“I’m glad somebody liked it.”
“I didn’t say it wasn’t good. I just said I like cow.” Carter lifted a shoulder in feigned innocence.
Another reminder of how little they had in common. She didn’t drink, didn’t eat red meat, and she sure as heck didn’t get involved with a man who wore a wet T-shirt like a cover model of one of the magazines she'd worked for. Their relationship would be business only.
“It’ll take some time, but it’ll grow on me,” Brady said, kissing Grace on the cheek.
Once again, Carter flicked his wrist and made the sound of a cracking whip. “Next business meeting, Hailey and I will go to the Steak House.”
Not likely. And if it came to that, she’d order a salad. Not needing another reminder of how she didn’t fit in with this family, she picked up her bag, making sure her laptop and charger were in it, and held out her hand to Brady.
“I appreciate your time and the delicious dinner. I’ll email you a formal business proposal from the notes I took tonight. If you have any changes you’d like to make or any questions, please don’t hesitate to email or call me.” She handed him her business card.
“I appreciate it, but I leave all the business stuff to Carter.” He gave Carter the card, who looked at it with a sly grin.
“I have a feeling I’m going to have some questions about it. Come on. We can talk shop as I walk you out to your car.”
“It was nice seeing you again, Hailey.” Grace leaned in and gave her a hug. A bit personal for a business meeting, but Hailey accepted it.
It was nice, this hug from a somewhat stranger who was supermodel gorgeous yet hadn’t once cast any judgment on Hailey. Or maybe she was incredibly good at hiding her disgust for women who had more curves than were socially acceptable these days.
Crossing her bag to her left shoulder to give herself a barrier between Carter, she followed him out to her car. Refusing his chivalry—if that was what it really was—would make her seem ungrateful or fearful or even inferior to him.
Over the years, she’d learned not to show this insecurity, especially in front of men. They took it and used it, demoralizing her. Instead, she put on the face of confidence—overconfidence—as she unlocked her car.
“My offer for next Tuesday still stands.” Carter rested one hip casually against the door, blocking her from getting in. He was relaxed in his stance, and the grin on his face was different from grins she’d been on the receiving end of before.
For some reason, she didn’t feel threatened or intimidated, but maybe Carter Marshall was especially good at this. Winning a woman over with his charm. He’d sweet-talk a good deal, not taking her photography skills or the time and money she'd put into every photograph seriously, and expect her to succumb to his demands. He might even try to sweet-talk her into bed, not because he found her attractive, but because he thought her easy and desperate for attention. It’d been done before, and she fell every time.
Almost every time. Not the last time. Christian Lanoie and his pompous, arrogant lies did not, would not, defeat her. He might have tried to ruin her career, but she’d left with her head held high, and a stronger heart and soul than ever before.
“Hey, you okay?” Carter stepped away from the car and dipped his chin so he was eye-level with her.
“What?” She snapped her head up.
“You looked ... I don’t know. Scowly. Like you wanted to rip my head off.”
“Scowly?” She furrowed her brows and then relaxed her facial features. It took forever for her face to level out into a casual, chill nothing’s the matter countenance. Yeah, she’d definitely been scowly at him. “Sorry.”
Or was she? If he pulled a Christian...
“No. My bad. I didn’t mean to come on so strong. Most people around here have known me my whole life. I forget newcomers may think I’m...” He scrubbed a hand across his face as if searching for the word.
“Hitting on them.” She clenched her lips tight and shook her head. “No worries there, Carter. I know you’re not hitting on me. It’s who you are. Keep being you, and don’t worry about me. I’ll email you the business plan in a few days.”
She shouldered him to the side and yanked open the car door.
“Hailey,” her name came out in a plea. She paused, keeping her back to him. “I’m sorry if I offended you. I don’t want to ruin our ... our business relationship. Brady and I really liked what you came up with tonight and look forward to working with you. I apologize if I crossed the line.”
He stepped back giving her even more space. When she turned and made eye contact with him, she could read the sincerity of the apology in his eyes. With the edginess gone from her tone, she let a soft smile escape her lips.
“It’s okay. I get it. No harm, no foul.” With an air of nonchalance, she gave him a quick wave and got in her car.
It wasn’t until she reached the end of the driveway that she looked in her rearview mirror. Carter still stood in the dirt, his hands tucked in his front pockets, his shoulders hunched as if sad or defeated.
Definitely not the arrogant pompous stance she’d witnessed many times before. No, Carter Marshall was nothing like the men she’d worked with.
This would be trouble.
CHAPTER FIVE
For the past week, he couldn’t stop thinking about the one-eighty that spun Hailey away from him. Twice. It seemed like things were great, she was laughing at his jokes and complimenting him on his web designs, and then she slammed on the brakes, spun around, and burned rubber in the opposite direction. Away from him. As fast as she could.
Carter finished mulching over the last of the seedlings he’d planted and drove the tractor back into the barn. Brady wouldn’t need him much for a while, not until fall harvest, but Carter would stop in when he had the time and lend a hand with chores. In the meantime, he had a shit ton of his own work to get done.
He parked the tractor and hopped down, tugging off his work gloves and shoving them into his back pocket.
“Ma?” he called out.
“I’m out back by the chicken coop.”
Carter moseyed his way through the barn and leaned against the coop, watching his mother fill the water troughs for the birds. “Which one’s dinner?”
“Ever since Grace insisted on naming the hens, it’s been harder and harder to...”
“Slaughter them?” Carter let out a laugh. “Someone’s growing soft in her old age.”
“Carter Newman Marshall, you watch how you talk to your mother.”
With another chuckle, he let himself into the coop and latched the door securely behind him. Since his mother’s cancer scare a few years ago, she’d grown more sensitive. Maybe it was having a woman around the house. While Grace and his mother hadn’t hit it off at first, now they were as tight as a mama bear and her cub.
“Brady and I finished up the spring planting. You need a hand with anything around here?”
She’d taken on lighter jobs since her recovery. Three years cancer free, but Brady and Carter still worried. She was the type of person to overdo it. To ignore the signs her body gave and push beyond her means.
Tending to the garden and chickens were sources of enjoyment to her before, but she resented not being allowed to lug heavy crates of apples or pumpkins anymore. Harvest time was the hardest for her to sit back and watch Brady, Carter, and hired hands do all the heavy work.
She loved to bake, and filled up the farm stand with baked goods, and ran the cash register. It was a good job for her; it kept her busy but wasn’t as taxing on her body as some of the other chores.
“I’m not helpless, you know.”
“Oh, we know it.” He picked up the basket of eggs by his mother’s feet. “Mind if I take a dozen or so down to the house?”
He hadn’t needed them lately since he’d been eating so many of his meals at his brother’s. The next few weeks would keep him holed up at his computer, and he’d need the food—easy, quick protein—for fuel.
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“You’re welcome to anything you want, honey. I have zucchini breads cooling on the counter. Come inside with me, and I’ll wrap one up for you.”
“Can’t say no to that.”
He followed his mother inside the house and stayed for a little bit to chat, filling her in on what he’d planned on doing for the farm’s website. He’d told her about it last week, but she asked again. Either because she’d forgotten or she was excited to hear about the plan, he wasn’t sure, and it didn’t matter.
Cancer had aged her and scared Carter and Brady. She was all they had left in their family, and while they might not be the most sentimental guys around, they loved and respected their mother. Time was precious, they’d learned.
After being unable to refuse a handful of oatmeal raisin cookies and two glasses of milk, he gave his mom a kiss on the cheek and headed back to his place. A long, hot shower, an ice-cold beer, and a juicy steak on the grill were all he needed to finish off this day.
He was an easy man to please. Deciding to multitask, he took the beer with him into the shower. Once clean and feeling refreshed, he threw on a pair of shorts and a clean T-shirt and padded out to the grill. While it warmed, he powered up his neglected laptop and winced at the number of unread messages.
Seventy-three. Carter hated having unread messages in his mailbox. He prided himself on responding to his business correspondences in twelve hours or less and didn’t like to leave projects unopened. Spring planting kept him busy, tired, and sore from sun up until sundown. Or at least almost sundown.
The sun was starting to set later and later, and he enjoyed having it be light out before he was ready for bed. Growing up on a farm, he and Brady were accustomed to waking up early and heading to bed early. Although, over the years, Carter had stayed up later than he used to. Not for the sake of staying up, but he was a social guy, and he didn’t want an early bedtime to cut into his nightlife.
Nightlife. He snorted and grabbed another beer from the fridge and scooped up his reading glasses. When he’d come back from his deployment, he might have gone a bit over-the-top saying yes to every social opportunity that knocked on his door. In fact, he went looking for opportunities.
It wasn’t just about getting laid. He genuinely liked people and liked being around them. He’d felt left out when he was stationed in Virginia and overseas. Carter never thought he’d miss the sleepy town of Crystal Cove, but seeing what the other side of the world looked like sure the hell put his life into perspective.
He was one of the lucky ones who never had to be in combat. There were a few times when his pulse had raced, and he feared his platoon could be bombed any minute, but mostly he worked on the safe side of things in the comfort—or as comfortable as could be—of an office building a mainframe, or helping small business owners set up websites and shopping carts on their webpages.
The coding side of computers was pretty cool, but he had more fun doing the creative stuff. Starting with a blank screen and making someone’s dream come alive. It was what got him into business branding as well. He had no idea it was a skill he had.
If he hadn’t joined the service, he’d probably still be working side-by-side with Brady, resenting the hell out of not leaving town. In that manner, he was a lot like Grace. She too had to get away in order to come back and appreciate the simplicity of their town.
Carter picked up the steak he’d set out before his shower and stepped onto his back deck, cursing when he saw flames escaping the sides of the grill. “Freaking nostalgia.” Lost in his thoughts, he’d forgotten about the grill. Careful not to burn off his arm hair—been there, done that—he turned down the flames and opened the lid.
His phone chirped at him from inside, and his computer dinged, signaling a new email. Dropping the steak on the grill, he closed the lid and turned down the heat. He went inside, slid on his glasses, and checked the message on his phone first. An unknown number and a new voice message. Putting his phone on speaker, he listened to the message while he woke up his computer.
He jotted down notes from the most well-known lobster pound in Rockland. It would be a big project, and from the message, it sounded like they didn’t need major rebranding until after the summer rush, but they wanted to book him now. Not wanting to pass up the opportunity, he returned the call and took more notes on what they wanted changed, their timeline, and budget.
A few minutes later he hung up and sniffed. Something was burning.
“Shit.” He pushed back the kitchen stool and knocked it to the ground, rushing outside to throw open the lid to the grill. The smoke filled his glasses, and he shoved them up on his head. There sat his poor, helpless steak, burnt to a crisp. Stabbing it with a fork, he dropped it onto the plate and carried it inside.
With nothing else in his fridge, he fried up a couple eggs and cut himself a healthy slice of zucchini bread. In the morning, he’d go to the grocery store, then hunker down and read the rest of his emails.
None were from Hailey. He didn’t want her to occupy his thoughts, but for some reason he couldn’t get her out of his head. It wasn’t like he hadn’t been turned down before, and he barely knew the woman to be so caught up in ... well, her.
Layers were important to him. Shallow women were great for a while, but now that he’d seen the layers in his friends and their wives, he'd started looking for them in women as well.
One thing Hailey with the mystical eyes had was layers, and he wanted to peel every layer back until he got to the center of what made her tick. She was becoming an obsession, and he had no idea what to do about it.
HAILEY ABSOLUTELY ADORED Alexis and Ben’s five-year-old daughter, Sophie. She’d been quite the helper showing Hailey around the vineyard and offering to be a model in nearly every picture.
“Do you want to take a picture of me throwing a stick to Hemmy? He can catch it and bring it back real fast.” Sophie didn’t wait for a response and tossed a stick no more than ten feet past her. The giant Bernese Mountain dog went barreling after it as if it were miles away.
“Sophie, honey, Miss Hailey is working right now.” Ben squatted in front of his daughter. “You can play with Hemmy, but we need to have grown-up talk, okay?”
Instead of pouting like she expected the little girl to do, she draped herself over Hemmy and giggled as he trotted around with her on his back.
“Pretty soon she’s going to outgrow him, and we’ll need a horse,” Ben said with a laugh.
“In case you haven’t noticed, our daughter has her father wrapped around her little finger.” Alexis said with a smile and a shake of her head.
“And her mother too.” Ben draped an arm over Alexis’ shoulders.
“I’ll keep an eye on shorty and her dog while you two talk shop. It’s more Ben’s thing than mine anyway. I’m pretty sure whatever the two of you come up with will be amazing.” Alexis jogged after Sophie’s giggles.
“I guess the barn is next.” Ben pointed toward the big red structure. “The pictures I have up on the website of our bottling process are pretty basic. I’m sure you’ll be able to make them shine.”
Hailey followed him to the barn and took out her Nikon D5, light meter, and reflector. For the first round she’d use the basics. If she wasn’t satisfied with them she’d come back tomorrow with her wide-angle lens for the landscapes.
Ben showed her around the stainless-steel drums and oak barrels, explaining why some grapes were processed in one, and why others were in the oak and whiskey barrels. She’d read the family history and how they bottled their first ice wine only a few years ago, and how Ben was raised on a successful vineyard in Napa Valley.
The blending of the two families was a sweet story to read about. Hailey hoped she could capture the sense of family, of tradition, in her pictures. She framed the stainless-steel drum with her lens and took a few shots, but she was most excited to photograph the oak and whiskey barrels.
“You wouldn’t happen to have some grapes laying around that I could use
as a prop, would you?” She placed a bottle of red on top of the barrel.
“It’s way too early for that, but I can get a few wine glasses from the tasting room.”
“Good idea. Maybe some of the dishes you use for pairings?”
“Or, better yet, why don’t you come to the wine and food pairing next week? That way you can get Tristan’s food in the shots as well.”
“I was hoping you’d suggest that. The fall has a million things for me to photograph, but what lures people in during the spring and summer months? Other than your fabulous wines, of course.”
“Funny you should ask. That’s exactly why Shane LeBlanc hired me five years ago. We plant rhubarb now, which should be ready soon. Our rhubarb wine is a seasonal special, and we’ve been running out by early July.”
“Oh, that’s good to know. I did see it on your website, but I’ll add some pictures of your plants. Maybe use Sophie and Hemmy in the background? Kids and dogs are always winners.”
“Strawberry season runs from late-June to early July, depending on the weather. It’s short and sweet. Literally. Our strawberry wine has been a new best seller.”
“Does your community have a strawberry festival?”
“No. Not yet, I should say. We have a blueberry and fall festival, though.”
“You do a fabulous job of making the winery business year-round. I’ll come by the pairing session next week. Think it will be okay to come early so I can stage some food and wine pictures?”
“Absolutely. I’ll let Tristan know.”
“Tristan.” She scrunched her eyes thinking as to why she knew the name. It wasn’t overly common.
“Tristan’s wife Jenna was a bridesmaid in Mia’s wedding. I’m sure you’ll recognize him.”
“Oh. That’s right.” She envied how close the community was. Best of friends and fellow business owners. What a wonderful way to not only build your business, but to have a group of close-knit friends.
“Knowing Tristan, and your portfolio, he’ll be propositioning you to follow him to all his catering gigs to photograph his food,” Ben said with a laugh.
All of You (A Well Paired Novel Book 7) Page 5
