"Okay, then."
5
Luke
The phone buzzes again and I glance down at the third message in a row from Bethany. Or was it Brandi? Or Bambi? I think it was Bambi. It was some kind of cartoon name. I listed her in my phone as "Bimbo" because she is, as is evidenced by the series of text messages I've gotten from her in the past twenty minutes:
OMG WTF YOU STUPID AHOLE
RU STANDING ME UP AGAIN?
FU AND UR STUPID DICK. URNEVR GETTING SOME OF THIS AGAIN.
OH, AND UR ASS IS NOT THAT HOT.
PS UR CAMPER IS FUGLY AS FUCK
The third message was followed by a photo of her tits and another text:
Remember These?
Autumn looks up from cutting the kid's chicken into bite-sized pieces. "You want to take that?" she asks.
I shut the phone off completely. "I'm about to go drop it in the sink."
She smirks. She's so smug, like she knows me. "Girl trouble?"
"Or maybe I'm a doctor on call. Did you ever think about that?"
Autumn snorts. "So, what's her name?" she asks.
I shrug. "Bambi?" I say, uncertainly. "I don't actually know."
She laughs and shakes her head, and it suddenly irritates me that she thinks I'm some kind of immature, womanizing asshole. It's accurate, but I'm still annoyed by her assumption.
But then she takes a bite of her chicken, and closes her eyes. "Where'd someone like you learn to cook like this?"
"Someone like me?" I ask. "Seriously, Red, you just trying to insult me, or does it come naturally to you?"
Her face colors. "Sorry. I meant – well, you're living in a trailer down by the river by yourself, and…"
"So, what, you assume I'm so white trash I can't possibly know how to cook?"
"That's not what I meant.”
I raise my eyebrows. "This is hardly my finest work. You need to stock your kitchen appropriately. I mean, your kid is going to grow up thinking that crap you're feeding her is how food should taste."
Autumn laughs, her eyes wide. "Has anyone ever told you you're completely obnoxious?" she asks, shaking her head. "Scratch that. I imagine you get that all the time."
I take a pull from my beer, looking her over. Shit, I can't stop looking this chick over, even with her kid sitting right there. "Ditto, sweetheart."
"Actually, people don't tell me I'm obnoxious," she informs me, her tone haughty. "And besides, it's not like I have lots of spare time to cook. In case you haven't noticed, I'm running a business here."
"And you have foreman problems," I note. I watch her as she takes another bite of food and coos at her kid, who's shoveling handfuls of mashed potatoes into her mouth.
"That was my third foreman."
"You need to get better at picking 'em," I say, swallowing another gulp of beer.
"I may not be the best judge of character." The way she says it so heavily makes me think there's a lot more to that statement than just this thing with the foreman.
I don't ask what she means, because hell if I need to get involved in some chick's drama, even though I have to admit, part of me is curious about her story, how someone like her ends up in West Bend with a baby. I don't know what kind of man lets a chick as hot as her go, but he has to be a moron.
We eat in silence for a minute – or relative silence, anyway, as her kid is babbling away, talking in what sounds like total gibberish to me, but Autumn seems to understand what she's saying. Or at least she pretends to. Autumn talks to her, and the kid's face lights up as she responds.
"Kentucky," Autumn says, still looking at Olivia.
"Excuse me?" I'm not sure if she's talking to me or the kid, or if she has a case of Tourette's.
"My accent," she clarifies, looking at me. Hell, her eyes are the greenest green I think I've ever seen. "It's from Kentucky. I don't know why I'm telling you that."
"West Bend is a long way from Kentucky." Shit, I sound like an idiot. I can't come up with anything better than that?
"I'm not an idiot, you know."
"Hell, where did that come from? Did I say you were?"
She shakes her head. "Nope, but I know you thought it when you were out here," she says. "You think I have no idea what I'm doing out here running an orchard. And, well, I don't, not with the specifics of the orchard part anyway. That's why I need a foreman. But I know what I'm doing with making hard cider."
I hold up my beer. "Why are you offering me beer if you've got cider?"
She shrugs. "You look like a beer drinker. Have you had my cider?"
I almost say something lewd about what I'd like from her, but I bite my tongue. She seems too tightly wound to appreciate it, and her kid is sitting right there. "Can't say that I have."
Autumn stands up. "Keep an eye on Olivia for a second," she says before disappearing into the kitchen.
Olivia and I stare at each other. She blinks a few times, eyeballing me warily.
"Can't say I blame you, looking at me like that, kid." I lean closer to her highchair and stick out my tongue at her. When she mimics me, sticking her tongue out and blowing raspberries before cackling hysterically, I find myself unreasonably thrilled.
Autumn reappears a moment later with a glass jug in her hand. "I see you're keeping each other entertained."
"You say that like we're on the same wavelength."
"Well, you're not that much older than her," she points out, pouring me a glass. When she looks at me, she's smiling.
"You're full of jokes," I say. "At your age, I'm surprised your mind is still fresh."
"Hilarious." She wipes Olivia's face and hands with a towel, then takes the kid out of her highchair and lets her toddle around the room. "This is a small batch of cider, a new recipe. I'm trying a different apple."
I take a sip, half-concerned this is going to be one of those situations like when my buddies brew beer and it tastes like shit but I have to tell them it's great so they don't get their panties in a wad, but it's not one of those cases at all. "It's good. Legitimately good," I say. "Where the hell did you learn to brew cider?"
She smiles slyly as she walks past me, chasing after Olivia, who's disappearing into the living room. "I might not be able to cook, but I can brew. It's in my blood."
When she returns with Olivia on her hip, I stand. "I should go."
"Yeah. I have to give the baby a bath."
I pause there awkwardly for a second, because the weird thing is, I find myself not wanting to go. Usually I'm trying to run like hell out of a situation like this – the kind where a chick is talking to me and not putting out. But I'm curious about this girl. "What did you mean ‘it's in your blood’?"
"Brewing is," she says, following me to the door.
"You brew beer too?"
She shakes her head. "My family owned a distillery in Kentucky," she explains. "Bourbon."
"Kentucky bourbon … That's southern."
She winks. "It's 'bout as southern as it gets. Thanks for the dinner."
I'm standing there on her doorstep, and it has to be those damn green eyes and that red hair and the way her lips fall open like they do that makes me say what I say next, as I turn to leave. "I'll be here tomorrow at seven."
Fuck. What the hell am I doing?
"What do you mean?" she calls after me.
"You need a foreman, right?"
What the hell am I getting myself into?
6
Autumn
After Olivia is asleep, I lie in bed with my eyes closed trying to sleep, but all I can see is him. Luke.
He's irritating as hell. Cocky, crude, arrogant, used to telling women what to do – like the way he barged into the house and decided to rummage around my kitchen and cook.
Okay, so the cooking part wasn't really bad. That part was really good, actually. It's been a long time since a man has cooked for me. Scratch that. Make that ever. Edward wasn't big into cooking for me. Or doing much of anything else for me, come to think of i
t.
Luke, on the other hand, looks like he knows how to do lots of things for women. The thought of what he could do for me makes heat rush through my body. It's been a long time – embarrassingly long – since I've gotten laid.
Being pregnant and having a baby doesn't exactly make me marketable in terms of dating. My vibrator has become my best friend.
That's only slightly depressing.
I turn over in bed, trying to put aside the thoughts of Luke Saint that keep running through my head. Like how he looked at me when he came walking up out of the orchard – angry, soot smudged on his chiseled face, his shirt clinging to his body…
Shit, I need to get laid. By someone my own age. Someone who's normal, stable. Not some young guy who lives down by the damn creek with his dog.
I know Luke's type. Guys like him come through West Bend doing seasonal work in the summer, skiing and snowboarding in the winter. They're adrenaline-seeking, responsibility-avoidant, womanizing jocks who just want to get stoned and get laid.
The way his phone was blowing up at dinner with texts from some girl tells me all I need to know about him. I've already had a womanizing bastard in my life. I definitely don't need to think about getting laid by another one.
I groan, reaching into the bedside table to pull out my vibrator. Two years of pent-up frustration is obviously making me crazy.
Sliding my hand underneath my soft cotton nightshirt, I cover my breast with my palm, trying to bring to mind the image of… someone else, anyone else except Luke Saint. I run through a litany of sexy male movie stars in my head, but all I can see when I close my eyes is that smug, self-assured grin of Luke's.
I imagine his lips moving across the tops of my breasts, then down lower as he takes my breast in his mouth. I run my fingers over my breast, playing with my nipple, mimicking the way his tongue moves around in circles in my fantasy. When I slide my fingers between my legs, I picture his fingers doing the work that mine are doing on my clit.
I can practically taste him on my lips as I picture myself taking his cock in my mouth and wrapping my lips around it. His cock is the last thing in the world I should be thinking about, and yet it's the only thing I can think about.
A small moan escapes my lips as I press my vibrator between my legs against my entrance. I'm wet, a bundle of need and want and ache, and the vibrator isn't what I need or want or ache for.
When I slip it inside me, I'm imagining Luke between my legs, Luke's cock inside me. I imagine him riding me, my hands on his hard chest as he thrusts inside of me, harder and harder until I'm close to the edge.
"Come for me, baby," he encourages me, and I come harder and faster than I have in a long time. But when I lie back against the pillow in my bed, the ache between my legs is still there. I'm still not satisfied.
Damn it, I think. I really need to get laid. But definitely not by Luke Saint.
He's walking up to the house, his Labrador trailing behind him, and he’s wearing a light blue t-shirt under his jacket that somehow makes his blue eyes look even bluer. The dog runs up onto the porch and Olivia squeals as the dog brushes up alongside her and then licks the side of her face.
"Olivia," I warn.
"She's fine," Luke says. "Lucy is real tolerant."
"Olivia might not be," I say, eyeing her warily. "I'm waiting for her to reach out and grab a handful of fur and yank it. Toddlers can't be trusted, you know. Or… well, I guess you don't know."
Luke shrugs. "I imagine they're a lot like dogs. Except you're not allowed to kennel the kid, right?" I give him a look and he laughs. "Don't look at me like that. I do know that much about kids, Red."
"Are you seriously going to come out here and be my foreman?"
"I've been looking over the orchard."
"Right now?"
"Sweetheart, you're up late."
"It's eight in the morning."
"I've been here since six. I couldn't sleep."
"So you just thought you'd come over here and walk around my property?"
He shrugs. "I needed to take a look around, see what I was up against. Nice piece of land you've got here."
"Glad you approve."
"The cidery was too easy to get into, you know," he says. "You've got a lot of expensive equipment sitting out there."
"It should be locked up," I say, suddenly defensive.
"Let me guess. That was your foreman's job?"
"Are you going to keep lecturing me?" I ask. "It was part of his job, as a matter of fact. We had a problem, a couple weeks back, some guys poking around the property."
"What kind of guys?"
I wave my hand dismissively. "No big deal. Some guys from that mining company, the one buying up property in town. They came around here wanting to do some surveying. I wasn't here when it happened, and the foreman said he didn't let them on the place."
"Are you thinking about selling?" Luke asks. "A lot of people around here are, I've heard."
"So some mining company can come in and tear down the orchard I've just gotten started?" I ask. "Screw that."
"Alright, then." He walks down the porch steps toward his truck. His dog perks her head up and follows after her owner, leaving Olivia sobbing with disappointment at the fact that her living plaything just trotted off.
For a second, I think Luke is leaving, but instead he brings two paper bags from his truck and hands me one.
I look inside. "You brought groceries?"
"By your cranky-ass demeanor, I'm going to assume you didn't eat breakfast yet. I think they call that haaangry."
"I was planning on having coffee."
Luke snorts. "That ain't breakfast. What's wrong with you? Doesn't your kid eat breakfast?"
A surge of irritation rushes through me, and I take Olivia's hand in my empty one. "Yes, she eats breakfast. She just had oatmeal. Wait, are you just letting yourself inside my house again?"