Chapter 10
Nic flexed his hands on the wheel before selecting a rock anthem and turning up the volume.
He’d felt a little bad for letting the woman assume he was the client, until he discovered she was just like every other prejudiced local, with her wild accusations of buying up all the houses and squeezing everyone out.
It was such an outdated view. People who lived around here wanted doer-uppers or family homes.
In contrast, he was selling luxury, and he’d paid local people top dollar for the land.
Also, he was here now, wasn’t he? About to spend a fortune buying groceries in the overpriced minimarket.
Without even trying, the agent had pushed all his buttons, but there was something about her that made him sit through that diatribe.
When she’d walked through the door, he’d instantly recognised her as the woman who had drenched him in coffee and wasn’t particularly pleased to see her again.
But as she showed him around, he took sly looks at that magnificent hair and freckle-studded skin.
Her generous curves definitely made her his type.
And she didn’t need to sell the tits to him – he’d happily dive into that nest. Then his thoughts turned to her speech.
She’d undermined the viewing with her strident opinions and had been incompetent and uninformed to boot.
When the agent made a terrible job of selling you your own house, it was time to look elsewhere.
He turned left at the end of the lake and headed towards the town, putting any sexual pull towards her out of his mind.
He never let physical attraction get in the way of business, and especially not now when things were in such dire straits.
Parking up in town, he walked to the estate agent’s shop and found it closed.
Unsurprising. He dialled the agent and left a message.
Ringing off, he caught sight of an orange bathing suit in a shop window. He instantly thought to the flaming hair of the wild swimmer from the other night. It reminded him he needed to keep waifs and strays off his land.
He called up the number for the local builders and dived straight in without preamble. ‘Nic Castle. Castle Enterprises. The gate we talked about…’
‘Hello. Hello? I can’t hear you over the sheep. Or maybe it’s this phone.’
Nic raised his voice. ‘I need to talk to Malcolm Noble.’
‘T’is me, myself and I.’
Good. He didn’t want to talk to the second-in-command again and their phones seemed interchangeable. ‘I commissioned a gate from you, and we talked about some land clearance. Just chasing you up on it—’
‘That’s a nice big ewe. Ready for moving. Son’s thinking we might need a crane,’ the builder replied cheerfully, a cacophony of noise behind him.
‘A crane? For the sheep?’ said Nic, confused at the direction of the conversation.
‘For the gate. Can I take a look at its arse? I can’t tell from the front whether it’s going to last a winter.’
‘The gate? Well, I would hope so as I asked for it to be a solid—’
‘The sheep – it’s such a lottery running a smallholding. The gate is ready to go in, Mr Castle. Finished off last week and all the other parts have arrived too,’ Malcom concluded.
These people were so parochial. Nic was surprised any business survived around here. He cut straight to the chase. ‘Can you spare any time this week to install it?’
‘Aye, we’ll take a look on our way home. Perhaps start prepping the ground tomorrow, if that suits you and my lad can get himself outta bed.’
Nic looked at his phone in disbelief. This firm had come highly recommended.
Being a local obviously meant being sloppy and unreliable, he decided.
And this was a club he wasn’t good enough to join, even though the bar was set so damn low?
‘I’m in town at a meeting this afternoon and quite busy tomorrow, but if you have enough know-how to crack on—’
‘Oh, we don’t need you,’ said the builder cheerfully. ‘If the sun shows its sodding face, it’ll be done in a flash of a lamb’s tail. Let’s take the ewe, shall we? She has the backside of a goddess.’
Despite himself, Nic had to laugh as the old man abruptly rang off. In some ways, the comedy was charming. But no wonder everything round here proceeded at a glacial pace. He hoped his case officer would be a little more focused when they met.