Radclyffe - Homestead

Charlotte’s hand was smooth and feminine, with tapering fingers and manicured nails painted a pale pink. Clay pictured her own hands, as much like her father’s as her thick dark-brown hair, chestnut-brown eyes, and muscular build—strong broad fingers, slightly calloused at the tips, moving now over Charlotte’s tender flesh. The image made Clay want to earn her reputation as a ruthless corporate pirate and plunderer. She grinned at Charlotte. “One minute.”

Charlotte regarded her from beneath half-lowered lids, her dark eyes smoky with invitation. “Hurry.”

Clay’s clit tightened. “I’m kind of busy right now, Millie. I’ll call you when I get to—”

“You’re not going to Kansas City. We need you in the Hudson Valley.”

Clay stiffened. She understood the we to mean her father, since it wasn’t unusual for him to decide he needed to pull her from one job to another at a moment’s notice. She wasn’t just the vice president for operations of her father’s many enterprises, she was his general all-around troubleshooter. If a job was going bad, he sent her to find out why and to fix it. If that meant cutting political deals to find ways around problematic zoning regulations or strong-arming subcontractors to keep on deadline, she did it. She was used to the nomadic lifestyle and no longer fought the reality that her life was never really her own. She’d never been bothered by being unpopular. She’d never really wanted friends—not the ones she’d grown up with, who were more impressed by status than substance.

Usually her destination barely registered—one hotel, one drilling field, was pretty much like every other. The corporate jet would take her wherever she needed to go. But the one place she did not want to go was the Hudson Valley. “Where’s Ali? The Johnsonville project is his baby.”

“Alejandro is in Switzerland, overseeing the shipping deal. And this isn’t really his thing anyhow. Robert wants to break ground. We’re already moving in the crews.”

“Then send—”

“Roberta,” Millie said, one of the only people who ever called her by her given name—her father’s namesake—and only then when Millie was making an unassailable point. “Your father wants you in the Hudson Valley. There’s been a change in the county regs, and the window of time may be small for us to establish our presence.”

“So he wants me to get the rigs in and make it more expensive to get rid of us than to—”

“I don’t believe a discussion of business strategy is warranted given the circumstances,” Millie said coolly, as if she had X-ray vision to go along with her nerves of steel.

Of course, maybe she really could see where Clay’s hand had wandered.

“Fine,” Clay said, biting off the word and restraining herself from taking out her anger on Millie, a messenger she did not want to kill no matter how unpleasant her missive. “When?”

Millie laughed softly. “Now that’s a silly question. The jet’s fueling now and Ella is overseeing the arrangements. How about an hour and a half?”

“Ninety minutes? That’s a little—”

Charlotte moved Clay’s hand higher and pressed it to the V between her thighs. She was warm and wet, and a muscle in Clay’s belly twitched.

“Tell them two hours.” Clay disconnected and tossed the phone onto a nearby chair. She drew the sheet down, dropped the towel on the floor, and stretched out on top of Charlotte. Her five-ten frame covered Charlotte’s completely. Charlotte’s breasts were full and firm against hers. The muscles in her chest, honed from working in the field whenever she could, tensed as she gripped Charlotte’s wrists, pinning her lightly to the bed.

Charlotte licked water droplets from her neck. “You’re still wet.”

Clay kissed her and settled her hips between Charlotte’s thighs. “I was about to say—”

“If you’ve only got two hours, don’t say anything.” Charlotte wrapped her legs around Clay’s hips and nibbled on her lip. “Just fuck me.”

Clay rarely took orders, but when a beautiful woman in bed gave instructions, she didn’t argue. Charlotte didn’t seem to notice when her mind drifted to the upcoming trip and a place she’d hoped never to see again.

Hands tucked into the front pockets of her jeans, Tess stood in the shade of the main cow barn as the last of the milk was pumped from her holding tanks into the transport tanker that idled in front of the wide-open double doors. Just after six, the last major chore of the day was finished. The heat was unrelenting, she’d been up since four, and she was tired of worrying and feeling helpless. Shaking off the fatigue, she waited patiently while the driver disconnected his hoses, checked gauges to measure the volume of milk he’d added to that already on board, and closed the ports on the refrigerated truck’s body. He finished his tabulations, including the milk temperature, spot bacteria count, and overall milk quality, and handed her the form to review. After she initialed the tube of milk he’d taken from her lot to be tested later and handed it to him, she took the clipboard from him, scanned what he had entered, and signed off on the delivery receipt. He gave her a copy, tucked the clipboard under his arm, and glanced out over the pastures. The grass was grazed down to almost nothing. “Sure could stand a little rain, huh?”

“Sure couldn’t hurt,” Tess said, amazed how an understatement could become the mantra of an entire region. The milk yield had been down for the last few days. When the cows didn’t graze, they didn’t make as much milk. Things weren’t serious yet, but they would be if they went much longer without rain. Unlike some of her neighboring dairy farms who weren’t organic, she couldn’t supplement her feed with anything hormonal or chemical to bolster milk production even if the substance was technically approved, not if she wanted to maintain her organic dairy certification. And she needed that to close the deal with Empire Yogurt—the next stage in her plan to make her farm into a solid, profitable operation for the long term.

Greek yogurt was the key to her success. The demand for organic Greek yogurt was skyrocketing, and the consumption of milk in the production of the higher-milk-content yogurt was enormous. Yogurt plants needed more milk than local dairies could supply, and Rolling Hills Farm— her farm—would be one of the few organic dairy farms in the state. She was in the right place at the right time to build a long-term relationship with the specialty yogurt producers. She was almost at the end of the first year of her five-year plan. In just a few more months, she would meet the state requirements for organic certification, and as soon as she had that, the deal with Empire Yogurt was waiting to be inked. She just had to hang on until then.

“It’s the un-perfect storm, huh?” Tess said. “Mild winter, warm spring, and not enough rain. Water table’s about tapped out.”

“Well,” the driver said, “this drought can’t go on forever.” He tipped his cap. “See you tomorrow.”

“I’ll be here,” Tess said and watched him drive away.

She would be here, rain or no rain. She had always known this was her place. Sure, she’d entertained leaving when she was thirteen or fourteen and was tired of the quiet life on the farm and the lack of excitement in the local scene. There hadn’t been much for a teenage girl to do except hang at the Tastee-Freez or spend time at the 4-H club. The nearest movie theaters were half an hour’s drive away, and her mother didn’t want her riding with the older boys and girls, so she was pretty much stuck with the same kids she’d been in school with all her life. For a time, she’d imagined going to New York or Boston or some faraway city to go to college, maybe study to be a veterinarian or a fashion designer. Then when she was seventeen, she’d gotten a job at the lake and left home for the first time and everything changed. She’d discovered why she’d always been best friends with the boys but hadn’t taken to dating them the way most of her girlfriends had. With the city kids who came with their parents from New York City and Montreal to vacation at the lake, she’d discovered there was far more to life than she’d realized. And then she’d fallen in love, lost her virginity, and gotten her heart broken all in one long, unforgettable summer.