Mary sticks out her hand. "Nice to meet you."
"Mary knows everything there is to know about the day-to-day operations in the cidery," Autumn says. If I didn't hear the slight waver at the end of Autumn's voice, I wouldn't think anything at all had just passed between us.
Well, aside from the fact that my dick is as hard as a fucking rock right now. Mary doesn't seem to notice, and Autumn is pointedly ignoring me.
"I don't know about being an expert," Mary says, "but if you have any questions, I'll be the person to ask. I can always find the answers to anything that's got to do with cider."
By the time Mary leaves, Autumn is back to being all business, asking me if I have any questions, then thanking me for my observations about planting the orchard. That's how she says it too: “Thank you for your observations.” She's formal again, as if she didn't just tell me to stop looking at her tits in the cidery.
At the front porch, she pauses and asks if I have any questions.
"Just one," I say. "Want to finish what we started?"
Shit, I just can't help myself.
Autumn's face colors and she clears her throat. "Nothing was started," she insists. "So there's nothing to finish. I'll get your paperwork together so I can pay you. There are a few forms you need to fill out."
And just like that, she shuts down whatever the hell happened between us back in the cidery.
8
Autumn
Things are back to normal at the orchard. Olivia and I are back to our regular routine – the routine we had last week before Luke Saint blew into this place, a perfect storm of arrogance and sex appeal and boyish charm.
Heavy emphasis on boyish, I remind myself. He's only twenty-six, ten years my junior. And that's a lifetime of difference, when you add a divorce and a toddler to the mix.
I mentally chastise myself for even thinking about him the way I did, there in the cidery, when he just barely, for a moment, touched his lips to mine. But for an entire week, he's been extremely professional. And so have I. There have been no more situations like the ones that happened in the cidery – or in the kitchen, when Luke put his fingers to my wrist, traced his finger along my palm.
Even now, the thought of his touch sends a shiver up my spine. Damn it.
Okay, so I haven't exactly been back to my regular routine. But fantasizing about Luke at night with my vibrator doesn't mean I'm interested in him – or that anything is going to happen between us.
Luke has actually been really helpful over the past week, more so than I anticipated. It's harvest time – my second harvest here – and that means it's chaos. But he's stepped in to manage with a surprising amount of skill and has come to me with suggestions for changes in day-to-day operations in the orchard that have been insightful. He's not just a pretty face – which is all the more reason I should stop thinking about him like that.
"Are you heading into town?" Greta's voice jolts me out of my thoughts, and I glance at the payroll file on the computer that I've been staring at for the last twenty minutes. Olivia is with her, and I hold open my arms so she can come crashing into them.
"Oh, Liv-bug, I missed you so much," I tell her, even though I've only been working in the office for a few hours. I bury my nose in her and breathe in her baby scent. "Did you have a fun morning with Greta? Is it time for lunch with June and Stan and the baby?"
"Are you all set, Autumn?" Greta asks. "Do you need anything before I take off?"
On Wednesdays and Fridays, Greta takes classes down at the state college – she's working her way through school, part-time. On Wednesdays, Olivia and I visit my neighbor June, and her kids. June runs a bed and breakfast just down the road. Her oldest child, Stan, is a year older than Olivia, and June just had a second child. June and her husband Cade basically adopted Olivia and I when we moved to West Bend. Now, they're closer to me than my own family is.
This is my routine. This is what I do. I don't kiss twenty-six-year-old boys in my cidery.
"We're good," I tell her. "How's that Economics class you're taking?"
Greta rolls her eyes and sighs loudly. "Ugh. Rough. It's so lame."
"Economics can be really interesting," I start, but laugh when she looks at me slack-jawed, her expression exaggerated.
"Seriously? Boooring. It's totally useless. At least my history class is more interesting. Oh, I'm going to be late. I've got to run. See you tomorrow, Autumn. Bye-bye, little Liv-Liv! Have fun!"
"Bye-bye, Gigi," Olivia says, waving to her as she disappears. She can’t pronounce “Greta” yet, so “Gigi” it is.
I talk to Olivia as we grab all of the approximately one million supplies we need for a simple trip down the road to June's house and then into town for groceries. Olivia babbles to me, nonstop chatter as I get ready and load her into the car.
We're down the driveway when I see them a hundred yards away on the edge of the property repairing a fence post.
As if I see any of the rest of them.
I see him. Luke.
He's shirtless, his back glistening with sweat, his muscles rippling in the sunlight, visible even from this far away.
"Aw, crap." I groan the words aloud, pausing for all of a second before I turn down the access road that runs along the fence, silently cursing my own foolishness. I shouldn't be doing this, turning the car along the access road right now. I should have pretended I didn't see him and kept driving, gone to see June, kept my routine the way it's been.
I'm a mother with her child in the car seat headed to a play date for goodness' sake.
I'm flirting with disaster and I know it. And yet, I can't stop myself.
When I roll down the window, Luke stops what he's doing and sets down his roll of wire and pliers. He turns toward me. I swear he moves like something out of a movie, as if he's walking in slow motion. He might as well have a soundtrack to his movements as he saunters over to me. I don't know where to focus as he walks – on the smug smile on his face, or on his chest muscles, covered in tattoos, glistening in the sunlight, sweat rolling down them in rivulets. It's probably fifty degrees outside and he's shirtless like it's summertime.
He's the sexiest thing I've ever seen. And I'm gaping at him like I'm a silly lust-struck teenager.
Luke leans over, his forearms on the edge of the car window, and peers inside. "Hey, Olivia," he says, his voice a singsong he seems to have adopted just for her. She giggles and says hi back. He grins at me. "I think she might like me."
"She likes licking the floor in the kitchen, too," I say, trying to sound flippant, except I can't wipe the stupid grin off my face. Or ignore the insistent throbbing between my legs. "So there's obviously no accounting for taste."
How the hell does he smell so good? He should smell like crap, working outside for hours like this doing manual labor. Fuck, even his sweat smells sexy.
"Aww. Now she's developing good taste," Luke says. "Like her mother."
I force my eyes away from him, looking straight ahead – businesslike, professional. If I were to look at him, at his lips just inches away from me, I don't think I could help myself. I breathe in deeply, trying not to picture the way his lips felt against mine, or the way his touch sent a shiver through me, to my core.
I clear my throat. "I'm going into town after visiting a friend," I say. "Should I bring back some lunch for you and the guys? I mean, it'll be more of an early dinner by the time I get back, but I figured I'd ask." Am I babbling? I force my voice to be steady, clearing my throat again to hide my sudden nervousness.
"Sure, Red. That'd be nice."
"I told you to stop calling me that," I complain, except I'm not sure I mean it anymore. I've always hated stupid pet names, but the way Luke does it is growing on me. The nickname rolls off his tongue – languid, familiar, intimate – and it makes me picture him saying it while he's close to me, his lips against my ear.
Hell, it makes me think about him saying it while he's inside me.
"Whatever you say, Red." Whe
n he slowly saunters back to the group of guys, like he knows I'm watching his every move, I find myself exhaling the breath I didn’t know I was holding.
"Play date with June," I say to Olivia as I put the car in reverse and back down the access road. But it's not a reminder of where we're going; it's a reminder to myself to get my damn head screwed on straight.
June hands me a glass of iced tea, then collapses into the rocking chair beside me.
"Seriously, I should be getting that for you, you know." I take a sip. "I don't know how you're running around after little Stan and taking care of a new baby and keeping up with the bed and breakfast. Oh, and making iced tea."
June laughs. "Well, Cade has been immensely helpful," she admits. "He's my saving grace, really. He's cutting back on hours at the bike shop, and has taken up more around the house and at the B&B. He's inside right now doing daddy duty with Callie so I can enjoy a little girl time."
I watch as Olivia takes a plastic car and runs it over the sandcastle Stan is building in the sandbox. He lets out an ear-piercing scream. "And peaceful kid time," I observe. "Olivia, that is not nice. Tell him sorry."
June laughs as Olivia wraps her arms around Stan, which immediately appeases the easygoing kid. "I think this is as relaxing as it's going to get for a while," she says. "The bed and breakfast has been busier lately, especially since River moved to West Bend, and Cade has had more demand for custom paint jobs the past month or so."
"That's great, right?" I ask.
River Andrews is a movie star — a big one — and she stayed at June's bed and breakfast when she first came out to West Bend. Then she fell in love with a guy from the town and moved here. Supposedly, a studio is making a movie out of it. It's like a fairytale romance. June's bed and breakfast has gotten a big boost in tourist traffic because of River.
June sips from her glass. "When it rains, it pours, right? Anyway, I wouldn't trade it for anything. Being a surgeon was good training for parenthood – at least for the sleep deprivation part of things, anyway."
"I'm really not sure I can picture you as a Navy surgeon," I say, looking at the June I know here, the one who's so laidback, calm, and casual.
"Says the woman with an MBA from Wharton who ran a multimillion-dollar bourbon company," retorts June with a laugh.
"Uh-huh." I sip my iced tea again. "That was my family's company, not mine. And I ran a department, not the company. It's not nearly the same."
June holds up her glass. "Well, cheers to new beginnings and leaving behind prior lives. And to leaving dirtbag exes."
"I'll definitely toast to that."
"Stan, do not pour that on Olivia's head or you're getting out of the sandbox!" June calls out warningly. Olivia bats a cup out of his hand and laughs as it falls into the sand with a thunk. "Speaking of new beginnings…"
"Yes?" I ask innocently, even though I already know the question June is about to ask. It's been almost two weeks since our last play date with the kids, as I had cancelled last week. I know she's heard through the grapevine by now – one of the side benefits of running a bed and breakfast is having a direct line to all of the town gossip – that Luke is working at the orchard.
Besides, West Bend isn't exactly the kind of place where you can keep a secret, not with Mary Lou at the bakery or Alice at the salon, two of the biggest busybodies in the world. They always have their fingers on the pulse of the town and are only too happy to go spreading information. And Luke Saint isn't the kind of guy whose arrival goes unnoticed in a small town like West Bend.
Or anywhere really, I'd imagine.
"I heard you have some help at the orchard," June fishes. Her comment sounds innocent, but it's laden with all of the implication of one friend's interest in another's dating life. Or lack of a dating life, to be more accurate.
"Yep." I sip my iced tea, almost hoping one of the kids will pour a cup of sand over the other one's head just for the distraction, but they're playing too contentedly to be bothered with my internal angst about the sexy younger man working for me.
"Oh, cut the coy crap, Autumn Mayburn. I've known you for two years now since you turned up in West Bend, and I think I have a pretty good idea now of what makes you blush. And I've never seen you blush, not one single time, over a guy in this town. Not even when I tried to set you up with Billy Horton. And here you are, blushing when I mention the new guy working for you."
"Billy Horton was not as hot as Luke Saint," I blurt out, and immediately slap my hand over my mouth.
Damn it. Where the hell did that come from?
June squeals and claps her hands together, and the kids echo her squeal as if they're in on the secret, then turn back to babbling to each other in the sandbox. "I knew it," she says. "As soon as I heard he was there, I knew it."
"There's nothing to know. Nothing. Absolutely nothing," I protest.
"Nothing," June teases, laughing. "That's why you've said the same word three times."
"What do you know about him?"
"Oh, now you're curious? I thought there was nothing going on."
"I'm asking for purely professional reasons. He's my employee."
"Uh-huh," she mutters. "Sorry, I don't know him."
"But you know everyone in this town," I complain, trying to sound disinterested and failing miserably.
June shakes her head. "I've never even met him. But I've met his brother. I’m familiar with the family.”
The way she says it, I know not to pry about the dealings June has had with the Saints. When June shuts down a conversation, it’s shut down. But it makes me wonder what kind of family Luke comes from. "He… has a brother?"
June nods. "Three," she amends. "They're pretty legendary around here."
I can't imagine anyone who looks like Luke – or swaggers around like he's God's gift to women – not being legendary in a town like this. "I'd imagine so."
"Well, if he looks anything like Elias, I can see why you're all flushed right now."
"That's the heat," I lie. "It's unseasonably warm out here."
June laughs. "Like hell it is. It's damn cold. Just admit it, you've got the hots for him. You wouldn't be the first girl to lose her mind over a man. Shoot, River Andrews gave up everything for Elias Saint."
I'm momentarily distracted from vehemently protesting my attraction toward Luke by the mention of River Andrews. "The actress? She's with Luke's brother?"
"The one and only," June affirms. "She's really very nice."
"Luke never said anything about his brother dating a famous actress." Of course, why would he? I remind myself that I know virtually nothing about him.
"Oh?" June’s interest is clearly piqued. "Have you been talking to Luke? I thought he was just your employee."
"No. Yes. A little bit. I'm just… curious, that's all."
"Uh-huh."
"He's young."
June chuckles under her breath. "Young means he has stamina."
"And that he's immature."
"So? How many dates have you been on in the last two years?"
"Dating?" I ask, my voice a squeal. "We're not talking about dating. I didn't mention dating."
She ignores me. "Zero. You've been on a grand total of zero dates, even though I've tried to set you up. You're basically a nun, holed up there in your orchard like you've taken a vow of celibacy."
"I have a baby," I protest, my voice indignant. "And a fledgling business to run."
"Your business isn't fledgling anymore," June points out. "And in case you haven't noticed, Olivia is getting bigger. You could use a little fun." She pauses when she sees the expression on my face. "I say all of this with love, obviously."
"Yeah, I can tell. Saying I need to," my voice drops to a whisper, "have a fling with the teenage hottie I hired to be a foreman sounds like a super responsible thing to do."