Harlequin Superromance September 2014 - Bundle 1 of 2: This Good ManPromises Under the Peach TreeHusband by Choice

by Janice Kay Johnson

  “I knew the bacon would win you over.”

  “Even the coffee is better here.” Everything tasted better at home. Maybe it was because she’d learned all that she knew about cooking and baking from the woman seated next to her. “I’m actually dying to cook in this kitchen again. I forgot how much I loved the stove. And I’ve been so focused on baking the last few years that I haven’t spent much time on other kinds of dishes.”

  “You cook all you want. I’d rather have you in the kitchen than playing sleuth at my doctor’s office.” Gram frowned and tapped her newly manicured nails against her coffee cup for a moment before she met Nina’s gaze. “I don’t want to give up my independence or this house, hon. So, please, make sure your father doesn’t try and pull a fast one on me to get me out of here, okay?”

  Worry made Nina’s stomach clench. Her grandmother had always seemed invincible. She’d carved out a living for herself in a big old empty farmhouse after her husband died when he’d been fifty-five. Gram had been on her own ever since, living frugally and selling off pieces of land and equipment to supplement odd jobs like canning and making jellies for a local farm store. Not until recently had she ever spent a nickel on herself, and that was only because Nina had given her a year’s worth of salon services for Christmas last year. Gram was crafty and cagey. A survivor. And it sent a sharp pain through Nina to hear a note of fear in this strong woman’s voice.

  “Of course.” As soon as she made the promise, though, she wondered how she would keep it if she ended up moving home to New York. “I mean, I’ll talk to Dad and clear things with your doctors since obviously, we all want you to be safe, too. But you look great to me.”

  Gram quirked an eyebrow, clearly hearing the backpedaling.

  A sharp rap on the kitchen door startled her and saved her from digging herself any deeper into a hole.

  “It’s Ethan, Mrs. Spencer,” a young man’s voice called through the closed door.

  “Ethan?” Nina looked to her grandmother to enlighten her as she stood.

  “A neighbor boy,” she explained to Nina just before she opened the door. “Well, hello there, young man.”

  “Morning, Mrs. Spencer. I finished mowing the lawn and I wanted to see if you’d like me to pick some peaches or nectarines for you.” A shaggy-headed, dark-haired teenager held an empty bushel basket under one arm, his rumpled T-shirt and jeans covered with bits of hay suggesting he’d already been working for a while.

  “The more the merrier, Ethan.” Gram waved at the boy but didn’t stand...a sure sign her knee was hurting. “I’ve got some reinforcements this week to help me with my last batch of jam now that the peach season is almost over. Nina, this is Ethan Brady. He’s the grandson of the gentleman who bought the dairy farm where the Hendersons used to live.”

  “Nina Spencer.” Nina shook the teen’s hand. “I’m visiting my grandmother for a couple of weeks. Did you need help with the picking?” She peered out the door behind the boy toward the orchards in the distance, but couldn’t tell if the trees were loaded with fruit or not.

  “No, thank you.” He looked like he might be hiding a smile. “I can handle it. I wouldn’t want to take Mrs. Spencer’s company away.”

  “I don’t mind.” She hadn’t questioned how her grandmother was doing financially, but maybe she would welcome the extra jam and jelly sales while Nina was home to help her. For that matter, maybe she shouldn’t be helping her grandmother give away those peach pies when she should be charging for them. “I’ll just grab some gloves in the barn—”

  “No, really,” Ethan protested, stepping off the small porch and backing away. “My gramp gave me strict instructions to take care of the picking myself because he owes Mrs. Spencer a favor,” he called through the screen. “And he said to tell you that the town of Heartache loves cupcakes.” The teen shrugged his shoulders awkwardly. “No clue what the means.”

  Spinning on his heel, he darted through the tall grasses of an open meadow with his bushel basket and headed toward the orchards.

  Behind her, Gram laughed and said something about how Nina could charge more for one cupcake than she could for a whole case of preserves. But seeing Ethan jogging across sun-dappled fields made her think of a long-ago summer when another boy had knocked on the door to pick peaches and asked Nina to join him....

  “Excuse me,” a deep voice called to her from the yard and she noticed one of the movers flagging her down. “You’ve got some company.”

  He jerked his head in the direction of the moving truck, but she couldn’t see who had pulled up since the eighteen-wheeler took up her whole view.

  “Gram, I’d better find out who it is.” She pushed open the screen, her gray tabby cat darting between her feet to join her.

  Her instincts hummed as she neared the truck. The brightness made her squint, but she could still see an Eldorado convertible parked behind the movers’ vehicle.

  “Need a hand?” Mack stepped around the bumper of the beat-up delivery truck, his gaze trained on the hodgepodge of furniture and boxes stacked precariously inside. “I hadn’t realized you’d have so much going on today or I would have waited to pick up the hay wagons for the Harvest Fest.”

  His well-washed gray T-shirt had a green clover with Finleys’ written in script on the front. No matter what else had happened between them, she had to admit he wore a T-shirt incredibly well. For the second day in a row, she kept her eyes north of his jeans. Down that path lay madness.

  Mack was very...fit. In school, he’d organized pickup games of basketball or impromptu lacrosse tournaments in the fields behind his house. It seemed he hadn’t lost that love of sports. His body was as toned as an athlete’s.

  “It’s okay. The wagons are in the barn by the orchard.” She’d rather have this errand taken care of today than risk seeing him again another day. She couldn’t guarantee how long her eyes would behave. “I can get the key from the house.”

  Nodding, he stepped back as the delivery guys juggled an industrial-size mixer. When Taz, Nina’s cat, started to dart across their path, Mack scooped the tabby up with one hand.

  “Oh!” Nina reached for the animal, but Taz was already batting at the wristband of Mack’s watch, oblivious to her narrow escape. “Thank you.”

  “No problem. Should I bring him up to the house?” He stared down at Taz, amusement crinkling the corners of his eyes. “I can ask your grandmother for the key and take care of the wagons myself.”

  “Taz is a her, not a him.” Nina plucked the animal from Mack’s arm and the little feline mewed pitifully. “And it’s probably just as well I don’t watch my most prized possessions being stored next to rusty cultivators and plows. I might as well go with you.”

  She was a grown-up. She could handle spending a couple of weeks in the same town as Mack. Besides, she wasn’t proud of her testy words the day before. She shouldn’t have accused him of coming to Heartache to rub her nose in her failures.

  Worse, her harsh words about Jenny had been out of line. And she didn’t want Mack to think he affected her so much that the mention of his ex-wife would rile her up.

  “Fair enough.” He stepped aside, letting her lead the way to a farmhouse even older than the one where he’d been raised.

  Sunflowers and phlox stood next to deep purple asters in the overgrown flowerbeds lining the wide, grassy path to the two-story white clapboard structure. The scent of the nearby orchards and freshly mown grass rode the breeze. It was peaceful here, with a quiet so deep she almost had trouble sleeping. She kind of missed the constant din of city traffic and the comfort of busy, anonymous humanity outside her windows.

  “It’s weird being back here, isn’t it?” She picked a long stem of grass poking through a bed of bushy yellow flowers she couldn’t identify.

  Taz made a swipe for the grass, but Nina tucked the little cat tigh
ter against her chest to be sure she wouldn’t get into any more trouble.

  “I slept in the field manager’s quarters last night. So yeah, it’s definitely a strange homecoming.”

  Their strides matched one another’s.

  “Did you have a falling out with your mom?” Nina tried to keep the question light. She wasn’t sure how much Mrs. Finley had shared with Mack about their final blowout where his mother had accused Nina of ruining Mack’s life. She’d even suggested that he’d change his mind about having kids if she left. It wasn’t that he didn’t want children, she said, he just didn’t want them with Nina.

  She’d been blown away about that one.

  Knowing about Mrs. Finley’s struggles with bipolar disorder hadn’t eased the sting of her words, since her reasons for why Nina and Mack would never work had been accurate. Nina was a wanderer by nature who threw herself into the moment, for example, while Mack was a grounded guy with big ambition and concrete career goals. Bipolar or not, Mrs. Finley was a sharp woman with Mack’s best interests at heart.

  “No. But a buffer between me and Mom is usually a good idea. I didn’t want her to be stressed about having company.” He paused at the foot of the stairs to the wide, wraparound porch while Nina jogged up toward the back door. “She asked me to thank you for the pie, by the way.”

  Nina seriously doubted that. She opened the door and nudged Taz inside where her pet made a beeline for her water dish. The kitchen was empty again and the table had been cleared. Nina snagged a small red key from a rack of hooks just above the light switch and then closed the door again.

  “That was really thoughtful of you to give your mother some space.” She tucked the key to the barn in her pocket as she rejoined him, trying her best to get through this difficult meeting as quickly as possible. “Especially since the field manager’s quarters are awfully cramped, at least they were the last time I saw them—”

  Her cheeks flamed hot. Red-sizzle hot. Because the last time she’d been inside that little apartment had been with Mack, and things had gone too far, too fast.

  “I remember.” Mack didn’t bother to hide the smile in his voice, damn him.

  Her gaze shot his way. A wicked grin stole over his face, an expression she hadn’t seen in a long time. Funny how that warmed her in a different way.

  “So. That was awkward.” She resisted the urge to fan her face at the memory of Mack kissing her shoulder and nudging off the strap of her tank top. Undressing her in the daylight had been a novel experience for both of them.

  “Not the way I recall it.” His expression grew more serious, making her heart beat faster.

  Her eyes stole over him. All of him.

  Damn, but he looked better than ever in a pair of jeans.

  “What I meant was—”

  “I know what you meant.” Mack turned to face her on the path to the barn. “And you’re right. The apartment is cramped.”

  Nina folded her arms across a white eyelet tank top. The tank and cutoffs had been comfortable this morning, but suddenly she felt severely underdressed. Then again, she could be wearing riot gear and still feel twitchy and breathless around Mack.

  “I just don’t want you to get the impression that I’m flirting with you. Because that comment just leaped out without me even thinking it through.” She wanted to be very clear on that point. She had no intention of getting in the way of Mack’s future.

  “Yes, I remember that impulsive streak.” One dark eyebrow arched as he gave her an assessing look. “Remember when you freed the Death Row Chickens on the Johnson farm that first summer you came here?”

  “I’m still not sorry about that.” Being a city girl, she’d assumed the chickens were behind bars as a form of punishment, their death imminent. She’d raised a neighborhood campaign to save them, not knowing they were on the farm to give eggs. “Mr. Johnson could have explained about the eggs instead of laughing at me.”

  “In all fairness, I don’t think he realized who he was dealing with.” Mack’s eyes met hers. Held.

  Her mouth went so dry she had to lick her lips. “Too bad those chickens had no idea what to do with their freedom.”

  She forced herself to keep walking. To keep moving. Standing still with Mack this close would be dangerous.

  “Mrs. Johnson wasn’t happy to find them roosting in her flower beds after the big jailbreak.” Mack lifted a low-hanging branch on a pine tree, clearing the way for her to walk without ducking.

  “You were pretty entertained by the whole thing, though.” Mack had insisted on bringing her back to the Johnson house the next morning where—from the safety of the bushes—she could witness the results of her elaborate plan to set the birds free.

  Mack had showed her where to stand so they wouldn’t get caught, keeping an arm around her shoulders to prevent her from running after the chickens and smuggling them off the property.

  “Somebody had to keep you safe from trouble.”

  “You were always looking out for people.” She’d benefitted from that quality in him for a long time.

  Until the day when he’d had others to take care of besides her. His mother. His best friend’s grieving girlfriend. Now, it was his brother. A better woman would have admired him all the more for that. But to Nina, it felt like others had always come first. Maybe she’d been too needy because of the way she’d been brought up. But when she’d fallen for Mack, she’d been all in. He was everything to her. So when she’d learned her spot on his priority list, she’d been deeply hurt.

  Mack said nothing while she retrieved the key to the barn and popped the padlock. When she opened the clasp and slid the heavy door aside on the track, she noticed Mack staring back down the hill toward the moving van. The delivery guys dragged a dining room set into the barn.

  “You’re moving a lot of things home for someone who is only going to be in town for a few weeks.” He leaned against a pole support in front of the barn. “Are you sure everything is okay?”

  Grief and frustration over her career battled with embarrassment at her failure. But the details of the scandal were a Google search away. It’s not as if the locals wouldn’t find out about it. Maybe it would be better if he heard her side first. She couldn’t help feeling defensive about how the whole thing shook down.

  “My business partner drained the funds from our bakery’s business account and then eloped with one of our clients the night before a wedding we’d been hired to cater.”

  How could she have failed—the business, her clients, herself—so miserably? She’d developed her business because she’d loved seeing other people’s happily-ever-afters take shape. But she’d had to cancel over a dozen orders for other weddings this fall, leaving brides scrambling to find other confections for their special day.

  “Have you talked to your partner since she left? Do you know where she is now?” Mack squinted in the bright sun, the day growing hotter by the minute.

  “No. She left me a note with her apology and some garbage about true love not always being ‘convenient.’” Nina had discovered the note perched in front of the cupcake tower that would have paid the next month’s rent on their costly storefront on the Upper West Side. But with no wedding and a jilted bride in tears, Nina couldn’t exactly collect on the wedding cake. “Olivia—my partner—was always adventurous, and she loved the romance of our business. Little did I know, she would find romance in our client list with a well-known hotel magnate.”

  Mack gave a low whistle and shook his head. “Wow. She sounds...immature.”

  “Yes. But she’s also creative and energetic. Her father fronted us the money for the shop to begin with, and her wealthy friends helped to spread the word about us while we grew our reputation. I never could have gone into business without her. I really thought we were going to turn a corner this fall and start operating in the b
lack, but...” Nina’s heart still hurt to think about all the people she’d let down by closing up shop. How could she ever go back now? “Anyway, Gram has been battling some health problems, so this was a good time to come home and check on her. I’ll go to New York and settle things there as soon as I regroup and figure out what to do next.”

  “Because you still want to bake.” Mack seemed to weigh this. “And get back to the city?”

  Maybe.

  “That’s what I’ve always wanted,” she dodged, not quite ready to tackle the question for herself, let alone him. “Sooner or later, I’ll need an income source again. If not through the cupcake bakery, then through some other business.”

  She could always apply to a restaurant as a dessert chef. The idea didn’t hold much appeal after all the creative independence she’d had at Cupcake Romance.

  “Just making sure.” He nodded. Then, pivoting toward her, he gestured to a couple of old hay bales. “Do you have a minute? I’ve got a proposition that might help us both.”

  The hay bales looked far too comfortable for her to share one with Mack. A bed of nails, perhaps.

  “I’m not sure that’s a good idea.” She remained standing.

  She could pretend he didn’t affect her all she wanted, but she wasn’t going to test her restraint that way. Mack had called it when he’d said she had an impulsive streak. And her tendency to leap before she looked usually led her into trouble. She’d shot her mouth off at Vince and he’d died.

  “Okay. So just listen.” Straightening, he stalked closer.

  She held her breath.

  “You need to generate some income while figuring out what to do with your business.” He studied her with serious eyes. “And I have a festival to oversee from the ground up so I can free my brother to work on his marriage. Why don’t we help each other?”

  “I don’t understand. How?”

  “Traditionally, the fee for renting a vendor booth at the festival is waived for subcommittee chairs. So take over the food management subcommittee for me. That way, you’ll get a booth for free to sell all the cupcakes you like.”