Off The Grid

Graham isn’t looking for love.

As a matter of fact, he’s not looking for anything other than growing his business, helping his father not lose the family ranch and fixing his relationship with his brother.

But when one of his handyman calls leads him to a broken down farmhouse on the edge of town, he finds a curvaceous beauty with an awkward charm that reels him right in.

Quinn is looking for peace.

When she moves out to the country with her spitfire daughter, the adventure begins... with a broken A/C and a sweat that has her desperate for help.

Quinn takes one look at the hot, tall, and bearded handyman on her doorstep and knows she’s in big, big trouble.

CHAPTER ONE

“Sexy is the thing I try to get them to see me as after I win them over with my personality.”

— Miranda on Sex and the City

QUINN

The groan that leaves my daughter’s mouth has my eyes moving from the thermostat to her lax form on the couch.

“It’s so hot.” Despite only being eight, my little mini-me has the preteen attitude down. I’ve heard it only gets worse. God help me when that time comes.

“I know it is, honey.” I eye the thermostat dubiously. When I bought this little farmhouse, the inspector said everything was A-OK. Apparently, he missed a few steps.

“When are we going to get the air conditioning on?”

I tap the thermostat, that will for sure make this thing magically communicate to the unit outside… hopefully. With a huff of frustration, I head to the freezer—that thankfully works—and grab one of the popsicles that I picked up at the market in Acton, the only town within thirty minutes of here.

“Here.” I toss it to Alex and she groans dramatically at the icy sensation landing on her.

“I’ve already had two today.”

I take a deep breath to not allow my frustration to be released onto my precious, perfect child. “Well, now you’ll have had three today.”

She wisely opens the treat and quietly eats it while I thumb through my phone, searching Google for the best way to fix an AC unit myself. It’s not that I’m opposed to help, but with every little thing breaking in only the week and a half we’d been here, I was at my wit’s end.

Packing up my Denver condo and kissing my cushy corner office goodbye to move to a farm in the mountains seemed like a really good idea at the time.

But lately, doubt was creeping in.

This hasn’t been my dream since I was a little girl, I hadn’t always been planning on milking cows and collecting eggs and living that Old McDonald lifestyle.

The plan had always been law school, it had always been that I was going to become a lawyer to protect the innocent, defend the defenseless. That’s not quite how it worked out. Having that corner office was a dream come true, having the good-looking boyfriend who genuinely treated me like a friend was nice too, having a daughter at the ripe old age of twenty-six, in my first year of actual law work was… not as much fun, but I never regretted it. Especially with Jim as my partner. Even if it didn’t work out romantically between the two of us.

My phone dings with a text, pulling me out of my thoughts, I tap open the message and grin with relief.

“Good news, honey, the repairman is coming.”

Alex whoops, and I take a deep breath.

Everything will be fine. This is a new adventure, a new chapter.

What could go wrong?