33
Autumn
“I haven't been clear enough that I'm not selling my orchard, Mr. Benson?” I ask, looking down at the name on the business card I'm holding. I’m standing on the front porch, and it’s been a hell of a fucking morning. I just fired a great foreman – the best one I've had, besides Luke – because Luke sent him to watch me. Harvest is over, so it's not like I need someone running the orchard right now anyway, and the fact that he was watching me for Luke is unsettling.
I've been on edge all morning. And now this guy shows up, uninvited, someone else from the mining company. Not even the douchebag board member or whoever who took me out to dinner last night. This guy is just a lackey of some kind.
It’s enough to make me want to start greeting visitors with a shotgun instead of a smile.
Greta pokes her head out the screen door with Olivia balanced on her hip, and I shake my head no, waving her back inside, casually but quickly.
He’s not a good man.
You don’t know the whole story. I can explain.
Luke’s words echo in my head as I look at the representative from the mining company, but I push them away. Luke is an immature asshole who’s just trying to cover up the fact that he acted like a jerk and dumped you over a text message for another woman. You can’t trust your instincts when it comes to men.
“I’m not sure we got off on the right foot, Ms. Mayburn,” he says, walking up to the steps. I know immediately that this is the kind of guy who likes to stand a little too close, talk a little too loudly, the classic kinds of intimidation techniques guys like him in suits and expensive cars like to use. Except it just makes me angry.
“What’s the right foot, exactly, Mr. Benson?” I ask, my tone sharp. “I told your boss last night that I have no intention of selling this place – and I certainly don't intend to stop speaking my mind about whatever it is the mining company is doing here in West Bend."
He steps closer to me, crossing the space I’d put between us. “Maybe no one’s given you the right incentive yet.”
I put my hand up, blocking him from coming any closer, and my palm hits his chest. “I don’t think there’s enough incentive in the world that’s going to get me to give you what you want here,” I say, forcing a calm in my voice that I definitely don’t feel right now. “I’d like you to get off my property now.”
He smiles, the expression cold. I don’t guess that someone like him gets told no very often.
“There’s a shotgun just inside the front door of my house,” I lie, my voice firm. I have a shotgun, but it's in a locked cabinet in the cidery, not the main house. I've never had a reason to need it here in West Bend. “The nanny inside knows how to use it. So I’d thank you kindly to get the fuck off my front porch and get into that expensive car of yours and get the hell out of here before my nanny has to put a bullet through your head."
He smirks, looking at me with a mixture of disgust and hatred, as he smooths his oxford shirt with the palm of his hand and then slowly backs up. “You should be careful with your weapons, Ms. Mayburn,” he says, his tone flat. “They can be real dangerous, you know, especially in a house with a child. Accidents happen every day.”
“Is that a warning?” I ask.
“Just a little friendly advice,” he says. “One businessperson to another. Wouldn’t want anything untoward to happen.”
When he leaves, I collapse into one of the rocking chairs on the front porch, my hands trembling. I’m only there for a moment before the front door opens and Greta pokes her head out. “I got Olivia down for a nap,” she says, “and I came out for the last part of that conversation. Heard the bit about the shotgun.”
“It was the only thing I could think of to say.”
Greta shrugs. “I’m a good shot, for the record,” she says.
We’re standing there silently for a few minutes before I hear the sound of a vehicle on the road. I see it turning into the driveway.
Luke’s truck.
Son of a bitch. I silently curse my damn luck.
“That’s Luke's truck, isn’t it?” Greta asks. “You know, I forgot I… um… left some water boiling on the stove. I was just making a cup of tea and… yeah.”
I hear the screen door slam closed, but I’m already down the front porch steps and walking out to Luke’s truck, reaching him before he’s even out of the vehicle. “I hope you’re not about to get out of that truck,” I say. “Because I can save you some time and tell you to just get right back in there, put it in reverse, and back the hell out of here. I’ve had it up to here with bullshit today, Luke. I don’t need yours on top of the fucking mining company rep that was just here."
“Someone from the mining company was here?” Luke asks. “When?”
I roll my eyes. “It’s not any of your business, Luke Saint,” I say. “And I’ll tell you the same thing I told him – get the hell off my orchard. I have things to do, and they don’t involve you.”
I whirl around, heading for the cidery, anything to get away from Luke. Because if I stand there looking at him, if I stand there just a little too close to him – close enough to smell him, close enough to trigger the memory of his lips on mine, his hands running over my naked skin – I’m going to definitely do something I won't be able to take back.
So I walk, my pace quick, my feet flying along the ground, over the brown grass that’s dying off already even though we haven’t had a snowfall yet this year, and I only stop when I feel his hand on my wrist. He yanks me hard, turning me toward him, his hand sliding around me to the small of my back, holding me firm. “Stop running, Autumn.”
“You’re going to talk to me about running?” I ask, pushing him back, my hands against his chest. I look at him and I hate him. And I hate the way that heat floods me the instant I put my hands on him. “Says the guy who has made a whole life out of doing exactly that?”
“Goddamn it, Autumn.” He wraps his hands around my wrists, shoves me against the side of the cidery, my back pressed up against the wall. He pins my hands above my head, looking down at me, and I don’t see anger in his eyes. I see lust and sadness and pain. “I fucked up, all right?”
“No shit,” I practically spit. I’m angry at him, except I can’t stop looking at his mouth, the way his lips are so close to mine. My breath catches in my throat, and my heart pounds in my chest, and I feel the way I did the first time I saw him. My entire body aches for his touch.
“Listen to me,” he says, his voice practically a growl. He keeps one hand above my head pinning my wrists as he slides the other along my cheek, his fingers under my chin and tilting my head up to look at him. “Fuck, Autumn, do you think I haven’t been thinking about you – wanting you, dreaming about the things I've been wanting to do to you – every damn day for the past three weeks? It’s been tearing me up, ripping me in two, knowing that you hate me.”
His mouth is so close to mine I can barely think about anything else. What he’s saying is a blur, blotted out by lust that I can’t seem to control. I swallow hard, force myself to answer, ignore the craving for him, the desperate need to press my lips against his. I choke out the words: “Screw you, Luke.”
“Damn it, Autumn,” he says, his voice low, guttural, his lips close to my ear. “That is what you want to do, isn’t it? Say that’s what you fucking want. Say you’ve missed me inside you, that you ache for me with every breath, the way I do for you.”
I’m practically writhing under his grip, and he can feel it. He can tell and he brings his mouth down on mine, kissing me with an intensity that takes my breath away. There’s nothing sweet or soft about this kiss, two lovers being reunited. This kiss is fucking primal, our tongues warring with each other, and his hand is on me, sliding underneath my shirt, covering my breast before I can object.
He covers my breast with his palm, my nipple rock hard against him, and I’m washed away by lust, heat pooling between my legs, removing any sense of reason I thought I might have. When he flicks
open the button on my jeans, rips them over my hips, and slides his hand between my legs, I practically melt. I moan, far too loud for being outside here where anyone could walk around this building and catch us.
“You are so fucking wet,” he says. “Do you know how much I've been wanting to touch you?”
This is not a good idea, the rational part of me chimes in. “Fuck you, Luke.”
He pauses, his hand unmoving as he looks into my eyes. “I was trying to protect you, Autumn,” he says. “Both of you.”
I clench my jaw tightly, looking up at him, the throbbing between my legs so hard it’s a painful distraction. “From who? You?”
“I was trying to keep you out of everything,” he says. “I was trying to keep you safe. I swear. That’s why I sent Mike to keep an eye on things.”
“That’s bullshit,” I say, remembering him standing on the sidewalk with that girl. Suddenly, his phone rings, and whatever spell he had over me is broken, and I’m able to think rationally again. He sees it too, lets go of me, pulling his hands from me and stepping back. “You should have been honest with me. You should get that phone call, you know.”
Luke exhales heavily, taking his phone out of his pocket and looking at me. “I don’t care about it,” he says.
But it buzzes again, and this time he answers it. I straighten my clothing, smooth my hair, and it’s like whatever just happened between us never happened at all. His voice is terse, one word answers, and when he looks up at me, I know it’s about whatever he’s keeping from me and I shake my head.
“I have to go,” he says, crossing the space between us, his hands on my arms. Then, when he sees the look of disbelief on my face, he says, “I promise. If it weren’t important, if I didn’t have to go, I wouldn’t. I’m sending Mike back over here.”
“No,” I protest. “No more. I’m not having anyone else here. I don’t need you spying on me, trying to control my life.”
“Listen to me.” His hands tighten on my arms. “That guy, the mining company guy, he’s bad news. All of those guys are."
“I’ve dealt with a lot of assholes in my life, Luke,” I say, shaking him off. “I can handle myself. I know how to use a shotgun, and if I see any of them on my property again, I’m perfectly capable of running him off.”
“Good,” Luke says. “But I’m sending Mike over, too.”
“Until you tell me what’s going on, in a calm, rational, adult manner, no one else sets foot on my property, Luke Saint, and that includes any of your friends.”
“Damn it, Autumn,” he says. But his phone buzzes again, and I take that as a sign.
“Goodbye, Luke,” I tell him.
And I walk away.
34
Luke
"Your girl is asking a lot of questions," Elias says.
My girl. Since when did she become my girl to my brothers? The irony is that I've been thinking of her that way for weeks now, even after I dumped her, even after I tried to put space between us to keep her safe. "What do you mean, asking questions?"
"Emir keeps tabs on everything," Silas says. "Anything that has to do with the mining company."
"So he knows what the hell Autumn is doing?"
"That's not true. Silas just wants you to think that the grifters are superhuman or something," Elias says, laughing. "He really only knows this because he heard gossip from Connie down at the general store. She mentioned that Autumn was going down to talk to Fred Mason."
"The newspaper guy?" I ask.
Fred has been running the West Bend Gazette for as long as I've been alive. The only reporter at the small-town paper, Fred covers all of the important events in West Bend – like who won the apple-pie-making contest at the county fair, and whose cows got loose from their ranch. Pulitzer-prize-winning stuff. The newspaper has always written fluff pieces, avoiding anything political or potentially controversial. I can't remotely imagine that it would cover something like this – small town corruption, murder, shadiness with big business. It has all the makings of a real story, and West Bend's newspaper doesn't do real stories.
Even so, Autumn going to Fred to talk about whatever she suspects is happening with the mining company is terrible news. Her town hall speech was bad enough. She has no idea what she's walking into, with the mining company or the sheriff and the mayor. If she pokes her nose around anymore… well, Jed is obviously unhinged enough to take care of anyone who gets in his way. And this would certainly count as getting in his way.
"I'll take care of it," I say, firmly. I don't know how the hell I'm going to get Autumn to listen to reason – she's more stubborn than a damn mule – but I'm going to talk to her. I have to talk to her. "What else did you call me for that was such a big emergency?"
"Status update," Elias says. "Why, were you busy?"
I want to kill him. No, I wasn't busy, I think. I was just trying to talk to the girl I can't stop thinking about, trying to convince her that she shouldn't hate me when she has every right to hate me since she doesn't know a thing about why I broke things off the way I did.
When every fiber of my being craves her touch.
"You 911 dialed me for a status update?" I ask, my jaw clenched.
"We called you because virtually everything is taken care of," Elias says. "Emir is monitoring emails at the mining company. They don't say anything outright in email – they use code words for people, but it's pretty transparent who's they’re talking about. And it looks like they think Jed and the mayor were trying to scam them."
"The mining company will have them taken care of," Silas says. "I'm sure of that. Oscar says they have mafia connections or something."
"You could have told me this shit on the phone." I'm irritated that I left Autumn's place for this. I'm also annoyed with the idea of the mining company taking care of Jed, after all the shit he's done, what he's responsible for. I still think we should take care of him with our bare hands – on principle. He killed our flesh and blood, even if it turned out she wasn’t the greatest person ever. Letting the mining company get rid of him for us just seems like a copout.
Elias shakes his head. "Nothing over the phone," he says. "We need to be discreet while talking about this shit, at least until everything is finished."
"I have to get back to Autumn." I meant just to think it, but I realize too late I've said the words aloud.
Silas nods. "You should stay with her," he says. "At least until this is over."
I laugh, the sound bitter. "She may not want to see me, specifically because of this whole plan of yours."
"Bullshit, Luke," Silas says. "We didn't tell you to keep her in the dark about all of this. That was all on you – your choice. And it's your choice to come clean to her. If you love her, you should be able to trust her."
Fuck. Silas is right. When the hell did Silas get so smart about this kind of thing? I told myself it was good for Autumn to be kept in the dark, that I was protecting her and Olivia. The truth is, I was protecting myself.
I need to see her.
35
Autumn
"What are you doing here?" I ask, forcing a hardness in my voice I don't necessarily feel.
Luke stands in my doorway, looking the way he usually does: sexy as hell. Except this time, he looks more nervous than cocky. Lucy stands there beside him – and I swear he's taught her to make puppy dog eyes because she looks at me and my heart melts. Almost.
"I have something to say to you."
"Well, I don't have anything to say to you," I tell him. But my voice wavers. "So you should leave."
"I don't think so. I'm not going anywhere. I'll sit out here all night if I have to."
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