Eat Your Heart Out: A Romance Charity Anthology

by Skye MacKinnon

  Shut up.

  I’m just angry at her assumption I would want to steal her shittastic pie recipe. That’s all. And since I’m still taking her money for these fucking cherries, I can’t launch them all at her head like I want to, so I just nod and turn back towards the house. I put the crate down on the porch and turn back towards the truck.

  A slight movement inside the house catches my eye. It’s a man, I think, in the kitchen. Doesn’t look like Christian Hughes, from what I can see of him. Christian is lovely, but he’s not in the best of shape. This guy, whoever he is, is tall, with dark hair and a lean silhouette.

  That’s the real reason she doesn’t want me to go into the house. Bunny is obviously fucking around on her husband.

  I grit my teeth and turn away from the house, heading back towards the truck. I’m surprised to see Gibson disentangle himself from Bunny’s clutches and grab the other crate from the back of the truck.

  Bunny appears even more surprised than I am. “Oh, Gibson, you don’t need to do that. That’s why we have employees.”

  My fingers clench into fists, my nails digging into my palms. I am not her employee.

  Gibson dumps his crate on the porch, and as he comes back past me, I murmur, “You don’t have to help.”

  “It beats the alternative,” he murmurs back, never breaking stride and evading Bunny’s attempts to grab him again.

  Foiled, she just stands back and admires the view. Honestly, I can’t blame her for that. I’ve done it enough times myself, and I’ve only known the man a few hours. Even counting the first time we met, it still only adds up to a few hours.

  Bunny, clearly, has known him for a lot longer than that.

  Equally as clearly, she wants him, just like she’s desperate, for whatever reason, to win the damn pie contest. I’m not bothered about her wanting him. They’re both adults, right? He can fuck whoever he wants. Bunny is clearly already hedging her bets, what with the guy skulking around her kitchen, but I guess she wants options.

  It’s frustrating as hell. Not because I want Gibson. He’s way out of my league and leaving soon. No, it’s the contest that bothers me, and the barbed comments Bunny keeps making about how ridiculous it is that we’re even entering. She’s just a bored housewife, looking for things to fill her time, and if they come with bragging rights attached, so much the better.

  I’m actually trying to run a business here and at least two of our contracts rely on us winning this contest. No one wants to advertize the second best pie in the state.

  At least the cherries are unloaded now, which means we can leave. I heave a sigh of relief.

  “You should work out more, McKenna, if you’re out of breath just unloading a crate.”

  Oh my God. Does Montana have the death penalty? Can I trust Gibson to keep quiet if I just jam cherries down Bunny’s throat until she suffocates? That bitch doesn’t know a damn thing about hard work.

  “Now, Bunny. McKenna gets plenty of exercise. Don’t you, McKenna?”

  Bunny and I both turn to gape at Gibson, who is looking at me in a way guests are definitely not supposed to look at their hosts. It’s the way you look at someone you’ve been enjoying a very personal kind of exercise with, and I can’t help remembering what happened earlier in my truck. I blush bright red and stammer a ‘yes’ before turning back to the truck.

  “Where’s your luggage, Gibson?” asks Bunny, her tone a lot sharper now. “Christian said you were coming to stay. Your room’s all ready and waiting for you.”

  Is it my imagination or did Gibson just wince? Has he had a thing with Bunny? Nausea rolls in my belly and I force myself to get back in the truck.

  “I can bring your stuff down for you,” I tell him, through the open window, but he’s already shaking his head and heading for the passenger door. “Just give me your keys and let me know where you left your car.”

  “No, that’s fine,” he says, getting back into the truck. “I want to support the local economy.”

  “Oh, is that what we’re calling it now?”

  I can’t keep from glaring at her through the windshield, and she smiles back at me, sickly sweet with an edge of hatred. Great.

  “We’re not sleeping together,” I murmur to Gibson.

  He turns to me with a pleasant expression. “Yet.”

  I force myself to smile at him, because it’ll piss Bunny off even more than he’s pissing me off right now. “Arrogant much?”

  Hopefully, Bunny can’t read lips.

  “Come on, McKenna. Let’s go home and have melted cherries.”

  I frown at him as I put the truck in reverse. “You want to melt a cherry?”

  “I want to melt your cherry.”

  The engine roars as my foot slips on the gas, and I brake just in time to avoid taking out the fence nearest the stables. Horses scatter, whinnying at each other about the metal monster that’s trying to eat them.

  I take a deep breath, carefully put the truck in first, and pull away, leaving Bunny The Bitch and her beautiful house behind.

  Chapter 7

  Gibson, a man on a cherry-oriented mission…

  McKenna is pissed, and I’m not surprised. Bunny’s enough to piss off Jesus on a good day, and today is clearly not McKenna’s day. Which I feel bad about, but also a little pissed myself. I did good work back on the road to make McKenna feel good, and Bunny fucked it up.

  Deliberately.

  God, I hate that woman.

  As we head back towards Cherry Picker Farm, though, I realize McKenna isn’t just pissed.

  She’s scared.

  And I have no idea why.

  “Do I make you uncomfortable?” I don’t want to ask, mostly because I don’t want to hear the answer, but I didn’t get to where I am now by not asking the questions that scared me.

  Concerned me. Not scared me. I’m not scared. I have nothing to be scared about. I’m a billionaire businessman at the top of his game, and the woman sitting three feet away from me with a white-knuckled grip on the steering wheel wants me. I have nothing to be concerned about.

  But if I’m going to be at least a little bit honest with myself, I am concerned. I get even more concerned when I see her eyes flick towards me and back to the road and she says, “No.”

  I know bullshit when I hear it. It comes up a lot in my field, like when corrupt city planners are trying to deny my permits.

  The silence continues a little longer before I decide I’ve had enough. “Stop the truck, McKenna.”

  “No,” she says again, and I glare at her.

  I open my mouth to order her again, but then I see her hands clenching convulsively on the steering wheel. Whatever the problem is, it’s got her really eaten up, and somehow, I don’t think it’s just down to seeing Bunny trying to crawl inside my shirt.

  Don’t get me wrong. I’m sure McKenna was at least a little bit jealous, but I don’t think she’s that jealous.

  “Okay,” I say, and her head jerks towards me, before she refocuses on the road.

  “Okay?” she asks, and I want to beat my head against the dash.

  I like to be in control in the bedroom. Hell, I like to be in control everywhere, but the last thing I want is for McKenna to think she has to do everything I say. That’s not her style, and that’s not what I want from a woman anyway.

  Well, maybe it is from other women, but not her. I admire the hell out of McKenna. I don’t want to change a damn thing about her, except this apparent lack of trust that means she won’t tell me whatever’s eating at her. But that kind of trust can’t be bulldozed. It’s like those old cipher boxes they used to make in medieval times. If you broke the cipher, you could open the box and read the message, but if you tried to break it open, a vial of acid inside would break, destroying the contents.

  I don’t want to destroy McKenna’s trust in me before it’s even had a chance to grow.

  “Okay,” I repeat. “We’ll just enjoy a cherry quiet truck ride home.”

  Sh
e gives me a dubious look. “Did you just make another cherry joke?”

  “It’s cherry beautiful around here.”

  “Stop.”

  I can see her lips twitching, though, and I have to turn and look out the window to hide my triumph.

  “I’m cherry glad to be here.”

  “Seriously?”

  She rolls her eyes and shakes her head, but her death grip on the steering wheel has eased, blood rushing back into her knuckles. The sight has something inside me easing, too.

  We’re almost back to the farm by now, and I can see her hands tensing on the steering wheel again. Clearly whatever’s bugging her has something to do with the farm, and probably by extension, her mother. Maybe it ties into this contest that she and Bunny have both mentioned. I didn’t think too much about it at the time, but McKenna doesn’t seem like the type to get wound up over inconsequential things.

  I open my mouth and start singing White Christmas. Only when I get to the penultimate line, I make a small change and the truck echoes with ‘May your days be cherry and bright’.

  “Oh dear God. You’ve got to be kidding me.”

  “And may aaaaaall your— What? You don’t like my singing voice? I’ve been assured I have a wonderful singing voice.” This is bullshit, and we both know it, but I’m not doing this to dazzle her with my choral skills.

  “Were you about to make a huge donation to someone’s reelection campaign? Whoever told you that must have had a really good reason to lie so deeply.”

  I grin at her, and she grins back. I keep humming under my breath, and she laughs.

  “It’s not even Christmas. It’s not even fall.”

  “It will be at some point,” I assure her. “I’m practicing.”

  “Do you often practice for Christmas?” she asks as she pulls into the Cherry Picker Farm driveway.

  “No,” I say. “But I take cherries very seriously.”

  Her soft inhale has me going hard in my pants, and I curse inwardly as I spot her mother coming around the side of the house. Great. Now I have to face Marianne Brooks with a raging hard-on.

  “Hall!”

  I hear my name called as I get out of the truck, and turn to see Christian Hughes appear, like an angel from on high, saving me from certain humiliation.

  “Hughes.” This is still awkward, because I’m supposed to be at his house right now, not riding around with McKenna, getting a hard-on, but I’m pretty sure it’s less awkward than McKenna’s mom seeing my cherry picker fueled and ready for action. “Sorry. Change of plans.”

  “No worries. I got your message. Figured I’d come and pick you up for our appointment. Hi, McKenna, Mrs. Brooks.”

  I turn, standing close enough to the truck that my erection might just be hidden.

  What? A man can dream.

  “Uh, I have to go see something with this man, so I’m going to head out with him,” I tell Marianne.

  “Okay,” says Marianne. “Dinner’s at six.”

  McKenna doesn’t say a word, but one look at her mother’s face makes it clear I’m not fooling anyone.

  I sigh and head for Hughes’s car. Today is apparently not my day either.

  An hour later, I’ve reversed my opinion. Today is absolutely, one hundred thousand percent, my day.

  “How do you do it, Hughes? It’s perfect.”

  He laughs. “Call me Christian. And well, that’s my job.”

  We’re standing on a slight rise in front of a ranch house that’s seen better days. I’m fairly certain those days were at least fifty years ago, but that’s not an issue. Houses can be rebuilt. What I’m really interested in is the land.

  Rolling green pasture gives way to meadow, and woodland further afield. I know from the paperwork there’s several hundred acres of forest on the property, as well as meadows and streams. Plenty of room for a number of guest cabins, and a few larger lodges scattered around the place.

  “That flat area over there would be perfect for tennis, basketball, whatever you wanted,” says Christian, and I’m inclined to agree with him. “And the stables are actually in better shape than the house. Looks like the last owner maintained them better than he did his own home.”

  I feel a sense of kinship with someone I’ve never met. Those who work for you should absolutely be prioritized. That’s why I’ve never cut wages for my employees, even when times were tight. It meant I went hungry a time or two in the early days, but no one who worked for me ever did.

  “You’ve done it again, Christian. No matter what I ask you for, you knock it out the park. Every single time. And call me Gibson. You’ve earned it.”

  “Well, thank you Gibson. Just doing my job.”

  I turn and clap him on the shoulder. “And you do it very well.”

  He nods, with a look on his face that has my focus sharpening. “Got something to say, Christian?”

  He sighs. “Bunny mentioned you were riding with McKenna,” he says, carefully, and anger washes over me like acid.

  “What about it?” I ask, my voice lowering to a growl. Bunny should keep her mouth shut. I can only imagine what kind of poison she’s been spouting to Christian about McKenna.

  “McKenna’s a good girl,” says Christian, lifting his chin to look me in the eye. “Had a rough time after her daddy died, and some folks around here still think she and her mom should have sold up, but she stuck with it. Made a success of Cherry Picker, against huge odds.”

  I consider him. This isn’t what I expected to hear, although I won’t deny I’m glad to be hearing it. “She’s an admirable woman.”

  He nods. “She is. And she deserves the works. Flowers, candy. Stability.”

  Ah. Now I see where this is going.

  “We’re looking at a property that I’m planning to buy, not ten miles from where she lives. You really think I’m planning on dicking her around and then taking off back to the city?”

  He looks uncomfortable, but refuses to back down. “You move around wherever the whim takes you, and that’s fine. A man’s entitled to live his life however he wants, as long as no one else gets hurt. I don’t want to see that girl hurt. Her father was a good friend of mine, but he didn’t prepare Marianne for life without him. McKenna stepped up, and now she won’t ever stop stepping up. She deserves someone who’ll be there, rain and shine, summer and fall, not someone who flies in for a quickie whenever the urge takes him.”

  “Careful, Hughes,” I snarl. I don’t want anyone talking about quickies with McKenna, even if they’re referring to me. Especially if they’re referring to me. “That’s not my plan here.”

  “Isn’t it?” he asks. “Look, Gibson, I respect the hell out of you, but I also respect the hell out of McKenna, and I’ve known her a lot longer than you have. Just make sure you take what she needs into account before you do something she might regret.”

  I glare at him, unable to figure out if I want to thank him for having the guts to speak up, or just punch him. The throaty roar of multiple vehicles saves both of us from something I can’t take back, and I turn to see three large trucks pull up in front of the house.

  I turn back to Christian. “Your thoughts have been noted.” Then I turn and stalk down to the front of the house to greet the men getting out of the trucks.

  Hunter is a huge guy with dark chestnut hair, deep green eyes, and hands the size of shovels. He’s also one of the most successful contractors in the country, with multiple franchises in almost every state.

  Flynn is a blue-eyed blond. He looks like a surfer dude who got turned around looking for the nearest beach, but he’s actually my tech guy. Well, I say ‘my’ tech guy. He’s a billionaire in his own right, just like the rest of us, and for good reason. He’s the best at what he does.

  Nash has black hair that turns blue in direct sunlight, and grey eyes that see everything. Like the rest of us, he’s also a billionaire, although his field is private security. Unlike the rest of us, his past is a black hole. Don’t get me wrong, none of
us are particularly forthcoming about our roots, but the information is usually out there if you dig deep enough.

  Not when it comes to Nash. It’s almost like he didn’t even exist until ten years ago. I figure that’s his business, though. He never talks about it, and I don’t ask.

  “Ooooh,” says Flynn, on seeing my face. “Who pissed in your Wheaties?”

  I just snarl at him and push the door to the house open. It’s just about safe to walk through, although Hunter looks askance at the angle of the walls.

  “This place is one good storm away from being spread across half the county,” he says in disbelief. “Why are you buying it?”

  “Because it could be amazing. I want to build a leisure resort here, kind of a couples getaway deal. Main lodge here, two or three smaller ones spread around the property. Individual one bed cabins, too, some near the lodge, some farther away. I’m want a pool out back, too, and there’s a flat area suitable for a tennis slash basketball court over that way.”

  I point through the wall, and we all look at the wall in question. Daylight is visible at various points. Hunter sighs.

  “That’s a lot of work, man.”

  “Don’t act like you don’t already have a hard-on for the job,” I tell him, and he grins. I feel my tension ebbing away. This is what I need, a new project, something far removed from sex clubs.

  “It would look great,” he admits. “Do you have drawings?”

  I shake my head. “More just a concept right now. I wanted to see what kind of property I could find before I set anything in stone. I want it to really fit into the land, you know? It needs to be the kind of place you pull up to and start relaxing the minute you see it.”

  “The heirs are keen to make a sale,” says Christian, who’s been keeping quiet up until now. “You should be able to close within thirty days, no problem.”

  “Good to know,” I tell him, and Hunter nods.

  “Building here gives you a decent distance from the road. Good for security,” says Nash. He doesn’t talk much, but when he does, you listen.

  “I’m glad you think so,” I tell him. “I want you to handle the security. I’m aiming for the high end clients, so this place has to be set up to protect and defend.”