by Nicole Helm
Also by Nicole Helm
Mile High Romances:
Need You Now
Mess With Me
Want You More
Gallagher & Ivy Romances:
So Wrong It Must Be Right
So Bad It Must Be Good
So Wrong It Must Be Right
Nicole Helm
LYRICAL PRESS
Kensington Publishing Corp.
www.kensingtonbooks.com
All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.
Table of Contents
Also by
Title Page
Copyright Page
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
Teaser chapter
To the extent that the image or images on the cover of this book depict a person or persons, such person or persons are merely models, and are not intended to portray any character or characters featured in the book.
LYRICAL PRESS BOOKS are published by
Kensington Publishing Corp.
119 West 40th Street
New York, NY 10018
Copyright © 2017 by Nicole Helm
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.
Lyrical Press and Lyrical Press logo Reg. U.S. Pat. & TM Off.
First Electronic Edition: March 2017
eISBN-13: 978-1-60183-962-6
eISBN-10: 1-60183-962-6
ISBN: 978-1-6018-3962-6
To all the places I’ve lost, and all I’ve gained because of it.
Chapter 1
“You’re not still emailing with that guy!”
Dinah looked up from her phone and blinked at her cousin. It took a minute to get her bearings and remember that Kayla was waiting on her to get started.
“Actually I was reading up on Trask. I found an article that might explain his reluctance to sell.”
Kayla snatched Dinah’s phone away, then frowned at the screen. “It is sick that you get the same look on your face reading those pervy emails as you do reading stuff for work.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Dinah replied primly. Okay, maybe she did know what Kayla meant, and maybe it was a little sick, but Gallagher’s Tap Room was Dinah’s blood. The Gallagher family had moved to St. Louis over a century ago, and built a little pub on the very land beneath the concrete floor under her feet. It was everything to her, and yeah, she got a little excited about that.
Kayla gestured toward the back door and Dinah stood to follow. Meeting with Trask was going to be the moment she finally proved to Uncle Craig and the board she was ready to take over as director of operations.
Being Uncle Craig’s “special assistant” had turned out to mean little more than being his bitch, and while she’d worked to be the best damn bitch she could be, she was ready for tradition to take over. From the very beginning, the eldest Gallagher in every generation took over. These days, the title was director of operations, but it was all the same. And she was the eldest Gallagher of the eldest Gallagher. She’d been told her whole life Gallagher’s would be hers when her father retired, or, as it turned out to be with Dad, abandoned everyone and everything in the pursuit of his midlife crisis.
It was time. Dinah was ready, and getting some crazy urban farmer to sell his land next to Gallagher’s for the expansion was going to be the final point in her favor. No one would be able to deny she was ready.
Director of operations was everything she’d been dreaming about since she was old enough to understand what the job required. Long after she’d understood what Gallagher’s meant to her family, and to her.
“So, you finally stopped emailing creepy Internet dude?”
Dinah walked with Kayla down the hallway to the back exit. “He’s not creepy.” The guy she’d randomly started emailing with, after she’d tipsily commented on his Tumblr page one night, wasn’t creepy. He was kind of amazing.
“Dinah.”
“I’m sorry. No way I’m giving that guy up. It’s some of the hottest sex I’ve ever had.”
Dinah thought wistfully about how he’d ended his last email. And when you’re at the point you don’t think you can come again, I’ll make sure that you do. It might be only through a computer, but it was far superior to anything any other guy had ever said to her.
“It’s fictional.”
“So?”
“He’s probably like a sixty-year-old perv. Or a woman, if he’s really as good as you say he is.”
“As you pointed out, it’s fictional. Who cares?”
They stepped out into the lingering warmth of late September. The urban landscape around Gallagher’s was a mix of old and new, crumbling and modern. Soon, Gallagher’s was going to make sure the entire block was a testament to a city that could reinvent itself.
“What does he do, send you pictures of models? Oh, baby, check out my six-pack. Then suddenly he’s claiming to be David Gandy.”
“We don’t trade pictures of each other or any personal information that might identify us. I mean, he knows I have freckles. I know he has a birthmark on his inner thigh, but that’s about it. It is pure, harmless, sexy sexy words.”
“Geez.” Kayla waved her phone in front of Dinah’s face, the screen displaying a myriad of apps. “Not even Snapchat?”
“Nope. It’s all very old-fashioned. Like Jane Austen. Or You’ve Got Mail. Only with sex stuff.”
“Go have some real sex, Dinah.”
“I do that too!” Although admittedly less and less. Maybe not for six months or so. Trying to prove herself to Uncle Craig was eating her life away, and the nice thing about a sexy email was she could read it whenever she wanted and didn’t have to remember its birthday or cook it dinner. It was perfect really, except the whole do-it-yourself aspect.
But do-it-yourself had been instilled in her from a young age, no matter how false the message rang in her adulthood.
The tract of land behind Gallagher’s that Uncle Craig wanted to buy was a strange sight in downtown St. Louis. Between one empty lot Uncle Craig had already bought, and an aging home with a scraggly yard that Craig was also after, a land of green emerged.
Not even green grass, but huge plants, archways covered in leaves, rows and rows of produce-bearing stems. So much green stuff the crumbling brick exterior of the old house behind it all was barely visible from where they stood in front of the chain-link fence that enclosed the property.
“It’s cute,” Kayla observed from their vantage point on the cracked sidewalk. “Kind of funny we’re trying to get him to sell it so we can pave over it and then have a farmers’ market.”
Dinah had waged her own personal battle over the seemingly ironic—or at the very least incongruous—business plan her uncle had put forth, but being the black sheep of the family, thanks to her dad screwing up just about everything, meant Dinah didn’t have a say. Even Kayla, as sustainability manager, adding her opinion had done nothing to sway her father.
So, Dinah would find a way to get Mr. Hippie Urban Farmer to sell his land, and with any luck, convince him she was doing him a favor and sign him up for a booth for next year’s market, which Kayla would be in charge of. The Gall
agher & Ivy Farmers’ Market would be a success one way or another.
“From what I can find, Trask grew up on a real farm and his family left that one, then he worked on the farm of some other family member, who sold to a developer or something. This place was his grandmother’s house, and over the course of the past four years he’s turned it into this. So, that may explain his refusing your father’s initial offer,” Dinah said.
“What makes you think we can get through to him if my dad couldn’t?”
“His family has a history of selling land. He should be well versed in the benefits. Surely a guy like him wants a bigger space, and the money we’re offering will allow him that. Besides, we have a soul and decency on our side.”
Kayla snorted. “No offense, but I’m a little glad your dad went off the deep end and I’m not the only one with a soulless Gallagher as a father.”
“Gee, thanks,” Dinah muttered, trying to ignore the little stab of pain. She couldn’t be offended at the attack on her dad. It was warranted. They’d spent plenty of their childhood complaining about Kayla’s dad being a douche. But, still, it hurt. It wasn’t supposed to be this way.
Oh well, what could she do? She and Kayla stepped under the archway of green tendrils and the sign that read Front Yard Farm. The place was cute. Weird, no doubt, but cute.
Before they could make it past the first hurdle of beanstalks or whatever, the door to the brick house creaked open and a man stepped onto the porch. Dinah stopped midstep, barely registering that Kayla did too.
He was tall and lanky and wore loose-fitting khaki-colored pants covered in dirt, and a flannel shirt with sleeves rolled to the elbows over a faded T-shirt. It was the face though that really caught her attention. Sharp and angular. Fierce. Only softened by the slight curl to his dark hair, his beard obscuring his jawline. Something about the way he moved was pure grace, and everything about his looks made Dinah’s attraction hum to attention.
“He’s like every hipster fantasy I’ve ever had, come to life,” Dinah whispered, clutching Kayla’s arm briefly.
“Lord, yes.”
The man on the stoop, with the hoe, and the flannel, and the beard—sweet Lord—stared at them suspiciously. “Can I help you two?”
Dinah exchanged a glance with her cousin, who was valiantly trying to pretend they hadn’t been drooling.
“Mr. Trask?”
“Yeah.”
“Hi, I’m Dinah Gallagher and this is Kayla Gallagher. We’re from Gallagher’s Ta—”
“Nope.”
The door slammed so emphatically, Dinah jerked back. She’d barely registered the guy moving inside before he disappeared behind that slammed door.
“Well.”
“What were you saying about human decency and souls making a difference?”
Dinah started picking her way across the narrow and uneven brick path to the door. “He hasn’t had a chance to see it yet. Maybe the meeting with your dad ended poorly. We’ll have to mend a few fences.”
“Before we buy them all,” Kayla muttered. “Remember when we were kids and thought we’d be calling the shots?”
“We still will be. Just need another decade.” Or two. That’s how family business worked. She wasn’t going to abandon her destiny just because it was harder than she’d expected or taking longer than she’d anticipated. No, she was going to fight.
And should Kayla, her cousin and best friend, ever get married, Dinah would not follow in her father’s footsteps and sleep with Kayla’s spouse.
Dinah reached the door and knocked. She didn’t entertain thoughts of failing because it simply wasn’t an option. Failing Gallagher’s was never going to be an option.
The door remained closed. Dinah pursed her lips. This was not going the way she’d planned.
“Okay. Well. I won’t be deterred.”
“Come on, Dinah. Let’s go.” Kayla stood in the yard, hands shoved into the pockets of her dress. “Call him. Write him an email. I don’t want him calling the cops on us. Oh, maybe you can accidentally write him one of your sex emails. That’ll get his attention.” She sighed, loud enough to be heard across the yard. “I would so not mind getting that guy’s attention.”
“I’m going to pick something.” Dinah surveyed the plants surrounding her. She didn’t know a lot about farmers or farming, but if he was so dead set on not selling, he obviously cared deeply about this yard of produce. So, she’d lure him out that way.
“Don’t! He’ll call the cops.”
Dinah waved her off. “I’ll pick something ripe and give it back to him. I’m doing him a favor, really.”
Kayla muttered a disagreement, but Dinah ignored her. She surveyed the arches of green and splashes of color—squash maybe.
The yard looked very familiar. Like she’d seen it . . . somewhere. Somewhere. Well, she didn’t have time to dwell on that. She had to find a ripe vegetable to pick.
And since she had to no idea what she was doing, that was going to be a challenge.
* * *
Carter was not falling for this dirty trick. He wasn’t. If he was grinding his teeth and clenching his fists in his pockets, it was only because...
Aw, fuck it. She was winning. Touching his plants, his stuff, picking a damn unripe squash. He couldn’t let it go, even though he knew that was her plan all along.
He threw open the window, pushing his face close to the screen. “I’m calling the cops,” he shouted.
“Oh, I wish you wouldn’t,” the redhead answered just as casual as you please. “I only want to have a civil conversation.”
“Hell to the no, lady. I know what Gallagher means by civil, and it’s screw me six ways to Sunday and then he’d expect me to thank him for it.”
“As you can see, Mr. Gallagher isn’t here.”
“Just because you have breasts doesn’t mean I’m more inclined to talk to you.” Even if they were rather distracting when she was kneeling facing his window. From his higher vantage point, he could see down the gap between fabric and skin. Dark lace against very pale skin. A few freckles across her chest and cheeks. He briefly thought of his last email from D.
Maybe we couldn’t wait, and I unbutton and unzip your pants right there on your front porch.
He couldn’t think about the rest of that email and maintain his irritation, so he forced it out of his mind and focused on the offending party.
Her hair was a fashionable tangle of rich reddish waves. Her face was all made up with hues of pink, and the heels of her shoes sank into the mud next to his zucchini.
When she stood, wrinkling her freckled nose at him, he could see that she had long, lean legs, probably as pale and freckly as her chest, but black tights obscured them.
Which was good. This was one attraction he had no interest in pursuing. A Gallagher, for fuck’s sake. Of course she was gorgeous. She probably paid a lot of money to be. Her family was rolling in it.
“I’m calling the cops,” he threatened again.
“Don’t you think they have better things to do?”
“Listen, lady—”
“All I want is ten minutes of your time, Mr. Trask. That’s all. Much easier than getting the police involved.”
She had a point and it wasn’t like he was going to change his mind, but still, he knew the lay of the land. People with money managed to get what they wanted. People like him, people who just wanted to be left alone to work the land, to grow things and be at peace—those were the people trampled in the name of progress.
Ten minutes seemed innocuous, but it wouldn’t be the end. They wouldn’t accept his no. This was their third attempt at this point. Two from the sleaze in the suit, now an approach from these women.
Like he was going to change his mind just because of a change in tactics. Fat-ass chance. “Get off my property.”
She continued to stare at him through the screen, and he didn’t appreciate the scrutiny. It wasn’t anything like the first Gallagher guy. That guy had been downri
ght rude. A total asshole. Carter had trouble understanding why someone in business thought being a total dick was the way to win over someone, but he’d given up trying to understand people a long time ago.
“Maybe you could invite us in? Or we can talk out here if you’d be more comfortable.”
Carter wanted to tell her no. He wanted to follow through on his threat to call the cops, but she was right. That was a waste of time for everyone involved. And worse, so much worse, she was still touching his plants.
There was something uncomfortably sexy in the way she let a finger trail over a leaf. Yeah, he’d go talk to them and get them out of here ASAP.
He stalked back outside to his porch, resisting the urge to go to the shed and find the most pointy, threatening gardening tool he had. Barely.
“I’m not selling. Period. I don’t need to listen to anyone for ten minutes. My answer was, is, and always will be no. Especially to a Gallagher.”
She moved to the bottom of his stairs, pleasant smile never leaving her face. “Please, call me Dinah. I understand that you’ve put a lot of work into this place.” She gestured around them. “It’s lovely.”
“Yeah, and you guys want to make it into a parking lot.”
“Not a parking lot. No, a farmers’ market.” She glanced back at the other redhead still standing near the entrance. Carter didn’t understand the look, the slight slant of confusion to her eyebrows. The other redhead shrugged, the frown of worry never leaving her face.
“Just what did Craig Gallagher tell you?” the Dinah person asked, some of that easy pleasantness leaving her voice.
“I don’t know what your game is, but you all work together, so why the hell don’t you know what he told me?”
Another exchanged look between the two women. “We’d like to get your side of things. We want to make things beneficial for everyone.”