The Grump Whisperer (Morningsong Farm #1)

Three

“S o, what was he like?” Olivia asked over top of Charlie’s neck.

His brown coat was still fuzzy with its winter growth, and he’d been rolling out in the field that morning, so Bronwen was helping to de-mud him. The horse relaxed in the wash stall, cross ties attached to either side of his halter, back foot propped on its front edge and eyes closed. Every so often he’d nose Olivia affectionately, and Bronwen tried not to feel anything like jealousy. Or loss.

Her nose scrunched. She didn’t really want to think of either of her two meetings with... Well, she didn’t actually know his name. For all their back-and-forth, she’d never asked. She was too busy being annoyed by his refusal to take responsibility for the farm, then by the shock of finding him in the feed room when she’d thought he was an intruder, and then...

Well. As much as she definitely wasn’t looking for any sort of relationship or fling or anything at all, really, her body had apparently not gotten the memo. When a ridiculously attractive man had you up against a wall, various reactions were bound to happen.

“Are you... blushing ?” Olivia’s eyes widened and her mouth dropped open. “Oh, this is good. Tell me everything!” She patted the top of Charlie’s back in excitement, but he didn’t even bat an eye.

“Ooh, tell you what? What’s going on?” Scott, Brian’s husband, stopped in his tracks as he led his pretty copper bay horse, Sugar, down the barn aisle. Sugar was all tacked up in her saddle and bridle, ready for her ride.

“Wait—are you riding indoors or outdoors?” She didn’t want to risk Sugar’s legs on the outdoor footing.

“Indoors.” Scott made a face, then rubbed a hand over his dark beard. “She’s so spooky in there, but I can’t take her outside.”

Bronwen sighed. She knew Sugar would be a handful indoors—spooking and pretending every shadow was a monster, every mysterious sound from outside a threat. But Scott couldn’t just leave her in the field all day. He had to ride somehow.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“I guess the new owner wasn’t much help.” Olivia gave her a sympathetic grimace.

“Did you actually meet the owner?” Scott leaned back against Sugar’s belly, his head barely reaching her back.

“I did,” Bronwen replied. “And he said he’d take care of the issues.” She chewed her bottom lip, a bad nervous habit. “It’s actually his sister who’s the owner, but she’s out of the country and he’s staying here for a while. He didn’t—” She stopped, although she didn’t know why. It felt wrong somehow to tell them everything she knew—little as it was—about the man, but that was silly. She didn’t owe him anything, and he hadn’t said his presence there was a secret. Only that he wanted to be left alone.

Which was completely fine with her. She didn’t need any more time in the presence of a tall, blond, brooding man who clearly had no use for her—or the farm she loved—whatsoever. For one very short moment in the feed room yesterday, when he’d leaned into her and the air shifted around them like an electrical charge, she’d even thought that he’d been about to kiss her. And the worst part was, she’d wanted him to.

She didn’t even know him—he was a complete stranger, and an unpleasant one at that. Bronwen had no idea what came over her, and was just grateful that he’d stepped away and resumed being awful. She’d already extricated herself from a man who’d been perfectly fine until he was revealed to be awful. Kissing a man who’d started off as awful seemed like a distinct step backward.

“Didn’t what?” Olivia asked, going back to scrubbing Charlie with a stiff currycomb.

“Yeah, didn’t what?” Scott added.

Bronwen decided she may as well tell them everything. “He didn’t even know this was a boarding barn—his sister didn’t tell him. Really weird. And he didn’t want to take responsibility for it, for any of it. But then he agreed to deal with all of the problems until his sister gets back, if we leave him completely alone.”

Scott shrugged as if any of it made any sense at all. “So, we leave him alone. If we get feed and hay and—dear Lord in heaven, please let it be so—new footing for the outdoor, who cares? No skin off our collective noses.”

Olivia squinted at her from the other side of Charlie’s body. “Okay... That’s weird but fine.” She pointed the currycomb in Bronwen’s direction. “But what’s with the blushing?”

Bronwen had hoped she’d distracted her friend from that little reaction.

“Yeah, what’s with the blushing?” Scott repeated.

“Why are we blushing?” Rachel stuck her head around the door of the tack room.

Bronwen resisted the urge to bang her head against the side of the nearest stall.

Rachel was eleven years old, completely horse obsessed and as good a rider as Bronwen had seen at her age. She had the fearlessness of most child riders, as well as natural-born talent and a total understanding of her pony, an adorable little black-and-white paint named Applejack.

Unfortunately, Rachel was growing as fast as kids tended to do, while Applejack stayed the same height. No one dared bring it up around the barn, but Rachel’s ability to ride her beloved pony would come to an end sooner rather than later.

Bronwen thought fast. “He was just... He was so rude. It makes me mad just thinking about it.”

It was a weak excuse for her blush, but Scott and Rachel seemed to buy it. Olivia raised an eyebrow but kept brushing Charlie.

“Well...again,” Scott said. “Who cares? If we’re not going to see him around, he can be as rude as he likes up there at the house. Alone.”

Olivia’s forehead wrinkled. “Didn’t Ruth’s grandkids take most of the furniture when she moved? How did he get all his stuff in there without you noticing, Bronwen?”

“He doesn’t...he doesn’t really have any stuff up there.” The image of him, sitting in the near darkness by the fire in a cold and empty house, flickered across her consciousness. She wouldn’t feel bad for him. She wouldn’t . He clearly wanted whatever it was he had going on in the house, as lonely as it appeared. It wasn’t her business.

“Weird,” Scott said.

“Yeah, that’s creepy. Is he a serial killer?” Rachel asked with some enthusiasm.

“Who knows?” Bronwen said, then thought better of herself. Sometimes she forgot that Rachel was just a kid. Rachel’s parents wouldn’t thank her for suggesting that the person in charge of the barn where their kid spent every free minute might be a murderer. “I mean, no. Of course not. He probably had his stuff shipped and it hasn’t arrived yet. He said he’s only here until his sister gets back, anyway.”

“Well, as long as he does what needs doing, he can be as weird as he wants,” Scott said, and he led Sugar toward the indoor.

“I’m going to get Applejack from the field,” Rachel said. “I bet he’s gross,” she added with a glance at the caked mud on Charlie’s side. “This weather sucks.”

Olivia snorted. “It does. Where is spring?” And when Scott and Rachel were well out of earshot, she added, “And listen—don’t think I buy that crap you gave us about this new guy being irritating.”

“He is irritating,” Bronwen protested.

“Okay. But he’s also a grouchy recluse in a big old house, and I’m going to wildly guess from the color your face turned when you talked about him that he’s attractive, too. Right?”

Bronwen made a face.

Olivia cackled. “He is, isn’t he? He’s a gorgeous beast, and you’re the beauty!”

“Yes, look at me, the epitome of what everyone desires in a woman,” Bronwen said dryly, sweeping her gaze over her shirt with the hole in the hem from where one of the horses had ripped it with their teeth, her stained jeans, her unspeakably filthy boots. She never wore makeup, and her plain brown hair was eternally pulled back in a practical ponytail.

“Oh please. You’re hot.”

Bronwen curtsied at her friend. “Why, thank you. But our perspective as official Horse Girls T-M might be a little different from the general public.”

Bronwen was used to the looks she’d get when she ran into the grocery store in her muck-covered boots and her rattiest old T-shirt. She barely noticed the dirt or the smell herself, and since her life revolved around horses 24/7, it was hardly worth it to doll herself up just to go into town. It wasn’t like she was looking to meet anyone, and if she ever decided she was ready for that again, they’d have to accept her as she was. Horses were far more important than trying to meet some artificial beauty standard she didn’t care about to begin with.

“The general public is missing out, both on horses and hot horse girls.”

“Too true.”

“He is hot, though. Isn’t he?”

Bronwen waited a beat. “Yes. Yes, he is.”

“Excellent.” Olivia grinned at her.

Over the weekend, Bronwen was caught up in the usual rush of boarders coming and going while they had whole days off work, as well as the extra grooming, blanketing and coping with the ice—and even a dusting of snow—that always came over the winter. Except it wasn’t winter anymore, and she wondered yet again when they’d finally get the spring thaw.

She couldn’t remember the last time she’d had to break solid ice in the horses’ water buckets this late in the year, and while the frost-covered grass across the six large fields out back sparkled cheerfully in the morning sun, the dirt road dividing them was an eternally muddy mess. And that same sun seemed to have no interest in actually warming or drying any part of the farm. But the horses were snug in their winter blankets, and they didn’t mind rolling in the cold mud, even if their owners were less pleased with the results. They all gathered in the heated tack room for hot coffee and the doughnuts that Brian brought with him almost every day between grooming, riding and the other never-ending chores that accompanied horse life. And the wait for spring continued.

Bronwen spent a not-insignificant amount of time cursing the Man of the House, as she’d started thinking of him, for lying to her and convincing her to leave him alone while he took care of the various issues around the farm. He hadn’t made another appearance, which was unsurprising. But she was unexpectedly surprised and a little disappointed that he hadn’t kept his word about fixing the farm’s problems.

She didn’t know why she was surprised, honestly. She’d certainly had close run-ins before with men who promised big and delivered nothing.

But if this man thought she’d continue to stay out of his way while he failed to hold up his end of the bargain, he was sadly mistaken. Still, she hesitated to stomp up to his doorstep and tear him a new one, telling herself that she wanted to give him a chance. That she was too busy to go up and have it out with him again. And after all, the reality was that she couldn’t force him to do anything.

The other reality was she didn’t relish the thought of being in close proximity to him again. The way the breath had whooshed out of her lungs when he’d leaned close to her, the heat that had begun somewhere just below her heart and melted downward to her pelvis—she enjoyed attraction as much as many people, but not when it was attraction to that man. She needed to hold him accountable, not swoon whenever he got too near to her.

So, she grumped around the farm for several days, and then... Then things started happening.

First, she went out into the crisp morning air one day and had to fumble around for the lock on the main sliding door because it was no longer sticking out. She’d meant to fix that issue herself and just hadn’t gotten to it. Then she came downstairs to the tiny office next to the feed room one morning to find the farrier scheduled into the chalkboard barn calendar that hung on the wall, in handwriting she didn’t recognize.

And the feed store called while she was standing there staring at the chalkboard and said they were all paid up, and would she like to pick up their regular order, or have it delivered? The hay delivery arrived a day later, just as their supply was getting dangerously low. And finally, incredibly, the manure removal truck came to take away their mountain of manure, just as Bronwen couldn’t possibly dump any more on top without risking an avalanche.

It was all awfully productive and efficient for someone who’d appeared to neither care about nor know anything about horses. She wondered if she’d been mistaken about him, or if he’d intentionally misled her.

“Huh,” Martha said. “Whatever you told the new owner really worked.”

“The owner’s brother,” Bronwen said absently. “He’s just here temporarily.”

“Well, he can stay permanently if this is how things are going to be.” And she stalked off to get Percy.

Bronwen wanted to agree. A hands-off owner who paid the bills and made sure everything was taken care of while also leaving her to do her job wasn’t the worst thing in the world. She missed Ruth, of course, but Ruth had been her friend as well as her boss. Those sorts of relationships didn’t happen every day, and she wasn’t expecting a replacement. She just wanted the farm to be safe and well-run.

But she did wonder... The Man of the House hadn’t seemed particularly happy on the two occasions when she’d seen him. And that wasn’t her business, or her problem. She had her hands full at the barn with nearly a dozen horses and owners clamoring for care and attention. And maybe it was because Ruth was a good friend, and Bronwen had become accustomed to caring about the well-being of the owner. Maybe it was habit more than anything.

But she worried.

Not overwhelmingly, and not all the time. But every so often she’d remember the creases in his forehead when she’d been so close to him in the feed room. The grim set of his mouth as he hunched by the fireplace surrounded by emptiness. The way he’d lashed out and told her he wanted to be left alone.

Bronwen liked being alone. But not all the time. Not in an empty house. And not when she was so obviously unhappy.

She found herself glancing up at the house, trying to see if there were any signs of life. He’d been busy the past few days, fixing the things she’d told him about, and more. Surely he had to leave the house sometimes, if only to deal with those problems? But she never saw any sign of it. She wondered if he was sick. If he needed anything. If, despite her promises, it might be in everyone’s best interest if she went up to the house just one more time, to check on him.

The thing that finally pushed her over the edge was the outdoor ring.

When Ruth had lived at the farm, she’d always made sure that Bronwen had two full days off each week. Usually Mondays and Tuesdays, since most of the boarders were back at work and things were relatively slow. For those two days, their part-time barn assistant, a college student named Abigail, handled feeding and mucking out.

Since Ruth left, Bronwen started splitting her days off to Tuesdays and Thursdays just so she wasn’t away from the barn for too long at once. But this week, she’d taken Tuesday and Wednesday to go into Boston and visit her parents in Brighton, staying in their duplex overnight. She hadn’t seen them in weeks, and while they were both healthy and happily retired, she liked to check in on them. Plus, eating two days’ worth of her dad’s cooking was always worth the short trip.

She’d returned home to her apartment late Wednesday night and collapsed into bed after a quick check around the barn. Thursday morning, after she’d finished her chores, she caught Scott chatting happily with Martha just outside of the barn, grasping Sugar’s reins in one hand.

“Good morning, miracle worker!” Scott greeted her with enormous cheer.

“I—What?” Bronwen looked around like maybe Scott was talking to someone else.

“I told you before,” Martha said. “Whatever you said to the new owner really worked.”

Bronwen stared at the older woman. “What am I missing?”

“The outdoor ring!” Scott said. “Two days ago a big truck came and all these guys dug out a layer of the packed old dirt and replaced it with that fancy fiber-mix stuff. It’s all dragged and leveled out—I feel like I’m at the Olympics or something!”

Bronwen blinked several times. The old footing had just been dirt and clay, so trodden down that even dragging it with the tractor didn’t do much to soften it, especially in the freezing weather. But when she’d said they needed new footing, she was picturing a layer of good sand. Not only was the fancy fiber stuff more expensive, but it took some level of knowledge to know what to shop for. A level of knowledge she definitely wouldn’t have ascribed to the Man of the House. Only someone with significant barn management knowledge could have pulled this off so quickly.

“And they fixed the drainage!” Martha added. “They were in there all day both days, doing whatever it was.”

“Yeah, they put in a couple drainage pipes, did some leveling—the main guy said they were under strict orders to get it done in two days. They were here as long as any of us were, way past dark both times.”

Bronwen frowned. None of this made any sense. The Man of the House obviously had been looking at—and writing on—the chalkboard calendar. He would have seen her days off. Why schedule the work for when she’d be away? And why spend more money than he had to on a farm he didn’t even want to be in charge of? Because he must have paid for it out of his own pocket, with how tight the farm’s books were, and he’d taken the expensive option.

Gratitude battled with confusion inside her. The expense and effort of everything he’d done recently was enormous. And yet he’d done it without ever speaking to her or any of the boarders. Without ever, it appeared, leaving the house. Other than his nocturnal visits to the office to write on the chalkboard.

Nocturnal visits paid while she was asleep upstairs in her bed, which wasn’t something she should find vaguely sexy. And yet...

She shook her head.

“Well,” she said briskly, “that’s great news, isn’t it? The ring needed an upgrade for a while, and this is better than we could have hoped.”

Martha eyed her. “You should go up there,” she said, gesturing to the farmhouse with her chin. “See what’s going on.”

Bronwen shook her head again, even though she’d been thinking the same thing to herself.

Sugar sidled up to her and snuffled her pockets. “Sorry, Sug, I don’t have any treats.” She scratched absently between the mare’s ears. “He made it really clear that he wants to be left alone. That he was going to take care of all this stuff if we left him alone.”

Martha squinted in the direction of the house. “Alone all the time, though? He hasn’t come down to the barn once.”

Bronwen didn’t mention the nocturnal chalkboard-writing or padlock-fixing visits.

“Yeah, we’re not going to bite him or whatever,” Scott added. “I mean, fine, if he wants us to stay out of his business, but...he never even comes out of the house. That seems a little weird.”

It was more than a little weird. She didn’t even know the man’s name , for God’s sake.

Was she doing the right thing by respecting his wishes and leaving him alone? He obviously wasn’t the complete ass she’d believed at first, an ass she was more than happy to avoid and ignore, as long as the barn was taken care of. But he’d gone to such effort on her behalf—and the horses’, of course. He couldn’t be as terrible a person as he’d seemed that first day. What if he was lonely, or worse, in trouble? She had no idea what kind of trouble someone could get into by themselves in that big old house, but she hated to think of anyone alone and struggling. No one deserved that. He seemed like the sort who could take care of himself. But still...

“He’s already helped us so much,” Martha said. “Even Ruth could barely keep up with the farm maintenance.”

“Ruth did things her own way,” Bronwen admitted.

Horse care always came first with Ruth, but she had sometimes needed nudging when it came to paying the bills or taking on large projects like, for example, the outdoor ring. She’d been a single woman in her seventies responsible for a whole farm, and for most of the decades Ruth owned Morning Song she’d done it all herself. Bronwen couldn’t fault her. But having everything on the to-do list taken care of so quickly and without any effort on her part... It was pretty great.

And she was feeling pretty grateful, despite the unsettling effect the grumpy man up in the farmhouse had on her.

“And there are other things that need doing,” Scott said. “Things Ruth talked about but never got around to—like new saddle racks in the tack room, and getting a new gate for the indoor. No, Sugar, no grazing with your bridle on.” He pulled his horse’s head up from where she was trying to grab a snack.

Bronwen chewed her lip. “But those aren’t things we need ,” she said. “The list I gave the new owner’s brother were things that couldn’t wait.”

“You could still ask, though,” Martha replied.

“You could,” Scott said. “Just ask.”

Bronwen looked suspiciously between the two of them. “Do you want me to ask for more because we need those things done, or because you’re nosy and want more info on him?”

Martha grinned. “Both? It can be both, right?”

“I mean, you got to see him,” Scott said. “None of us have. We don’t even know his name. It’s so mysterious!”

Bronwen rolled her eyes. “He’s just a grumpy guy who’s staying here until his sister can take over. It’s not mysterious.”

It was, though, she thought to herself. Mysterious and intriguing. She loved her life at Morning Song; she really did. The routine and unchanging pattern of her work had been a comfort when she’d first arrived. It was still a comfort. She wasn’t wishing for it to change. She wasn’t bored. She wasn’t . But...she was intrigued. Curious. Things she hadn’t been in a long time. It itched under her skin, this desire to uncover the mystery of the Man of the House.

And there were other things that should be done around the farm. Maybe it wouldn’t hurt to ask. And to check up on him. And to see if the strange chemistry between them really happened, or if it had just been her imagination.

While she was at it.

“Maybe tonight,” she said. “Maybe I can bring him dinner or something.”

Martha scoffed. “We all know you can’t cook. Remember that soup you made for the barn potluck?”

“Oh, yeah, that was...really something,” Scott said.

“Takeout exists,” Bronwen said defensively.

The sound of a truck at the end of the drive by the road interrupted them, and they all turned to look.

“Now what?” Martha exclaimed.

Bronwen quickly sorted through her mental list of things she’d mentioned about the farm, but there was nothing that hadn’t already been taken care of. This was something else entirely.

As the truck approached, they could see that it was a horse trailer—a fancy one, with the name and logo of a well-known breeding farm on the side.

“Did you tell him we needed another horse, too?” Martha asked wonderingly.

“No.” Bronwen watched the trailer as it came up the long drive under the old maple trees, and then passed right by the barn. Sugar whinnied softly, ears pricked forward.

“Where is it going?” Scott asked. “Barn’s right here.”

The trailer continued up the drive and maneuvered around to the front of the farmhouse.

“I guess it’s not a horse,” Martha said. “It must just be something for him up there.” She shrugged. “I’d better go get Percy, anyway. I think he managed to get the whole field’s worth of mud on his coat.”

“I’m going to go try out the new ring,” Scott said. “Ready, Sugar?”

The two boarders went their separate ways, but Bronwen stood for a while in the weak sunlight, staring up at the house. If whatever he was having delivered wasn’t a horse, then why use a horse trailer? He hadn’t indicated in either of their conversations that he even knew anything about horses, although given everything he’d accomplished around the farm, she was rethinking that assumption.

Mysterious and intriguing.

But still not her business. And after a while the brisk wind chilled her through, and she went back inside the barn.