Laurel
Laurel leaned on the shovel, cocked her hip out and narrowed her eyes at Jack because it was his fault for not being there to milk the cows.
Okay, he was lambing, but still.
‘Sorry for swearing,’ she said to Nate, because how unprofessional. He shrugged, trying to keep the amusement off his face, but he couldn’t help the small twist of his lips.
Screw him. So she worked on a farm, and yeah, sometimes she had to shovel shit. What of it? She raised an eyebrow at Nate defiantly.
‘So you are,’ Jack said, trying not to laugh. Laurel glared at him.
‘Yes, I fucking am, because one—’ She tucked the shovel in her elbow so she could count on her fingers. ‘None of the farmhands thatIemploy,’ Laurel ignored Jack’s eye roll, ‘are anywhere to be found. Two, Robin has disappeared off the face of the earth, again, despite asking him on numerous occasions to clean this up. Three, Dad is probably day drinking with old man Hibbert by now, and four...’ Laurel skittered off.
She didn’t really want to blame Jack, he worked harder on this farm than anyone else (physically at least), and besides, it wasn’t really his fault.
‘Yeah?’ Jack said, lifting his brows challengingly, smile dying.
Today had been shit; a hellishly busy morning just so she could spend the afternoon on site, which didn’t even happen all thanks to the arrival of Nate Daley. Now, here she was, shovelling shit in front of him. Nate studied the horizon, mouth twisting and jaw working to hold in a smile. Laurel scowled at his stupidly perfect profile. Had his nose always been that straight?
‘Well, you’re hanging out with your new best friend, so who am I to interrupt you with, you know, actual work that’s getting done?’ Laurel finished off strong.
Jack and Nate exchanged an over-dramatic ‘who me’ glance before Jack fell about laughing and Nate finally released that smile that she remembered so well. Urgh.
‘Oh, screw the both of you,’ Laurel snapped, turning sharply.
The slightly too big wellies caught on the edge of the spade and oh shit, she was flailing and falling. The spade hit the ground with a clang and caught on her foot. She was going down and it was all Laurel could do not to put her hand in the bucket of shit she’d been scraping up, and she managed to twist her body to land on her bum.
Which squelched noisily into a massive pile of cow manure. She sat there, dazed, embarrassed, with an extremely warm arse. With Nate Daley puce and looking at her like he might explode from holding in a laugh.
Jack, on the other hand, was doubled over and roaring with laughter. He laughed just like their father, bellowing across the whole yard. If she was in a better mood, Laurel would have thought how nice it was to hear him laugh, that he should laugh more.
But not today, thank you very much, and not while she was sitting in a pile of cow poo.
‘Jack!’ She shouted, trying to lever herself up like a crab so she wasn’t rolling in shit.
‘Can I help?’ Nate asked, a grin splitting his face as he leaned down to offer his hand to her. Laurel quickly assessed her situation. Jack was no help, he would continue to belly laugh until she rolled out of the muck, thus smearing it further over her dress.
‘Fine,’ she ground out, reaching for his hand.
Nate’s warm, solid hand gripped her clammy one tightly and she cringed because yes, as well as sitting in shit, she had sweaty hands. He gave her a tug, and dragged her upright with a sucking noise as her rear came free from the warm gunky mess.
‘There,’ he said quietly.
She was a smidge too close to Nate Daley for comfort.
It was not fair that he smelled of hurricanes and danger, and she smelled like a farmyard. Had he grown, or had he always been this tall? Perhaps he’d got broader? He was certainly bigger. He tilted his head at her questioningly.
‘Right, well, thanks.’ Laurel took a step back and tried to twist to assess the damage. She’d lost more clothes than she would like to admit to cow manure. The dry cleaner was going to have their work cut out with this one. A non-committal noise came from Nate’s throat as Jack finally pulled himself together.
‘You can have some of Rebecca’s clothes, Laurel,’ he said.
‘No, I’ve got clothes.’ She shot an accusative look at Nate, because they were the clothes that she’d brought to change into for the dig: denim shorts and a tank top. Completely inappropriate for the office.
‘Can you?’ Laurel motioned helplessly to the half-cleared yard. ‘And please, please tell Robin to go around the back to the milking shed. It’s quicker and he just...’ She wiped her forearm across her sweaty forehead and half turned her back on Nate, speaking quietly. ‘He just pisses me off and won’t listen to me.’ She hated her thin and weedy voice.
It was true. Even though Laurel had practically raised the little shitbag after their mother had died, she was the last person on earth Robin would listen to.
‘Yeah, I’ll talk to him,’ Jack said.
