Chapter 1

Fuck. My. Life.

Tie-dye, chickpeas, and hessian. I scowled at the wigwams and peace signs and wondered how the hell I'd ended up at a bloody hippie love-in at 10 a.m. on a Saturday morning.

You know how.

My gaze fell on the broad shoulders of my favourite brother, and I suppressed a heavy sigh. Gaz had assumed I'd have nothing better to do than lug his junk around Porth Ewan's annual jam festival and, sadly, he'd been right.

Yeah.

Fuck my life.

I picked up the bulging bag, stuffed with jars of artisan preserves, pickles, and condiments, and wove my way through the crowds of crusties. Gaz manned a stall at the back of the food tent, which was in the next field over, and about as far from the festival's entrance as possible.

Not impressed, Gaz. Not impressed.

Like he gave a shit. His mile-wide grin when I finally caught up with him confirmed that he didn't much care that I'd dragged my hungover self out of bed to be his bitch. "Over there, mate." He winked. "Then you can help me here. Davey's gone for breakfast."

"Are you taking the piss?" I dumped the bag at his feet. "I'm not staying. I only brought these because Ma bribed me with a fry-up."

Gaz rolled his eyes. "Such a mammy's boy. At least stick around for a bit, show me some love."

"What do you need my love for?" I pointed at the Free Hugs sign attached to the pork pie stall a few metres away. "There's plenty to go round."

"Brat."

Gaz looked like he wanted to call me worse, but a potential customer distracted him, and he was happily diverted, plying them with my stepmother's scones, smothered in his signature rhubarb conserve.

Only Gaz could make WI-style jam and chutney cool. With his funky glasses and scruffy beard, he was the epitome of the wanky hipsters I'd left London to escape.

And the rest.

The image of my ex cosying up to his beautiful wife flashed into my mind. I pushed it away. Fuck that shit. It had been six months. I was over it . . . honest.

"Wake up, you grumpy arse." Gaz nudged me. I'd missed him handing the reins to our middle brother, Davey, and invading my personal space. "What are you up to for the rest of the day?"

"Being busy. I've got a job on tonight. Band gig in Porth Luck."

"That's good." Gaz seemed thoughtful, which was always dangerous. "I meant other than work, though. Seriously, bro. You need to get out more. Eat, drink, get laid."

"I got drunk last night, thanks very much."

I left out the part where I'd been home alone.

Gaz ribbed me a little longer before I escaped under the pretence of having a look around, though the smirk he treated me to—and the dead arm that came with it—left me in little doubt that he'd seen through my bullshit.

Not that I cared. This was my time to not give a crap. As a kid, I'd spent most of my school holidays following my dad around these stupid festivals, watching him flog the tiny onions he pickled in the derelict barn on the family farm. But I wasn't a child anymore, and I didn't have the patience for this bollocks.

I wandered out of the food tent and bought a pint from the beer stand. Who cared if it was barely 11 a.m.?

Not me, but despite my best attempt at disinterest, a few things caught my eye as I drifted through the farm hosting the festival: a besom broom maker, and a girl weaving a rug from rags. Behind a bee skep stall, a band warmed up on a small stage. Their collection of weird and wonderful drums intrigued me. But nothing truly held my attention until the deep clatter of motorbike engines shattered the peaceful morning air.

I spun around as six Harleys rumbled into the festival field, easing to a collective stop behind the band tent. I expected the riders to be old men, but as the front bikers pushed their helmets off, I found myself staring at a collection of tattooed men younger than me.

Intrigued, I reached for the camera I'd left at home. Settled for my iPhone, raising it to take a shot?—

"I wouldn't." An inked hand attached to a slender tattooed arm lowered my camera for me. "They ain't the kind of people you want to piss off."

I turned my head and fell into a set of greener than green eyes that instantly erased the handsome bikers from my mind.

Dark, windswept hair.

Scruffy jaw.

A slender frame he wore like a dream.

Jesus-fucking-Christ, where had this bloke been all my life?

"Sorry." I found my tongue. "I can't help it when something grabs me."

Like him. But as blindsided as I was by his appearance, I knew better than to point my camera again.

"Come over here." The man's epic bone-structure caught the light of the early morning sun, his deep, Cornish brogue turning my insides to molten fire. "Maybe you'll see something you like."

I'd already seen something I liked, but I let him tow me away from where the bikers had convened and to an eco-furniture stall in a quiet-ish corner of the second field.

Yeah. Okay. He had my attention.

Pausing, I stared at a wardrobe that looked like it had walked out of the Laura Ashley catalogue. What the fuck was so eco-friendly about that? It took me too long to realise it had been crafted from disused warehouse pallets.

Fucking hell.

I circled the wardrobe, studying it from every angle, and tried to find something to feed my inner cynic.

Failed.

The wardrobe was imperfectly perfect, like every other piece of furniture dotted around the sun-faded grass: a bed crafted from stripped tree trunks; a sofa from old tractor tyres; and, my new favourite, a pool table built into the upturned hull of a vintage fishing boat.

The boat was incredible, and I raised my phone again, crouching to get a decent shot of the whole piece as my companion treated me to the low chuckle of my dreams.

"Got a thing for rust?"

I glanced up, squinting in the sunlight again. This dude, his voice was old—wise—but his face was around my age and gorgeous enough to erode my power of speech.

"Erm . . ." I scrambled to my feet, lost again in those warm green eyes. "Actually, I do like the rust. The piece would be gimmicky if they'd cleaned the boat up too much."

"Gimmicky, eh?"

"Yeah, like those mirrors you get with seashells around them." I deleted two of my three shots, hyperaware of Hot Bloke still watching. "Or all that fake shabby chic shit you see on the high street."

Hot Bloke laughed. "I don't spend much time on the high street. Here, come and have a look at this."

He gave my arm a tug that sent shock waves through me, but before I could recover, I was transfixed by a rejuvenated slab of an old wooden printing press, framed in dark-brown oak.

"Damn." I took a shot of that too. "It's beautiful."

"You think so? I only finished it last night."

"Finished it? This is your work?"

Hot Bloke shrugged and held out his hand. "Kim Penrose. Pleased to meet you."

"Jas Manning." I shook his hand, absorbing the old Porth Ewan name. Penrose. Like the Lusmoores, that clan was built into the land around here. "Nice to meet you too."

"Jas? As in, Jason?"

I rolled my eyes. "It's Jasper, actually, but don't even think about pulling a Brummie accent on me. I've heard all the carrot jokes in the world."

That earned me a grin that made the sun look pale, and Kim laughed too, deep and rumbling. "Not gonna lie, if you'd been a redhead instead of them ebony curls, I might've tried it."

I didn't doubt it for a second. Hot Bloke—Kim—had a mischievous gleam in his eyes that I'd seen many times from my brothers. Not that he reminded me of Gaz or Davey.

Fuck no.

I gave myself an internal shake and gazed around at the rest of the stall's offerings. "So this is your stuff?"

"Aye-aye. Never done this event before, though. We're kinda new."

"To the area?"

"Nah, Porth Ewan born and bred. You?"

I didn't bother to quip that if I'd grown up in Porth Ewan, we'd likely have already crossed paths. Native folk round here didn't take kindly to their tight-knit community being mocked. "I was born here, but I grew up in London with my mum. Only just moved back. My family has been doing these festivals for years, though. There's a lot of them around, if you like that kind of thing."

"We do."

We? I forced myself not to ask the question. Gay, straight, whatever, I'd sworn off men for good.

Forever.

I couldn't help giving Kim a second once-over, though, and I bit back another sigh. Whichever way he swung, he obviously wasn't single. And anyway, I'd finished my pint, so it was time I moved on.

"Anyway…"

Kim caught my arm. "You never said why you were here. Do you have a stall?"

His hand on my skin was electric, stealing my power of speech all over again. "Uh, I'm helping my brother in the food tent."

Those green eyes sparked. Or maybe it was me. "You'll be here all day then?"

I'd had zero intentions to be, but something—everything—about Kim shifted my brain on its axis.

I couldn't contemplate going home.

Instead, I fudged a vague explanation of the family business I'd spent my whole life dodging, and forced myself back to Gaz.

My brother greeted me with barely concealed surprise. "You're still here? Thought you'd sloped off for the day."

"Moi?" I slipped behind the bench like I did it all the time. "Just went for a pint. Where do you need me?"

Gaz eyed me with suspicion. "How many pints did you have? Twenty?"

"Piss off."

He relented and passed me an apron. I winced. Belly Acre Farm. Side-splitting, eh? My dad had thought so when he'd renamed his Porth Ewan farm in the seventies. And he still thought so now.

The day dragged on. Lunchtime eased into the afternoon, and despite the shackles of jam life heavy around my limbs, it didn't take long to slip into my role. The patter came easy, and time began to tick faster.

It was late by the time Gaz trod on my foot."You've got company, kiddo."

I looked up from the gooseberry chutney I was relabelling on Gaz's behalf—was it so hard to stick the labels on the right way round?—and found myself face to face with Kim.

His electric grin skewered me. "Got time for a drink?"

"Er . . ." I glanced at Gaz, absorbed his subtle, amused nod, and cleared my throat. "Sure. Let's go."

I escaped the stall and fell into step beside Kim. He didn't say anything at first, and it took me a while to notice he was eying the apron I'd forgotten to ditch.

"Don't start."

He chuckled. "What's your connection to the farm?"

"My dad and his missus own it. And he's to blame for the name. He smoked a lot of weed in the seventies. Still thinks it's hilarious."

Kim smiled. "Nothing wrong with that. My old man wouldn't know fun if it bit him on the arse."

Even with the warmth of the late summer sun, the way his melodic brogue curled around every word made me shiver, and I couldn't help wondering why he'd sought me out. Definitely wasn't my dazzling knowledge of eco-friendly food production, or jaded enthusiasm for Porth Ewan, and I struggled to believe it was my personality.

And the wondering kept me company all the way to the beer tent.

Kim had one of those faces that gave nothing away. He bought me a microbrewery pint and apple juice for himself.

"Not scrumpy?"

He shuddered. "No chance. My mate's dad used to charge us a score for six pints and a pasty. Didn't make it past three for years."

"Did you get the pasty when you got to number six?"

"Something like that. So, you grew up in London?"

"For my sins." I set my pint down and glanced around. The festival had picked up after lunch, and was buzzing now. "My dad hooked up with my mum at a swingers' party. She had me here, then fucked off back to London, taking me with her. I spent most summers on the farm, but I'm a city boy, really."

"Wow." Kim grinned around his glass. "Didn't have that kinky backstory pegged from your jam sales pitch."

"It's the Belly Acre way. Also, as far as jam's concerned, my brothers trained me well. Said I'd end up back here eventually, so I had to learn."

"And they weren't wrong, eh?"

I shook my head, waiting for Kim to ask what had happened to make my brothers' shared prophecy come true, but he didn't. Instead, he looked over my shoulder at the band getting ready for the afternoon performances. "Is that a bassoon?"

"A what?" I followed his gaze to the stage and a mini woodwind section setting up with a folk band I'd seen a hundred times at festivals just like this one. "Wouldn't surprise me with that lot."

Kim shrugged as the air around us vibrated with the rumble of the motorbike horde getting ready to leave. "I like their vibe, but I'm more of a funk-rock bloke to be honest."

That fit with the untamed hair and leather bracelets. "You'd probably like The Mocking Horses then," I said. "They're playing Porth Luck's roundhouse tonight."

"I know. A bunch of us blagged tickets at the last minute."

"Really?" My heart skipped a beat. What were the chances? TMH were one of the hottest bands in the southwest and tickets to their shows were gold dust. I'd been lucky to get a press pass. "I've wanted to shoot them live for ages."

"Shoot them?" Kim frowned a second before his face cleared. "Ah . . . and you finally get to tonight, eh?"

"Yup."

Kim stared a long moment before his devilish grin split his face in half, and he nudged me with his knee. "Then I guess I'll see you there."