by Amy Andrews
“I’ve done a lot of preliminary stuff. A cost analysis. A business plan. Even before Dad’s heart thing. But it makes even more sense now. I just wanted to be sure it was the right thing for us, for the farm and the family, that I wasn’t biting off more than I can chew.”
“I think you have great instincts.” Wade was a big believer in instincts. He’d relied on his on the field, just like he knew his brother relied on his for all things farm-related. “If anyone can make a go of it, you can.”
“Yeah.” Wyatt nodded as they stopped in front of three massive round bales of hay.
Wade grounded the tines of the pitchfork into the soft earth and pulled out the pair of gloves he’d shoved into his back pocket before he’d jumped on the ATV in the barn. “Where are you up to?”
“I’m on this row.”
Wade followed the direction of his brother’s pointed finger as he pulled on the gloves. He’d learned a long time ago that gloves were essential for this kind of work, and blisters sucked. “Cool.” He pulled the pitchfork out of the dirt. “What’s on the agenda for tomorrow?”
“The usual morning routine, then some maintenance.”
“Awesome.” Wade stabbed the hay bale with the pitchfork. “Count me in.”
Wyatt was quiet, and Wade looked over his shoulder as he loosened a forkful of hay. His brother was regarding him with serious eyes. “Look, I appreciate it and all, but I can do it myself, dude. Ain’t you got a dang book to write?”
“Yeah. I know you can.” Wade nodded. “And yes, I do have a book to write. But…I want to help.”
Wyatt’s gaze narrowed. “Trouble?”
“Nah.” He’d left his distractions behind him in Denver. “The physical labor will do me good. Might help shake a few ideas loose, too, you know. Writing a book isn’t as easy as it looks.”
“That’s what I always say.”
Wade laughed. “Are we spreading hay or not?”
Wyatt grinned as he drove his pitchfork into the haystack. “Race ya.”
The Carter boys—competitive as ever.
Chapter Five
They were just about done—Wyatt was whooping his ass—when Wade heard the engine in the distance. It was going really slowly, so he figured it was probably CC. He doubted she’d ever driven anything but that butt-ugly Prius hybrid her entire life.
A new car had been part of her employment package, but she’d stubbornly refused to take the zippy Jeep he’d bought her, citing her concerns about pollution and the ozone layer. Yeah, CC might have been Nebraskan born and bred, but she was a California chick, right down to her toes.
Although she had looked rather good at the big old wooden table earlier. He smiled at the image of CC bottle-feeding a piglet with a crazy dog flopped over her feet. She might not have been impressed with his house in town, but she’d been right at home in his mother’s kitchen.
His ribs suddenly felt tight. He should have brought her to Credence earlier. Maybe seeing him in his home environment would have shown her a different side to him, made it harder for her to just suddenly decide she was going to leave.
He wiped the sweat off his brow with his forearm as the engine noise drew closer. She’d be here soon, but he probably still had time to finish spreading the hay in this shelter if he put his back into it. He leaned over the pitchfork and got to work, grateful for it being cooler in here out of the sun.
It didn’t take long to work up a sweat in the summer. Hell, he’d taken his shirt off after the first fifteen minutes, which had earned a laugh and a shake of the head from Wyatt, who still looked cool as a cucumber.
Wade wasn’t farm-ready these days at all, but he fully intended to correct that, keeping strong and fit with good, hard, manual labor rather than an elliptical or pounding the streets of Denver.
The engine cut out, and Wade stopped what he was doing to listen to the low chatter of his father and CC as he gave her the usual farm tour spiel. Mom must have caved and let him out of the house.
Wade wasn’t paying any attention to the sow snuffling around the hay as he strained his ears to listen, stepping forward to get a little closer. He didn’t know the animal was right there until he tripped over it and toppled. The hog squealed in protest as it scooted away, clearing the shelter remarkably quickly for an ungainly two-hundred-and-twenty-pound beast. But it was too late for the two-hundred-and-twenty-pound man.
Wade fell square on his ass.
It was a soft enough landing with the hay cushioning his fall, despite the tines of the pitchfork being a little too close to his junk for comfort. Jesus Christ, was everything on the farm determined to upstage him today?
“Wade, that you?”
“Yeah, Dad.” Wade sprang to his feet. Hay clung to his hair and his jeans and the film of sweat on his chest. It poked and scratched as he brushed it off.
CC and his father appeared at the entrance. His father took one look at Wade and said, “Hog knocked you on your ass, didn’t it?”
“Well, to be fair, I kinda tripped over it.”
His father laughed. Actually he guffawed, because that was the way he laughed, the way he’d always laughed. Big and wide, with his whole body, holding his ribs and slapping his thigh.
“Hey, Wyatt,” he called. “Your brother landed on his ass.”
Wyatt’s hoot of laughter rang around the field.
“I’m okay, thank you for being so concerned,” Wade muttered, wiping his hands on the butt of his jeans as he headed toward them.
CC was staring at him like she’d never seen him before. She’d certainly never seen this version of him before. In fact, he doubted whether she’d ever seen him this disheveled. Sure, he’d been put on his ass on the field, plenty, but that had been a badge of honor.
Today he’d been bested by his brother and a goddamn hog.
Wyatt joined them as Wade strode out into the sunshine. His father was practically crying now he was laughing so hard.
“Are there some drugs left in his system, do you think?” Wade asked his brother.
Wyatt shrugged. “Hey, I’m still laughing on the inside.”
“Thanks, dude.” He turned to his father, who was turning red in the face. “Didn’t they say you shouldn’t exert yourself for six weeks?”
It only made his father laugh harder.
“Hi.” CC stopped looking weird, turned to Wyatt, and smiled as she extended her hand. “I’m CC, your brother’s PA. We’ve never met.”
She had a nice smile. It went all the way to her eyes. The kind of smile that told a person they had her full attention. Wyatt, who’d always gotten kinda quiet around women, sure seemed dazzled by it. “Hey,” he said, shaking her hand and releasing it quickly. “Pleased to meet you.”
It was mumbled, though, coming out more like pleastameetya.
“That’s a lot of hogs you got here,” she said, making polite conversation while his father pulled himself together.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Oh please.” She waved his formal address away. “CC’s fine.”
Wyatt shifted from one foot to the other, glancing at Wade before he said, “Yes, ma’am.”
CC laughed. “Okay, we’ll work on it.” She filled her lungs with air, her nose sniffing. “I thought it’d smell more than this.”
“Intensive hog farms stink to high heaven,” Wyatt confirmed, clearly in his comfort zone now. “Free-range farms less so.”
His father finally quit guffawing and cleared his throat. Wade shot him a stern look. “If you think you have your shit under control, why don’t you and Wyatt finish off the tour? I’ve got four more shelters.”
Cal nodded, pressing his lips together, obviously trying to suppress his smile.
“I can do them,” Wyatt said. “You go with Dad and…CC.”
Wade got the impression Wyatt was about to
say and the girl for a moment. It’d been a long time since he’d seen Wyatt around a woman. He hadn’t realized they still made his brother so nervous.
“Nope. I’m doing my fair share, and I’m not stopping till they’re done.” Wade was not going to let this fairly simple, bread-and-butter farm chore get the better of him.
“Well you heard the man, CC. Come on over here to the wallow, and we’ll see if we can’t find you some more piglets to gush over while we’re at it.”
CC beamed at Cal. “That would be awesome.”
Wade was relieved when they walked away, his father forging on with CC, Wyatt dragging a little behind. At least he’d have some peace now.
His father looked over his shoulder and grinned like he wasn’t a man approaching seventy with a bum ticker. “Mind your step, son.”
Wade laughed and shook his head. “Bite me.”
…
Wyatt Carter had never been envious of his younger brother. Wade had excelled at what he loved and had worked hard to reach the dizzying heights of the NFL. He deserved all the success that came with it. It was weird having a celebrity brother, but none of that hoopla had ever interested Wyatt. He was doing what he loved, and the rest was bunkum.
But he envied Wade today.
Watching his brother and CC as they all ate lunch around the kitchen table stirred a bunch of feelings he’d tried mighty hard not to think about over the years.
They’d been back from the lower fields for an hour, but they’d only just started lunch because CC wouldn’t relinquish Wilburta. His mother had insisted they wouldn’t be eating with a hog at the table, not even if every spider on the farm started weaving webs singing the animal’s praises, so the animal was reluctantly returned to its makeshift home in the mudroom.
CC was asking their father about the birthing practices of hogs, and Wyatt liked that she seemed genuinely interested in the answers. He glanced at Wade. His brother hadn’t brought a woman home since Jasmine—over thirteen years ago. For what it was worth now, Wyatt had liked Jasmine, but she’d been overpoweringly pretty, and his tongue had tied into a dozen knots every time she’d spoken to him.
He was certain Jasmine had thought he had some kind of condition. Like a stutter. Or a head injury. More often than not, Wyatt felt like he had both. His track record with women was such that it was just easier not to say anything than blush and stammer his way through a conversation.
He must have been hiding behind the barn door when the smooth-talking gene was handed out, and God had given both their shares to Wade instead.
CC wasn’t as stunningly pretty as Jasmine, which, in theory, should have made it easier for Wyatt, but, in practice, not so much. Nearly forty years on this earth and he still felt like a big ol’ country bumpkin whenever a woman looked at him.
“Don’t you think so, Wyatt?
Wyatt blinked, his heart practically stopping in his chest as he realized that not only was CC talking to him, but everyone was looking at him expectantly. His vocal chords went into spasm just as CC reached for the nearby ketchup bottle which, thankfully, gave his frantic brain some seconds to catch up.
“Oh…ah.” He cleared his throat and prayed like hell he didn’t look as clueless as he felt. Wyatt flicked his gaze to Wade, who was sitting beside CC. Wade cocked an eyebrow, a slow grin spreading across his dumb face.
So much for brotherly solidarity.
Wyatt returned his gaze to CC. “Y…yes ma’am,” he said, taking a guess at the right response, ignoring Wade’s low, amused chuckle.
CC smiled. “Wyatt, I’m going to be hanging around here with Wilburta a lot.”
She grimaced a little as she twisted the ketchup top, which was obviously not playing ball. Wyatt half wished he could disappear into the ketchup as her eyes fixed on his face. Without turning to look at Wade, she passed him the bottle, which he took automatically, like a surgeon accepting an instrument.
“You should just call me CC.”
The very thought gave Wyatt an itch up his spine. He was a formal kind of guy. Between his Southern momma’s upbringing and his chronic shyness around women, it was hard to be anything but formal.
“Nah,” Wade said as he passed the opened bottle back to CC, who took it as automatically as Wade had accepted it. He winked at Wyatt. “Our momma raised us right, didn’t she, bro?”
CC drowned his mom’s hand-cut fries in ketchup. Wade snatched one and popped it into his mouth. “Hey,” she protested, slapping at his hand as he came back for another. “You already had a mountain.”
“But they’re my favorites,” Wade complained.
“There’s plenty more, Wade,” his mother said.
“Nah, they taste better off CC’s plate.”
CC rolled her eyes and pushed the plate between them so Wade could share her fries before asking his mother about her recipe.
Wyatt dropped his gaze back to his plate, a hot spike of envy lancing him clear through the middle. He knew his brother and CC weren’t in a relationship, despite what it seemed right now, but he’d like just a bit of whatever the hell it was they did have, because there was a familiarity between them that Wyatt yearned to have with a woman.
As a younger man, he’d dreamed about how his life would pan out. By now, he’d have thought he’d be married with a couple of little ankle biters riding around on the back of his ATV, bringing up another generation on this land he loved so much.
But his chronic, crippling shyness around women had made that little more than a fantasy. And the fact that there weren’t too many eligible women around these parts, anyway, had compounded his isolation.
Depressingly, he didn’t see it changing any time soon. It was something he’d been too busy to dwell on over the years, but watching Wade and CC together had brought it into sharp focus.
He was lonely, he realized. So damn lonely.
…
CC hadn’t been too keen on hitting The Lumberjack tonight, although apparently everyone around these parts called the saloon Jack’s. Again, she wanted to be a separate entity to Wade, and that wasn’t going to happen when she walked into the bar with the town’s number one son.
But mostly, she was still recovering from seeing Wade stripped to his jeans, hay in his hair and sticking to his chest. Her appreciation for farmer porn trebled on the spot this afternoon, and she’d been able to think of little else.
Sure, she’d seen Wade in various forms of undress before—shirtless, in Speedos and underwear during a commercial shoot, both of which left very little to the imagination, and in nothing but a low-slung towel. She’d also seen him sweaty during and after games, as well as after a morning run or a brutally hard workout session.
Hell, a few years back she’d even seen those infamous online pictures of him buck naked except for a fuzzy grayed-out area. The ones an ex had taken and sold to a tabloid back when he’d been a rookie.
The ones he did not talk about.
But seeing him shirtless and sweaty in that hog shelter?
Ooh la freaking la. It was like her ovaries, which had been lying dormant—almost extinct from years of little to no action—had suddenly roared to life. That fine sheen of sweat on his chest and abs and arms? The way his jeans had hugged low on his hips and that trail of hair had led her gaze down, down, down? His tussled mess of hair, complete with hay, and the smell of grass and animals and man flaring her nostrils?
That was why ladies loved country boys. And she’d definitely had a lady moment. Hell if she hadn’t wanted to trade her environmentally friendly Prius for a pickup truck.
Which was extra confusing, considering she didn’t even like Wade that much about 50 percent of the time. And oh, that’s right…he was her boss.
That was the line right there.
She’d left the employ of two CEOs prior to Wade who’d thought her services should extend beyo
nd work hours. She’d be a complete hypocrite if she compromised her ethics for Wade. And a fool as well to choose a man who preferred a carousel of women to eternal monogamy.
Because that’s what CC demanded.
Her father had left her mother and the family home when CC had been three years old to live with another woman and her kids in the next town. Her mother had never fully recovered from his betrayal, and the long-term repercussions on her family and CC’s own relationship with men had been far-reaching.
No way could CC be with a guy who wouldn’t know monogamy if it knocked him on his ass.
But seeing Wade in farmer mode—all sweat and muscle and hay—had tripped some kind of switch. It was like a portal had opened to a whole other world and was sucking her in.
And that just wouldn’t do.
“Wade!”
About half a dozen people called to Wade as they entered the bar, and CC felt as if she’d been thrust into a scene from Cheers.
But it was different to the usual public adoration she’d seen in other places. Wherever Wade went, people came up to him, asked him for his autograph, wanted to shoot the breeze about a game or criticize a play. And it didn’t seem to matter to them if he was on a date or at a private party or in a meeting. It always got CC hot under the collar, but Wade took it all in his stride. She knew he considered it one of the pitfalls of celebrity.
But here, in his hometown, after an initial greeting, people turned back to their drinks and resumed their conversations. They didn’t get up or approach him. Nobody asked him to sign anything.
In Credence, apparently, his presence didn’t raise an eyebrow. He was just part of the fabric of the town—one of them. But more than that, it seemed as if they knew he needed to not be a celebrity every now and then. No wonder he wanted to come here to write, to get away from everyone always demanding a piece of him.
“Well, look who the cat dragged in.”
CC took in the grinning man behind the bar. A very sexy guy, maybe a bit younger than Wade. Tall and built, with sandy-blond hair, a little long and shaggy at the back, a spectacular mouth, and a pair of cute dimples.