Bittersweet (True North #1)

by Sarina Bowen

  “Lots of ground beef, because it’s cheap.”

  “That makes sense.”

  “Right. But you should have seen this meat. Swear to God—the cartons were stamped: Grade D But Fit for Human Consumption.”

  “Omigod!” Audrey shrieked. “It’s the ‘but’ that really gives you pause, right?”

  Her butt sure made me want to pause.

  Their conversation went on in the direction of the myriad things a guy could make with ground beef for prisoners. They were discussing the difference between a goulash and a stew when I felt a small hand slide onto my belly. The heat from her palm warmed my Shipley Farms T-shirt.

  It was nice, but inconvenient. It gave my body some big ideas.

  “I think a goulash can have a tomato base, or not,” Audrey mused to Jude. Then she slid her hand an inch lower, her fingertips reaching the hem of my shorts. As she continued her conversation with the man in the back seat, those fingers popped the button on my shorts.

  Oh. Hell.

  I let out a long, slow breath and stared carefully ahead at the road. But that hand skimmed under my T-shirt, across my belly. Then it plunged down between my shorts and underwear, landing on my cock, which twitched to life inside my boxers. She cupped me, her thumb slowly stroking me, coaxing me harder.

  Remembering to breathe, I inhaled carefully. Yeah, she’d said she’d get even with me. And here I’d thought it was nothing but an idle threat.

  Gritting my teeth, I tried to conjure up last night’s Red Sox score. But my dick was now hard as the bat they’d used to win the game. So I catalogued my mental to-do list. That sucker was long enough to deflate any boner. Or so I thought. When that failed, I tried reciting the periodic table. Hydrogen. Helium. Lithiummmmmmm. Her hand tortured me through the fabric of my underwear. I was so hard I’d begun to ache.

  My first chance at relief came when I exited the highway and stopped at a light. I thought she’d turn around and leave me alone. But as I shifted into first, Audrey took the opportunity to suddenly slip her hand inside my fly and stroke me with a firm grip.

  “Arghff,” I said.

  “You okay?” she chirped. “That was an odd noise.”

  I grabbed her hand and yanked it out of my pants. “Just fine,” I said, turning onto the two-lane road toward home.

  Audrey went back to her conversation with Jude. They were talking about side dishes now. Probably. My brain felt muzzy and thick. I was hard and leaking for her and desperate to see the finish of what she’d started.

  Not in the truck, though.

  Goddamn stubborn girl. Nothing like a taste of my own medicine to make me grumpy.

  We were three miles from home when her hand returned, stroking me slowly over my shorts. I bit down on my lip to keep from groaning. Then I knocked Audrey’s hand away a second time and sped the rest of the way home, tortured by her proximity and the husky sound of her laugh whenever Jude said anything funny.

  God, I wanted her so badly. And she knew it, the little vixen.

  When we pulled up the drive I was ornerier than I’d been in a long time. And hard as one of the fence posts I’d be setting into the ground this afternoon.

  That’s when I realized that I’d forgotten to drop Audrey back at the motor lodge. “Sorry. You don’t have your car. Zach can run you home,” I said as I killed the engine.

  “No problem!” she said cheerfully. “I need to give all this produce to your mother, anyway.” She reached down onto the floor of the truck where we’d stashed the vegetable crate.

  I was trying to subtly tuck away my aching dick and zip my shorts, when she scooped up the fucking winter squash and set it at my knee. “Be a dear and carry this into the house, will you? I know you hate it when I carry things.” She gave me a cheeky grin I would have liked to wipe off her face with my tongue.

  Then I carried that fucking squash in front of my crotch all the way indoors.

  I almost had myself under control by the time Zach announced that he was ready to drive Audrey home. She gave me a polite thank you for the market introductions and a cheery, knowing smile. Then Zach took her home.

  As I was stacking all the empty apple crates outside the cider house, a dusty blue Jeep drove up. A man my late father’s age climbed out and approached me. “Griffin Shipley? I’m Amos Appleby.”

  Ah. He was another of my mother’s church friends. “Hi, Amos,” I said, offering my hand. “What brings you up our hill today?”

  “Cows,” he said, shaking my hand. “I heard you’re thinking of selling off your herd.”

  “Well…” I said slowly, wondering where he’d heard. I’d mentioned it to only a few farmers. “Yeah, that’s under consideration. You interested?”

  “Sure thing,” he said with a grin. “When would you want this to happen?”

  “Uh,” I said as my mother approached.

  “Amos! This is a pleasant surprise.”

  “I came to talk about cows,” he said. “But if you had a piece of that apple pie you bring to the church supper sometimes…” He chuckled.

  But my mother’s face had fallen. “Griff wants to sell, but it isn’t decided,” she said quickly.

  “I see.” The man’s smile slid off. “Sorry to trouble you.”

  “Why don’t you leave me your number?” I whipped out my phone.

  Amos glanced between me and my mother. “Ah, okay. You folks think it over, though.” He gave me his digits and he was on his way.

  My mother and I stood there in the driveway. “I don’t want to sell,” she said softly. “But it’s not me who milks them every day.”

  “Mom, I’m not doing it because I want to sleep in, okay? The milking parlor across the road is antiquated. New gear costs more than twenty grand. And the rent is going up. This isn’t just a wild hair I’m having.”

  “Could we get a few more years out of our milking rig?”

  “We already did. And the price of milk is going down. The price of good cider is higher. I’m just trying to be smart.”

  Mom sighed. “Okay. I trust you, Griffin. If you say we should invest in cider instead of milk, I’ll stop worrying about it.”

  Aw, hell. “I don’t have a crystal ball. But our business is going to change whether we want it to or not. We’re getting pinched on our operation across the street. I’m just trying to make the best of it.”

  She squeezed my elbow. “It’s just scary to try a new business.”

  “Don’t I know it.” My biggest fear was talking my family into this change and then bombing somehow. Although I really didn’t think that would happen. “You know—you talk as though the dairy was the only thing Dad left behind. He taught me to make cider. I watched him blend ciders every year of my life.”

  Her face gentled. “He said it was a lost art.”

  “Not lost on me.”

  “Come on,” she said, tugging me toward the house. “If we’re going to do this, someone has to tell Dylan.”

  “Christ. We’ll arm wrestle. Loser breaks the news.”

  “August Griffin Shipley! That’s not fair.”

  Laughing, I followed her inside.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Audrey

  I spent the next two days following up with the farmers Griffin had introduced me to in Norwich. The prices I’d been given were acceptable on about half the vegetables on my list. So that was something. But quantity was definitely a problem. I could have made an order for three times the amount they offered me.

  “If you’d spoken up in April, this would be easier,” they told me.

  They were right, of course.

  And because I was shopping in August, the job would take more than a few days. I’d have to cobble together more produce from more farmers to complete BPG’s shopping list. Whatever I couldn’t find, BPG would have to buy from wholesalers. They’d lose out on local mystique and bragging rights, but the world wouldn’t end.

  My job might, though.

  Bumping around the country r
oads of eastern Vermont in my rental car had a few perks. When I discovered that quite a few farmstands sold local cheeses, I bought a box of crackers and a pocketknife at a general store in Norwich called Dan & Whit’s. The sign in their window read, If We Don’t Have It, You Don’t Need It.

  I snacked on good cheese, crackers and the plums that had just come into season. Even if the work wasn’t going so well, the food was amazing.

  I sent vague little updates to my boss at BPG, just so he wouldn’t forget I existed. “I found a new farm for organic herbs!” I said in one email. I never gave him any numbers. I didn’t want Bill Burton to know I was struggling. Disappointing him seemed like a good thing to put off.

  He wasn’t the only one I would disappoint this week. An email popped up from my mother, and I did not delete it as I usually did. In the first place, the subject line read URGENT. And secondly, I needed to know if she was meddling in my job at BPG. Did she even know I worked there? Had Burton told her?

  Audrey—

  You are expected to submit your résumé to Mr. Roger Smith of CarterCorp next week, or by August tenth at the very latest. At my urging, he is holding an interview slot for you. The job is: Nutritional Director for CarterCorp’s Executive Dining. You would work regular nine to five hours while reviewing and revising the company’s in-house corporate cafeteria menu offerings. The pay is exceptional for your line of work, with full insurance and benefits.

  Don’t keep Mr. Smith waiting. This is an amazing opportunity for you. And by holding this slot, Smith is doing me a great favor.

  —K.K.

  P.S. Should you need any assistance with your résumé, send it to my assistant and she will take a red pen to it.

  I read the message three more times, each time growing a little surlier.

  It probably was a great job—the sort of position that would help any new chef pay off her credit cards and start her career. And nine-to-five hours were as rare as wild truffles in the foodie world.

  But I would not be applying. I didn’t want any job that was handed to me as a favor to my mother. It was bad enough that her long, ambitious shadow had kept me from losing my job at BPG. This would be a thousand times worse. CarterCorp was one of my mother’s most active investments. I didn’t want her pity job, and I really didn’t want her to think that I was only surviving my twenties because she’d rescued me again. Whatever they would pay me at CarterCorp, it wouldn’t be worth it.

  That said, I was purposely avoiding any glimpse of my bank balance, and avoiding emails from my pothead roommate asking when he’d get his money back for the weed I’d accidentally stolen from him.

  Things were not going well. But I’d rather take a crappy short-order cook’s job than get another handout from my mother.

  I deleted the message and went back to sorting through my list of farmers.

  There was one farm in particular that I avoided for several days to give my hormones a break. But that didn’t mean I hadn’t thought about Griff. As I explored Vermont’s gravel roads, it was hard to think of anyone else.

  And why was that?

  He and I had chemistry and a thin past. Twice now our intense attraction had gotten the better of us. Each time, though, there were extenuating circumstances. Back in college, he’d been my rebound guy. When the cheating scumbag known as Bryce had broken my heart, I’d felt it deeply. When I’d called him out for hooking up behind my back, he’d said some hurtful things. He’d called me a “stupid little rich bitch” and “uptight,” too.

  I was not uptight! An uptight girl would not have given Bryce a blowjob while he Skyped with his parents. Demanding that my boyfriend be loyal did not make me uptight, damn it.

  When I’d shown up at a party at his frat, I’d hoped Bryce would see me. I’d wanted him to watch me pick up someone else and go home with him.

  As it happened, Bryce didn’t show that night. But I forgot to care. Griffin had been there, his eyes on me from the moment I walked in. He’d made me feel beautiful at a moment when I’d been feeling like a cast-off. My night with him had been so hot that I’d gone back for seconds a week later.

  But then doubt had set in, especially when I’d told my mother that Bryce and I were through. “You can’t trust a man, Audrey,” she’d said for the hundredth time. “They want sex, and they want freedom. That’s how they’re wired.”

  My mother wasn’t a warm person, and she wasn’t a nice person. She was sharp as a chef’s knife right off the whetstone, though. And I’d believed her warning about men.

  When Griff had invited me to dinner after our second tryst, I’d hesitated. He’d been a senior and a football star. He’d pegged me as an easy lay. Which I obviously was.

  Trusting another man not to use me wasn’t something I was ready to do. I never called him back or saw him again—until last month.

  On Tuesday I drove back to the Shipley farm. My brief hiatus from seeing him didn’t stop my tongue from hanging out as I parked in front of the cider house. Griff and his boys were all out there shirtless stacking crates of apples. It was apples, bulging biceps and rippling pecs as far as the eye could see. Zach was the only one who dove for a shirt when I got out of the car. Jude—who was heavily tattooed—ignored me. Kyle actually flexed, then gave me a wink. Showoff.

  And I don’t even know what Griff did, because I was trying so hard not to stare at his eight-pack and the happy trial running down toward his…

  Crap. I was a terrible businesswoman. Mentally undressing your vendor was definitely a no-no.

  “Afternoon,” Griff rumbled. “How’s business?”

  “Not bad. I bought a lot of fennel today.”

  “That’s fenntastic,” he quipped, wiping sweat off his forehead.

  “Omigod. You did have your sense of humor surgically removed, didn’t you? Did it leave a scar?”

  Kyle snorted. “Are we done here?” he asked Griff. “It’s almost lunchtime.”

  My eyes tracked toward the farmhouse. I was always looking for an excuse to visit the Shipley kitchen.

  Griff looked at his watch. “In half an hour. Can you kids paint the sticky traps in the Cortland rows?”

  “Yes, O great one,” Kyle said.

  Griff led me into the cider house. “What’s shakin?” he asked, walking over to one of his tanks. He put a hand on its shiny metal side.

  “I need to talk about cider. How much, and how many bottles.”

  He put his ear against the tank. “Hear that?”

  Alone with a half-naked Griff, I put my ear against the tank to humor him. At first I didn’t hear a thing. But then there was a gurgle. And another one. It was as if I’d pressed my ear against the belly of a great beast who was digesting his dinner. “What is that?”

  “The sound of yeast converting sugar into alcohol. The sound of fermentation.”

  “The sound of money falling into your pocket.”

  He cocked a great, bushy eyebrow. “Is it? I gotta tell you—I’m really on the fence about doing business with BPG. I don’t trust them. And I never do business with people I don’t trust.”

  Sigh. “You’re very principled, Griff. Ask anyone. But if BPG pays you a reasonable price, why wouldn’t you sell? It could be really good for your business.”

  He stroked his beard. “What are they offering?”

  “Six bucks a bottle. But I don’t know if that’s reasonable. I need to hear it from you.”

  Griff faced me. “For how much?”

  Crap. I should have known that, right? “They didn’t say.”

  He was quiet for a moment. “Listen, seven bucks is a comfortable price for me. But I could get down to six if I absolutely had to. The size is a little tricky. I can only give you a thousand out of last year’s vintage. That’s not much. But my new stuff will start shipping in…” He looked up at the ceiling beams. “December. You could have everything that’s ready before New Years. I’d have to put in two more tanks, but if I did, I could produce up to six thousand bottles for you.
That’s two hundred fifty cases.”

  “Do you want to, though?” Putting in extra tanks sounded like a big deal.

  “I absolutely do.” He stared me down with those serious eyes, the ones that always took my breath away. “An order from BPG could get me halfway to where I need to go. Is this really gonna happen?”

  It was. But I didn’t want to tell him until I had my boss’s word. “Let me go call them.” I turned and trotted for the door.

  “Wait!” he called. “Aren’t you staying for lunch?”

  The offer surprised me so much that I turned to check his face to see if he was serious. And it was hard to say, because his expression was as cautious as ever. I took one more hit off the yummy sight of him—one big hand on his cider tank, the other at his trim hip—and then I gave him a quick excuse and got the heck out of there.

  Back in my motel room, before I picked up the phone to negotiate with my overlords, I asked myself a question. WWMBMD? What Would My Bitchy Mom Do?

  She and I never got along, but the woman knew how to drive a hard bargain. You couldn’t live in her house for twenty years and not learn a thing or two.

  “Seven dollars a bottle,” I told Burton Jr. over the phone. “You tasted it last month. Your sommeliers are going to love this bottle. You can mark it up to twenty-four bucks because there’s a lot of story here. The same Vermont family has been making this cider in small batches for four generations.” I was pretty sure that was true. “You should see this hilltop orchard. Twenty-thousand apple trees, and not just the usual picks. It’s all heirloom fruit, and they have such pretty wooden fermentation barrels…”

  “Hmm.”

  “You’ll make a good mark-up, and it’s still cheaper for the customer than a bottle of wine. Everybody wins.”

  “Well…”

  I held my breath in the silence. This was my third call to BPG. I’d been working on the guy all afternoon. Come on, Burton.

  “Will he make us a special label with our name on it?”

  I closed my eyes and tried to guess what Griff would say about that. He wouldn’t mind, right? “I think so. But you have to give him final approval, so everyone is happy with the branding.”