Summer on Honeysuckle Ridge (Highland Falls Book 1)

by Debbie Mason

Pulling up her list on her phone, she squinted at the towering rows of pumpkin-orange metal shelving to her left. The store could use some lighting and signage, she thought as she headed for an aisle that looked like it might contain tile. The linoleum on both the farmhouse’s kitchen and bathroom floors had started to curl up at the edges where the glue had given way. She pulled up the farmhouse board on her Pinterest page.

  “Abby, watch out!”

  She looked up from her phone to see a gorgeous, bare-chested man wearing a kilt coming her way. Which would’ve been okay if the man was real but he took center stage on a ginormous sign, and it wasn’t made of paper.

  Before Abby did a face-plant in the highlander’s kilt, a muscled arm wrapped around her waist and whisked her out of harm’s way. Then Hunter let her go and lunged for the huge wooden sign. “Ed, you can let go. I’ve got it.”

  The man did as he was directed, and Hunter lifted the wooden sign as though it weighed nothing at all and walked it to the sales counter.

  His face red and sweaty, the older man in the black apron wiped a hand across his brow. “Sorry, lass. I didn’t know there was anyone about.” His eyes went to Hunter—who propped the sign against the counter—and they got wide. “I thought I recognized that voice but didn’t believe my own ears. Hunter Mackenzie, as I live and breathe. It’s good to see you, lad.” Ed smiled at Abby, his eyes twinkling. “I take it we have this lovely wee lass to thank for bringing about this miracle?”

  It was a miracle? Oh my gosh, how horrible to think something as simple as Hunter coming into town to shop was considered a miracle. She wondered what had happened to him that he preferred to live his life alone in the woods with only his dog for companionship. Her heart ached for him. It had to have been something horrendous. No one would choose to live that way.

  As though Hunter sensed her sympathy (and curiosity), he scowled at her and said, “This is Abby Everhart, Ed. She’s Liz’s niece, and we’re here to pick up supplies. She’s paying me to help her get the farmhouse ready to put on the market.”

  The twinkle in the man’s eyes dimmed. “You can’t be serious?”

  He seemed like such a nice older man that Abby resented Hunter for intentionally turning him against her. She hurried over to the sales counter and whisper-shouted, “You said not to say anything! And since when am I paying you to help me?”

  “There’s worse things to have the man thinking. Me being with you is one of them. And I never said I was doing the job for free.”

  “You’re such a jerk.” But because she was tired and flustered, jerk came out sounding like flerk with a lot of tongue action. She tried again, and this time it came out as twerk.

  Hunter looked down at her, and his lips twitched.

  “Jerk,” she said again, relieved when it came out exactly as she had intended. “A really big one.”

  He started to laugh, which might’ve been why he missed Ed’s “Well, I’ll be.”

  When the older man noticed her watching him, he cleared the smile from his face, but he no longer looked at her like she was a traitor to the entire human race.

  She’d like to keep it that way, and hoped by sharing with Ed, he’d share with everyone in Highland Falls that she wasn’t a horrible person. “I’m really sorry you’re all disappointed that I’m not keeping the farm in the family, but I can’t afford to, and I have a job in LA.” She gave Hunter an eyelash-fluttering smile only because she was pretty sure it would tick him off, and told Ed, “I offered Hunter the farmhouse at a really low price, and I’d be willing to do the same for anyone from Highland Falls that might be interested in buy—”

  “You’ll not get anyone from town or the next county to make on offer on Liz’s place, lass.”

  Abby’s stomach dropped to her feet. “Wh—” She concentrated hard so her words wouldn’t come out jumbled. “Why’s that?”

  “Liz would haunt them, is why. And if she didn’t, the rest of the Findlay women who’d gone before her would. Honeysuckle Farm was a Findlay farm, and that’s how it shall remain. It’s why Liz left the farm to you, a woman she never knew and who’d never bothered to know her, instead of Hunter here. It’s a Findlay tradition.”

  “I’m an Everhart,” she said as her hope she could get Ed or anyone in Highland Falls on her side dwindled.

  “Blood tells and so do the eyes. You’re a Findlay, all right.” His phone pinged, and he pulled a pair of glasses from his apron pocket and read the screen. “Just like I suspected. You won’t be able to give the farmhouse away. Elsa Mackenzie has just posted an edict on the town’s social media, as well as the bookstore’s. Anyone who makes you an offer will have to deal with her. And trust me, not many folks around here will risk getting on Elsa’s bad side. Isn’t that right, Hunter?”

  Abby pressed a hand to her chest, shocked. “She can’t do that. That’s…I don’t know what it is but there must be a law against it. I’ll call…” Remembering the conversation she’d overheard between Owen and Hunter, she went with a lawyer instead of the police. “Eden.” She raised her phone to her ear.

  Hunter took it from her and ended the call. “You’re not calling Eden. I’ll talk to my aunt. But for now, let’s get what I came for. Do you have a list of what you want to get done?”

  “Yes, but I can’t…” She leaned in to him and lowered her voice. “I can’t pay you. I hardly have any money.”

  “You just get what you need, Hunter. I’ll open an account for you. I know you’re good for it. Besides, in Highland Falls we take care of our men and women who served. Hunter here was a member of Delta Force, a unit so elite that even the defense department doesn’t acknowledge its existence,” the older man shared with Abby, beaming with pride at Hunter. “He was team leader, and he—”

  “Appreciate the offer to put the supplies for the farm on the books, Ed. I’m sure Abby’s good for it.” Hunter’s affable tone belied the tension she saw in his eyes. “I’ll take an IOU,” he told her.

  “You’re still going to help me? I don’t have to pay you anything upfront?”

  “No, I—”

  She threw herself into his arms and hugged him tight. After everything Ed had said about Elsa, Abby had needed some positive news. She felt Hunter stiffen and tipped her head back to smile up at him. “Don’t worry, I won’t embarrass you by kissing you again.”

  “Too late,” he muttered, looking over her head.

  She turned to see what he was looking at and dropped her arms from his waist. “Oh my gosh, are they real?” she murmured as three extremely well-built and extremely gorgeous men walked their way wearing white T-shirts and kilts. One of the men looked like a slightly younger version of Hunter, only without the beard. She looked from the man to the sign behind her. “That’s you,” she said, touching the photo of him on the sign.

  His lips quirked. “It is. And you must be Abby Everhart, the woman who’s managed to do what none of us have been able to.” His startling blue gaze moved from her to Hunter. “Nice to see you in town, big brother.”

  Hunter grunted in response, then asked, “Why are the three of you wearing kilts?”

  “Interview and photo shoot for Highland Falls Herald to advertise the games.”

  “So why are you here, then?”

  His brother held up his phone. “You’re trending on social media.” He grinned at Abby. “Something about you kissing a cute redhead in the middle of Main Street.”

  Hunter followed the direction of his brother’s amused gaze and sighed. “Abby, do you mind?”

  “Mind what?”

  He nodded at her hand stroking the sign. “You’re patting my brother.”

  Chapter Eight

  As Hunter loaded the last of the supplies into the back of the truck, he glanced at the hardware store for some sign Abby was actually going to listen to him this time and get her butt out here. But no, the woman couldn’t drag herself away from a conversation if her life depended on it.

  She was a social butterfly. Flitting
from one man to the next, one conversation to another at warp speed. She was exhausting, and his brother and his cousins weren’t helping. They were happy to keep her talking. Even happier to pump her for information—about him. He should’ve dumped her off on the side of the road.

  He slammed the truck’s gate and was about to head back in and drag her out when she appeared at the door, laughing at something his brother, Shane, said. She had a great laugh, a warm laugh, big and genuine. Like her smile. As mad at her as he was, it surprised him that he could appreciate her laugh. And that blinding white smile.

  But when he glanced at his brother and found Shane watching him closely, a slow, knowing smile tipping up his brother’s lips, any positive thoughts Hunter might’ve been having about Abby and her laugh vanished.

  His brother thought he was interested in her. Which Shane would no doubt share with Eden, who would then share with the rest of the women in the family. Which meant that, thanks to Abby Everhart, Hunter was about to have his world turned upside down.

  Because no matter how much he objected, they wouldn’t believe him. They’d see Abby as the answer to their hopes and prayers of the last two years. The woman who’d save Hunter from himself and drag him back to the land of the living. They didn’t care that he had no desire or need to be saved. He was content with his life exactly the way it was.

  He got in the truck, slammed the door, then powered down the window. “Abby, move it or you can find another way home.” She had no idea how close he was to peeling out of the parking lot and leaving her behind.

  “One sec, I promise!”

  “You have got to be kidding me,” he muttered when she held up her phone, taking a selfie with his brother and cousins.

  What had he been thinking agreeing to bring her with him? He racked his brain trying to figure out what she’d done or said to make him agree. Oh right, he’d felt sorry for her and the rat. That’d teach him to let sympathy overrule common sense.

  He revved the engine and put the truck into Drive. Abby’s eyes went wide while Shane’s and his cousins’ narrowed. Good, that’s more like it, he thought when their narrowed gazes turned to scowls. He’d just proven to them that he had no interest in the tiny redhead whatsoever. So when Shane shared with the women of the family that Hunter had left Abby stranded in the hardware parking lot staring after him, they’d realize the same thing.

  A glance in the rearview mirror proved him wrong. The damn woman wasn’t standing staring after him, she was running after him, calling, “Hunter, wait! Don’t leave me. I need you!” And she, the clumsiest woman on God’s green earth, was running in sky-high heels.

  Cursing under his breath, he braked hard, the smell of burned rubber filling the cab. He bowed his head as Abby ran into the back end of his truck.

  The woman was a walking disaster. But she wasn’t whiney, he thought when she responded to his brother’s and cousins’ concern with a big smile and a cheerful wave. The woman was resilient. And determined. He admired the former and worried about the latter.

  “Gosh, you’re impatient,” she said when she opened the passenger-side door to hoist herself awkwardly into the truck.

  “Impatient? I was impatient the third time I told you to get out of the store and into the truck. That was the fifth time.”

  She rolled her eyes and powered her window down to stick her head out. “Don’t forget to bring your wives and kids to the farm for a visit! I’d love to meet them. That goes for you and Eden too, Shane!”

  Hunter stared at her. “You can’t invite them to the farm.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I said so.” He glanced at his brother and cousins in the rearview mirror. The three of them were waving and laughing—at him, no doubt. He stuck his middle finger out the window.

  “‘Because I said so’ isn’t an answer. Besides, I can invite whomever I want to visit the farm. It’s not like I invited them to the barn.”

  “They’re my family.”

  “A family you rarely see, from what your brother and cousins said. Why is that? Don’t…Hey, the grocery store is that way.” She pointed to the sign that was visible from the parking lot and grabbed his arm. “Where are you going?

  “The farm.”

  “No.” She shook his arm, which she still held on to, her long fingernails a cherry red. “I have to go to the grocery store, remember? The only food I had was in the gift basket from Eden, and you ate it all.”

  “I didn’t eat it all. I had a couple of blueberry muffins.” Unconsciously, his eyes went to her mouth, and he thought about the conversation they’d been having just before his aunt interrupted them.

  Abby had thought she’d slipped him the tongue. She hadn’t—her lips had been soft and sweet. As far from a kiss with tongue and heat as you can get. But for a second, tongue and heat was all he could think about and exactly what he wanted when he stared at her glossy red lips. He bet she tasted like cherries. She’d probably swiped on another coat of her lip gloss for her selfie with his brother and cousins.

  “You don’t have to glare at me. I’m not asking you to come in with me. I swear, it’ll hardly take any time at all. You don’t want me to disappoint Wolf, do you? I promised him a bone for looking after Bella.”

  “Trust me, Wolf has no problem getting his own bones.”

  She gasped. “That’s a horrible thing to say. He’s babysitting my baby, and now all I can picture is him eating her.”

  “Relax. He’s not going to eat her, but he also doesn’t need a bone.”

  “Wolf might not need a bone, but Bella and I need food. You’ll feel guilty if you come over tomorrow and find us lying on the kitchen floor dying of starvation.”

  “It takes more than three weeks to die of starvation, and you’ve got water. Liz kept a garden behind the farmhouse. Carrots, potatoes, and beans should be about ready to harvest now. There’s strawberries and blueberries back there too.”

  “That would be wonderful if Bella and I were vegetarians and fruitarians, but we’re not. I also need chocolate, ice cream, and…” She gave him a smug smile. “Tampons.”

  Hunter pulled a U-ie on Main Street, cars honking as he headed in the opposite direction toward the grocery store. “You have ten minutes,” he growled at Abby.

  “Thank you.” She smiled and went back to her phone.

  “What are you doing?” He regretted asking the question before it was even out of his mouth.

  She held up her phone, showing him the selfie she’d taken in front of the hardware store. “I’m sending it to my mom to show Haven and Haley, and now I’m sending it to Elinor. She’s my ex-husband’s housekeeper. For another few days at least. Elinor’s going to print off the photo and leave it out for Juliette and Tiffany to see. Tiffany is a member of the Bel Air Babes. We used to be besties. Until they turned on me after my ex dumped me. Now I call them the Bel Air Bs on account of how they acted toward me. But they’re in love with anything and everything Scottish, especially men in kilts. They’ll die of jealousy when they see this.”

  He stared at her, wondering what the hell she was even talking about.

  “Honestly, I don’t really get it. I mean, obviously, I understand the appeal of hunky highlanders. I’m just not really a fan of men wearing skirts. And that whole wondering what’s under the kilt gets kinda old.”

  “Really? That surprises me since you asked my brother and cousins what they were wearing under theirs at least three times.”

  “I was just having fun with them. But Tiffany and the Bel Air Bs would have been all over them. They’re seriously addicted to Outlander. It’s a television series set in Scotland. They have a viewing party once a week. I used to go to them. Only because I can never turn down a social event. But I wasn’t into the whole historical-time-travel thing like they are. They even went on an Outlander tour in Scotland last fall. I bailed, of course.”

  He gave his head a slight shake to clear the information overload. “Is there a reason why you’
re telling me all of this?”

  “You asked what I’m doing, so I told you.”

  “A simple I’m texting my sisters the selfie would’ve sufficed.”

  “Don’t forget Elinor. You know, without her, I never would’ve known about my inheritance. Come to think of it, I probably wouldn’t have made it to Highland Falls at all. I owe her a lot.”

  “Yeah, me too,” he said dryly.

  “Ha-ha. But you will when I make her scones for you tomorrow morning.” She held up her phone. “She just sent me her recipe, and they’re to die for.”

  “You don’t have to make me anything, Abby.”

  “Yes, I do. And really, they’re as much for me as they are for you. A hangry Hunter is not a fun Hunter to be around.”

  “Cute, but I can bring my own food. And you know how I said we can defer payment of your IOU? I’m collecting on it now.”

  “But I barely have enough money to buy groceries and to pay for—”

  “Cancel the invite to my family, and we’re square.”

  “But that would be rude. I don’t understand why you’ve shut them out of your life. They seem so nice. And they love you. They’re worried about…Fine. I’ll visit them at their houses.”

  He’d make sure she was too busy to visit anyone. He’d keep her tied up at the farmhouse if he had to. Turning in to the grocery store parking lot, he searched for familiar SUVs and trucks. When it looked like he was in the clear, he said, “You’ve got ten minutes.”

  Twenty minutes later, slouched in the driver’s seat of his truck so no one would see him, Hunter watched as the doors to the grocery store slid open and a woman walked out. It wasn’t Abby. He glanced at his phone, debating whether or not to text Eden for Abby’s number. He decided against it. He’d have to jump through hoops to get her number, and somehow either Eden or his brother would spin it in a way that made it seem there was more going on between him and Abby than there was.

  “Dammit.” He glanced around to be sure the coast was clear before getting out of the truck. He’d ignored five text messages from his aunt and three from Owen.