by Louise, Tia
“Going to the Peach Ball is hardly dating. You’re a pretty girl, Noel. I’d love to see you taking your place in society. With me.”
“With you.” It’s not a question.
“Let’s have dinner at LaFonda’s.”
“Only politicians go to LaFonda’s.”
“You’re so cute.” He shakes his head, and I swear, I want to knee him in the groin.
“Puppies are cute.” My voice is thinly veiled annoyance.
“LaFonda’s is the nicest steak restaurant in Harristown. It’s a place your momma would’ve been accustomed to patronizing.”
That pulls me up short. “My parents never had any money to go to a place like that.”
“I’m talking about your momma’s people, about you being Harristown royalty. You’re not a shop owner.”
“I’m not Harristown royalty. We weren’t raised like that.”
He leans close enough that his breath skates over my eyebrows. “Maybe it’s time for a change. I’d like to bring you back to what you are. I’d like to bring this whole orchard into the Hayes fold, and re-establish what it once was.”
I take a step back, my brow furrowed. “Have you been drinking today, Digger?”
“Noel…” He chuckles. “You’re so adorable. All I’m saying is think about it. Open your mind and let your imagination roam. We could be the king and queen of this town.”
“Oh, look.” I point over to the counter. “The coffee’s ready. Let me pour you a cup.”
He crosses his arms and watches me in a way I don’t like. I quickly pour him a cup and grab the cream from the refrigerator. I’m not looking to spend any more time in this kitchen, and where the hell is Sawyer?
“There you go. I made some peach muffins.” Reaching into the microwave, I pull out the plate of rose-gold cakes. “Help yourself. I’ll just be out at the shed.”
I’m about to go when my upper arm is caught in an uncomfortable grip. “Don’t forget who you are, Noel. I’ve known you your whole life. We have history.”
Jerking my arm away, I smile, but there’s steel behind my eyes. “I might have known you my whole life, Digger Hayes, but that doesn’t mean we have history.”
“Just keep in mind who’ll be here when everyone else is gone.”
My insides feel like wooden shutters when a strong wind blows through. I’m rattled and uneasy, and who the hell is Digger Hayes to make me feel this way?
I head down the back steps, but instead of going to the peach shed, I take a turn and head up the hill into the rows. Whenever life gets too much, I’ve always walked in these trees. They belong to us. They’re part of our family, and they keep us alive. A heavy breath and light bark, and Akela’s with me.
“Hey, girl.” I give her head a scrub. She’s five years old, which in dog years is older than me.
Same as these trees, she lifts me up when I’m feeling down. I put my hand on her head and walk until the tension eases in my chest. I’ve worked hard to avoid complications, to keep my life simple. Maybe Digger is right, and I shouldn’t let a guy who’s only going to be here a few weeks distract me. But it sure as hell won’t be because I’m looking to be the queen of anything.
Turning, I head back toward the house. Whatever happens, it’ll be suppertime soon, and I’ve got hungry men to feed. If I’ve learned anything about this life, it’s that it does what it wants, and the best we can do is buckle up and hold on.
5
Taron
“Legend is they got their name because farmers would fry the cakes on the back of their hoes.” My hands are wrist-deep in cornmeal, self-rising flour, eggs, sugar, buttermilk, and I’m mixing it all together in a bowl.
“We’re not bringing a shovel in the house.” Noel is beside me cracking a dozen eggs into a large white bowl. “You’re not using a spoon to mix it?”
Today she’s wearing another pair of cutoffs and a beige tank top. Her hair is in a high ponytail on her head, and the ends dance in large curls around her shoulders. I want to wrap one around my finger and pull.
“Spoons are for suckers. You’re not using a spoon.”
She holds up a fork. “I’m making scrambled eggs. I have to scramble the eggs.”
“Anyway, as I was saying…” I cut my eyes, she rolls hers, and I want to pull her close. “We’ll use a cast iron skillet.”
Leaving the mixture in the bowl, I wash my hands and dry them, tossing a drop of water on the black skillet to see if it bounces. When it does, I start opening drawers.
“What do you need?” Noel is holding a large block of cheese and a knife over the bowl of eggs.
“Ladle.”
“Top drawer to your left.”
“Don’t slice toward your hand.”
She glances down at her hands then shakes her head. “Mind your business.” Still I notice she changes directions with the knife. “How’s your rib?”
“Better. I think I just bruised it.”
“Oh, thank God! I prayed it would be okay. Sawyer would kill me if you were too hurt to work.” She’s talking fast, and it makes me grin. Then she squints up at me. “So there’s no reason to get even now.”
“Think again. You shoved me off a flatbed.”
“It was an accident!”
“Yeah, right.”
“I see you got some better shoes.”
“Not because you tried to break my neck.”
When Sawyer came back and took Digger the Dick into his office to talk, Leon and I drove to Boot City where I got a pair of pretty basic work boots. Leon reminds me of how I felt so many times at his age, after my mom left Nashville, and I felt like I was a wart on my uncle’s butt that he wished would go away.
Before I met Patton and Marley.
Before we joined the military.
Now I feel like I have a family. I feel like I can make a difference and count for something… If only I didn’t have this itchy feeling I might have found something just as fulfilling right here in this tiny kitchen.
Holding the bowl over the skillet, I carefully ladle batter in four little cakes.
“You do use a spoon.” The smug look on her face makes me tug her ponytail.
“Strictly for measuring purposes.”
“Ow!” She bats at my hand.
“That didn’t hurt.”
With an exaggerated sigh, she dumps the egg mixture into an adjacent skillet on the stove and watches it bubble, spreading it around with the fork.
“Who taught you to make hoecakes?” Her head tilts to the side, and for a minute, I’m caught by her bright eyes, curious and sweet.
“Paula Deen,” I blurt, and she laughs. “It’s the truth. Unlike you, they’re the only thing I know how to make.”
Last night she prepared a dinner of fried pork chops, green beans, and mashed potatoes with peach muffins and peach sorbet for dessert. It was the best food I’d tasted in my life—or maybe I was starving from how hard we worked all day. I wanted to be better company, but after one beer, I was doing my best to keep my eyes open.
The only thing that stopped me at the front door of the foreman’s cottage was looking back toward the house and seeing the light in Noel’s window, watching her moving around. I couldn’t help thinking she might be the perfect woman. Last night I chalked the idea up to utter exhaustion.
The tightness in my stomach standing beside her now, teasing, making breakfast, fully rested, makes me wonder if I might be right.
“You’re burning that one.” She points with the fork, and I jump, snatching up a spatula and flipping the hoecakes fast before they all burn.
“Thanks.”
Sawyer and Leon banging into the kitchen puts an end to our joking. They start grabbing plates, and I look out the window to see a truck full of men pulling into the lot. A few teenagers have started to arrive, parking their pickups and hatchbacks in the lot behind the shed.
“Time to get busy.” Sawyer’s voice is all business, and I know he won’t let me hang around t
o help with dishes.
It doesn’t seem to matter as the entire place shifts into work mode. Sawyer takes one team of men, Digger takes another, and I take a third. We’re either in the fields helping pick fruit or on the dock helping load crates onto the backs of the trailers.
We lift the heavy crates, one by one, onto the backs of the trucks that will take them to the distribution center. My shirt’s off, but unlike yesterday, I don’t feel like the walking dead.
When we hit eight hours, Sawyer calls it a day for the teams. Noel’s still with the teens on the sorters, finishing up what we’ve just harvested. I’ve been watching her all day, unable to keep my eyes from her smooth body, her cute little ass as she bends and lifts crates and carries baskets of damaged fruit.
Her cheeks are pink, and the strands of hair falling from her high ponytail stick to her neck. It gives me an idea.
Taking a cup of ice water, I walk over behind her at one of the large lazy Susan’s, and quicker than she can move, I drop a large chunk of ice down the back of her shirt.
“Taron!” She screams louder than the heavy machinery and poor Betsy drops a peach.
I take off running, but she’s right behind me, snatching a solo cup of ice water off the ledge. Akela starts to bark and chase us, and we don’t stop until we’re down the hill, breathing hard and laughing. She tosses the water at me, but I don’t even care it’s so damn hot. The dog just stands at attention, waiting excitedly for what the hell we’re about to do next.
“What do you guys do to cool off around here?”
“Well…” Her eyes trickle down my bare chest in a way that kicks the temperature up another thirty degrees, then she glances back toward the shed. “They’re just wrapping up. Come on.”
I follow her around the shed to where a three-wheeler’s parked, watching as she throws a bare leg over the seat and pushes down on the starter. It roars to life, and she gives me a grin.
“You getting on?”
I guess I am.
I climb on behind her, bracing my feet on the pegs and holding her waist as she zips over the hills as fast as this thing can go. Akela keeps pace with us the whole way, barking excitedly.
Noel’s body weight compared to mine is not enough to keep me on this seat, and with every bump, I feel like I might fly off the back.
Still, her hair whips around us, and she’s calling to her dog. She rises off the seat with every bounce, and I do my best to keep my thoughts focused on old lady underwear, scowling politicians—every boner-killer I can imagine.
Finally, we’re there. My hands slide from her waist to her hips, and she quickly steps off to the side. Akela stands waiting.
“Fun, huh?” Her eyes sparkle, and her ponytail is wild.
“I’m surprised you didn’t leave me on the road a ways back,” I tease her. “Where are we?”
“Come on!”
She takes off running up a small rise, Akela right with her, and I hop off the three-wheeler to follow them. When I reach the top of the small hill, we’re looking down over a pond shaded by tall pine trees. At one end is a swirl of small currents, and farther below us, deeper in the dark shadows, I see another swirl.
“What is this?”
“It’s the Bates reservoir.” I watch as she toes off her boots, my stomach tight and my insides humming. “It could be a million degrees out here, and the water’s always like ice.”
She jogs down into the shade of the trees and dips her feet in the shallows, letting out a squeal. “Freezing!”
“How deep is it?” I follow her lead, toeing off my boots and grinning like an idiot watching her.
“About five feet, I think.”
She’s still dancing around the edge with her dog, barely getting her feet wet, when without thinking, I race down to where she’s standing and sweep her over my shoulder.
“Taron!” She screams at the top of her lungs. “Don’t you dare!”
“Payback time!”
“Nooo!” She beats on my lower back as I charge into the water, Akela right with us barking, and holy shit! It is like ice.
I don’t let it stop me. I keep going until it’s mid-thigh, when I circle her around.
“Don’t you dare!” Her eyes throw daggers, but she can’t get a grip on my arms.
I toss her forward like a sack of potatoes into the water. A short shriek breaks the quiet before she crashes through the surface, going all the way under.
She’s up just as fast, gasping and screaming. “Are you trying to give me a heart attack?”
“Now we’re even.” Turning my back, I walk out of the frigid water to where the sun beats down with a vengeance.
It actually feels pretty good standing in the scorching heat after that ice bath. My limbs are loose from the running and the laughing and the adrenaline, but as I watch her wading toward me, water running down her beautiful body, hair clinging to her cheeks and neck, I start to feel a different kind of adrenaline.
The beige tank she’s wearing is transparent, and I can see her thin lace bra under it and the dark circles of her areolas crowned by her hardened nipples.
Heat races below my belt, and I have to turn toward the pine trees while I push down the sudden wood in my pants.
“Oh, what? Now you’re going to act like nothing happened?” Noel’s voice is mad, but playful.
She jogs up behind me and wraps both her arms tightly around mine, soaking my backside with her frigid, wet body.
“How does that feel, Mr. Bruised Rib? Huh? How does it?” Her voice is so adorably taunting, like she’s going to fight me or something.
I kind of can’t take it anymore. Turning around, I swoop her up by the waist, putting her face directly level with mine. She gasps as our eyes meet. Her hands are on my shoulders, and all the pent-up heat, the nagging chemistry, her hard nipples pressing against my chest, all of it swirls into a fusion of lust and need.
“I want to kiss you.” My voice cracks roughly. I barely recognize it.
She nods, and I stretch up as she meets me halfway. Our lips brush, and it’s like two flints striking. Sparks swirl between us as I push her mouth open with mine.
I lower her to her feet so I can cup her face in my hands, and our tongues slide and curl together. She tastes like cold, fresh water, and she feels like diving off the top of a cliff into a bottomless ocean.
Her small body fits perfectly in my arms, and I pull her closer to me, wrapping my arms around her. She exhales a high noise, and my lips move to the top of her cheek, to her temple, to her brow. I don’t want to stop kissing her, holding her. I’ve never felt this way—desperate and hungry and so satisfied.
She slides her hands up to my neck, and she drops her forehead to my bare chest. I lower my nose to the top of her head and breathe.
“Taron.” Her soft voice sounds as bewildered as I feel.
How is this happening to us? Has this ever happened to anyone before? Is it possible? It feels so specific.
Her head lifts, and her golden-brown eyes are warm. “What are you doing?”
The question makes me grin. “Something I’ve wanted to do for two days.”
She blinks down as her cheeks flush. “I wondered why I didn’t do it when you caught me in the kitchen.” Her nose wrinkles, and she squints up at me. “Isn’t that what ladies do when they’re saved by handsome princes?”
“I’m not a prince.”
“But you are handsome.” A tease is in her eye.
Sliding my thumb along the top of her cheek, I lean down to kiss her lips once more. “If you ever need saving, I want to save you.”
Somehow I’m certain Noel LaGrange can take care of herself no matter what. Still, everybody slips off a kitchen counter sometimes.
“And I’ll save you back.”
I pull her to my chest, wanting to kiss her again. “It’s a deal.”
6
Noel
Taron’s full lips cover mine, and my insides turn molten and slippery. He tastes like
salty sweat and fresh water, and he feels like a wall of granite. His hot skin is beneath my hands, and I want to wrap myself around him, feel every ridge and line of muscle. I want to trace my tongue over his collarbone and nip his broad shoulder.
All day today I’ve stolen glances at him working with the other men. He stomped around the shed in those boots with his faded jeans hugging his ass like a dare, making me sigh and shift in my seat.
Occasionally, his blue-green eyes would catch mine from under the brim of his ball cap, and it was like brushing against a live wire. I’d look away to keep from blushing, but I could feel the electricity simmering in my skin.
Digger also stalked in and out of the shed, his eyes on me like some kind of vulture. Every time I saw him, I’d immediately become engrossed in working with Betsy or Leon or Brenda or one of the other teens. When Taron pulled his shirt off in the midday heat, I’m pretty sure every female in the shed took a moment to appreciate the beauty of God’s creation.
Digger’s oversized frown almost made me snort. Jealous much?
I had to fight a swoon, watching the muscles in Taron’s arms flex and bulge, the sweat tracing lines down his neck every time he’d lift a crate of peaches. Muscles rippled across his sides and down his back, and I wondered how it was possible to be so fine.
Now I’m holding him, and everything is hot, including my panties.
Our gaze meets and tangles. His eyes seem darker, and he slides a large hand over my cheek, pushing a lock of wet hair behind my ear. I think he’s going to say something, want something, and I know I’ll say yes. I’m playing a dangerous game.
Clearing my throat, I force myself to step out of his arms. “We should get back. I kind of ditched out on the teenagers. Sawyer’s probably wondering where we are…”
He grins as if he understands what I’m thinking, and butterflies flood my stomach. I’m not sure my older brother would like me making out with his new best friend—or all the X-rated thoughts I’m having.
