by Gaelen Foley
But she suddenly found that her streak of stubborn pride refused to hand this rich guy a fistful of quarters to finish out the sum. She was already embarrassed enough about flirting with him, if he had a girlfriend; she did not want the added mortification of looking like some pitiful pauper, as well.
If her trophy-wife mom had taught her anything, it was how to behave among the wealthy. “You know what, it’s on the house,” Bea said smoothly, and she offered the stranger a genteel, go-to-hell smile.
His eyebrows shot up. “What? No, that’s not necessary. How about a credit card?”
“Nah, we can’t connect to the satellites here to run people’s cards, remember?” She nodded sweetly at the sky. “Cash or check only. But that’s fine. Just take it. Consider this your Welcome To Harmony Falls fruit basket.”
He stared at her. “Seriously? Let me put it back. I feel terrible—”
“No, it’s fine, really. This stuff won’t be as good if it sits for another week, anyway. Just pay it forward sometime. And…if I see you at the Knickpoint,” she said ever-so-casually, just in case she’d been wrong about his availability, “maybe you can buy me a drink.”
He gazed at her for a long moment. “But I’d do that anyway.”
Okay, maybe it’s not a girlfriend situation, then. His interest in her certainly appeared genuine. Still, she got a definite feeling there was something in the way.
Playing it safe but still warily interested, and trying to decode the mixed signals she was getting from this puzzling man, Bea pushed the bag of fresh fruit toward him with a reassuring smile. “Here you go, Harry. Enjoy. Maybe I’ll see you around.”
He gave her a warm but guarded smile. “Are you sure about this?”
“Absolutely. Take it,” she ordered him, laughing to dispel the awkwardness.
“Okay. If you insist. Thanks, Bea,” he said, putting his wallet away uncertainly.
She liked the sound of her name on his tongue. “Sure thing, Harry.”
“It was nice meeting you,” he added as he swept the bag off the counter.
“Likewise,” she answered. “Have a nice vacation.”
He nodded goodbye, but she got the feeling that if this obvious bigshot had been embarrassed about having to ask for directions, his male ego was positively crushed over accepting her free gift.
Ha.
She was glad he hadn’t refused to take it, though. Her pride insisted she show generosity; besides, when you grew food for a living, you couldn’t deny a hungry man something to eat.
Especially one that was smokin’ hot and giving her the sexy eye.
She leaned on the counter, unabashedly checking out the impressive V-shape of his silhouette, from his broad shoulders down to his cute rear end, as he marched back to his Porsche.
Just damn yummy, she concluded.
On the way to his car, Harry took a bite of the peach he’d been holding in his hand. “Wow! You weren’t kidding,” he called back to her as he chewed, brushing a drip of nectar off his chiseled chin with the back of his hand. “This is delicious!”
“I know, right?” she agreed with a laugh, pleased by the compliment on her growing abilities. “Glad you like it.”
“See you around, Bea,” he called as he got into his car.
“Maybe!” she flirted.
“Count on it,” Harry shot back. Then he started the engine, and the Porsche rumbled to life with a loud purr.
Bea waved as he put on his shades and sent her a casual salute. Available or not, she couldn’t take her eyes off the man.
Harry honked the horn with a few friendly beeps as he drove away. She watched until his little crimson roadster had disappeared, roaring off down Clover Highway toward town, then she bit her lip, still mystified by their encounter.
A fiery wish for cell service flashed through her. She was dying to tell the girls about the day’s most intriguing customer. His mysterious behavior still puzzled her, though. First, arriving in town when all the other tourists were leaving, then shifting gears on her without explanation.
Made no sense.
Of course, considering he was just some random visitor to town, the man didn’t owe her any explanations. She couldn’t help feeling he’d been a little evasive about what he was doing here.
Ah, but that was the beauty of small-town life, Bea thought with a knowing smile. Especially with good old blabbermouth Sharon manning the front desk of the Sweetwater Inn.
No doubt the local gossip mill would soon reveal all.
CHAPTER 3
Oh, you have got to be kidding me! Shit, shit, shit. From the tiny reflection in his rearview mirror, Harry watched the knockout farm girl in her cheerful little fruit stand until he rounded the bend that had put her out of sight. That’s the grandkid? That’s the person I’ve got to beat?
DAMN IT.
It was too easy, and she was too cute to disappoint. A mile down the road, he still couldn’t quite wrap his head around what the hell just happened. Why hadn’t anybody warned him that the bearded, redneck Bubba type he’d been expecting to deal with was, in fact, a beautiful young woman with glowing cheeks, golden-brown eyes, and slim, tanned legs of the sort that made a man’s mouth water?
Zooming along Clover Highway, slightly frazzled by their encounter, he could only conclude that Beatrice Palmer’s adorability quotient was not the sort of thing Tammy Reese would ever admit.
As for him, Harry felt like his brain had short-circuited from the moment he had read the name of the farm on the brochure, put two and two together, and realized who his sexy little Daisy Duke actually was.
There he was, lustfully fantasizing over a roll in the hay, which he desperately needed, when it had hit him like a brick in the head that she was the main obstacle to the success of his mission here.
Moreover, she was business. Not pleasure.
Still dazzled, he could not get the image of her fresh, lovely face out of his mind. She had long-lashed, amber-flecked brown eyes that crinkled at the edges when she smiled, a sweet little nose that scooped upward just slightly, rosy lips, and delicate, high cheekbones.
But it was the carefully carved collarbone peeking out from her tight white tank top, her chiseled, sun-kissed arms, and her slim, taut middle that still made him salivate and brought a quiver to his belly.
Harry shook his head at himself as he whisked down the bendy road and once again slalomed alongside the roaring river, at least confident this time that he was headed in the right fricking direction.
Idiot.
Clearly, the whole GPS snafu had thrown him off his game. Harrison Riley wasn’t supposed to lose his cool, and certainly didn’t bumble in the presence of beautiful women like some overgrown adolescent.
“Your peaches look spectacular.”
Really? What was he, fourteen? Why not just crack a few farmer’s-daughter jokes while he was at it and really piss her off? He was lucky he hadn’t gotten slapped. Damn it, Curt was counting on him, and he could’ve easily blown the deal already.
Well, Harry thought begrudgingly, at least now he knew what he was up against.
Maybe he should’ve said something back there about the reason for his visit to town once he’d seen her brochure, but he had been taken aback and needed to think about this.
Even before he’d left the city, he had already made up his mind to cut the meddling grandkid out of the equation by saying he was only authorized to talk to the owner on the deed. It was only sensible. After hearing how the would-be heir to the farm had blocked Tammy from selling the place so many times, Harry was not about to lose before the game even started.
Now, as he drove along, he could only wonder how Beatrice Palmer would take the news when she found out that he wasn’t exactly on a vacation.
It was easy enough to guess. She was gonna hate his guts. Oh well, he thought grimly. That was a damn shame. There had definitely been some serious chemistry going on there between them.
Of course, if he wanted to thi
nk like a real bastard, that attraction could be made to work in his favor…
Yet Harry couldn’t deny he had a bad feeling about this deal already. She’s adorable, and I’m about to yank the rug out from under her.
Eh, maybe he was looking at this wrong. Maybe she’d be happy to unload the farm. Because imagining that sunshiny goddess toiling in the fields seemed as wrong as seeing a fine racehorse forced to pull a plow. A woman like that ought to be treated like a queen by a man with the means to do so, wining and dining her, wrapping her in luxury. She ought not have to lift a finger.
Hell, maybe it was just that none of the buyout offers had been high enough for her yet. Like Curt said, everybody had their price. Yeah, he decided, she might actually be happy to have a big chunk of money land in her family’s lap.
In any case, it was too late now to go back and tell her the truth. She’d find out soon enough. And whatever her reaction was, he’d deal with it as it came, play it off somehow. He was good at that.
If he could manage Curtis Culpeper, he figured he could handle anyone. In the meantime, what the hell was he supposed to do with an entire honeydew melon?
He grimaced at the bald, pale fruit sitting in the passenger’s seat next to him. With a salt-in-the-wound twinge of his pride, he still couldn’t believe he had let the girl pick up the tab for his purchase. But sensing that pride in her, he hadn’t dared refuse. Something had told him that if he’d walked away empty-handed, he’d have really insulted her.
So, great. Now he was indebted to a woman who would probably throw that drink they’d talked about in his face for lying to her, if it ever happened.
Too damn bad, he chided himself. You’re here for the job. Keep your eyes on the prize. Women were easy enough to come by, but a shot at the top was a rare occurrence in a man’s career, and the competition was intense.
He was not going to blow his chances over some hot girl with great legs.
“Get it together, man,” he muttered to himself as he stole another quick glance at the farm brochure to check the little map. Deciding he would simply give the honeydew melon to his mom, he scoffed when his GPS came back to life.
“Recalculating…”
“Argh,” Harry growled, and turned the unit off. Traitor.
Determined to focus on his next order of business, he forced himself to concentrate when he spotted a big wooden sign ahead: Welcome to Harmony Falls! Work hard, Play hard ~ Live like you mean it.
He approved of those sentiments, though he himself didn’t have much time for the play part. Even more heartening, he finally began seeing definite signs of civilization.
On the outer edge of town, amid a thick stand of towering fir trees and moss-covered boulders, he rolled past the Harmony Falls Outdoor Adventure Center, a modern log-cabin-style building with giant hewn timbers and a big stone chimney. It sat beside a gorgeous, rushing river, where some tanned, laughing guy in mirrored sunglasses was organizing people in helmets and life vests into a fleet of bright orange river rafts. People on the rustic front porch tangled themselves into zip-lining harnesses, clipped carabiners onto rock-climbing ropes. Huh. That looked fun.
Harry drove on. Soon a few residential streets unfolded around him. He passed rows of charming little bungalows drowsing peacefully in the dappled sunshine.
The next thing he knew, he found himself in the quaint, bustling center of Harmony Falls. He sat at the stop sign to take a look around at the town square.
Hello, Norman Rockwell, he mused, sardonically eyeing the white gazebo festooned in red, white, and blue, the picturesque stone fountain where people sat around, splashing their hands in the water. Atop a marble pedestal, a bronze statue of a Union soldier sat astride his warhorse, watching over all.
Clusters of friends relaxed here and there beneath the big old trees. People sipped iced teas in the grass, while couples strolled dreamily on the tidy sidewalks. Cyclists zoomed by, and a group of teenaged skateboarders slapped their boards against the brick walkways.
When a few of them began ogling his car, Harry couldn’t help but smile. Work hard, kids, stay in school, he thought wryly, driving on.
Over there, the white-tented skeleton of what might’ve been an open market earlier in the day was being broken down by half a dozen workers.
Noting the sign that told him he was now on Main Street, Harry crawled past a lively coffee shop, then a bookstore housed in a row of redbrick buildings from the middle 1800s.
You couldn’t miss the old-fashioned ice cream parlor nearby. Families thronged the picnic tables clustered around a giant, whimsical statue of a triple-decker ice cream cone outside the place, kids getting hopped up on sugar.
The Falls Creamery, the sign said. The sweet smell of waffle cones was tempting as he drove by. A groovy-looking record store and an old-timey theater sat side by side along the row of brightly painted clapboard storefronts.
Suddenly, Harry spotted the Sweetwater Inn, the Victorian-era mansion where he’d be staying. It looked elegant, a few notches above the rest of the casual town’s businesses. Relieved to have already found it, he glanced down the street and noticed the Knickpoint.
That was the place Bea had mentioned he could buy her a drink. Looked pretty cool. A row of mountain bikes chained to artsy iron bike racks crowded the sidewalk. The scent of charred beef wafted from the place, making his stomach rumble.
Perfect, Harry thought, determined to put the confusion behind him. He’d head over there after his chat with the old farmer, grab a burger and a beer, get a feel for the locals.
As he drove through the square, he wondered what the locals would think about Curt’s plan to build another resort, even closer than the others in the area.
A moment later, Harry exited the far edge of town, sped up again, and went careening back out into the countryside. Tempting as it was to go racing up and down and around the roller-coaster highway, he kept to a moderate pace. He didn’t want to pass the Palmer Family Farm, and in this forest, it would be easy to miss. Besides, a deer could probably come bounding out at any time.
When Harmony Falls lay a couple miles behind him, Harry kept a sharp eye out for the property Curt had sent him to acquire. Ahead, on the left side of the road, two ancient moss-covered wooden gateposts stood like sentinels guarding an unmarked dirt driveway. Crowded by clusters of daisies, and nestled into a mass of arching maple trees, you could barely see them there, but the location seemed to match the map on the brochure.
Harry put on his turn signal and slowed Ruby way down. Anticipation gripped him as he carefully made the turn and ventured into the green tunnel of trees, entering Beatrice Palmer’s domain.
He followed the dirt road through a patch of deep green forest. He could feel his body relax as the tree cover thinned into a bright and sleepy meadow full of pink and yellow wildflowers. Cows and a couple of horses grazed amid tall, flowy grasses swaying in the breeze. A pair of red-winged blackbirds perched on a thicket of reeds, scouring for a midday snack.
Ahead, heaps of cobblestones mortared together probably a century ago had been stacked into a delicate arch, forming a slender but sturdy bridge over the trout stream Curt had mentioned. Then the dusty road pitched upward, and Harry meandered on, cautiously avoiding boulders that jutted out of the ground and deep craters that plunged here and there. Maybe he should’ve brought his SUV on this journey instead.
Chickens, dozens of them, some orange, some black, some creamy white, strutted and pecked along a grassy hillside next to a coop that sat on a trailer. The stench of manure wafted through the air. Goats and sheep lingering in another field gnawed on grass, watching Harry pass, unimpressed.
Beyond a thicket of blueberries, he noticed the orchard: long corridors of thriving trees as far as he could see. Ah, the peaches. He shoved another thought of Ms. Palmer’s supple body out of his mind, but not fast enough to stop himself from wondering if she tasted as good as she looked.
Along with the peach trees, he saw cherries, plums
, maybe apples farther off in the distance, just dangling there, silently, innocently, doing their own thing.
She’s got her own little Eden here, he thought.
He wondered where the expected army of migrant workers were, helping to harvest the crops. Why the towering grain silo looked abandoned. Why the expansive field on his right was nothing but a mound of dirt.
As far as he knew, there should’ve been silage corn growing here, lots of it. Harry had expected to see sprawling irrigation systems, growling tractors, expensive grain drills, hefty combines. But as the road curved around a long, tunneled greenhouse, the land leveled off, and instead, he was astounded to see a wide expanse of green: varying shades of smoky jades, bright kellies, and warm olives in perfectly straight rows.
He had no idea which plants were what. Some had wide, crumply leaves, some had long, flowing fronds, and others had spindly, finger-like pods. Maybe plump cabbages, maybe green beans, maybe some fancy lettuce.
Wooden stakes poked out of the soil, slanting haphazardly this way and that, like broken teeth on an old comb.
When he finally reached the old farmhouse, he could see why Tammy Reese had long had her eye on this place. The land was gorgeous—the view from on top of this hill, the lush valley below, the orchards, the stream—all of it snuggled into a crescent of the Laurel Mountains, a bridal path leading off into the vast state forest. The rolling hills looked perfect for a golf course. They wouldn’t take much sculpting at all with a bulldozer…
This could actually work. Harry shook his head, amazed. Monty’s going to shit a brick. The weathered, white, turn-of-the-century farmhouse itself was astonishing, a slice of good old-fashioned American pie. The big red barn wasn’t in the best of shape, but it had a rustic charm.
Not that Curt meant to keep any of this. It seemed a shame, but Harry could definitely envision a highly profitable resort here. There was plenty of room for some high-end condos, a spa, a tap room, even a compact golf course. Hell, he’d come and pay top dollar for a weekend suite with one of the women he took out from time to time.