16. Trespassers
Chapter sixteen
Trespassers
Sutton
Istepped out onto the farmhouse porch. The morning air carried a sharp bite, cutting through my thin shirt.
I pulled my cardigan tight, wrapping it over my pregnant stomach.
The weight of the baby had shifted over the last few weeks, making the descent down the wooden steps a deliberate chore.
A crisp scent of pine needles drifted across the yard, masking the lingering odor of mud and wet livestock from the recent storm.
I navigated the driveway, my work boots crunching against the damp gravel. A rhythmic thud echoed near the edge of the pasture. I stopped walking, letting my weight settle into the stones.
Hayes stood by the splintered fence. He wore a ruined, mud-stained shirt, his sleeves rolled up past his elbows. He lifted a hammer, wincing, and drove a nail into the splintered rail.
The polished, untouchable actor was gone. He swung the tool again, straining with the effort. I remained rooted in the driveway, absorbing the unexpected heat of the sun against my cheeks. I had spent months building a wall of ice to keep him out.
I stared at him sweating in the dirt. This was the fierce, determined grit that made me fall in love with him in our cramped Los Angeles apartment, long before the studio contracts consumed him. He was finally pouring that relentless drive into rebuilding the farm.
Hayes paused his labor, the head of the tool dropping toward the grass. He wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of his wrist, wincing as the motion pulled at his torn skin. He looked up, his gaze catching mine across the expanse of the yard.
He offered a tentative, exhausted smile. He didn’t drop his supplies and rush over, and he didn’t call out my name. He simply waited in the mud, letting me decide how close to get.
I let go of my sweater. I closed the remaining distance, stopping a few feet away from the ruined post. I studied the jagged angle of the spike he was trying to force into the rail.
“You’re going to bend the nails if you strike them at that angle,” I said.
He lowered his arm, resting the hammer against his thigh. He looked down at the twisted spike. “The wood is warped from the storm. It requires a lot more force to get them flush against the post.”
“You’ll just have to pry them out and start over when they bend flat against the wood,” I said.
He let out a ragged breath, inspecting the crooked nail. The raw, cracked skin on his palms was proof of his fight in the barn yesterday. He had risked his own safety to protect Ruby and Clementine. He earned a reprieve.
“You’ve been out here since sunrise,” I said. “You should come inside and let Ruby make you a plate of breakfast before you tackle the dock.”
He leaned against the fence, taken aback by the offer. He stared at me for a long moment, taking in the olive branch. He shifted his stance, favoring his bruised side from his fall in the muck.
“I want to finish this section first so the delivery trucks have a clear path,” Hayes said. “But I’d love a cup of coffee if there’s any left in the pot.”
I promised to bring him a mug.
I turned back toward the farmhouse to get the mug. The quiet of the morning shattered. A low, aggressive mechanical roar surged up from the coastal highway.
I stopped. “What is that?” I muttered, staring past the edge of the property line.
Three black commercial SUVs turned off the main road. They did not slow down to navigate the potholes. They accelerated up Driftwood Blooms’ long driveway.
The grating crunch of tires tearing up the gravel echoed across the yard. The vehicles ignored the delivery markers. They sped past the main gate, spraying mud against the white posts.
I froze, abandoning the trip to the kitchen. My knees locked. The vehicles encroached on the loading zone, blocking the path he had just promised to clear for the wholesale trucks.
They parked in a wide arc near the edge of the main greenhouse. The massive engines idled in unison. The noise swallowed the quiet morning air, while the vehicles filled the yard with the smell of hot exhaust.
“Get behind the fence, Sutton,” Hayes said.
He dropped the tool into the mud. He stepped forward, placing himself between me and the vehicles.
The morning sun reflected off the tinted windshields, blinding me for a second. The engines dropped to a low idle. The sudden quiet that followed felt worse than the noise.
Car doors opened, the sound echoing across the gravel. I folded my arms tight over my stomach. The idling engines radiated a harsh heat. A wave of hot engine fumes pressed in, making my stomach turn.
The passenger door of the lead vehicle swung open. Eleanor stepped out. A sleek stiletto hit the ground, sinking deep into the wet gravel and muck. She did not flinch.
She pulled her coat tighter around her shoulders and marched forward. Her gaze swept right past me, treating me like I was invisible in my own sanctuary. She dismissed the working farm like a disposable movie set, surveying the mud.
Hayes stood a few feet away. He stepped in front of her, planting his work boots in the mud to block her path to the greenhouse.
“Mom, stop right there,” Hayes said. “Don’t take another step toward the sheds.”
Eleanor ignored the warning. She walked right up to him, stopping just short of his chest. Her immaculate white coat stood out against the rusted farm equipment and the wooden loading pallets.
“This ground is a swamp,” Eleanor said, glancing at the mud splattered on his jeans. “You look like a vagrant, Hayes. Tell me you at least packed a travel bag.”
“I told you to stop walking,” Hayes said, his voice dropping into a harsh tone. “Turn around and get back in the vehicle.”
“I gave you the chance to get this pathetic rustic tantrum out of your system, Hayes,” Eleanor said. “Now get in the car, because your tuxedo for the SSGAs is waiting in Los Angeles and I am done indulging you.”
A second door opened behind her. A wave of expensive perfume rolled across the yard. Blaire emerged from the backseat of the SUV. She wore a skirt and delicate heels, holding a purse against her hip. She stepped gingerly onto the stones, looking down at the ground in disgust.
“Ugh, look at these puddles, Eleanor,” Blaire muttered, kicking a stray pebble away from her shoe. “This dirt is going to ruin my hem. I told Toby we should have made him walk down to the highway.”
“Just mind your footing, Blaire,” Eleanor said. “We will be out of this miserable town in five minutes.”
Two men piled out of the rear vehicle. They lifted long-lens cameras, the black plastic barrels gleaming in the morning sun.
They spread out across the driveway, their boots crunching on the gravel.
They did not ask for permission. They simply raised their cameras and aimed their lenses straight at us.
Blaire did not stay by the car. She navigated the ruts in the dirt, walking toward Hayes.
I squeezed my arms tighter around my bump, the wool scratching my bare wrists.
My heart sank. The Los Angeles machine was playing out the exact same script on my front lawn, bringing the nightmare right to my doorstep.
Blaire stepped up to him, linking her arm straight through the crook of his mud-stained elbow. She leaned her weight against his side, pressing her hip against his thigh, and turned her face toward the paparazzi lenses.
“We missed you so much in London, Hayes!” Blaire said, flashing a brilliant, practiced smile. “But this rugged, lumberjack aesthetic is going to play amazingly well on the red carpet.”
The cameras erupted. A relentless barrage of strobe flashes washed out the morning sun. The mechanical click and whir of the shutters echoed over the idling engines. Every single pop of the flash froze the moment in blinding white light.
Another woman claiming my husband. Another reminder of exactly how easily his world could push me aside.
Hayes froze, the muscle memory of a thousand red carpets holding him in place for a split second. Then, he moved. He jerked his elbow backward, tearing his arm out of Blaire’s grip. She stumbled sideways, her heel slipping in the wet earth.
“Get those cameras off this property right now, Mom,” Hayes said. “You have no right to bring this circus here.”
The two men with the cameras ignored Hayes. They pivoted on the wet gravel, their boots crushing the stones. They swung their cameras away from the argument in the center of the yard, pointing them across the driveway toward the loading dock. They aimed the lenses straight at my stomach.
The shutters resumed their mechanical rhythm.
The strobes flashed across the mud in a relentless assault.
The strobes illuminated the swell of my stomach, the lenses capturing every angle of my pregnancy.
I squeezed my forearms tighter against my bump, digging my fingers into the knit fabric.
My rubber boots stayed planted in the dirt.
I couldn’t make myself retreat into the shadows of the shed.
The coastal wind whipped my hair across my face.
The loose strands stung my cheeks. The farmyard felt exposed.
The quiet sanctuary I had spent months cultivating was gone.
This was the exact nightmare I had driven north to escape, and it was parked right on my front lawn.
My child was being turned into a quick payday for a gossip column.
The privacy of my body was being stolen by strangers standing in my driveway.
I braced myself for the inevitable compromise.
I waited for Hayes to step forward and revert to his standard handler persona, expecting him to start negotiating the optics with the stringers.
He always traded a posed photograph or a quote to buy a few days of favorable press.
This chaotic, blinding circus was about to become my life from now on.
A sharp bang echoed across the yard. The farmhouse screen door slammed against the siding. Ruby marched down the porch steps, her boots thudding against the wood.