Chapter One
Andie
January
It is time to wake
up.
Feel yourself
slowly floating to consciousness.
It is time to wake
up.
“No.” Andie slapped her hand absently against the
nightstand, knocking over her bottle of water while hunting for her phone. She
jabbed at it before holding it above her face and then frowned. “What do you
mean, you don’t recognise my face? It’s my face. The faceiest of faces. It’s
the only one I have.”
Dropping back onto the pillow, Andie scowled in the
darkness. Her nonna had forced her to download the calming wake-up app.
Unfortunately, it mostly made her feel like she’d joined a cult.
“Fine.” Andie stretched her arm out to flip on a
light. “Oh, that’s unnecessarily bright. There. Now can you recognise my face?
Thank you.”
She managed to get the app turned off. How was it
supposed to help her wake up in a good mood? All it had done was make her want
to smash her phone with a hammer.
Andriana Milne-Marchetti ran the M & M Farm outside
a little village in Aberdeenshire in Scotland. She’d taken over when her
parents decided to retire and move to Sicily to spend time with her nonna and
nonno. Her mother had wanted to be with her parents, as they were both getting
older.
Andie’s father came from old Scottish farming stock,
and the farm had been in the Milne family for ages. They no longer had cows and
sheep. Her parents had turned it into a fruit orchard when Andie was a little
girl.
She adored the farm. It had been her childhood dream
to have the run of the place. She had so many ideas, including running a pop-up
supper for her friends in the village.
Farm to table, as it were.
Yes, it was lonely on the farm with just Rupert, but
she loved it nonetheless.
“All right, you furry fiend, why don’t we see what we
can scrounge up for breakfast?” Andie checked the date on her phone and cursed.
“Is it already the fourteenth? Doc’s going to be here today.”
Docherty Fabre was a family friend. He’d lived in the
village for a while before deciding to travel. Something had happened to him,
though.
Her father had called her a few weeks back, asking if
she minded if Doc stayed at the farm. They had a small shed that had been
converted into a living space. Nothing fancy. Just a bedroom and a bathroom.
Andie had immediately invited him to stay for as long as he needed.
And I’m going to
regret it when I can’t handle my embarrassing crush.
Nope. Don’t think
about it. Hopefully, the more you ignore it, the easier it’ll become to pretend
nothing’s there.
If I don’t mention
the awkward kiss under the apple trees, maybe he won’t either.
Probably won’t, since he ran off like a bloody coward.
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