And land for sale so close to the Riverview, but with a better view and fewer trees and better drainage, land so perfect he’d be a fool not to make an offer…if that wasn’t a sign, what was?
He jumped down onto the gravel road and unzipped the small sport sack that his mother made him promise to wear around his waist when he went running.
“You’re asthmatic, Jonah,” she’d said. “If you’re going to be stupid and run, don’t be stupid and dead.”
It was a good point and so, in his pack he had his inhaler, his cell phone and twenty bucks.
Just in case.
He hit speed dial and got Gary’s voice mail.
“Gary,” he said, “I need you to contact a Sven Lungren about some land he has for sale up here.” He read off the number on the sign and turned to assess the view of the mountains and the Hudson Valley.
Perfect.
“It’s a great spot for a hotel,” he said. “Something good for families.” He thought of everything the Riverview wasn’t. All the ways he could compete with and crush the Mitchells. “Maybe a waterslide. A state-of-the-art spa. Think big.”
He disconnected his call and dropped the phone in the slim pack.
Guilt was a foreign emotion and he plucked it out of the mix of things he was feeling and tossed it away. He owed the Mitchells nothing, less than nothing. And should he build a hotel here, something bigger and better than what his brothers had, then that was just the nature of business.
Darwin, as Gary so often said, was really a capitalist. And if it gave Jonah a personal thrill to imagine Patrick’s face when Jonah broke ground up here, well, then, that was icing on the cake.
A cramp zinged up his calf and he winced, grabbing a hold of the fence and stretching it out. Suddenly he was all too aware of how tired he was. How all of his muscles were feeling shaky.
Glancing at his watch, he realized he’d been running for an hour.
Day two at the inn and this morning he’d been tired of his cabin and adamant about not making nice with the Mitchells so he’d gone out for exercise and now was faced with an hour-long run back.
He could call his mother to pick him up, but he hadn’t indulged in that kind of behavior since Joe Meyers kicked his ass in grade school.
“Hey,” a small voice behind him said and he whirled, coming face-to-face with a miniature Daphne Larson. A woman he knew he shouldn’t remember in such complete detail, down to her lush upper lip and the smudge of mud across her forehead.
But he did.
Foolish, really. But there it was—the woman was stuck in his brain. Probably another damn sign, this one not so good.
This little girl had the same white-blond hair, same grass-green eyes. But her mouth was purple and something sticky and purple was smeared across her cheek.
And this little girl was smiling at him, which he was very sure Daphne wouldn’t do. Ever.
“Hey yourself,” he said, wiping sweat off his forehead with the sleeve of his shirt.
“You lost?”
He made a point of looking around. “Nope. You?”
She laughed. “I live over there.” She jerked her thumb behind her.
“Is your mom Daphne?” he asked, the resemblance too striking for her to be anyone else.
She nodded and lifted a bare purple-stained Popsicle stick to her mouth. Chewing on it, she eyed him sideways.
“You’re Jonah, aren’t you?” she finally asked and he blinked at her.
“How do you know my name?”
“Josie is, like, my best friend and she told me yesterday.”
Josie. The young spy.
“And you look like Patrick,” she continued. “He is your dad, right?”
Just like that the sweat running down his back went cold. They didn’t look alike at all really. The same eyes, but lots of people had blue eyes.
“Helen?” someone yelled, saving him from having to explain the difference between sperm donors and fathers. He doubted Daphne of the lush mouth and stalwart ideas would appreciate that talk coming from the Dirty Developer.
“Over here, Mom!” Helen yelled over her shoulder.
He braced himself for what was about to happen. Daphne would come out of the brush, flushed maybe, something green in her hair. And she’d be angry, no doubt, to find him contaminating her daughter by standing within a five-foot radius of her.
Runner’s high, finding that land for sale, the little girl, so cute and so like her mother, all made him suddenly eager to see Daphne again. To see if she was what he remembered.
“Helen, how many times have I told you—”
And, there she was, just as he’d imagined, including the green stuff in her hair. And she was everything he remembered.
In a word, lovely.
“Oh,” she said, pausing briefly when she saw him. Then she moved to stand between him and Helen, defending her girl against him.
That stung a little, that she thought so little of him. But really, what did he expect? She thought he was the Dirty Developer.
Don’t explain. Don’t beg. Don’t apologize.
Sometimes his mantra got in the way of getting dates.
“What are you doing here?” she asked.
“Running,” he said.
“From the inn?” Daphne asked. “That’s miles away.”
Her wide green eyes slid down his body, taking in his shorts and the sweat-soaked Late Night with David Lettermen T-shirt. Her cheeks, tanned from the sun, turned pink as though she had some kind of opinion on what she saw, a slightly inappropriate opinion. Suddenly the sweat was back.
Hot this time.
He lifted the hem of his shirt and wiped his forehead, revealing a good few inches of his stomach and he practically felt the rush of air she sucked in.
He fought back a smile. She might not like what she thought he did, but she didn’t mind looking at him.
“Do you…ah…need…a towel or…something?” she asked, and he dropped his shirt.
“A glass of water would be great.”
She nodded, turned slightly and paused. He realized she didn’t know whether or not to invite him into her home. And he knew her hesitation wasn’t because of the sweat.
“I’ll wait out here,” he said, unsmiling as the old war waged in him.
Just tell her. Explain that the papers got it wrong, that he was actually the opposite of what she thought. He was one of the good guys. He was actually a lot like her.
He wondered if the explanation would change what she thought about him. If she’d look at him differently.
But what would be the point, really? In the end, her opinion of him, good or bad, was inconsequential. It didn’t change his work. His life. That was true for everyone’s opinion.
It was the lesson he’d learned over and over—beaten into him by bullies and business. The only thing that mattered was the work. His work spoke for itself and he didn’t need anyone to tell him he did a good job.
Wavering on his conviction because he was attracted to a blonde would be the height of pointlessness. There were lots of blondes. Maybe not as interesting as this one, but still plenty to be had.
Besides, Daphne was probably married, despite the lack of a ring on her finger. Women like her, with daughters like Helen, were the kind men held on to.
Though, he thought, glancing at the land for sale, they might be neighbors. He should at least try to be nice.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” she said, smiling, though it was not the most sincere effort he’d seen. She had good manners that insisted she allow the Dirty Developer onto her organic farm.
Helen tugged on Daphne’s sweater.
“Sorry.” Daphne grinned with half her mouth, a shy abashed sort of smile and something pinged in his chest. A sharp cord of attraction. “This is my daughter, Helen. Helen, this is Jonah Mit—”
“Closky,” he corrected, more harshly than he needed to, but everyone was getting just a little too cozy with his bloodlines.
&nbs
p; “Right,” Daphne said, that abashed smile gone. “Jonah Closky. Come on then.” She walked past the place in the bushes she’d climbed out of, to the proper driveway, complete with the white picket fence and the sun-dappled trees.
A white farmhouse with black shutters and a mess of plants and chairs and kid stuff on the porch, sat smack dab in the middle of acres of black fields filled with green crops.
Momentarily he worried he was going to have to get his inhaler out.
“Has my mom seen this?” he asked.
“My farm?” Daphne asked over her shoulder, her features adding to the beauty of the place. “I don’t think so.”
“She would love it here,” he said, taking it all in while Helen ran ahead. Daphne paused and watched him.
Nice one, he thought, why don’t you just go ahead and tell her everything about yourself. “Go figure,” he said as if he didn’t understand his mother’s inclinations.
“Your mother doesn’t strike me as a farmer,” Daphne said, ignoring his sarcasm.
“Oh?” he asked carefully, every protective instinct in him rising ready to do battle. “What does she strike you as?”
“An artist.” Daphne shrugged and Jonah struggled to find the earth under him. It had been her dream—her dream and her secret—that she’d never breathed a word to him. But growing up he’d seen the community college class lists. The pottery classes she’d circled but never signed up for because of time and money. Now, of course, he made sure she had all the opportunity in the world to follow that inclination and, with tears in her eyes, she’d accepted the potter’s wheel for Christmas five years ago. And the kiln two years ago.
“She cleaned houses,” he said. Blurted it out actually. Not that he was ashamed. He was proud of her. Grateful. In awe of what she’d done in order to keep him in tennis shoes and good schools.
“So did my mom,” Daphne said, her expression unreadable.
Common ground, apparently. Now they could have some kind of heartwarming discussion about all those Saturdays they’d played quietly in some stranger’s yard while their mothers cleaned toilets until their hands were raw.
“How are things going at the inn?” Daphne asked softly. “I talked to Alice—”
“Fine.” Their common ground—not that he wanted it—was obliterated.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I shouldn’t pry.”
Damn right. “What’s that?” he asked, pointing to the field with the most workers in it.
“Vegetables,” she said.
“I’m familiar with the idea, but what kind?”
“Asparagus,” she said.
“You’ve got lots of it,” he observed.
“A banner year. We’re picking practically around the clock. Strawberries are next,” she said, and he followed her pointed finger to the grove of apple trees surrounding another green field on the opposite end of her land. The wind shifted and her scent was carried to him on the breeze. The woman smelled like grass. “Next year we’re going to try pick-your-own.”
“You’re going to let strangers onto your land? Near your home?” he asked, horrified. Business was business. No one he worked with, not even Gary, had ever seen his home. Not that there was much to see. A coffeepot and a bed. But it was private.
“You’re here. I figure it can’t get much worse,” she said.
He jerked his head around to meet her eyes and saw the grin pulling at those pretty pink lips. She was teasing him. Teasing him. Of all things.
Again, he felt that strange pulse of familiarity. As though they knew things about each other, unsaid and barely recognized.
It made his skin itch. His hands tingled with the sudden urge to reach out and stroke that braid draped over her shoulder. To tug off the band at the end and see what Daphne Larson looked like when she came undone.
His heart chugged hard at the thought, at the image running through his brain of all that hair pouring over her bare white shoulder. Over his bare white shoulders, down his chest, across—
“What’s the profit margin on something like that?” he asked, breaking the quiet spell her words had wrapped around him.
“About 110 percent,” she said. His jaw dropped briefly and she laughed. “Organic foods are big business, Jonah,” she said. “I’m doing nothing but good.”
Helen came running back carrying a glass of water, sloshing all over herself as she approached.
“Here you go, Jonah,” she said and handed him a glass of water with less than an inch left in it. “And look,” she said. “Popsicles. One for each of us.”
“How many have you had, Helen?” Daphne asked.
“Mom,” Helen said, managing to look arch. “I’m being hospital.”
Jonah couldn’t stop the laugh and both women looked at him.
That’s right, he wanted to say. The Dirty Developer has a sense of humor. But for some reason he was pleased to see that surprised, warm look on Daphne’s face.
“Well,” he said, swallowing the half gulp of water. “Thanks.” He handed the glass to Helen and she handed him a Popsicle.
“A green one,” she murmured. “The best.”
He nearly laughed again, the little huckster.
She was eating a purple one, like the one she’d had before they met on the road and that pretty much indicated which ones she thought were really the best.
“Thank you,” he said, bowing slightly. “Green is my favorite.” He turned to Daphne, and tried not to see the golden length of her braid or the wary look in her eye.
He tried, realizing now that it was the smartest thing not to see her at all.
“Thanks for the water,” he said, smiling briefly, and walked away from Daphne, her noble and fledgling business and her precocious daughter.
Daphne didn’t know what to think. Honestly, it was as if her brain had melted in the heat rolling off that man.
She could still smell him—sweat and sunshine and money.
And frankly, that smell really, really worked for her and her overeager, out-of-practice hormones. They were pinging through her bloodstream, heedless of the fact that the man, one, clearly had more issues about his family than he knew what to do with and, two, was not interested in her.
But her hormones called that last fact into question. It had seemed, against all odds, that he’d been watching too closely, the look in his cool, unflappable eyes bordering on admiring—if the Dirty Developer were capable of such a thing.
“Where’s he walking?” Helen asked, eating what had to be her third Popsicle today.
“Back to the inn, I guess,” Daphne answered, trying not to stare at the man’s ass. But cripes. What a tush.
“Wow,” Helen said. “That’s like a million miles away.”
It was. And Daphne knew she should offer him a ride. It was the right thing to do. But…the Dirty Developer? And after talking to Alice this morning, Daphne had learned that not only was he rude to her, but also he’d been keeping Patrick—one of the best men in the world—at total arm’s length.
Alice had said Patrick was heartbroken.
Daphne tilted her head as he paused at the bottom of the driveway and opened his Popsicle. He glanced left and gave the iced treat a long lick.
Oh dear God.
“Mom,” Helen said, “shouldn’t you give him a ride or something?”
“Shouldn’t you be doing your homework?” Daphne shot the question back, because her daughter was right and she was stalling a little bit more.
“I was, but then I saw him stop at the For Sale sign.” Helen’s room had a clear view of Sven’s land and Daphne had given her daughter very specific instructions to get her if Helen saw anyone on that land. Daphne still hadn’t heard from Sven about her offer and she was hoping to either dissuade other buyers or actually talk to Sven should he happen to visit the land he was utterly neglecting yet not selling to her.
“Why was he looking at the sign?” The man dealt with condos in the city. He’d have no use for farmland in th
e Hudson River Valley.
“He was stretching,” Helen said.
Right, of course, because he’d been running a million miles.
“Finish your homework,” she said. “I’m going to give him a ride home.” She took off for her truck. “And no more Popsicles.”
Moments later, she pulled up next to him while he finished the last of his Popsicle. She leaned across the bench seat to roll down her window.
“Come on,” she said. “I’m going into town and I can give you a lift.”
He looked at her and sucked the last scrap of green ice from the stick.
Her unruly hormones careened through her system, nearly making her light-headed.
“Thanks,” he said, and she popped open the door so he could climb in.
He paused, his leg already inside the cab, the muscle of his thigh tight and defined. Not very hairy, she noticed then wanted to poke out her eyes for noticing. “I’m…ah…kind of gross.” He gestured to his shirt.
“Trust me, this truck has seen worse.”
He smiled briefly, one of the few he’d flashed. It was as if they were diamonds and he was running out. Which was too bad. His front tooth was crooked, which was startling and heart-tuggingly endearing among all his physical perfection.
He should smile more; it made him look human.
Blushing, she looked away before he caught her staring.
They bounced down the gravel road for a while in the sort of silence that made her regret offering him a ride. It was so heavy she coughed and it sounded like a cannonball.
“Your daughter is something else,” he finally said and she leaped on the conversational topic like a rabid dog.
“Yep, she is. She—” oh dear God, how lame could she be? “—really is.”
He smiled again, a small gust of a laugh escaping him that did ridiculous things to her heart rate. She could smell the sugary, sweet Popsicle on his breath.
“You and your husband must have your hands full,” he said and she whirled because it felt oddly as if he was fishing, as if he’d noted the lack of wedding band on her finger and wondered. But he wasn’t even looking at her.
You, she told herself, are being ridiculous.
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