by Kim Law
And just like that, a curtain dropped over his vulnerability.
“The house”—she didn’t let his silent “back off” deter her—“cleaning up the trees that don’t make it . . . you’re really just going to finish everything and go?”
“Yes.”
“But . . . why? How? Your dad has Parkinson’s, Nate. He’s—”
“I know what the deal is with my dad. But the fact is, I’m not going to stay forever, no matter what. So, what’s the difference in leaving now or leaving later?”
She could repeat that same question back to him. Why not stay longer?
Why not stick around and be there for his dad for a while longer?
“Is it money?” The question crossed the line into too personal, but she couldn’t stop herself. “Do you need to get back to a paying job somewhere?” She was aware he’d previously worked in Alaska for chunks out of the year, and Jaden had always implied he traveled around wherever a job took him the remaining months.
Nate sliced into the last chunk of his steak. “I have plenty of money.”
“Then . . .” She let her words trail off, astutely reading in his expression that this topic of discussion had come to an end, so she searched for something else. “Fine,” she mumbled. She caught sight of the dark trousers and black loafers of the manager again, but the man didn’t stop at their table. “Then let’s talk about trees. How are the trees at the farm doing?”
Nate popped a bite into his mouth. “Dead.”
She stared at him until he finished chewing, refusing to get riled by his antics. This was typical Nate. Shut down and providing short, to-the-point answers. Not the pleasant conversationalist who’d initially shown up.
“What about the fifteen percent?” she pushed. “Is it still only fifteen?”
“It is.” He forked another bite.
“Have you started cutting down any of the dead ones yet?”
“I have.”
She sighed. “Are you intentionally trying to get on my nerves, or are you just obtuse?”
His hand paused with his fork at his mouth again, the last bite of steak lingering, and his eyes drilled a hole into her. But she could see that he was faking his annoyance. He had a smile tucked away, just daring her to pull it out of him, and she became determined to see it.
“Did you miss my expert help while finishing the ramp this week?”
The fork slipped past his teeth, but the corners of his lips twitched as he chewed. “I managed to finish the ramp, cut down a pile of trees, demo the bathroom, and cook dinner for myself every night.” He held out his empty fork. “Tonight notwithstanding. So, no.” He shook his head. “I didn’t miss your help.”
“Expert help,” she corrected, and the corners of his mouth twitched again.
“That either.” His eyes held hers.
“Then how about my lovely personality?” She widened her eyes and gave him a smile before blinking several times. “Did you miss that?”
“And if I said I had?”
The question caught her off guard. Especially since it was delivered in his straightforward, no-nonsense way. Before she could form any sort of snappy retort, however, their waiter appeared at the table.
“Thank you,” Nate said as he accepted the bill.
“No,” Megan said. “Tonight’s on me.” She grabbed the crossbody backpack she used instead of a purse, pulling out a small notebook as she dug for her wallet, and by the time she’d come up with her debit card, Nate had not only passed off his card to the retreating waiter, but he’d also picked up a loose piece of paper that had apparently come out with the notebook.
“Hey.” She reached for the paper. “Don’t lose that. It has the shopping list for my apartment on there.”
The list she still hadn’t gotten around to.
“It also has another list on it.” Nate eyed her over the paper, confusion marking his brow, and she remembered the other list she’d scribbled on the paper, as well.
Dang.
Instead of answering his unasked question, though, she decided that he deserved a bit of his own medicine. So she kept her mouth shut and merely stared. Her inaction didn’t get her the paper back, but it did finally give her that smile she’d been after.
Her insides swooned. Because dang, he had a killer curve to the most luscious set of lips.
“Mike Jackson,” he said, his gaze reverting to the paper, and Megan mentally smacked herself for thinking his smile cute. It wasn’t cute. It was evil.
Just like him.
“Casey Campbell. Justin Angelo.”
“Stop it,” she whispered. “My lists are none of your business.” She held out her hand again.
“Like you asking me if I need to leave Birch Bay because I’m out of money is yours.” He ignored her hand and didn’t take his eyes off the paper. “Colin Rogers.”
“Fine. You’re right, and I apologize for overstepping.” She wiggled her fingers to get his attention, but he only leaned back in his seat.
“No apology needed.” He kept reading. “Crews Stevens. Dustin Crowder. Mark Gr—” His eyes shot to hers halfway through Mark’s last name, and with his free hand, he pointed to the paper. “That’s loafer guy. The guy who stood you up tonight. Mark Gray.”
He looked back at the names, and Megan could feel the heat creeping up her neck.
She could also see him putting two and two together.
She still didn’t say anything, but she knew he would. And she didn’t have long to wait for it to happen.
“These guys are all single.” His statement came out sounding like an accusation.
“They are.”
“And Mark Gray . . .”
He looked back at the list, and his eyes narrowed in contemplation. When the waiter unobtrusively placed the padded folder back down on the table, Nate signed the receipt, almost without giving it a second look, and then he pinned his eyes on hers. He shook his head.
“Mark Gray isn’t good enough for you. Nor is Mike Jackson.” He marked through both names with the pen he still held. “And Harry Baker is questionable.”
“Duly noted.” She yanked the paper from his hands after he marked Harry with a question mark, and she shoved both paper and her notebook back into her bag. She then stood to leave.
“I’m not joking.” He rose to follow her out.
“And I’m not asking.”
Several pairs of eyes watched them as she hurried through the crowd several feet ahead of Nate, but she didn’t slow to wait for him to catch up. The second she pushed through the outside door and the cool air whipped across her face, though, she stalled to shrug into her jacket.
Her movements stilled when Nate’s hands moved to the collar of her coat, and she held her breath as he settled the material onto her shoulders.
“Thank you,” she murmured. Then she stepped out of the path of incoming patrons.
“You’re welcome.” He slipped into his own coat, his gaze sliding to her backpack as he did.
“Don’t,” she warned.
But he didn’t listen. “Why do you have a list of single men in your bag, Megan?”
She looked out into the parking lot instead of into his questioning gaze. “I have lots of lists in there. I happen to like lists.”
“I like lists, too, but I don’t have a full catalog of all the women I want to date.”
Mortification enveloped her, and she brought her gaze back to his. “I don’t want to date all of them.”
“Then what do you want to do with them?”
She stared at him, her intention to correct his presumed assumption that she wanted to go down the list one by one, marking notches on her bed post. But before she could open her mouth, she recognized an honest lack of understanding peering back at her. Not a look of judgment.
What she wanted to do with the men on her list was her business, and hers alone. And she should tell him so. Instead, because something about his expression made him look as alone as she so often
felt, she offered the truth.
“I want a fiancé.” She didn’t look away as she spoke. “So, I’ve made a list of potential men, and I’m going through them until I find a contender.”
Chapter Five
She wanted a fiancé.
Nate took another swing at the tree that was proving harder to bring down than he’d anticipated, and he grunted through the movement. That time, his axe finished the job.
So she’d made a list of potential options.
He shoved the tree out of the way with his foot and moved to the next. Who did that?
He swung again, recognizing the feel of a blister forming under the protective layer of his right glove, but he didn’t let that slow things. He’d been out since daylight, just him and his mighty axe, and he wasn’t yet ready to go back in.
Nor was he ready to switch out to the chainsaw, which would be one hundred percent easier.
He finished off that tree, grunted again for no reason other than because he was a man and sometimes men needed to grunt, and then he moved on down the line.
Who looked at finding a husband so matter-of-factly?
He swung. He’d hightailed it out of the parking lot after Megan’s announcement the night before, thrown so off balance by her proclamation that he hadn’t stopped to ask what kind of hallucinogenic drugs she must have been taking. But that thought had played through his mind all night long. Because who decided they wanted a fiancé and simply went down a list? That wasn’t how things were done.
Dating was what a normal person did.
Two people met, hung out, decided if there was the potential for more.
Well . . . other people did that. He just hooked up.
But Megan was a normal—reasonable—individual. She wasn’t the hook-up kind of girl. Nor the clinical-fiancé-finding kind. She was the dating kind. And sure, maybe she was super smart and sometimes overly methodical. And because of that, he could totally see her using lists for the majority of the priorities in her life. Hell, he did that. But for a fiancé?
This time he kicked at the trunk of the tree when it was down to the final few chops, and the resounding crack of wood had him puffing up his chest. He kicked one last time, expecting the tree to tumble over, but instead, a burst of pain radiated up his ankle. The resulting throbbing not only deflated his pride but also had his mind shifting from Megan to Jaden.
It had been Jaden’s broken ankle that had started him down the path of falling for Arsula. Not some damned list.
And, of course, his broken ankle had happened the very night that Megan had broken up with him. Nate growled under his breath at the memory. Jaden hadn’t taken the breakup well and had instead drunk himself into oblivion at Gabe’s wedding reception. Then he’d ended up going home with Arsula, who’d been one of the bridesmaids. And, of course, he’d regretted his actions the next morning, had run from the room like the baby that he could be, and he’d subsequently fallen down the icy outside stairs.
Nate rolled his eyes. His brother was such a cliché.
He glanced toward the house, where baby cliché had been when Nate had come out at sunrise. Though the family home had six bedrooms and it was only the two of them living there at the moment, it had felt far too claustrophobic that morning. He’d have to go back when Nick arrived, of course. They planned to start the bathroom remodel today. But he did hope that Jaden would be gone by then. And maybe he’d spend the rest of the weekend with Arsula.
Nate rested the axe on its head, ground his teeth together as he lifted his still-throbbing ankle, then he twisted his foot in circles to work out the soreness. He hadn’t done any real damage, of course, but he’d apparently put more force behind the kick than he’d realized.
Calming the pain back to a twitch, he lifted the axe and set back to destroying things.
How about my lovely personality? Did you miss that?
He swung a little too hard at the next tree and this time rattled his shoulders. He could practically hear Megan’s voice as she’d teased him the night before.
And if I said I had?
He stopped himself before kicking the trunk again—especially since there was barely more than a small chunk knocked out of this one—but he did call himself fifty kinds of moron. Because of course he hadn’t missed her last week. And what an absurd thing to say just to try to get a rise out of her.
It had been just as absurd as him being jealous when he’d first seen her waiting at the restaurant for a date.
As absurd as the flare of excitement when he realized the date wasn’t showing.
He was an idiot. He was not attracted to Megan.
He stared down the line of trees he’d just taken down. Megan was nobody to him. She was less than nobody because she was Jaden’s ex.
But damn. He had enjoyed having dinner with her the night before. She’d made him laugh. She’d eased his burdens for the evening.
He pulled his phone from his back pocket, ostensibly to check the time, but he also knew it was to make sure he hadn’t missed any more texts. Because there’d been one waiting for him when he’d woken up that morning.
Thanks again for “rescuing” me last night and not making me do the stood-up walk of shame. I owe you one.
He hadn’t let himself reply earlier that morning, but he did now.
No return payment needed. Just being a friend.
He then shoved his phone back into his pocket before he did something stupid like stand there and wait for a reply. He picked up his axe again, but as he lifted it, the muscles in his shoulders protested. Which made him wonder how long he’d been out there. He hadn’t even looked at the time while he’d had his phone out.
Reaching for his phone again, he didn’t have to call himself an idiot again to know he was one, but before he could slide the device from his pocket, he caught sight of Nick’s long strides crossing the field. Nate hadn’t even seen his brother pull up.
He waited, less than anxious to head toward the house, and it didn’t take long for Nick to reach his side. As he did, he took in both the line of trees that had come down that morning, as well at the section Nate had removed over the last week. Quite a few of the designated “bad” trees were still questionable so they wouldn’t come down for another week or two, but not a single tree in the field where they stood had produced so much as a hint of a leaf.
“It sure is sad to see this many gone,” Nick said. He braced both hands on his hips.
“I don’t disagree.” Nate shoved at the trunk of the last one he’d downed. He’d come back out with the tractor in the morning and move everything into piles. “And it’s still not looking like more than expected will survive.” And those were so scattered, he wasn’t sure it would make sense to keep any of them.
“You still don’t think that’ll be enough to support the store, right?”
“I know it isn’t. Not if we want to continue selling items year-round made with Wilde cherries.”
They both went quiet, both looking around at the expanse of land that butted up to Flathead Lake, and Nate felt a chunk of his earlier foul mood seep out of him. The land had that ability. As did the water. It was part of the reason he’d stuck around so long this time. He’d missed it.
Nick eyed the axe in Nate’s hand but didn’t comment on his tool of choice. “You done anything concerning looking for a manager yet?”
“I’ve written up an initial description of what I think we’ll be looking for.” His phone buzzed in his back pocket.
“And what do you think that’ll be?”
Nate knew that Nick asked because the group of them still had yet to discuss the reality of the situation. Do they sell? Do they replant?
Do they let the place grow over with weeds and leave it for someone else to deal with?
The last option wasn’t a valid one, of course. No one wanted to see that. But somedays that’s exactly what Nate wanted to do with the place. Because far too often, Wilde Cherry Orchard had felt more a thorn in their s
ides than a source of pride to be handed down to the next generation. With a narcissistic mother and a father who’d struggled to even attempt to stand up to her, the six of them had been forced to live with the befuddlement of often being played off one another for the sole purpose of their mother having control. Of her having attention.
Thankfully, she’d died in a car crash when Nick and he had been ten, but those ten years had been formative. Not to mention, when Dani had come home from college to help finish raising them, nothing had ever been brought up about the mental abuse handed out in their own home. At least not until things had come to a head three years before.
Nate turned, not wanting to relive thoughts of how his family had once been on the precipice of fully shattering, and after grabbing his jacket where he’d earlier tossed it to the ground, he headed for the house. “I wrote the position up as one to manage and replant.”
“Is that what you want to do?” Surprise filled his brother’s voice.
“I don’t know what I want to do. I just . . .”
He trailed off, because it was easier than trying to explain his feelings. And because the whole thing had weighed on his mind far too often over the last few weeks. What he needed to be doing was getting the place in order and making plans to leave. Period. End of story. Which he was working on. But other thoughts had plagued him over the last week, as well. Other ideas of how they could use the land and still turn a profit.
“Send it to me if you want me to take a look,” Nick offered. “There are a couple of placement agencies who work with the town now. I can get you their names, and once we . . .”
This time it was Nick whose words trailed off. And that was due to the sight of Gabe’s SUV turning into the driveway. The drive was long, and the main road couldn’t be seen from the house, but from where they were, still a couple hundred feet from the front porch, they could catch glimpses of the turn-off through the pines. And what they saw next was Dani pulling in behind Gabe.
And then Cord.
“What the hell.” Nate jerked his eyes over to Nick’s. “What’s going on?”
“Not a clue.”
After the setup at the store the week before, Nate didn’t know whether to believe his twin or not, but he also didn’t stand around and dwell on it. He took off. Cord was in his own vehicle, which meant he’d driven all the way from Billings. Therefore, this wasn’t a surprise visit. Something was up.
