Bittersweet (True North #1)

by Sarina Bowen

  “Who knows who biblically?” May’s voice came from the next orchard row. Then her face appeared between two Golden Delicious trees. “Wait, you dated Audrey?”

  A moment ago I’d been celebrating Dylan’s intelligence. But my family’s sharp minds were frequently an inconvenience.

  “How come I don’t remember Audrey’s name?” May asked, sitting down beside me.

  “Well…” I chuckled again. “Couldn’t really call it dating. Cover your ears, Dylan.”

  My little brother kicked me again. “I’m not twelve.”

  “I know.” I sighed. But I didn’t want my little brother to behave the way I had—not at any age. It wasn’t the sex that I regretted. It was the way it all went down.

  I’d always wanted Audrey. From the first moment she showed up with my teammate Bryce, I’d been jealous. And not just because she was hot. I’d been drawn to her silly spirit, and the carefree way that she seemed to enjoy life without trying too hard. Everything in my own life was a struggle. But she and Bryce were part of the effortless, rich kid crew. I wanted what they had, and I felt like an ass for caring about it so much.

  But then Bryce began bringing other girls around, too. The first time I saw him with his tongue down the throat of another girl, I assumed that he and Audrey had broken up. I was bummed, because it meant I wouldn’t see her anymore. But the next night, there she was on his arm, smiling and getting us all to do the best imitation we could of a…chicken. I didn’t even remember why. College jokes were like that—brilliantly funny and apropos of nothing. Those were the good old days.

  Later, I’d asked Bryce what he’d been doing with the other girl. “Audrey is my girlfriend,” he’d said. “But she was my high school girl, you know? And her mother owns half of Boston.” He’d chuckled like a comic book villain. “We’ll probably get married. But I can’t do four years of college without a few extra-curricular activities. That would just be wrong.”

  That got my blood boiling. I’d already thought Bryce was a mindless playboy. But I wanted to punch that fucker for cheating on his girl.

  After that, whenever Audrey showed up at the frat house with Bryce, I always left. Couldn’t stand to watch. I didn’t really know her, but she turned me on like nobody’s business, which was even more confusing for me. I kept wondering whether I should tell her about Bryce’s extracurricular activities. And then I’d wonder whether telling her was just something I wanted to do for my own jealous reasons.

  When Bryce would turn up with a different girl, I always made a point of asking him out loud how Audrey was doing. “Great,” he’d always say with a grin or a wink. The fucker had no shame at all. His dates—and there were many of them—didn’t seem bothered by the question, either.

  The whole thing drove me insane, until one night the inevitable happened. It was a weeknight and quiet at the house. I’d seen Bryce go upstairs with some leggy girl I didn’t know. They were probably in the little TV den where the freshmen pledges hung out. And probably making out on the couch.

  I’d been parked on an uncomfortable sofa off the kitchen, an undesirable spot where I could do my homework in peace. When someone knocked on the kitchen door, it had been me who’d answered.

  “Hi, Griffin,” Audrey had said as she bounced through the door. “Is Bryce around, by chance?”

  I hadn’t even hesitated. “Check the TV room upstairs. Pretty sure I saw him up there.”

  “Thanks.” She’d scampered toward the stairs.

  Immediately I’d felt like an absolute shit. I couldn’t sit there and wait to know what happened. Slamming my textbook closed, I’d jumped up and felt for my keys in my pocket. But I couldn’t get away fast enough—someone had parked me in. So I was outside in the driveway, contemplating the sight of Bryce’s fucking Mercedes behind my heap of a car when Audrey came storming back out the kitchen door, her face red. Tears running down her cheeks.

  She hadn’t even seen me. She’d just speed-walked down the driveway and disappeared.

  I was sure I’d never see her again. And why would I deserve to, anyway? But two weeks later she came back to the house with some of her sorority sisters. Maybe Audrey had revenge on the mind because she was dressed to kill. She hadn’t ever looked twice at me before, but that night when I asked her to dance, she said it was the best idea she’d heard in a long time.

  The rest of the night will play forever on my fantasy reel. I came on strong and she took every hint. When I kissed her, she gave as good as she got. And when we went upstairs I thought I’d die from happiness.

  A week later we repeated the same performance. I was a goner after that, and thinking about her all the time—

  “Griff? Can you even hear me?”

  My sister’s voice snatched me out of my reverie. “What?”

  “I said, I think Audrey’s great.” May punched me in the arm. “You should call her.”

  Call her. That’s the thing—I had called her after our tryst. Even the younger, stupider version of me hadn’t missed the fact that she and I had amazing chemistry. So I’d called to invite her out to dinner.

  But apparently she decided I wasn’t worth the effort. My call went unreturned.

  Before long the year was over, and all I could do was kick myself for handling her so clumsily. I could have taken it slower. I could have apologized for sending her upstairs to see her boyfriend getting blown by his date for the evening. (Bryce was none too happy about this unfortunate incident.)

  But I’d taken her to bed instead. Two different nights. I’d felt like a user, and didn’t really blame her for blowing me off. And now I’d been frosty toward Audrey today. Rejection—even five years past—had turned me into a bigger grouch than usual.

  Tossing my empty cup into the tote, I stood up. “Break time’s over.”

  My brother stood up, too. “You’re just gonna drop that bomb and go back to work?”

  It took me a second to realize he was referring to my idea to sell off a lot of our milkers. “We’ll talk a lot more, first,” I said gently. “A lot more. Don’t worry, okay?”

  But Dylan gave me a dark, grumpy look that reminded me of me. Then he stomped off toward the wheelbarrow.

  “What bomb?” May asked.

  “Ask me tomorrow,” I grumbled. “Gotta go check on the peach trees.”

  Once again, Audrey had come and gone. I was left with only regrets and a whole lot of farm work.

  Chapter Six

  Audrey

  When I left the Shipley Farm after lunch, Griff surprised me by pressing two bottles of his cider into my hands. “I know your boss doesn’t want to pay the market rate,” he said. “But I’m not an idiot. I know it would be good to get into those restaurants—at least if I don’t lose my shirt.

  I thought Griff losing his shirt was a fine idea. But not the way he meant. I wanted another look at that spectacular chest…

  “So do your best,” he said with more humility than I’d expected from him. “Let the man taste it, and tell me the best he can do.”

  “I’ll try,” I promised him. Hell, I wanted to succeed, if only to see the stunned expression on his too-handsome face. “I’ll call you to let you know.”

  “I’ll answer my phone just like a city slicker.”

  “Right.” My face burned from the shame of having listened to Burton. That man was just using me to further his agenda.

  Men had done that to me many times, actually. You’d think I’d stop falling for it.

  “And get that donut replaced with a real tire,” Griff told me. “You shouldn’t drive on that thing any farther than you have to. The tire place in Montpelier should get you done. If you’re heading south, it’s trickier. You might have to go all the way to Lebanon, New Hampshire.”

  Yikes. I’d passed that place an hour before I got here. “Thanks. I’ll take care of it.”

  As I got into my car, I gave the Shipley farmhouse one last look. Its proud white clapboards glinted in the June sunshine, and, as the
wind shifted, I caught the faint scent of cow manure on the breeze. There were wicker chairs on the porch, the kind that weren’t just for show, but for sinking into at the end of a summer day.

  Nice place, this.

  I drove off toward Bradford hoping to find the tire place without too much trouble. But when I got there, I hit a snag. The rental car company didn’t have the place on its approved list of repair shops. The guy behind the desk explained, “You need to go to Rutland or Burlington. If you don’t use an approved shop, the rental company will charge you a ninety-nine dollar out-of-policy repair fee.”

  Grrr. I didn’t have any extra money to spend, and I could bet that it was exactly the sort of expense BPG would hassle me over. “Um,” I said, my geography of Vermont a little shaky. “I’m not heading up there. What’s south of here?” Maybe I could just get my meetings done and head back the way I came.

  “White River Junction or Lebanon, New Hampshire,” came the answer.

  “Thank you,” I grumbled before leaving.

  The donut would have to do. People drove for weeks on those things, right?

  I stayed the night in a roadside motel, where I mapped out the other farms’ locations, one by one. I tried to plot a route that would keep the mileage to a minimum. But it wasn’t easy. While all the farms were on the eastern side of the state, each one was down a different country road off a different minor highway. Although one of them—Apostate Farm was its name—was almost adjacent to Griff Shipley’s place. If I’d noticed that earlier, I would have stopped there already. Now I’d have to backtrack to Tuxbury on my way home.

  I got on the road early the next morning. The northernmost farm was Misty Hollow, and luckily it wasn’t far off the highway.

  When I pulled into the driveway, chickens scattered in every direction. I stepped out of the car gingerly, hoping to avoid getting chicken poop in my open-toed shoes.

  The screen door to the farmhouse in front of me banged open, and a sheepdog came charging out. Having little experience with dogs, I stiffened, hoping it wouldn’t think I was an intruder. The chickens had the same fears, scattering once again. But the dog didn’t run at me. Instead, he stuck his nose under a shrub and then turned around with a rather disgusting tennis ball in his mouth. Trotting over to me, he dropped it at my feet where it rolled against my bare toe.

  Ew.

  The dog sat on its fuzzy black and white butt and then smiled up at me, tail wagging hopefully. It was hard to say no in the face of all that longing. So I bent over and picked up the ball with as little contact as possible, then flung it to the side, away from the poor chickens, who’d already gone back to scratching and pecking at in the grass beside the gravel drive.

  The dog tore off in search of its ball, and the screen door banged once more, this time behind an older woman. “We don’t want any,” she said from her porch.

  “Hi!” I called as if she’d said something more friendly. I walked toward her in order to be heard. “I’m not selling anything. I want to buy—” I peeked at the list in my hand. “—turkey. Free-range turkey.”

  She still gave me the stink eye. “You want to order a Thanksgiving bird?”

  “No ma’am. I’m here for the Boston Premier Group. It’s a restaurant company. They’re looking to buy four hundred birds.”

  The toothpick in her mouth traveled from one side to the other in a tidy line. “My price is five bucks a pound.”

  “Well…” With a prickle of dread, I glanced down at the sheet again. $2.50. “BPG would like to pay two-fifty. But they’ll take a lot of them.”

  She shrugged. “I bred as many poults as I knew I could sell to the people nearby. If I sell to you, I lose money and I have no product at Thanksgiving. Looks like we don’t have anything more to say to one another.”

  At that, she turned and went inside the house.

  This same scenario repeated itself a few miles further on at a beekeeping outfit. BPG’s price for honey was too low by half, of course. And then it happened again when I visited a big vegetable farm. Since the farmer’s products were so numerous, I handed over my pricing sheet for his perusal.

  After about thirty seconds, the bearded farmer handed it back with a shake of his head. “Griff Shipley told me to look out for you. Said you’re trying to bend us all over with slave’s wages. We’re not falling for that.”

  “He…what?”

  The guy winced. “Sorry, miss. You’re working for a company that doesn’t respect what we do. There must be a couple hundred farms closer to Boston, anyway.”

  I got back in my car, seething. If Griff had warned away every farmer in the county, then I was wasting my time. This job was hard enough without his help.

  And why couldn’t BPG get what they needed in Massachusetts, anyway? That question tickled my worried brain. But I shoved it aside in favor of throwing imaginary darts at Griff’s picture. He’d be easy enough to hit with a dart. Those broad shoulders. All that muscle…

  Focus, Audrey!

  I reapplied my lipstick and visited three more farms. One farmer offered to meet my price on potatoes, but only if he could pass me scabby ones. “I’m always looking for somewhere to go with the uglies. They’re perfectly good, but they get passed over at the farmers’ market.”

  “I’ll see what I can do.” I sighed, making a note. I could already hear Burton’s voice in my head telling me that he expected perfection.

  Nobody mentioned the Shipley Farm again, and most everyone was polite. But nobody could help me, nor did they seem willing to chat about it.

  Fricking Griff. If only I hadn’t stopped there first.

  I’d driven sixty miles on country roads and had absolutely nothing to show for it. Not one item had been contracted, unless my boss had a liberal view of scabby potatoes.

  The last farm on my list was right down the road from Griff Shipley. I gave his farm’s sign the finger as I passed by. The sign for Apostate Farm was just a tiny shingle, but I found it. Turning in, I bumped up their pitted gravel drive, which was in serious need of some attention. The car jostled me until my teeth were practically chattering. Could Vermont be any less welcoming?

  I bounced to a stop outside a barn. Two men emerged from just inside, but I looked down at my phone because I wasn’t quite ready to deal with them yet. I needed a deep breath. And a glass of wine, and a day at a spa and a new job.

  The deep breath was the only thing on the list I could reasonably expect to get.

  I pushed open the car door, hoping to wax on my smile. But the first words I heard were, “Looks like you got a flat tire there, miss.”

  “Fuck!” I swore, leaping out to inspect the tire. Sure enough, the culprit was the donut, of course. No wonder the driveway had felt like a minefield.

  Someone chuckled, and the sound curdled my insides. Because I knew that laugh. My head snapped up to find my nemesis watching me. “August Griffin Shipley!” I shrieked. “Did you tell every farmer in the county to give me the stiff arm? That was a dick move.” I slammed my car door and wheeled around to face him.

  He actually had the decency to look sheepish. He crossed his brawny arms across that impressive chest and bowed his head. “I thought my neighbors needed to know who was about to come knocking. BPG are a bunch of corporate assholes, Audrey.”

  “Am I a corporate asshole? You might as well come out and say it.” I crossed my arms, too, mirroring his stance. If the move just happened to accentuate my cleavage, then oh well.

  His gaze drifted over my body and ended up on the sky. “You’re not, honey. But that doesn’t fix the problem.”

  Honey. I hated myself a little bit for enjoying the way the word rolled off his full lips.

  “Shoulda had the new tire put on already,” he added, which helped to kick my righteous anger back to the forefront.

  “Like I don’t know that,” I snapped. His neighbor’s eyebrows flew upward in surprise. Damn it all. He was the guy I’d come here to find. But what were the odds he’d sel
l his artisanal cheeses to me now? Vermont had chewed me up and spit me out in the space of twenty-four hours. There was no reason for me to stay here. “This was a mistake,” I muttered, grabbing the car door again. I tossed my purse onto the passenger seat and then climbed in.

  “Hey, Audrey,” Griff started to say as I turned the key. “You can’t drive that thing…”

  Listening to him wouldn’t get me where I needed to go. So I put the car in reverse and backed up a few feet. It was rough going, but I made it. I put ’er in gear and pulled hard on the wheel, circling the nose of the car in front of Griff and his neighbor. The two men backed up quickly, as if I were a bomb about to go off.

  The Prius took me ten or twenty yards down the gravel drive before the bouncing became more of a pronounced list to the right.

  “Fuck!” I shouted at the top of my lungs. I wasn’t even going to be able to make a dignity-preserving getaway. Sagging onto its wheel frame, the car ground to a sad halt. I threw it in park and then head-butted the steering wheel in anger, which only served to draw a ridiculous beep from the horn. The car was out to get me.

  Was there no task on earth I could complete without fucking it up? No job I could keep without disgrace?

  I heard the telltale crunch of gravel under someone’s footsteps. There was no point in wondering whose. If I had to look like a complete idiot, did it have to be in front of the world’s hottest farmer? Apparently it did, because the car door opened and his gruff voice said, “Hop on out, honey. I’ll get Zach to find you another spare.”

  “Thank you,” I said through gritted teeth.

  “Since you’re here, we can finish our conversation about produce prices.”

  “If you’re just going to yell at me, save it.” I grabbed my purse off the seat and stood up.

  Griffin frowned down at me. God, the man was tall. Like Paul Bunyan. “I wouldn’t yell at a woman.”

  “Technicality,” I said under my breath. “You grumble and growl.”