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Kieran shook his head. “Grandda, we would never—”
“Let me finish.” He folded his hands on his desk and looked at them individually. “I came to this country with one hundred dollars in my pocket and the intention of making something of my life so that I could support my son. I made my own life, something you boys haven’t had the chance to do.”
“We love working for you,” Cameron said. “It’s a family business and family sticks together.”
“That’s a lovely sentiment,” Martin replied. “But it doesn’t make my decision any easier. So, I have a plan. I’m going to give each of you boys one hundred dollars cash, a company credit card and a bus ticket. I want you to go out there and spend some time in the real world. Find a job. Meet new people. See what life is like all alone in the world. Believe me, without all the comforts of home, you’ll have time to figure out what you really want out of life.”
Dermot opened his mouth to protest, but his grandfather held up his hand. “Give yourself six weeks. If you’re still interested in running the Yachtworks after that, I’ll be satisfied.”
Cameron gasped. “You’re kidding, right? You just expect us to take six weeks away from work? I have projects going.”
“Although we’d all like to think we’re indispensable,” Martin said, “if one of us fell off the planet tomorrow, the company would go on.” He stood and handed each of them an envelope.
“You have tonight to pay your bills and put your affairs in order,” Martin said. “You leave tomorrow morning. Go out and imagine a different life for yourselves, boys. And when you come back, come back with a decision.”
“Vulture Creek, New Mexico?” Cameron asked.
Dermot opened his envelope and withdrew his bus ticket. “Mapleton, Wisconsin. What the hell is in Mapleton, Wisconsin?”
“Bitney, Kentucky,” Kieran muttered. “Great.”
“Sibleyville, Maine. Jaysus,” Ronan said. “I’ll be on the bus for a week.”
The brothers looked at each other, shaking their heads.
Martin smiled. “Good luck. And I’ll see you in six weeks.”
RACHEL HOWE grabbed the fifty-pound bag of feed, wrapping her arms around it and lugging it to the back of the pickup truck.
“You need some help with that, little lady?”
She glanced over at the two old men watching her from their spot on the front porch of the local feed store. “Nope,” she said, forcing a smile as the bag began to slip through her arms. “I’ve got it.”
Wincing, she took a deep breath and heaved the sack toward the tailgate of the truck. But at the last second, it fell out of her arms and dropped onto her foot. Rachel cursed, then kicked the sack. How would she ever make this work? She couldn’t even load a pallet of feed bags onto the truck, much less run a farm with absolutely no help beyond her eighty-year-old uncle.
She was virtually alone in this, with nothing but her determination to keep her company. Her father had maintained the dairy until the day he’d died and he hadn’t had help. If a seventy-five-year-old man had managed, certainly his twenty-five-year-old daughter could.
Though she’d put a help-wanted notice in the grocery store and in the feed store, hoping to find a high school boy to relieve her of the heavy lifting, there hadn’t been any takers. Her father’s bachelor brother, Eddie, was still able to help with the milking but the heavy work was beyond his capabilities.
Maybe all the potential workers knew what everyone else in Mapleton knew—that without help, Rachel’s time as a dairy-goat farmer was going to be short-lived at best. Maybe they were right. Maybe she ought to just sell and get on with her own life. A surge of temper caused her face to flush and she reached for the sack again, determined not to fail in front of two more doubters—Harley Verhulst and Sam Robson.
“Are you sure we can’t give you a hand?” Harley asked.
“No,” Rachel snapped. “It’s just going to take me a while to work up my strength.”
“A little girl like you shouldn’t be running that farm all by your lonesome,” Sam commented. “You need to find yourself a husband.”
“Preferably one with very big muscles,” Harley added.
A husband? Right now she’d be satisfied with one reasonably handsome, completely naked man to tend to her sexual needs once a week. She was quite willing to work out some kind of barter, maybe do his laundry or iron his shirts. It could be a mutually beneficial arrangement.
Rachel gritted her teeth and grabbed the feed sack again, this time using her sexual frustration for extra strength. When she got it up on the tailgate of the pickup, she smiled to herself. But when she looked over at the pallet, she cursed.
From now on, she’d get the feed mill to deliver her supplies, eliminating the need to pretend she knew what she was doing. Though it might be tough to work into the budget, she’d find a way. Rachel wasn’t ready to concede defeat. Not yet.
She glanced over at the two men and sent them a withering look. “Do you two plan to stand there pestering me or do you have work to do? Your wives will be happy to know you’ve taken such an interest in my dilemma. I’ll be sure to tell them how helpful you were the next time I see them at the grocery store.”
Chastened, the two farmers wandered back inside the co-op, leaving Rachel to tend to her business in solitude. She turned her attention back to the pallet of feed sacks, knowing that it might not be possible for her to load them all onto the truck by herself—at least by sundown. But she was going to die trying. “Just think about sex,” she muttered to herself. “And how little of it you’ve had in the past year.”
“Can I give you a hand?”
Rachel spun around, ready to decline the offer with a curt dismissal. But the man standing behind her smiled and her breath caught in her throat. She felt a bit light-headed, then realized it was time to draw another breath.
He was dressed in a comfortable shirt and jeans, clothes that hugged a slender, but muscular body. In his right hand, he carried an expensive leather duffel. She glanced at his shoes and noted that they were expensive, too. Not the kind of wardrobe usually found outside the feed store.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
Gosh, he was handsome, she mused as she looked back into his pale blue eyes. Dark hair that was just long enough to make him look a bit dangerous. A perfectly straight nose and a smile that sent a flood of warmth racing through her bloodstream.
Sex, she thought to herself. As if she’d wished it and it had just appeared. Rachel had long ago come to the conclusion that there weren’t any interesting men in all of Walworth County. But obviously one had managed to sneak over the border from Illinois and was now standing directly in front of her.
“Oh, my.” Rachel swallowed hard, then reached down to pick up the next bag of feed. She’d be just fine once he stopped staring at her. “You’re obviously lost,” she said, shaking her head. “Or you’re just a figment of my imagination.”
“What?”
Rachel glanced over her shoulder. “Men that look like you don’t live in places like this.” She straightened. “If you just take this road right here out to Highway 39 then stay on 39, it will take you to the interstate. You’ll be back in Chicago in a few hours.”
“Why do you think I’m from Chicago?”
“You have big city written all over you,” she said. “Mostly it’s the shoes. And the duffel.” She bent again to grab a feed sack, but he stopped her.
“Allow me,” he said, dropping his duffel in the dusty parking lot. He picked up the sack, then easily tossed it onto the bed of the truck. “Another?”
“Yes,” she said, the word coming out on a rush of air. “Thank you.” She pointed in the direction of the pallet. “All of them have to go. Here, let me give you a hand.”
“No problem,” he said. “You must have some hungry cows.”
“Goats. I raise goats.”
“Interesting,” he said. “I’ve never met a goat farmer before. Then again, I don’t know any cow farmers either.”
A laugh burst from Rachel’s lips. “Sorry. I know you’re trying to be polite. It’s just that some days goat farming is far from interesting.” She stepped back as she watched him hoist another sack into the truck. “I run a small dairy. It belonged to my family—my grandparents first, and then my father. And—and now it belongs to me.”
“Are you Rachel, then?” he asked.
She blinked in surprise. Did she know him? Was he some forgotten classmate from high school? An older brother of one of her friends? A friend of one of her older siblings? “I am.”
“I saw your note posted over at the grocery store. One of the checkers told me she saw you pass by and thought you might be headed here. You’re looking for a ranch hand?”
“Farm,” she said. “It’s a farm, not a ranch.”
“I thought you said it was a dairy.”
“A dairy… farm.” She cleared her throat nervously. Was this man really answering her ad?
“So, do you need a hand? Because I need a job and somewhere to stay.”
“You want to work for me?” At first, Rachel couldn’t believe her good fortune. But then, as she began to consider his offer, she was forced to contemplate why a man as handsome as this one was willing to take a low-paying job without any chance for advancement and virtually no benefits besides all the free goat’s milk he could drink. “You don’t look like a guy who’s spent much time on a farm.”
“And you look nothing like a goat farmer,” he said, a teasing smile curling the corners of his mouth. “I’m going to be in Mapleton for six weeks. I need a job to occupy my time. And I need a place to stay, somewhere cheap. I’m willing to work hard if you’ll give me room and board and a decent wage.”
“How decent?” she asked.
“I don’t know. What were you looking to pay?”
“Full-time, I should offer you two hundred a week, plus meals and lodging,” she said. “I can afford a hundred a week. Cash. Plus room and board.”
“A hundred sounds good to me. As long as the meals are decent.” He moved to grab another sack and loaded it into the back of the truck. “All of these?”
She nodded as she studied him shrewdly. No, this couldn’t possibly be happening to her. Men like this didn’t just drop into her life. There must be something more to his story, maybe something… criminal? “What’s your name?”
“Dermot,” he said. “Dermot Quinn.”
“Where are you from?”
“Seattle.” He straightened, rubbing his hands on the front of his jeans. “Is this an interview now? As you can see, I’m strong. I’m pretty smart and handy around the house. I’ll do what I’m told, unless I don’t agree with it, and then I’ll tell you.”
“You’re good at home repairs?”
He nodded. “I can build you just about anything you’d like if you’ve got tools and materials. Hell, I could build you a boat.”
“I don’t need a boat,” she said. Rachel looked at him intently. “Is there anything that I should know about you before I offer you this job?”
His eyebrow slowly rose as he gave her a quizzical look. “I… prefer beer to wine. I don’t like cooked vegetables. I’m not very good at doing my laundry. And I sleep in the buff. Is that what you’re getting at?”
An image of him, naked, his limbs twisted in her bedsheets, flashed in Rachel’s mind. “Actually, I was going to ask if you have a criminal record,” she said. “But I guess the rest is good to know.” She couldn’t help but smile at the confusion on his face.
“No!” he said. “Of course not. I’ve never even had a speeding ticket.”
“If you don’t have a criminal record, why aren’t you looking for a real job? A guy with your… talents?”
“Is this an imaginary job you’re offering?”
“No. But I mean a job that pays more than slave wages and doesn’t involve cleaning gutters and shoveling goat poop. A job where your pretty face might get you more than three dollars an hour.”
“It’s a long story,” he said. “If you hire me, I promise, I’ll explain it all to you.”
Though Rachel wasn’t sure she ought to believe him, there was something about this man that intrigued her. Yet, for all she knew, he could be a consummate liar… or a con man… or maybe a serial killer. “Hang on,” she said.
Rachel ran up the steps of the feed store and poked her head inside. “Harley, Sam, come out here. I need you.”
“Finally giving up on those feed bags?” Harley asked.
“No. I need you to be a witness.” The two men followed her back outside. Rachel pointed to the man standing behind her truck. “Tell them your name,” she called.
“Dermot Quinn.”
Frowning, she turned back to Harley and Sam. “See this guy? He’s coming to work on my farm. If I turn up the victim of some horrible crime, this is the guy to look for.” She glanced back at Dermot. “Where are you from again?”
“Seattle,” he said.
“Do you have any identification with you?” Harley asked.
Dermot pulled his wallet from his back pocket and took out his driver’s license, then handed it to Rachel. “It’s all there. I can give you references if you like. People who’ll vouch for my character.” He withdrew a business card and held it out to her. “Here. You can call my office.”
Harley looked over Rachel’s shoulder at the identification. “Looks legit to me. But I’d make him sleep in the barn.”
“He looks trustworthy to me,” Sam said. “And he’s a nice lookin’ guy, if you don’t mind me sayin’.” He wagged his finger at Dermot. “Behave yourself, mister, and we won’t have a problem. Get out of hand and old Eddie is likely to shoot you in the ass.”
Dermot smiled. “I’ll be the model of propriety.”
“I don’t know what that means,” Harley muttered, “but anyone who can use big words like that is probably no one to worry about.”
The two farmers wandered back inside. “Who is Eddie?” Dermot asked.
“My uncle. He lives on the farm, too. He’s not as bad as everyone says he is. He’s just a bit… grumpy. It would be best to avoid him.” Rachel rubbed her palms together. “I guess you have a job,” she said.
“Then, I guess I’d better finish loading this feed,” Dermot replied.
THE RIDE TO THE FARM offered Dermot a chance to find out a little more about his beautiful new boss. Her widowed father had died the previous year and she’d come home three months before his death to help care for him. She had two older brothers and an older sister and had worked as an artist in Chicago.
When she pulled off the road and into a driveway, Dermot’s attention turned to his new home. Clover Meadow Farm was right out of the movies with its red barn, fieldstone silo and white clapboard house. The old Victorian sat back from the road, surrounded by a grove of tall maple trees. A smaller stone house stood behind it, a ramshackle porch running the length of the facade.
An old man sat on the porch of the stone house, his wrinkled brow furrowed, his dark eyes observant. A small black goat sat on his lap, also watching warily.
“This is it,” Rachel said as she hopped out of the truck.
Dermot grabbed his bag from the back of the pickup before following her across the yard. He felt something tug on his leg and glanced down to find the little goat nibbling at the bottom of his jeans.
He stepped away, but the goat was undeterred. “Hey, cut that out.”
“Benny, shoo,” Rachel said. She looked at the old man on the porch. “Do not let that goat in the house again, you hear me?”
The old man slowly stood. “I hear you. Who is this?”
“Uncle Eddie, this is Dermot Quinn. I just hired him to help out on the farm. He’s got six weeks with nothing to do. I figure we can get him to help us finish some of the repair work around here.”
The frown on the old man’s face grew deeper. “Dermot Quinn? What kind of name is that?”
