Read Online Summer on Kendall Farm by Shirley Hailstock - Free Book Online

followed up on it. He’d long since moved from believing he could find a management position on another horse farm. Apparently, his reputation as the former owner of the Kendall reached farther than he knew and no one would take a chance on him.
    Lowering his expectations, he accepted the job maintaining the boats in the marina. The work was hard, unyielding, usually enhausting.
    He wouldn’t complain. The old Sheldon would do nothing but complain, but this was a new world and he needed to adjust to it.
    He prayed again that there was a little of Jason in him as he scraped the brush against the hull.

CHAPTER FIVE
    S EVEN LONG AND very wide steps led to the porch of the big white house at the Kendall. Kelly stood as stiff as a statue next to one of the columns watching Jace stop his rental car in the circular driveway. She couldn’t believe he was disrupting her entire life after only a few hours. Behind her stood his duffel bag. She was throwing him out.
    He got out of the car, looking up at her.
    “Where’s Ari?” he asked. He probably thought her expression had something to do with his son.
    “He’s fine. He’s taking a nap,” she answered.
    “Nap? Ari doesn’t take naps.”
    Her brows rose. “Apparently, he does.”
    “What’s wrong then?” He came around the car and looked up at her.
    “As if you didn’t know.” She spoke through clenched teeth.
    “I clearly don’t understand.”
    Kelly knew he was lying. Color crept up his cheeks turning his face to a beautiful shade of crimson. Picking up the duffel bag, she tossed it down the steps. Instinctively his hands came out and he caught the bag.
    “What’s this?” He dropped it at his feet.
    “You’re fired, Mr. Kendall.”
    “Fired?”
    “Yes, fired. I offered you room and board and to take your son in until you could get on your feet, and you repay me by going to the bank and trying to swindle me?”
    She expected he’d drop his gaze, but he looked directly at her. While his eyes remained steady, she could see he was surprised that she knew about his trip to see Kurt Mallard.
    “This is a small town, Mr. Kendall. Didn’t you think word would get back to me about your
adventures
?”
    “Actually—”
    “Actually, you didn’t,” she finished for him. “So don’t go behind my back and try and usurp my right to be here.
You
are the one who’s trespassing.”
    “I know that’s how it looks.”
    “That’s how it is.”
    “Okay, okay,” he said, raising his hands in defeat. “I could tell you I’m just surprised to find things so changed.”
    “What did you expect? That the world would stop until you returned here to set it in motion again?”
    “For the Kendall, that’s how it’s been for a century.” He paused and looked at the house behind her. “My father and my brother kept things the same. Tell me, when you took over this place, you didn’t have to upgrade and restore everything?”
    Kelly shifted her weight from one foot to the other. That’s exactly what she had to do. She’d spent a fortune bringing the house up to code. A lot of which she’d had to learn and then qualify to do herself, since she couldn’t afford to hire professionals.
    She’d put up with the dust and general mess of renovation by using the rooms not being worked on, until it was their turn, and she’d switch to living in the finished ones. It was a long, arduous process.
    “Almost everything. And all right, most of what you said is true. But whether it is or isn’t, you still have no claim here, and no business trying to undermine me. And what possible hold could this place have for you when you were treated with contempt by both your father and brother?”
    Kelly watched him force himself to relax. “I see you know more about me than I thought.”
    “People talk,” she said. “It’s still a small county.”
    Jace moved up the steps and sat on the top one. He glanced at Kelly. After a moment she sat a discreet distance from him. She was