Cream of the Crop

  “My car broke down,” Missy echoed like a parrot. She patted the seat next to her. She’d slid into the middle seat, positioning herself between Oscar and me.

  That would make road head a bit harder . . .

  I grabbed hold of the door and stepped up gingerly. I was wearing new four-inch Bionda Castana fringed leopard booties, and while walking a mile over cobblestones wouldn’t give me pause, climbing in and out of trucks wasn’t what the designer had in mind. A large, steady hand landed on my behind, supporting me—and also engaging in a little grab-ass where prying Girl Scout eyes couldn’t see.

  Whatever.

  “Hello, Missy,” I chirped. I settled myself in the passenger side, feeling enormous next to the tiny ex-wife who was riding next to my guy.

  Was he my guy? The proposed road head said yes. Maybe?

  Oscar climbed in at that moment, and the two of us positively dwarfed Missy.

  “So, are we giving you a lift somewhere?” I asked her.

  Score one for me, with my specifically chosen use of the word we.

  “Oh yes, when Oscar came to help, he suggested we come pick you up on our way to the auto shop. He arranged to have my car towed there for me.”

  Score two for the Girl Scout for managing to not only use we to her advantage, but slip in an our for good measure.

  “Well, Oscar’s good like that, isn’t he? He’d never leave a woman stranded on the side of the road.” I smiled through my teeth, to make sure she knew I had them.

  She showed me her own toothy smile. “He’s sweet, looking after me the way he does.”

  “Hopefully you’ll bake him some more muffins.” I smiled back just as sweetly. “I loved the last batch—they were great for breakfast.”

  We drove across town toward the shop where Missy’s car had been towed, tension thick inside the cab. I wasn’t mad; what kind of a guy would he be if he left her stranded on the side of the road?

  On the other hand, what kind of ex-wife was she, calling only Oscar when she had honey-do’s to be done? She’d had her chance; it was my turn to have my honey done.

  On the third hand (work with me), I was hardly in a position to be thinking about Oscar in any way but a fun weekend thing. This wasn’t my territory, there was no reason to be pissy.

  On the fourth hand, if no one was at fault here and it was just three people who didn’t truly bear anyone any ill will, then this was just silliness and I could be the bigger person.

  “So, Natalie, I was planning on making another batch of pumpkin muffins this weekend, but if you’re here, maybe I should whip up my low-fat bran cookies instead. Lots of fiber, not so much sugar, better for us girls when we’re watching our figures.”

  And with my fifth hand, I’d slap the shit out of—

  “Natalie doesn’t need to watch her figure.” Oscar sounded amused, but his voice held a note of warning. My grin was so wide it could have pulled in neighboring planets.

  Now tell her not to bake you any more muffins! No more muffins!

  “You know I like those blueberry ones you make, with the maple drizzle?” he asked, and Missy beamed triumphantly.

  I stared out the window. Who cares? She can only bake him muffins. You get to watch him eat them naked.

  While I might not be his future, I was his present, and she was his past. Once she shut the hell up about blueberries and climbed out of this truck, I’d be the one fucking his brains out.

  My grin was back.

  At the garage, Oscar went inside with Missy to make sure everything was sorted out. A new battery was being installed, so once he knew she’d be on her way, Oscar said good-bye and returned to the truck.

  I said nothing when he climbed in. And I said nothing when he pulled out, heading down the road. The silence pressed in on both of us, begging to be noticed.

  Finally, he looked my way. “You okay over there?”

  “Mm-hmm.”

  He chewed on that a moment. “Is that a loaded mm-hmm? Like when a woman says mm-hmm, but it means the opposite of mm-hmm?”

  “Mm-hmm,” I answered, letting my eyebrows do the rest of the talking.

  “Look, I’m sorry I surprised you like that. That isn’t how I planned to start this weekend. But she was stranded—what was I supposed to do?”

  “You did the right thing, of course,” I said, turning to face him. “But do you always have to be the one she calls? Doesn’t she have someone else to fix her water heater or take her to get her car fixed?”

  “Why wouldn’t she call me?” he asked, looking genuinely curious. Oh, bless his heart.

  “I’m just saying that not all exes are on such good terms.”

  “It would be better if we were nasty with each other?” he asked, and I had to shake my head. Damn him and his common sense sometimes.

  “Of course not. It’s actually refreshing to see two people who used to be married still be good friends,” I said, choosing my words carefully. “I just wonder if that’s all she wants—friendship.”

  “Missy? And me? Oh no, she doesn’t want that any more than I do. And I don’t,” he said, shaking his head. Oh, bless his heart twice.

  He turned off the main road, heading underneath the archway for Maxwell Farms.

  I looked at him, then looked back at the sign. “What are we doing here?”

  “Remember, I told you, I’m helping Leo get ready for the Halloween festival tomorrow.”

  Dammit, I had forgotten. All those thoughts of potential road head, then commonsense ex-wives, and I plum forgot.

  I looked at the fine mist of rain sprinkling down, then looked at my four-inch booties. Dammit. I really need to start packing more—ugh—practical shoes.

  Turned out that most of the work we’d be doing was in the barn, which was great for me and my booties.

  Roxie was there, and she gave a surprised shriek when she saw me. “What are you doing here? Did I know you were coming? I’ve been baking damned pumpkin pies for three days for this festival, so it’s quite possible I forgot you were coming. Yes, Polly?”

  Leo’s daughter was tugging at her shirttail, holding up a mason jar.

  “Oh crap. I mean, not crap! Ugh, that’s three, isn’t it?” Roxie asked.

  Polly laughed delightedly. “Yeah—twice just now, and the one about the pumpkin pies.” She held out the mason jar while Roxie rummaged in her jeans pockets.

  “I’ve got fifty cents, that’s it. Natalie, you got a quarter?”

  “I think so. What’s this for?” I asked, digging through my purse. I handed over a quarter, then looked at her expectantly.

  Polly said, “I started a bad-word jar, because Roxie is so bad about not saying bad words. I’ve got almost fifteen dollars already!”

  “That’s all? I’m surprised it’s not more,” I said, watching as Roxie dropped the money into the jar.

  “Fifteen dollars just this week!” Polly told me.

  “That makes more sense,” I agreed, digging back into my purse. “Here you go—here’s a dollar in advance, for the next four.”

  “Awesome! That’ll take us through the rest of tonight, I bet!” Watching Polly tease Roxie was pretty great, and I could tell by observing the two of them it was enjoyed by both. “But Oscar never has to give me money for the bad-word jar.”

  “Nope,” Oscar said with a stoic look on his face. “Unlike these ladies, I’m a gentleman.”

  I snorted. “A gentleman who talks about my ass every chance he gets.”

  Oscar’s eyes danced as he held his laughter in check, especially when I started to hear a jingle jangle from the pipsqueak.

  “Ante up, Natalie,” Polly said, shaking the mason jar.

  “Ante up? Where does she hear this stuff?” I asked Roxie.

  “My mother is teaching her poker.”

  “Take it ou
t of my dollar, tiny person. Okay?” I said, and she nodded before rushing off. “I just got hustled by a seven-year-old.”

  Leo came out of the crowd and snuck his arms around Roxie’s waist, and I pointed a finger at him. “Your daughter just took almost two bucks from us.”

  “You must have been swearing,” he replied, planting a kiss on Roxie’s neck. “Can I borrow this big guy a minute?”

  “Borrow whoever you want, but I need you back in the big house in twenty minutes to move your mother’s chairs into storage. She’ll kill me if anything gets on them.” Roxie squealed as he kissed her a little more.

  “But wait—back to this right here,” she said, pointing at Oscar and me. “When did you get here? You weren’t planning on coming up, were you?”

  “I wasn’t, no,” I said, feeling the color coming into my cheeks.

  “I’m gonna go help Leo, let you two hens squawk a bit,” Oscar said, seeming to hesitate for a split second, then leaning in to plant a quick kiss on my forehead before walking away with Leo.

  Feeling my skin tingle where his lips had just been, I smiled, watching the two of them head into the barn, Oscar punching Leo on the shoulder as he clearly teased him about what just happened.

  I could feel eyes on me, and I turned to Roxie, whose grin was even wider than her eyes.

  “So . . . ?” she asked, and I could feel my blush deepen.

  I crossed my arms in front of my chest. “So?”

  She studied me carefully, watched as I got redder and redder. “I never thought I would see the day—”

  “Shut up.”

  “—that Natalie Grayson, hater of all things country—”

  “Shut. Up.”

  “—would fall in love with a country boy.”

  Fall in love? Whoa.

  “Shut. Up. Now,” I said, heading toward where all the action seemed to be, setting up the stalls for the next day.

  “Seriously, Natalie, come back here! Hey!” Roxie yelled as I walked faster. Not easy; with each step I was sinking farther and farther into the wet grass on the way to the barn. She caught up to me fast. “I was just teasing.”

  “I know, I know,” I said with a heavy sigh. I turned back toward her, basically pivoting on my left heel, which was stuck thoroughly in the mud. “I just— I don’t really know what this is yet. So let’s not go making a big deal, okay?”

  “It’s a big enough deal that you’re up here every damn weekend all of a sudden. I’d say you’re pretty smitten.”

  “That’s a good word for it,” I said, watching the scene below. The big stone barn, people everywhere laughing and chatting like they’d known each other for years, pockets of kids running here and there, and in the middle of it all, trying to hold at least six pumpkins in his arms at once, was the guy I was smitten with.

  Smitten. Kitten. Mitten. Why did all those words remind me of something warm, and cozy, and safe?

  And as I watched Oscar helping out, noticing his quiet strength, his way of staying inside the group but on the edge, I knew I was smitten for sure. Anything more than that, I just didn’t know.

  Frankly, anything more than that scared the shit out of me. I always got out of things way before smitten kittens started up.

  “When did you know?” I asked Roxie, who was watching the same scene focused on the guy running the show. “I mean, that you . . .”

  “Loved Leo?” she asked, her face going soft. “I started falling for him when he first brought me walnuts.” She bit her lip for a moment while she thought. “But I knew I was in love with him when I saw him with his daughter for the first time.”

  “How did you know?”

  “That it was love?”

  I nodded my head.

  “Because it scared me to death. And that was new for me.”

  Roxie had a lot of the same thoughts about love as I did, although hers stemmed not from a Thomas but from a Trudy. After spending her childhood watching her mother jump from guy to guy to guy, always falling in love and then crashing hard when the inevitable breakup occurred, she’d grown up determined never to fall in love.

  That is, until Leo. Then all bets were off.

  I watched as Oscar stacked pumpkins around the jack-o’-lantern-carving booth, his body so big, yet moving so gracefully. He set another bunch down, then searched the crowd, looking for . . . me?

  Our eyes locked across the yard, and even from this distance I could see the sweetness in his gaze. And the heat.

  Smitten. Mm-hmm.

  Chapter 17

  Halloween in New York City means traipsing up and down the back stairwell to go trick-or-treating on all the floors of your apartment building. Telling jokes to the doorman in return for candy. Riding the subway with no fewer than seven men dressed in dirty brown trousers and red-and-green-striped sweaters, six of whom are officially dressed as Freddy Krueger.

  Halloween in the country is made for a horror movie. Rustling leaves, phantom wind blowing through bare scraping trees, cornstalks that beckon like creepy fingers, and roads where headless horsemen ride.

  Everyone said it was safe, sure. People who knew all about the secrets of the Hudson Valley, and who keep them. Don’t worry, there’s nothing to be scared of. Unless you strayed too close to the edge of the cornfield. Honestly, if I met one person named Malachi, I’d be back on that train in two seconds flat.

  So I was very happy that the Halloween festival started in the daytime, where everything was light, bright, and cheery, full of happy people celebrating the harvest like they always had. Maxwell Farms was the center of the cheery, and after all the work we’d put in the night before, it was like a Martha Stewart magazine come to life. A Martha Stewart magazine with damn good-looking farmers.

  It was one of those perfect fall days: the air was crisp and clean, the leaves were fantastically bright, the sky so blue it made me squint to look up. And into all this bright and beautiful clean, I hobbled across the barnyard with Oscar, clutching his elbow.

  “You should have let me put some ice on that before we left.”

  “Ice wasn’t going to help,” I muttered.

  Oscar’s big hand smoothed down my back, light as a feather. “Ice will help with the inflammation, Pinup. You overtaxed your muscles.”

  I looked up at him, almost as tall as the sky itself. “Who overtaxed my muscles, Caveman?”

  “You did,” he replied, an amused glint in his eye.

  “I certainly didn’t throw myself all over the bed this morning,” I grumbled, heat flaring through me as I thought back to a few hours ago.

  “I put you on your knees, Natalie,” he whispered, his voice lowering. He lowered, too, dipping down so that his mouth was just a blink away from my ear, his words dark and delicious. “I’d hardly call that throwing you all over the bed.”

  A shiver rolled through me, down to my hips, hips that still felt how firmly his hands had grasped me as he did indeed put me on my knees. He’d held me so firmly, in giant warm hands that wrapped around my curves, fit neatly into the small of my back, and pressed me down onto my hands and knees, and tilted my pelvis up so he could thrust inside in one powerful stroke.

  I shivered once more. “Whatever. Who threw who, who pushed who, the point is—”

  “The point,” he interrupted, planting a kiss on the side of my neck, “is that you need ice. Sooner, rather than later.”

  I stood still, looking up at him. With the sun highlighting the little bit of auburn in his hair, his thick chestnut and mahogany hair waved around his face, still mussed from my hands. This guy, this man who resembled some kind of island god that women should be surrounding with tikis and praying to for increased fertility, had just kissed me on the neck in front of half the town . . . and I loved it.

  And I knew that I was falling for him in a big way. Whole heart, full butterflies, threate
ning to burst out of my chest and skywrite my feelings for all the world to see.

  This was moving beyond a crush. This was moving beyond a toss in the hay and a grapple in the truck. I was feeling the feels. Which made me so very nervous . . . but I was rolling with it, dealing with it.

  But right now, I was only feeling flannel. In my hand, curling into a fist as I tugged him down to me, those lips too full and luscious not to be kissed. I kissed him, and he kissed me, and before I knew it his hands were around my waist, careful of my sore back but still warm and pressing along my singing skin. We kissed slow, and sweet, and deep and scorching, until I felt nothing except every point of contact between us.

  And yes, that included the impressive erection against my stomach.

  Suddenly, over the quiet sighs from me and the low grumbling groans from him, I heard something else. Something much higher-pitched and—giggling?

  “Ew,” a tiny voice said from somewhere much closer to the ground. I pulled my lips away from Oscar’s to investigate. Polly was standing next to us, and Roxie and Leo stood nearby with gigantic grins.

  “Don’t say ew, kid.” I laughed, dropping one more kiss on Oscar’s mouth. “You’ll give him a complex.”

  “What’s a complex?” Polly asked.

  Leo scooped her up and planted her firmly on his shoulders. “Let’s go check out that corn maze, huh?”

  And with my hand engulfed in Oscar’s large one, we did just that.

  We spent the day together, enjoying all the activities. I entered and won a jack-o’-lantern-carving contest, capturing the exact skyline of lower Manhattan from memory across a pumpkin sky. Polly and Leo ran the three-legged race and lost spectacularly, coming in so very last they were almost disqualified. Roxie easily beat out the competition in the pie contest, and people were fighting to get the last piece of her classic vinegar cream pie, which sounds terrible but was fucking unreal.

  But my day in the country was complete when I watched Oscar compete in the butter-churning race.