Page 6 of The Farmer Has a Wife

There was a tiny moment of silence as momentum took hold of the situation, and then there was a thud, followed by an ominous crunching sound.

Then a soft, quiet ticking.

Eleanor let out a horrified breath before flinging open the door and jumping out of the driver’s seat. “Oh, my God. You’ve murdered my car,” she moaned, looking down at the damage.

The farmer, who had climbed down and was looking at the dented side of her own vehicle, snorted. “Yeah? Well, your little tin can just took a chunk out of my brother’s tractor, and he’sgoing to kill me.”

Eleanor, too distressed to really register this, flung herself around and marched toward the other driver, heels clicking against the road. The farmer turned around, planting her work boots on the gravel and putting her hands on her hips.

And the two women stared at each other for the first time.

Eleanor, in her tailored blazer and silk blouse, her blonde hair in a chignon and her heels just the right height, was well aware that she looked exactly how she was supposed to look. Effortlessly elegant and tastefully stylish. Despite the stress of the moment, she stood ramrod straight and held her head high.

This farmer, by contrast, looked like she had just spent her morning wrestling a particularly stubborn sheep. Her flannel shirt had seen better days, her jeans were more hole than denim, her dark hair clearly needed a wash, and there was a streak of something across her cheek that Eleanor strongly hoped was just mud.

“What were you thinking?” Eleanor hissed, gesturing at the damage done to her beloved car. “Were you even looking where you were going?”

“Me?” the farmer barked out a laugh, dark eyes flashing. “You were the one speeding.”

“I was not speeding,” Eleanor shot back, scandalized at the very thought.

The farmer crossed her arms. “Lady, I don’t know if you realize this, but the speed limit around these parts is thirty. You were going at least…” She squinted at the car. “At least sports car speed.”

Eleanor let out an exasperated sound. “This is a classic MG, I’ll have you know. It’s worth more than… than…” She pointed at the tractor, at a loss for a comparison.

“Worth more than a tractor?” the other woman said. “Congratulations, so’s my left boot.”

They glared at each other.

There was tension.

Something inside Eleanor was telling her that this was notthe ‘we’ve just had an accident’ kind of tension. It was more… a ‘why are you irritating and also oddly attractive’ kind of tension. Which was ridiculous because there was nothing attractive about someone with potential animal manure on their face. Eleanor took a breath, swallowed, and found her sense of self again.

“Fine, let’s be civil,” she said, pulling a notebook from her handbag. “We’ll exchange details, our insurance companies can deal with the rest.”

The farmer raised an eyebrow. “Insurance? Sure you don’t want to call daddy’s solicitor?”

Eleanor gave her a look. A look that she’d honed in years of dealing with people underestimating her. “I assure you, I am perfectly capable of handling my own affairs.”

The farmer smirked, taking a crumpled piece of paper that proved to be a receipt out of her pocket, and gesturing for Eleanor’s gold pen. She scribbled something on it and handed both to Eleanor.

“This is a feed store receipt,” Eleanor said, looking down at it.

“Paper’s paper.”

Eleanor closed her eyes briefly, as if summoning patience from the heavens. “Unbelievable.”

With a deep breath, and one last glare, she folded the receipt and put it carefully into her handbag before climbing back into her car and attempting to start the engine.

Fortunately, the damage didn’t seem to be bad enough that the little car wouldn’t start. She got a grumble and then a purr, so she shifted into gear, reversed, and drove around the tractor, feeling the farmer’s eyes on her with every move that she made.

Then she sped off down the lane, nursing a sneaking suspicion that this wasn’t the last time that she’d see the infuriating woman.

Chapter Four

It wasn’t so much that Danni had imagined that owning a farm would be all fresh air and rolling fields and the deep satisfaction of a hard day’s work well done. She’d grown up on a farm, after all, she knew the realities of life. However, she hadn’t quite imagined it would be so much broken equipment, endless bills, and a constant state of mild panic.

She stood in the kitchen, the ancient kettle wheezing like it had personally plowed a hundred fields, stirring a cup of instant coffee that was more granules than water. The animals were fed, cleaned out, and either scratching around in the dirt or out to pasture, and this was the first chance she’d had to get some desperately needed caffeine into her body.

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