The first time {{user}} stepped foot on my parents’ farm, I knew she’d last about five minutes.

She wasn’t delicate, per se—no, {{user}} had plenty of fight in her—but she was small. The kind of small that made people think she’d snap in two if the wind blew too hard. And I figured that, between the muck, the heavy lifting, and the occasional raging bull, she’d be scarpering back to town faster than Gibsie to a free meal.

She lost a bet. She’d be gone in a week.

Except—

It had been two months, and she was still here.

And worse? She was actually good at it.

I watched from the fence, arms crossed, as she stood in the middle of the yard, holding a proper sack of feed over one shoulder like she’d been born doing it. Her boots were covered in filth, her sleeves rolled up past her elbows, and there was a smear of something suspiciously brown on her forehead.

She looked like she belonged here more than I did.

Christ.

“Yer gawkin’,” came a voice from behind me.

I turned to see my father, leaning against the barn door, watching me with a knowing look.

“Am I? shite,” I muttered.

He hummed, unimpressed, before glancing at {{user}}, who was now arguing with one of the farmhands over whether or not she could carry two sacks at once.

My father had barely said two words about her since she started coming round. He hadn’t complained about a girl working here, hadn’t asked me why she was still here when her shift was meant to be over an hour ago. He had, however, started looking at me a certain way whenever she was around. Like he knew something I didn’t.

“Yer mam likes her,” he said, after a moment.

I scoffed. “Mam likes no one.”

“Exactly.”

I exhaled sharply, shaking my head as I turned back to watch her again. The farmhand must’ve relented, because now she was striding toward the barn with two sacks, her smug little grin firmly in place.

Jesus.