by Marina Adair
She half expected Tank to spin around and do some kind of complicated round-house, karate-chop to the throat combination to disarm her. He didn’t. Oh he tried to disarm her all right. Not with brute strength, but with male charm. He kept his hands on her pies and looked over his shoulder. Taking in her ponytail to her pink toes, and taking his time on everything in between.
She cleared here throat. “I mean it. One wrong move and I shoot.”
“Don’t shoot, I’m just trying to figure out what the right moves are, so you wouldn’t be so offended by the idea of my hands on your pies.” He said it with a grin that was all eye-candy and sexy swagger.
It was one of those Sorry babe, couldn’t help myself grins that her mom’s boyfriends used every time they got caught with someone else’s lipstick on their collar. The same flash of white that Philip gave when he’d come home too tired to tango in the sheets. Only this man knew how to do it right, knew how to do it so that a girl went weak in the knees.
Not that her weak knees had anything to do with that. They were tingling because he had broken into her shop and touched her pies. Kennedy jabbed him harder with the rolling pin, distracted when it bounced off his muscles. “The right move would be to set my pies on the counter and put your hands in the air.”
“Or what?” He turned around, slowly until her “gun” was pressing into his chest. His eyes dropped to take in her not-so-lethal rolling pin, and when they made their way back up he didn’t look scared at all. He looked amused. “You going to flour me, sweetness?”
“No.” She held up her phone, snapped his picture, and waited for his amusement to turn to fear. It didn’t. “I’m going to call the cops and report a break-in in progress,” she said channeling her inner NYPD Blue. “And if you try to run I will just show them your picture.”
“No need,” he said stepping back, not to flee the scene, but to rest a hip against the counter. Then casually set her pie boxes down—right beside him. “The nearest cops are in Atlanta.” He threw up air quotes. “A good three hours away. Around here, we have a sheriff, and his name is Dudley. He carries a badge and a gun made of metal that shoots bullets, not flour.”
“I know Dudley,” she said still holding the rolling pin out, just in case he got any ideas, while she looked for the sheriff’s contact info. “He’s a good customer. I even have his cell number.”
“How about that.” Tank said but didn’t sound impressed. He reached for the pie boxes again and, without thinking, Kennedy jumped forward and smacked his hand with the rolling pin.
“Ow!” he jerked his hand back and shook out the sting.
Kennedy had the sudden urge to apologize, but swallowed it quickly. She didn’t ask him to break in and mess with her day. He did that all on his own. “Keep your hands where I can see them.” She waved the pin for emphasis.
“Jesus, I was reaching for the sales slip,” he said snatching it off the box. “Suspicious much?”
With men? Always.
“I don’t know. Were you about to walk off with the last six pies and not pay?”
He thought about that for a moment and shrugged. “Nettie doesn’t charge me.”
“Do I look like Nettie to you?”
His lips twitched. “Not that I can see. But a quick inspection of your pies will tell me all I need to know.” He stuck out his hand with the sales slip. “I’m Luke by the way.”
“I’m not interested, so my name doesn’t matter.” Her pies? They were taking a permanent vacation from charming men with knee melting powers. “And I’m still calling the cops, so you can save those charming dimples for someone who cares.” She pointed the rolling pin in the general direction of his dimples
“Wow, sexy and charming, huh?” he said as if he wasn’t fully aware of their power. “Are you hitting on me, sweetness?” he said, dragging out the last word in a way that annoyed her to no end.
“You’re confusing hitting-on with plain old hitting.”
He ran a hand over his jaw; the scruff told Kennedy that his five o’clock was a long time past. “Jenny Miller hit me with a peach in the third grade. The next day she sent me a yes-or-no note.” He leaned in and lowered his voice. “Was all that rolling pin action Big City for flirting? Because down here all you have to do is say, Hey Luke, I think you’re sexy.”
“I’m not flirting with you.”
He cocked his head to the side. “I think you are.”
“I think charm clashes with prison orange.”
“That might be so, but I bet it goes great with pies.”
She was too flustered to answer, so she scrolled through her phone to locate Dudley’s number. With a grin of her own, she held up the cell so he could see the sheriff’s name, put it on speaker and hit Call.
“Be sure when Dudley answers you tell him I say hi and that he still owes me a beer,” Luke said, crossing one arm over the other. “Then tell him you are interrupting Thursday night poker to report someone touching your pies. I’m sure he’ll get right on that call.”
“Stealing my pies,” she corrected. “And if you’ll stop talking, I’ll ask him to go easy on you.”
“Pecan, pe-can,” Luke said in that tuh-may-toe, tuh-mah-toe saying tone, and just the word made her fingers ache. “And if you admit you’re hitting me was your way of flirting, I won’t press assault charges.”
“Press charges?” Kennedy said as the phone rang. “You’re the one who broke in, and you’re built like a tank. How could I have possibly assaulted you?”
“You look like you went a few rounds in the ring, you’re swinging a rolling pin with intent, and your apron says Nut Buster. Who do you think Dudley will side with?”
That was when Kennedy noticed her burglar was dressed for the boardroom not a ventilator shaft. Dark slacks, pressed blue button-down, and silk tie was way too GQ for a small town pie shop B&E. Then she looked down at her split knuckles, the smudges of blood on the rolling pin, and saw his point.
The phone stopped ringing and went to voice mail. With a frustrated sigh she dropped her head and silently started counting ten. She’d made it to three when black dress shoes came into her view. By five Luke was standing in front of her, his finger gently wrapped around hers—disconnecting the call. And sending one hell of a tingle up her arm. “How about you just admit that you like me, I promise to ask before touching your pies next time, and we call it a day, sweetness?”
“I like you almost as much as I like hulling pecans.”
“You just haven’t spent enough time with me yet.” He looked at her hands and grimaced. His voice was soft when he spoke. “Look, I’m sorry about scaring you—”
“You didn’t scare me—”
“That wasn’t very neighborly of me and I apologize. It’s late and you look tired, why don’t we pick this up another time. Over drinks.”
She must have been exhausted because the idea of a drink didn’t seem so crazy. It had been a long week, she was looking at an even longer weekend, and it would be nice to celebrate her small success with someone. Too bad, she still had fifty pounds of pecans to crack, four dozen pies to make, and justice to serve. Too many numbers to fit into a single night.
She considered her options. While seeing Luke hauled off in cuffs would make her night, it wasn’t worth falling so far behind schedule. Not when she wasn’t so certain he’d even be arrested. He hadn’t actually stolen anything and he might not look the part of a small town hick, but he had the accent down pat. The way he flattened those vowels while tossing around the sheriff’s name, told her he was the real small town deal.
Magnolia Falls wasn’t much bigger than a speck on the Georgia map, but it was big on family, pecans, and justice. In that order, meaning that having the first sometimes determined follow-through on the last. Being a local good-ol’ boy was nearly as good as being related to Jesus in these parts.
Knowing that she was going to regret this come tomorrow, she looked at his big, strong hands and said, “I’ll make you a deal.
You help me shell that bag of pecans, promise to never come back, and I won’t press charges.” When he went to open his mouth she added, “And any funny business happens and I call the cops.”
He closed it. Then said, “Define funny business.”
She lifted the rolling pin.
He raised his hands in surrender. “No funny business. Got it.”
“The tools are on the counter, the rolling pin is within reach. Do we have a deal?” He just stared at her a beat as though she were crazy. “Luke?”
“Yeah, we have a deal, but if I shell this whole bag I want a pie, made special for me. Hand delivered by the baker, which will be you.”
“You hull that entire bag tonight I’ll name a pie after you and even feed it to you myself.”
“You got yourself a deal.” With a laugh, he walked over to the bag and lifted it as though it weighed nothing. He walked it into the back room and, ignoring her orders to set it back down, poured the entire bag into an ancient looking machine, which sat at the back of the kitchen and Kennedy used to hang her aprons on.
“What are you doing?” she demanded.
“Dreaming about what you’ll be wearing when you feed me that pie.”
She went to say that wasn’t part of the deal, but he pushed the big red button and the machine sprang to life. Noisy gears ground back and forth as pecans were sucked into the machine and crunched.
“What’s that?”
“Nettie’s Nut Buster,” he said leaning in to stick the sales slip to the front of her apron, his fingers purposefully grazing the T and B in Nut Buster. “By the way, I’m L. Pritchett, Nettie’s grandson.” He pointed to the first name on the slip. “And I think she probably meant the letter L when she called in the order, not Elle.” He tugged on her ponytail and smiled. “See you around, sweetness.”
Also by Marina Adair
Sugar, Georgia series
Sugar’s Twice as Sweet
Sugar on Top
Heroes of St. Helena series
Need You for Keeps
St. Helena Vineyard series
Kissing Under the Mistletoe
Summer in Napa
Autumn in the Vineyard
Be Mine Forever
From the Moment We Met
Fall in Love with Forever Romance
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The second book in USA Today bestseller Sue-Ellen Welfonder’s sexy Scandalous Scots series. When a powerful warrior meets Lady Gillian MacGuire—known as the Spitfire of the Isles—he’s shocked to learn that he’s the one being seduced and captivated…
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Contents
Cover
Title Page
Welcome
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Epilogue
An Excerpt from the New Magnolia Falls Series
Also by Marina Adair
Fall in Love with Forever Romance
Newsletters
Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright © 2015 by Marina Chappie
Excerpt from It Started with a Kiss copyright © 2015 by Marina Chappie
Cover photography by Claudio Marinesco
Cover design by Elizabeth Turner
Cover copyright © 2015 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.
All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher constitute unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher at [email protected]. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.
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First ebook edition: August 2015
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ISBN 978-1-4555-2869-1
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