Chapter Text
“For once, I’m not here to fight, buttercup. I’m the bearer of glad tidings.”
“Oh? Did they find a cure for acute skeeviness?” Marianne asked. She could practically hear his brain box grinding its gears on the other side of the chicken coop walls. Roland sure was pretty, but he made her chickens look like Nobel Prize laureates. She stuck the last egg in her basket and stepped out of the coop, back into the barn’s shaded over hang. “Careful,” she warned. “You’ll catch fire to this straw with all that thinking you’re doing. There’s only so much one brain cell can do, you know.”
The happy façade fell and his lifted his lip back in a sneer designed to only enhance his features. He’d probably spent hours perfecting it which only made it that much harder for her to not crack an egg in it. “You don’t know how much I delight in the fact that you’re someone else’s problem now.”
Movement in his car caught her attention. Someone young, blond and probably sillier than Roland sat in the front seat of his rental. Marianne almost felt sorry for her. “I could say the same for you.”
“I came here thinking I at least owed you a little word of warning, just so you weren’t completely caught off guard when he shows up, but, no.” Roland’s shoulders lifted and fell. “Your attitude’s just convinced me otherwise.”
“What are you on about now? I’ve got work to do.”
He laughed, the sound so loud it disturbed a goat sleeping under the big oak. “Work to do? Oh, give up, Marianne. This farm is sinking fast, sugar.” He glanced around, eyes narrowing in on the ramshackle farmhouse with its steeply pitched roof. It must have left a sour taste in his mouth because he smeared the back of his hand over his lips and brought his kerchief out of his pocket to tap at the beads of sweat glistening in the midday sun. She hated how he looked at this place. Hated even more that she’d been so young and so stupidly in love as to give him fifty percent share as an engagement gift. She’d been regretting that decision the last four years of her life. Every day. Doubly so during the random times he’d come poke her with a stick and ask why their little farm wasn’t churning out any money. “I’m jumping this ship,” he said. “I held on long enough in any hopes you’d actually make something of it and bring in a little money. So I did the next best thing and found some idiot willing to blind buy my share. Like I said, you’re his problem now.”
“You sold your share!”
“Nearly three days ago. It’s all said and done, Marianne. No sense getting upset now.”
“Who?” She stepped towards him. “Who did you sell to?”
“No.” He started back for the car. “You haven’t been very nice to me, even after I came all this way to tell you.”
“To gloat, you mean.”
He just kept walking.
“Do you want me to tell the hens about the bugs crawling on your pecker or what?”
He flipped her off without so much as a backwards glance.
“Damn it, Roland. Who?”
He turned back to face her. “You really want to know?”
“Yes.” And no, deep down she knew she didn’t fucking actually want to know who. Because with Roland’s Cheshire cat grin, Marianne knew he’d just screwed her all over again.
“Ask me nicely.”
Marianne bit down on a curse, the egg basket’s handle squeaked under the twisting fury of her hands. “Please.”
He stroked the front of his pants. “Nicer.”
“Oh, fuck you.” Before her brain even registered it, she’d chucked an egg at his head, the deep orange colored yolk smearing down the side of his face. She wasn’t sure who was more shocked, him or her. Marianne stood there blinking until a deep, bone shaking laughter spilled up over her breast. She was laughing so hard the next egg nearly missed. By the third, he’d started running. And she’d channeled laughter into banshee screaming, egging the mother fucker again and again.
His tires spun and gravel spewed, spitting at her and biting through her denim overalls like tiny hellfire demons. She heaved the basket for all she was worth, it bounced off the trunk, spilling into the overgrown grass.
“Fuck you, Roland.” She wiped at the tears, refusing to believe that whoever he sold it to could be worse. There wasn’t a soul in existence who could compare to him.
Bog wished to fucking hell he’d gotten more details from the realtor. Like a phone number. Because he was pretty sure he was lost out here in a place people called God’s country. Which, he could only assume was because this was where people came, got lost, died and met their maker.
GPS bitched at him to make another turn and he contemplated throwing his phone out the window. Thanks to that stupid thing, he’d been down two legitimate dirt roads, both lined with brush and briars.
A small wooden sign nearly overtaken with a flowering vine caught his eye and he slammed on the break. Relief momentarily filled him, followed swiftly by acute dread at the state of the dilapidated sign. ‘Charming fixer upper’ the realtor had said, but Bog knew a line when one was being fed to him. He just hoped the place was livable. And the other property sharer wasn’t a total fucking flake. Or better yet, wasn’t even around.
He backed the car up and turned onto Primrose Farm’s small lane for the first time. Dense foliage gave way to bright sunshine and rolling idyllic hills. He wasn’t sure how he felt about that yet. It was a far cry from the neon lights he’d left behind, but it was so fucking green his head hurt. He parked and peeled his body out into the warm air cussing the shiny sardine can of a car the entire time. A sheep—or goat?—something bleated at balefully from a pen. Bog glared at it, dragging his cigarettes out of his suit pocket. He stuck one in his mouth and lit it, inhaling deeply. His first glance at the house was obscured by his long exhale of smoke. ‘Quaint and cozy’. Realtor talk for small and outdated. But it looked clean enough. Clearly someone either lived here or frequented the place regularly.
The rest of the place was just…farm. Outbuildings. More animals—a horse with long ears, chickens. He didn’t know what he’d expected, or what he wanted for that fucking matter. But at least this was different. Some of the pressure lodged in his chest had shifted the moment he’d signed the papers on the ‘plot of green rolling hills and exquisite views’.
He’d bought a farm. And not even a great farm, one that was on its last leg and dying. His entire staff probably thought he’d bought the fucking farm in a more metaphorical sense and perhaps he had because this was seriously going to be his home until the thought of going back to Vegas didn’t leave him wanting to jump off the nearest skyscraper.
“You fucking lost, big guy?”
Bog shot around at the hot tempered voice. A little female tucked into denim overalls and a floppy hat glared at him. The hoe-or spade?—in her hand held as if more weapon than landscape tool.
Her breath hissed out, and she paled.
Her eyes, something about them had his gut struck tight, the cigarette smoke suddenly making his lungs seize.
“Oh. No.” She breathed heavily. “Fuck. No.”
“Who are you?”
“You don’t recognize me?”
He looked at her again and something sparked. He threw his cigarette down, grinding his heel over it. She wasn’t his usual type, but there’d been enough he’d been bound to forget one or two. “Listen, if I ever bought you—”
“Fuck you, King.” She lifted her hoe-spade and aimed it at his chest. “Do you insult every woman whose name you can’t remember by assuming she was some whore you paid for?”
The blade of the thing pressed against his suit. He threw his hands out peacefully but she didn’t back down, her teeth grinding together as she practically snarled at him.
“The only time you ever tried to screw me was over your bullshit no fringing on your customer rules. As if you fucking owned Vegas.”
A memory sparked in his mind. “Summerfield…” The name rolled off his tongue unbidden.
“Marianne.”
Temper flicked up his spine and he shoved at the press of her tool, pushing her until she stumbled backwards. “Douglas’ daughter. The one he had running his show along with that blond monkey. You preyed on my high rollers.”
“Preyed my ass. You just couldn’t handle a little solid competition.” She whipped her hat off, sinking her teeth into it, looking more than a little insane as she internalized a scream. Finally she threw the hat at him. “Jesus fucking Christ, never thought I’d see the day that Roland bested the control freak of the strip. God, I just wanna smash his smug little face in.” She screeched again, the sound hurting his ears.
He reached for his wallet, flipping it open. “How much?”
“I swear to fucking God, you’re going to want to choose your next words carefully, King. I will kill you and bury you under a pile of barnyard manure so thick no one will ever find your bony ass. How much for what?”
“You’re perfectly safe from that sort of an offer, Summerfield. I prefer my women with at least a modicum of sex appeal. I’m buying you out. Your share. How much?”
Instead of the interest or even relief he expected, he saw only fury contort her face. She lobbed her weapon at his head again, he ducked, narrowly missing getting beaned by it.
“I wouldn’t sell to you if the land opened up and swallowed the farm whole, leaving nothing but a weeping water line in its place.” She made as if to swing at him again and he stupidly reached for it, opening him up for the sharp kick in the shins her boot delivered at lightning speed. “How bout I buy you out, you sad excuse for a chicken roost!”
Splinters bit into his skin when he ripped the thing out of her hands and threw it as far as he could. He didn’t for one second think it would completely disarm her. So long as she still had her teeth and nails, he was still in danger.
“What’s your price?” She demanded. “Name it.”
He laughed, wishing so very much he wouldn’t lose a finger if he patted her on the head. “I’ve seen the numbers. You haven’t got two pennies to rub together. I suggest you take my offer now. It’s only going to go down in value the more you annoy me.”
“Numbers don’t always tell the whole truth.”
Disgust and disappointment welled in his chest. “Been keeping your hand in the till?”
“I’ve never stolen anything in my life. Do you know the best way to get a leech to let go? You drain the fucking blood. When there’s nothing left to suck, the leech falls off, looking for a new host. So, yeah. There’s no money, you’re right. But there could be. Roland didn’t know his dick from a stick in the ground and he sure as fuck didn’t know whether this place was pulling what it could. And now, he’s gone.” Her eyes glimmered, the gold color reflecting the green of the farm around them. “I have starved the past four years, I have frozen every winter because I couldn’t always afford food and heat. Finally, finally I can eat again. I can find some fucking comfort. I’ll be damn if you take that from me.”
Bog backed up, putting distance between them. She vibrated with an honesty that unnerved him, made him uncomfortable. It was rare he couldn’t buy obedience. And most of the time, that was just from his own mother.
He didn’t want to…screw her over. He just needed a fucking bed. Something to do for the three months he’d taken for himself. Maybe it would be better this way. Less mess in the end when he was ready to return home. She’d have her farm and he could just walk away and pick up where he’d paused his life.
“I’m staying through summer. Don’t argue, Summerfield. You want this place all to yourself? You let me stay. I’ll sell my share to you dirt cheap and you’ll never have to see my ugly face again.”
“What exactly are you going to do for three months here? I don’t fancy a parade of showgirls and casino pets in and out of my house.”
He almost laughed at that idea. If only she knew that the thought of a parade of showgirls and casino pets made him want to jump off the nearest skyscraper. “No, I’ll help you.”
“Help me?”
“With the sheep.”
“Sheep?”
He gestured to the little white creature and the few friends that had joined it at the fence. “Sheep.”
“Sheep.” She echoed, nodding slowly.
He cautiously pulled his bag out of the car, waiting for her mouth to screw back up in anger. But she just bemusedly stared at the sheep, mouth now puckered slightly.
He slipped his hand across the back of his neck, hazarding a guess that he was wrong based solely on her expression. “Not sheep?” he asked.
“Not sheep.”
“Goat?”
“That’s right, big guy. Goat.”
Her annoyance practically dripped in the air between them.
“Three months,” he repeated. “I’ll let you buy me out. Ridiculously cheap. It’s all yours. I just need three months.”
“I want it in writing that you will sell to me ‘ridiculously cheap’ at the end of three months and that you’ll be out of my hair.”
“Consider it done.”
She sneered just a little. “Don’t expect me to pamper you. You do your own laundry, cook your own food, mind your own business.”
She started towards the house and he followed. The food thing wasn’t an issue, he knew how to work a microwave. The laundry…well. That was what google was for, wasn’t it?
There was more light than he expected in the old house. It gleamed over the wood floors and worn throw rugs.
“We’re gonna pretend you own half this house and I own the other half. Living room, kitchen, bathroom are neutral territories. Upstairs is strictly yours. Back hallway is strictly mine. You step one foot past the bathroom and I’ll consider it an invitation to introduce you to Sister.”
“Sister. Fawn? No, Dawn. Dawn, right? I vaguely remember her.”
Marianne shoved open the second door at the top of the stairs. “Sister is what I named my .22, King. And yes. The other sister is Dawn. She’ll be tickled you remembered her but couldn’t tell a goat from a sheep.”
His retaliating snark died on his lips. The room was nothing fancy. Just a brass bed and old, worn dresser. There weren’t even curtains over the windows. But the blankets look worn and comfortable and the room smelled soft. An eternity of bone-weary tiredness screamed out in him for that simple bed.
He dropped his bag to the floor. “I’m sleeping for a while.”
“Aim for three months and this whole trainwreck-in-the-making might just be painless for the both of us.”
Bog tugged his tie. When she didn't immediately leave, he leered down at her. "If you're hellbent on staying, cupcake, then you're taking your clothes off too."
She disappeared. He threw the tie, but yanked the bed sheets down and climbed in, not caring enough to even remove his shoes. Three months and he’d be back to normal. His life would be back to normal.