, he leaned on his shovel, his arms rippling as I watched a bead of sweat make its way down his neck to his collarbone. I suppressed the urge to lick it.

“It must be a big change being back on the farm,” he said, wiping his brow. “What were you doing in California?”

“When the boys were born I was a stay-at-home mom, but before that I did a little bit of everything. I was a yoga instructor, a reiki practitioner, and I did some freelance writing for some wellness and yoga websites. I traveled a lot in my twenties, so I would bartend or wait tables when I needed to. Not much you can do with a cultural anthropology degree.” I shrugged.

I always felt a bit ashamed of my degree.

If I could do it all over again I’d probably study something useful. Like nursing or business.

“Don’t say that. I remember your dad being very proud of your degree. NYU is an amazing school, and I saw him once at Schmitty’s and he was bragging about how you graduated with honors.”

I smiled. My dad was always proud of me, and he was thrilled to help pay for my degree, useless as it was. He really was the best. Just another reminder of the massive shoes I had to fill, both on this farm and as a parent. My heart sank. Better get back to work.

“I have to drive this back to the compost area. It’s a ways away, past the orchard.” I pointed to the other side of the property.

“You drive this thing?” He gestured to the tractor; it was massive, and the tires were taller than I was, but I didn’t let that stop me.

“I’ve been driving her since I was nine,” I quipped.

He looked impressed. “Can I come with?”

I shrugged. “Sure.” I climbed up into the cab and looked back.

He lifted the hem of his shirt to wipe his face, and I caught a glimpse and almost lost my footing on the tire and fell off the tractor.

Holy mother of abs. Callum had them all.

All the abs. The regular abs and the extra super-hot-guy abs.

And a dark happy trail leading down below his belt.

I wasn’t blind, so I knew he was handsome in that generic, bland male model way, but hot damn, the more I saw the more I liked.

“You okay up there?” He smirked.

“Yes.” My face burned with the shame of being caught ogling him. “Climb up.”

The cab was small, and we were a bit crunched. I handed him a pair of safety earmuffs, and he put them on. He even managed to make something so dorky look handsome. Damn him. I was supposed to have the upper hand here.

“Tell me more about your travels,” he said over the whirring of the tractor. “Where was your favorite place you visited?”

I maneuvered through the orchard and thought about it. “I loved Central America. Costa Rica, Belize, Guatemala, Nicaragua. I moved down there to train as a yoga teacher for a month and ended up spending almost a year there teaching English and surfing.”

“Surfing?”

“The Pacific coast is a world class surfing destination. I had always wanted to learn. So I went to Costa Rica, but it was really touristy, not very authentic. I ended up traveling down to Nicaragua and got a job at a local school teaching English. I got up every morning at sunrise and surfed. I was terrible at it, but I loved it.”

He seemed impressed.

“I also love New Zealand. That’s where I met my ex-husband, actually. I went there for a yoga retreat and ended up getting a bartending gig so I could stay for a while and hike some of the glaciers there. I met Sebastian while he was doing an adventure tour with some of his tech bros.”

“Ah. So that’s how you ended up in California.”

I nodded. I had enjoyed New Zealand, and I tried not to let my shitty ex ruin the memory of it for me. It was truly another world, and I loved living there. I would have stayed longer than six months if I hadn’t followed Sebastian back to the states.

I loved to travel. I was born with wanderlust, and my parents always respected that and encouraged me.

They scrimped and saved to send me on service trips in high school and study abroad trips in college.

As long as I was always safe and careful, they supported my need to explore.

Looking back, it must have been so foreign to them.

They were tied to this land and this town for generations, but always let me spread my wings.

I now realized just how special and unique that was.

I promised myself I would do that for my kids—let them be whoever they wanted to be and encourage them to get out into the world and find themselves.

We made it over to the compost area where I had to jump out and dump the manure into the pile.

“So that pig I met—she seemed cool.”

“She is.”

“Kind of makes me rethink bacon.”

I poked him in the chest. It was very…firm. “You should rethink bacon. Your heart will thank you, and pigs are really smart, loyal, and make great pets.”

“Is she going to end up as bacon?”

“No!” I shouted. “All the animals here are either working animals or pets. We do not process or eat any of them. Trudie and her babies are the stars of our farm tour and petting zoo. She is safe here. Most of our animals are rescues. The animal sanctuary calls me frequently and guilts me into taking more.”

“That’s cool.”

“We used to have meat chickens and some animals when I was little, but Rose and I protested once we became aware. I think I was in kindergarten, and I stayed up all night in the turkey pen trying to save them from becoming Thanksgiving dinner.”

“Did it work?”