MissManaged

“Pastor Brown.This is the fourth message I’ve left you regarding the outstanding invoice the church owes. Please call me back as soon as you get this or else I’ll be forced to consider alternative means of collection.”

I ended the call with a rough jab at my phone and let out a scream of frustration. This was the worst part of having your own business. Chasing down customers for payment was awful.

Why couldn’t people just pay what they owed?

If you couldn’t afford a service, you had no business using it, in my opinion. And for a man of the church to hire me to do a brand-new website, complete with photos I’d taken, and then stiff me on a two-thousand-dollar invoice was just absurd. I didn’t want to send him to a collection agency, especially because they took a cut of my money off the top of what was owed, but I may not have a choice. He was three months late paying me, and I needed that money.

Thankfully, I had two jobs in the works. One for Mellie’s boyfriend who co-owned the local hardware store with his grandfather, and the second was for Tobin Daniels. Both were businesses that had been around for years, and I hoped once other local places saw what I could do, I’d get a few more clients.

It would have been easier if I’d grown up here, but I was a fairly recent transplant, at least in Walker’s Grove terms. If I had known what a strange little town this place was, I may not have moved here, but now that I’d been here for over two years, I’d settled in and loved it… mostly. While I had a great group of girlfriends, better than any I’d had in my life before, there was still something odd about this little town.

About an hour and a half south of Buffalo, in the hills of the Southern Tier of Western New York, Walker’s Grove was nestled in a small valley and surrounded by farms.

The people were friendly, but not too friendly… surface friendly, unless you were a local. Luckily, I’d met Layla when I needed a local accountant, since I was avoiding my hometown of Rochester like the plague. She’d invited me to the Monday night book club she and her friends held every other week, and the rest was history.

After taking a fortifying sip of coffee, I set down my mug and headed to my bedroom to get ready. I had a meeting with Tobin Daniels in an hour and I wanted to look my best. Solely because he was a member of one of the founding families of Walker’s Grove and getting in good with him would almost guarantee more work would flow my way.

I did not choose a lightweight sweater dress that wrapped around my middle and accentuated my meager curves because the man attached to the voice I’d now spent several hours over the last two weeks talking to on the phone had to be hot. There was just no possible way he wasn’t.

And I didn’t spend a half-hour on my hair and makeup because I frequently had to pinch myself while we discussed what he wanted on the farm’s website to stop my daydreams from completely distracting me.

I could have asked Layla, Raquel, or Kenny what he looked like since they’d all grown up in town and had to at least know who he was. But I was too embarrassed to admit that talking to Tobin made me melt in a way no other man ever did.

I zipped up my knee-high leather boots and fluffed my hair, taking one last look in the mirror to make sure I’d achieved my goal—professional and put together with a hint of sexy. Not too much, but hopefully enough so he’d know I was available.

Satisfied with my appearance, I grabbed my laptop and camera, and slid them into my bag before leaving my apartment and heading to Daniels’ Family Farm.

The old pictures on the website failed to capture the beauty of the place. A large, freshly painted sign stood at the entrance, letting visitors and passersby know what lay beyond the wooden fence that ran along the edge of the property bordering the road.

I turned onto a paved driveway and passed under a long canopy of trees just beginning to bud before the buildings came into view. A large, traditional-style red barn stood in front of several squat but long metal buildings. Beyond those were green fields that sloped over a gentle rise that extended past where I could see.

To the right of all that sat the house, so I headed in that direction, assuming I’d find Tobin there. I imagined he’d meet me on the front porch dressed in casual slacks and a button-down shirt with the collar open and sleeves rolled part way up his forearms. Not too fancy since this was a farm, but still business appropriate. Like me. Then he’d help me up the front steps and guide me to his office overlooking the fields full of happy cows, munching on grass, and living their best organic life.

I parked in front of the garage and dug my camera out of my bag before getting out of the car. The sunlight was perfect right now and I couldn’t resist getting some shots for the website.

The clicking of the camera and my focus on framing the perfect scene put me in the zone, and it wasn’t until a large, dirty hand appeared in front of my lens that I realized I wasn’t alone.

“What the hell?” I shouted as I stepped back and stumbled over my feet in my haste to get away from the man in front of me. “Don’t touch me.”

Thankfully, he ignored my barked instructions and grabbed my elbow to steady me before I landed on my ass.

“Hold on there, little fairy,” he drawled with a smirk that made me want to punch him in the nose. “Don’t want you to fall down and get that pretty dress dirty.”

“Let go of me,” I snarled, not caring how rude I was being to the random farmhand now standing a foot away. “And I am not a little fairy.”

“Well, you sure look like one to me, with all that blonde hair and the fact that I could probably lift you over my head one-handed.”

His voice was faintly familiar, but he still had that infuriating smirk on his face. That, coupled with the comments about my appearance, threw me over the edge.

“Listen, asshole, I know I’m short and skinny. I’ve been short and skinny for all twenty-four years of my life. I don’t need some farmer’s helper who looks like he hasn’t seen a razor in a month and smells like he hasn’t touched a bar of soap in longer, reminding me that I have the body of a pre-pubescent boy.”

My chest heaved from my rant and my hands shook from the force of my anger. I didn’t normally let my rage fly like this, especially on unsuspecting strangers, but my nervousness at meeting Tobin combined with this guy’s comments hit me right where it hurt. What made it worse was that I desperately hoped the man I was here to see would see something more than a cute, little fairy.

Something shifted in the man’s gaze at my words, but I barely noticed.

“I’m here to meet with Mr. Daniels. If you take me to him right now, I might not tell him how you manhandled and insulted me.” I knew my claims were bordering on ridiculous, but I couldn’t let that slow me down. I was fired up and on a roll. “Do you understand, farmer-boy?”

He looked me up and down, his disappointment in my appearance obvious. I’d hoped the dress would give me the illusion of curves, but I guess that was asking too much of a piece of fabric. At least I was used to it.

“Oh, I understand all right. Follow me.”

He turned on his filthy work boots and started striding toward the barn down a gravel-lined path.

“Hey,” I called, then grabbed my bag and hurried to catch up once I realized he wasn’t stopping, or even slowing down. “You’re going the wrong way. I’m here to see Mr. Daniels.”

“Mr. Daniels’ office is in the barn, little fairy,” he shot over his shoulder. “Better keep up or you’ll be late for your meeting.”

“My legs are shorter than yours, asshole,” I mumbled as I kept my eyes on the ground. “Not that I’d expect you to have any manners.”

The closer we got to the barn, the worse the path became. Small puddles from a recent spring rain turned into large pools of water that had bits of hay and who knew what else floating in them. It was taking all my effort to avoid them and keep up.

“I wouldn’t want to insult you by noticing anything about your appearance,” he replied, his words dripping with sarcasm. “You didn’t seem to like that the first time.”

I ignored his comment and focused on keeping my boots out of the muck, almost running into the man when I missed that he’d stopped at a door on the side of the red barn.

“Thank you for taking me here,” I said, stepping back and trying to regain control of my emotions before I saw Tobin. He didn’t need to see me acting like a shrew. With any luck, this guy would keep his mouth shut and go milk some cows and I’d never see him again.

Except he didn’t walk away like I expected.

He reached into his pocket and extracted a key ring.