Homestead Harem Read online

  Homestead Harem

  Sam Hunter

  © Sam Hunter 2022

  * * *

  All rights reserved.

  * * *

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by an information storage and retrieval system - except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review to be printed in a magazine or newspaper - without permission in writing from the publisher.

  Created with Vellum

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Epilogue

  There’s more to discover in the Hunterverse

  Blurb

  Jonas Ryder gave everything up for a chance to come home.

  All he wants to do is keep his head down and run the farm that has been in his family for generations–until something happens with an electric fence, and he wakes up in his barn, disoriented and hurt.

  Except it’s not his barn anymore. Something has changed in his farm, and Jonas intends on finding out exactly what it is.

  Luckily, he has the help of the first girl who finds him–a gorgeous raven-hair girl with stunning curves and cat-like reflexes. Charlotte is scared, but she needs Jonas to get out of the terrible situation she’s in.

  The situation all the farm girls are in.

  Along with a stunning blonde with bunny ears, a redhead with fox-like reflexes and the tail to match, and a dark and dangerous bat-girl, Jonas might be able to take his family’s farm back.

  And give the girls the one thing they want the most: their freedom.

  If only he doesn’t get killed first.

  One

  “The mystery of human existence lies not in just staying alive, but in finding something to live for.”

  Sometimes fiction hit me like a train. I placed my bookmark—a scrap of stray newspaper—into my worn copy of Crime and Punishment and stood up from my kitchen table, groaning as my back ached. It occurred to me how old I felt—and acted—for being only twenty-eight years old. My mother always said I was born an old man. I suppose, like with most things, she was right about that too.

  The sound of tires on dirt road traveled in through the screen door, headlights lighting up my front porch. I walked across my bare kitchen, the hundred-year-old farmhouse floors creaking, and peered out the front window. It was Ms. Gorman from the acreage down the road, and her face was all anxiety. I could venture a guess as to what she needed.

  Before she even hopped out of her pick-up truck, I was putting on a pot of coffee.

  Sure, it was eight p.m. on a Tuesday, but people always felt better holding a cup of coffee while they parsed through legal documents they couldn’t understand. Farmers in my town could run ten acres of land single-handedly, grow miles upon miles of crops, take care of a dozen cows and chickens and goats—but when someone put ten pages of legal jargon in tiny font in front of them? Suddenly, they’d be about as capable as a snout-less pig searching for truffles.

  Luckily for the people around here, there was someone in the neighborhood who knew a hell of a lot about both farming and law—and spent his evenings reading Dostoevsky alone on account of being tragically single and stubbornly against finding a wife. Despite every old lady for miles trying to set him up with their daughter or granddaughter or niece or secretary or cousin’s uncle’s pen pal. But that’s neither here nor there.

  “Hiya, Jonas!” Ms. Gorman called as she climbed the stairs up my porch. “I’m sorry to call on ya so late.”

  “No worries at all, ma’am,” I replied, opening the door for her. “I put on a pot. Let me guess: legal trouble?”

  She nodded and slapped a thick manila folder down on my kitchen table. Ms. Gorman must have been around sixty years old now—a staple of the community since I was a little kid with hands barely big enough to milk a cow. She used to plan an Easter egg hunt for all the little kids in town every year. I wondered idly if she still did.

  “Please, have a seat, Ms. Gorman,” I told her.

  She blushed, her skin tanned and leathery from decades tending a root vegetable farm in direct sun.

  “Please, call me Sally, hon,” she replied, tapping my hand as I sat down across from her with two steaming cups of coffee.

  “Alright, Sally,” I said. Even though I still felt like a little kid around her, I supposed it made sense to be on a first name basis while we discussed legal matters. “What can I help you with?”

  She sighed, running a wrinkled hand over her face.

  “Just this damn sale is all,” she told me. “I can’t make heads or tails of this contract, and my broker is about as helpful as a hole in the ground.”

  “You’re selling your farm?” I asked.

  I hadn’t heard anything about Ms. Gorman selling—but, then again, I wasn’t sure when I had last chatted with anyone from town. I’d been spending a lot of contented nights buried in books these days.

  “Oh, yeah, darlin, you haven’t heard?” she said.

  I shook my head.

  “Well,” she started. “It’s time. I gotta retire—can’t keep tending the farm by myself much longer. I’ve had a good run with it, though.”

  “There’s no one in your family who can take over?” I asked.

  Sally smiled sadly at me, patting my hand again.

  “No, there ain’t,” she said. “Gary died before we ever had children, and I don’t have much family here to carry the tradition on. Not like you with your mom and pop. You’ve carried on their legacy so well around here. Makes us all real proud.”

  I looked down at my coffee cup, suddenly very interested in a chip on the rim of my mug. It was strange, remembering that other people knew my parents well—and knew what it would have meant to them to know I was still running the farm, upkeeping the house, taking care of the animals. It made me uncomfortable, for some reason, that people knew the sacrifice I had made in dropping out of law school, giving up my career as a lawyer in a big city to come home and continue their dream.

  I was honored, but still—displays of emotion weren’t really my thing. By the time I looked back up at Ms. Gorman, it was obvious I wanted the subject to change.

  “Well, anyway,” Ms. Gorman said, taking the hint. “If you could look at this gibberish and tell me if I’m gettin’ ripped off, I’d appreciate the hell outta you.”

  A smile broke out on my face. I did prefer farm people to city folk, that’s for sure. I liked how we talked—how there wasn’t any hidden meanings in our words, just plain language and good humor. I liked that I could trust my neighbors in this town.

  Which is why I didn’t mind being their legal advisor for free. Or, occasionally, for a basket of fresh-baked muffi
ns or scones.

  “I’d be happy to look it over, Ms. Gorman,” I said, opening the folder and diving into the documents.

  “Sally,” she reminded me, her eyes crinkling at the corners as she smiled.

  “Right. Sally,” I said.

  Then I settled into the familiar rhythm of deciphering complex legal language, happy that at least some of my unfinished degree wasn’t going completely to waste.

  The sun beat down on my neck as I drove my tractor in neat rows down the field the next day. It was officially haying season, and I had ten acres to cut before I could even think about baling. Sweat dripped down my face, and I wiped it with the back of my hand, my baseball cap shielding my eyes from the sun. There’s a reason farmers get up at five a.m.—if I were out here at noon I’d be roasting like a potato.

  As it stood, seven a.m. still burned.

  After an hour and a half of helping out Ms. Gorman—Sally—last night plus two cups of coffee, I had a hell of a hard time falling asleep. So I was pretty out of it as I ran my tractor down row after row of hay., which is why it took me a few moments to notice what was off down the field when I turned the tractor around for the tenth time.

  One of the cows had gotten out of the cattle enclosure, and managed to tangle herself in the neighbor’s fancy new fence.

  Shit, I thought.

  I shut the tractor off, the deafening sound suddenly ending. The morning was quiet and peaceful, and I jogged lightly for the half mile to the fence, where it became clear that the cow in question was Sammy. I could have guessed as much. Sammy was a pretty cow, but she couldn’t tell her ass from her elbow. If cows even have elbows.

  As I approached her, she struggled against the freshly installed wire fence.

  “Alright, Sammy, I’ve got you,” I said to her, trying to calm her down. “It’s okay, girl.”

  The poor animal had gashed up her leg pretty deep trying to pull herself from the wiring. I cursed my new neighbor, who had found it necessary to install this hideous fence along our property line—and who never even came over to introduce himself to me before he did it. I didn’t even know this thing was going up until I saw his workers installing it one day. When I asked for details, they ignored me—like I was a bothersome pest rather than the rightful owner of the adjoining property with some natural curiosity. I gave up pretty quickly on getting to know them, extinguishing any ideas I’d had about walking over to their house to introduce myself. If this is how they wanted to meet me, so be it. Southern hospitality only went so far.

  Now my damn cow was caught in their fence, and I had more than a few words I wanted to say to them. As I gently untangled Sammy from the metal wiring, I cursed my new neighbors—why couldn’t they at least install wooden posts or a natural stone barrier? Why did it have to be ugly metal on my perfect horizon?

  As I pulled Sammy free, I made a note to myself to call Dr. Carlin down tomorrow to look at the gash on her leg before it got infected. My mother had always been the veterinary type—not me. I sighed. Just another thing I’d have to worry about getting done.

  I knew my rude neighbor didn’t deserve me fixing the hole my cow had just made in his fence, but as I stood there staring at it, my hands in my pockets, the sun beating down on me, the generosity my parents instilled in me before they died took over. I cursed under my breath at my damn compulsive need to be nice and got down on my hands and knees to fix the fence I hated.

  As I pulled the wiring back into place, I noticed idly that a strange buzzing sound had begun from down the farm. Cicadas? It hadn’t been seventeen years since their last appearance, had it?

  The buzzing sound increased in volume, almost as if it was traveling towards me. I realized what it was in the exact same second the pain overtook me.

  The new fence was electric, and someone had just turned it on.

  When I woke up, the world was black.

  Am I dead? My hazy mind wondered.

  My body ached intensely when I tried to move. If I were dead, it would probably hurt less to move. Right?

  It took me a moment to figure out that my eyes still worked—it was just too dark to see where I was. As my vision adjusted, however, small blurs could be made out. I rolled over, my back screaming against the motion. Then I stood.

  Dizziness immediately overtook me, and I dropped to my knees. I took one deep breath, then another. The air smelled like a barn. Not just any barn—it smelled like my barn. The barn I’d been smelling, playing in, and working in since I was a little kid.

  How did I get into my own barn? Who brought me here?

  And where were they now?

  Slowly, I pushed myself up into a standing position again, steadying myself against the wall. When I felt confident my legs wouldn’t collapse, I took a small step forward, my hands out in front of me to feel for obstacles.

  Intuitively, I knew where to find the door. This was my barn; I could never be lost in it.

  When I pushed on the wooden door, it opened easily, and night air washed over me. Stars lit up the dark sky, and I could make out my house in the distance.

  Or was it my house?

  This was my farm—but, then again, it wasn’t, somehow. Everything was in the same place, but slightly different—new landmarks had popped up, trees had been removed, and tall fences lined the property in the distance. A large, ugly generator hummed to the side of the house. The porch looked different—repainted, maybe, and lined with flower beds overflowing with red and white roses.

  What the hell?

  Suddenly, two goats scampered past me towards the edge of the property. But I didn’t recognize them. Sure, I was disoriented, recently electrocuted, and beyond confused—but I could identify my livestock in my sleep. Who were these random goats?

  Once again: What the hell?

  My head swimming, I began stumbling up the grassy incline towards my house, desperate for answers. Maybe I was dreaming. Maybe I was in a coma. Maybe this was an elaborate prank, and someone from HGTV was about to come out and tell me I was getting an Extreme Farm Makeover.

  Whatever it was, I was going to start seriously panicking if someone didn’t explain it to me soon.

  A dog ran past me now, sniffing at my legs and quickly moving on. Whose dog was this? I was almost to the front porch, peering through the darkness at the windows to see if there was any sign of life, when someone tackled me to the ground.

  I’d been hit from the right by someone who was either capable of invisibility or extremely stealthy. At this point, I wasn’t ruling anything out.

  As they tried to pin me to the ground, my instincts kicked in and I writhed against their hold, getting my hands on their shoulders and shoving as hard as I could, throwing them off of me. As I did, I rolled in the opposite direction through the grass, regaining my position on my feet and facing my attacker with my fists up, ready to fight.

  That’s when I saw her. A beautiful woman with olive skin and dark black hair, crouching on the ground, her bright green, cat-like eyes narrowed at me.

  And she was ready to pounce.

  Two

  “Who the hell are y—” I started to say, but before I could finish, an alarm blared from all around us. Red spinning lights shone at ten foot intervals along what I now realized was a giant fence bordering the entire property.

  At first I thought this alarm must be for me—that a sniper would take me out at any second. But the girl’s cat-like green eyes darted to the front entrance of the farm behind me. I followed her gaze, finding half a dozen figures on the other side of the fence in the distance, carrying tall rifles and large…hedge trimmers?

  None of this made sense. I turned back to the girl, whose strange eyes were flitting nervously between me and the front gate.

  “You need to hide,” she said to me finally. Her voice was light and musical, but her tone was firm. “You’re not safe out here.”

  Who was this girl to tell me I wasn’t safe on my own farm? What was going on?

  “I coul
d say the same thing to you,” I told her. “What are you doing here?”

  She stared at me for a half a second in complete confusion, then shook her head, as if filing me away as a problem for later. She grabbed me around the bicep, her long, painted nails digging into my arm as she dragged me back towards the barn I’d just left.

  “You can hide in here for now, we never use this place,” she told me, shoving me at the door.

  With my unsteady muscles, it took me a moment to regain my balance. But when I did, I took my stance in front of her, communicating that I would not be shoved around again.

  “I don’t know who you are or how you got onto my property,” I told her, “but you clearly don’t know who you’re talking to.”

  “I don’t have time for this right now,” she replied in a hushed tone, despite the alarm still blaring. “There are men trying to break into this farm right now, and I need to go deal with that. Please just stay here and wait for me.”

  “Like hell I will,” I replied.

  The girl rolled her eyes, slumping onto one hip as she considered me with mounting frustration.

  “Fine,” she declared, throwing up her hands. “Then come with me.”

  Dizzy with confusion and hardly capable of following the stream of my current reality, I walked with the girl down the sloping grass to where my driveway used to start. Now, there was no evidence that it had ever been there, the grass having grown over the dirt. How long had I been out?