Ten Acres and Twins

by Kaitlyn Rice

  Abby put her hands on her hips and glared at him. “Well, are you just going to stand there grinning, or are you going to help?”

  “What can I do?”

  She pointed to the ducks, which were now hovering in a corner, squabbling over the tendril. “Start by cornering those creatures and putting them in the garage,” she said. “It’s time for them to make a life outside.”

  He snatched up the ducks and carried them out, smiling all the way. Everything Abby did, she did with spirit. Indignation added a blush to her cheeks and a fire to her eyes, making her look…red-hot.

  Sighing, he found a deep box for the ducks and set up temporary holding quarters beside his car. After equipping it with food and water, he returned to the greenhouse. By that time, Abby had picked most of the pots back up off the floor and was beginning to sort through the tangle of plants.

  “Need help?” he asked, and winced when a shock of sexual awareness tore through him. Somehow those two words had taken on an extra meaning when he said them to Abby.

  She didn’t seem to notice, though. Without looking up, she said, “Start by filling these pots three-quarters full with new soil from the bag near my workstation. I’ll take it from there.”

  Jack carried pots to the table and filled each, leaving them for her to finish. Silently, Abby repaired most of the damage and returned the pots to their shelf.

  Meanwhile, Jack found a broom and began to sweep up the debris. “Hope they didn’t create too much calamity.”

  “Now that things are in order, I realize they didn’t,” she said, snickering. “When I walked in, it looked as if they’d demolished an entire season’s crop.” Her smile turned to a chuckle. “Wouldn’t you have loved to see them having their little duck party?”

  And with that, Abby bent over her workbench with her hand on her belly, laughing heartily at the thought.

  Jack could only watch. The one thing more intriguing than the flash in her eyes when she was mad was the twinkle there when she was laughing.

  He was still admiring it when she pulled off her gloves, strode to the French doors and peered back over her shoulder at him. “Are you planning to help?”

  “Absolutely,” he said, following her over to pull open the door and wait for her to go through. “Help with what?”

  She rolled her eyes as she passed. “You did put the ducks in the garage, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then we need to move them, unless you want the elegant charcoal finish on your hot-as-you-know-what new car to get covered.”

  “With…?”

  “Duck muck.”

  Within minutes, he was walking out to the pond beside Abby, each of them carrying a duck. Abby stopped at the side nearest the shelter and nudged the female into the water. As it swam off, she said, “Welcome to your new home, Calamity Duck.”

  Jack smiled. “What’s this one’s name?”

  “I don’t know,” Abby said, tilting her head. “What do you think?”

  “Since they work as a team, what about Wild Bill?”

  “Wild Bill and Calamity. That’s perfect,” she pronounced. “See if he’ll follow her.”

  Jack put the male down at the edge of the water. Sure enough, the drake swam along after his companion, seeming confident in his new surroundings.

  Jack and Abby stood side by side, watching as the ducks waddled onto their island and circled around the shelter Paige had built. When the pair began to forage at water’s edge, Jack knew they would adapt.

  The mellow afternoon sunshine provided the ducks with a peaceful initiation to the outdoors.

  Standing out here with Abby didn’t seem to be a bad way for a man to end the day, either. Jack was surprised at how much he was enjoying his time in the country. At some point he’d stopped thinking of the house as a monstrosity, and started thinking of it as home.

  That thought was not only incorrect, it was dangerous. This was Abby’s home. Eventually he had to leave her, and the house, and Rosie. But living here was anything but dull.

  He had an urge to take hold of Abby’s hand—an urge he throttled, of course. Exactly the way he had throttled most of his impulses when he was around her.

  They were far too dangerous.

  ABBY SAT AT THE END of a long table in a bustling corner of Topeka’s most popular pizza place, and grinned at the jovial camaraderie of her companions. The three teenagers—half of her harvest crew—had all grown up together and were good friends. The two blond boys were Sharon’s sons, and the brunette girl lived on the ranch down the road.

  Eating dinner together in town was a rare treat and a nice gesture. And hadn’t been Abby’s idea.

  Just before they’d left the orchard this afternoon, Jack had walked out among the last baskets of peaches and offered to treat every one of the crew to dinner. And since Abby had heard the offer at the same time as everyone else, her protests had been drowned out by the enthusiasm of six hungry teenagers.

  She’d put her hands on her hips and glared at him, but that had only provoked a triumphant grin. He’d known what he was doing when he mentioned it in front of those kids.

  Later, as he’d helped her cart the peaches to the kitchen, he had anticipated her arguments and countered them before she had a chance to voice them. He’d said that the crew had worked hard and deserved a party. He’d pointed out that Abby’s mother had been thrilled when he asked her to baby-sit the twins for the night. And he’d reminded Abby that he owned the orchard and had a right to treat everyone to dinner. She’d been left speechless.

  Now he walked across the restaurant behind the rest of the crew, and slid into the chair beside her. “That hot-as-you-know-what new car of mine is already proving its practicality,” he said with a wink as the other teenagers found seats around the table. “I had room for three long-legged farm hands, and I still could’ve squeezed in a few computers and a crate or two of formula.”

  “You don’t get to gloat about the car, since it was my idea,” Abby retorted, wrinkling her nose at his teasing.

  He gave her a bright-eyed look that traveled from the top of her head all the way down to somewhere in the vicinity of her chest. And then he cleared his throat and met her eyes.

  “And it was a very good idea,” he said.

  Then he turned to their chattering dinner guests and bellowed, “What kind of pizza are you people planning to devour?”

  The next few minutes were filled with boisterous declarations of topping preferences, a few dissenting groans, some jostling and a general air of chaos as the six teenagers tried to reach a consensus.

  Abby smiled as she watched, but her thoughts were about four miles away, back at the farmhouse. Recalling the night she’d come close to succumbing to Jack. Or rather, to her own silly desires.

  She’d thrown herself completely into her work over the past couple of weeks, trying to forget that night and the way she’d felt with her body wrapped around his.

  She remembered it all too well.

  The hard work had added a dull ache to her muscles, and had helped her pass the time, but it hadn’t taken away the memory. And ever since that odd discussion on the sofa, she’d been trying to get a handle on her emotions.

  Being friendly with him was a lot riskier than being contrary, but she couldn’t go back to her much safer plan now. Heaven help her, she didn’t want to go back.

  When the pizza choices were finally made, Jack waved the waitress over to their table, and Abby pulled herself back to the present.

  She listened while Jack gave the order, and was surprised by the sober efficiency of the waitress as she took it. The young woman didn’t seem to notice how handsome Jack looked in his button-down shirt and khakis, and the only smile she directed toward anyone was a grinning “hello” to one of the teenagers, who claimed he went to school with her younger brother.

  Jack’s behavior was even more surprising. He spoke seriously to the waitress, and only smiled when he turned to Abby to ask her opinion a
bout drinks.

  After Abby suggested that they buy several pitchers of soda, the waitress hustled away to prepare their order, and the teenagers started talking about the upcoming high school football season. There was no way to break into their excited chatter about bus trips, past victories and the homecoming dance.

  For all practical purposes, they had left her alone with Jack. “I hope you don’t mind pizza again,” he said softly.

  She shrugged. “It’s what they wanted, and it’s their party.”

  “But it’s yours, too,” he said, grabbing her hand under the table to squeeze it. “You worked hard.”

  “Thanks,” she said, and waited for him to remove his hand. But he left it there on her lap, and his thumb started rubbing against the flesh of her palm. Her throat went dry.

  “Someday I’d like to take you to a nicer restaurant,” he said, and he kept those attentive eyes right on hers for an impossibly long time.

  She pulled her hand away. “That’s not necessary.”

  He lifted an eyebrow and brought his hand up to rub his chin. “But it is, to thank you for all you do,” he said, and still he kept gazing. It made her squirm.

  When she noticed the waitress walking across the restaurant with a trayful of pitchers and glasses, she jumped up and snatched the tray, insisting that she wanted to pour drinks for her guests.

  It bought her five minutes to get her bearings. By the time she sat back down beside Jack, Abby was determined to change the subject. “Do you miss the city?”

  “Not really,” he answered, surprising her. “I hit all my old party spots last time I was there, but it wasn’t the same. I must be getting old.”

  She laughed. “Then I must have been crotchety in my senior year of college,” she said. “Tim used to go to bars when we were married, but I never felt comfortable.”

  “Let me guess,” Jack said with a grin. “You were acing your botany exams, feeding the hungry and working as a poster child for the rewards of serious study.”

  “Are you making fun of me?”

  “Absolutely not,” he said quickly. “I admire you for finishing a degree when you were a newlywed.”

  “It wasn’t all that admirable.” She rolled her eyes. “Although Tim would argue this point, I practically let my life revolve around him.”

  “Abigail Briggs, otherwise known as superwoman, let her life revolve around a man? I can’t believe it.”

  She still couldn’t believe it, either.

  She sighed and looked down at her hands, which she’d folded in her lap. “I worked weekends, studied every day and waited for him to get home so I could fill some little pocket of my life with fun.”

  Jack touched her shoulder, causing her to look up again.

  “You sat at home while your husband went out?”

  “Sounds pathetic, doesn’t it?”

  “Sounds saintly,” he argued. “Why did you marry him?”

  Abby shook her head. “He was my first serious boyfriend. I think young girls attach all sorts of imagined sentiments to their first relationship. I thought we were in love.”

  “Weren’t you?” Jack asked, looking disturbed.

  “He said he loved me before we were married. Later, he said it had only been lust, and that wives were boring by definition. He told me to get over it.”

  “Maybe I’m the wrong person to say this, Abby, but your ex-husband sounds like a snake.”

  “You think so?” she asked, smiling. Now that she knew Jack better, she knew the comparisons between the two men were few. Tim had been a snake, and Jack was anything but.

  “Absolutely,” he said, and frowned into her eyes.

  She could tell he wanted to say something else, but his comment was interrupted by the arrival of four large pizzas.

  By the time the crew had all scuttled around the table to claim a slice or two of the kind they wanted, the conversation was lost.

  As they ate and talked to their dinner companions, Abby watched Jack. He was kind and amiable as he asked about their schools and families and interests, and he listened intently when anyone else was speaking.

  Several times he even pointed out something he admired about Abby. To all those teenagers and her.

  He was definitely not a snake.

  The friendly arrangement he had suggested on that sofa destroyed the very intent of her plan. She could hardly bore him into leaving if he was enjoying himself.

  But he’d been unpredictably tenacious about sticking around, anyway. In spite of her best efforts, he would likely stay a year, as Brian had requested.

  And in a small way, the new arrangement made things easier. Since she knew he was resisting, too, she didn’t have to work so hard to repel him. And as long as they kept things simple, her pride would be intact when he left.

  Then, she knew, she’d have to deal with the issue of Wyatt. Then she’d argue her case for keeping both twins.

  And then, if she had any luck at all, Jack would leave only with some sweet, private piece of her heart.

  “THAT TRUCK OF YOURS must have a race car engine under its hood,” Jack said as he came through the kitchen after dropping off his carload of passengers. Abby had already changed out of the sexy flowered dress she’d worn to dinner, and was back to her customary jeans and T-shirt.

  She grinned at his comment, but didn’t turn from her spot near the sink. “Well, I only had two stops to make,” she said. “You had three, all over the countryside.”

  He halted in the middle of the room when he realized what she was doing—peeling peaches. At ten o’clock at night, after a frenzied teenage pizza party and a hard day’s work before that, she was peeling a humongous pile of peaches. “Don’t you ever rest?” he asked.

  “Not during the harvest,” she said with a shake of her head. “I still have a good week’s work ahead of me.”

  Her movement made that long braid sway against her back, sending his eyes down to its end. It didn’t matter that she was wearing the jeans again, she was ravishing.

  He wanted to remove her hair band and spread those locks out around her bare shoulders. He wanted to grip his hands around that firm little tush. He wanted all his wanting to be all right.

  But it wasn’t.

  He’d agreed they were to be just friends.

  He coughed, and walked over to lean against the counter beside her and watch. Her movements were precise and quick as she peeled each peach and tossed it into a kettle.

  He frowned. He’d thought the party tonight would be a nice reward for her, but apparently he’d only put her further behind. “What do you have left to do?” he asked.

  Her hands were covered in peach juice, so she brought her arm up to swipe her bangs out of her eyes with the back of her wrist, and sighed when they fell back across her face.

  “Sharon said she’d help me in the kitchen this week,” Abby said. “We’ll finish the preserves and prepare the baskets. I’ll start delivering them by this weekend.”

  “I had no idea,” he said, watching her try to blink the hair off her eyelashes. “I thought when the harvest was done, you just sold the fruit.”

  “This orchard is too small to compete with the big growers in milder climates.”

  She grabbed a peach from the pile, peeled it quickly, tossed it the kettle and grabbed another. Her movements were nearly hypnotic. “We profit by processing the goods and marketing them in a package,” she said, with a quick glance at him.

  “Hmm.” He reached a thumb to her chin to pull her face toward his, and tucked an offending wisp of hair behind her ears.

  When he finished, he realized she was only about three inches away. He could practically feel the hot discomfort burning on her face. He was pretty hot, too. But not from embarrassment.

  He backed up immediately. “Thanks for taking time out to go to dinner with us,” he said to her braid as she returned to her chore.

  When she didn’t respond, he left the kitchen.

  He went to his office an
d picked up a stack of new orders. He knew he should try to work. The twins were still at Abby’s parents’ house, and he had nothing better to do.

  But something Abby had said at dinner was still bothering him. She was so admirable. Hardworking, nurturing and as sexy as a whispered sigh.

  It was hard to believe her ex-husband hadn’t known what a treasure she was. Just knowing she’d suffered at the hands of that clod made Jack angry. He needed her to know that he wasn’t in the same class as Tim.

  Besides his mother, he’d never once told a woman he loved her. He always made sure, by the end of the first date, that his lady friends knew he wasn’t a forever man.

  Before Jack knew it, his feet had propelled him back to the kitchen doorway. He stood watching Abby work for a minute, and finally cleared his throat.

  She whirled around with a startled expression, and chuckled when she saw him.

  “There’s something I need to tell you,” he said.

  She nodded emphatically. “Me, too. In fact, I was about to come looking for you.”

  He frowned. “You go first.”

  She rinsed her hands under the faucet, wiped them on a tea towel and relaxed against the counter. “I don’t know if I remembered to thank you for dinner. The break was actually pretty welcome.”

  She smiled, and a single dimple danced charmingly across one cheek. It caught his attention just as fully as her braid had awhile before. Suddenly, every inch of his body was brimming with the knowledge that they were alone in the house. He lost his breath.

  Abby seemed to be aware of that fact, too. She pushed away from the counter and stood a little straighter, causing her breasts to jut against the fabric of her shirt. When she put her hands on her hips, he could see the pucker of her nipples from all the way across the room.

  “You’re welcome,” he whispered belatedly, and forced his eyes up.

  She wasn’t smiling, and a tiny frown wrinkled her brow as she waited for him to talk.

  He coughed again. “Remember when we were talking about your ex-husband at dinner?”

  “Of course.”

  “He had no right to treat you that way.”