Page 120 of My Fake Dating with the Grumpiest Highlander
We run after him.
Hamish immediately begins violently shaking an apple tree.
The apples aren’t ripe yet, so they rain down everywhere like hard green missiles.
I step on one.
My foot slides forward.
I start falling.
Finn catches my arm at the last second, but the movement throws both of us off balance.
We spin awkwardly trying to recover before collapsing into the grass in a tangled heap of arms and legs.
Hamish races between us carrying the rosebush triumphantly in his mouth.
I lie there with my face pressed into grass that smells like crushed apples, painfully aware that Finn is half sprawled across me.
“I thought animals listened to you,” he grumbles.
“Ragnar has literally never listened to me,” I mutter into the grass.
I roll onto my back.
“And Hamish listens to nobody. Welcome to my daily professional reality.”
We struggle back to our feet.
Our clothes are now covered in mud, grass, leaves, and probably fruit debris.
Hamish has moved on to stripping bark off a young apple tree with his teeth.
Ragnar discovered the irrigation system and is methodically destroying it while water sprays violently in every direction.
The twins have officially given up and are now observing the disaster from a safe distance.
Callum attempts one final intimidation tactic, but Hamish dodges him with the agility of a professional dancer.
That’s when Keira suddenly shouts from the castle window:
“There’s another sheep!”
We all freeze.
Then slowly turn around.
A third sheep stands in the middle of what used to be Maggie’s ornamental garden.
The sheep calmly chews an especially rare peony Maggie had specially imported from a nursery in France.
“That’s Brutus,” I say weakly.
“Brutus?” Finn repeats. “That sheep’s name is Brutus?”
“Yes. He belongs to the neighbors.”
“Brutus,” Connor echoes faintly from the edge of the ruined vegetable garden.
