After We Fall

by Melanie Harlow

  “Do we all have to be visible?” Brad frowned.

  I shrugged. “Not if you don’t want to be. But I think the whole concept of the family-owned and operated farm is stronger if the whole family is involved. Plus, the name is Valentini Brothers Farm.” I didn’t miss the way they glanced at Jack, but I kept my eyes off him.

  “I like photography,” Brad said. “My daughter Olivia does too. Maybe we could take pictures for the site?”

  I snapped my fingers. “There you go. That’s perfect. Maybe your daughter could even have her own little corner on the website, a blog where she talks about things for kids. Teaches them about eating local and organic.”

  “And easy recipes,” Georgia added. “She likes to cook too. This is great, Margot.”

  Jack cracked his knuckles.

  “Moving on,” I said, this time giving him a pointed stare, “let’s talk about agritourism. A lot of smaller farms are using it to supplement their income.” I explained the concept, and everyone but Jack was excited about it.

  “We can’t do weddings here. We don’t have the space.” Even though what he said was argumentative, it was almost a relief to have him say something and not just sit there bristling.

  “We had your wedding here,” Pete reminded him.

  “That was a one-time thing.”

  “He’s right to be concerned about space, though,” Georgia said. “For his wedding, they rented a tent. Would the client have to do that every time?”

  Jack groaned. “Then we have people trampling everywhere to set up a tent every weekend? Catering trucks? Port-o-johns? No.”

  I tried to help. God knows I didn’t like port-o-johns either. “What about a semi-permanent structure or space dedicated to that purpose? What if you invested in a huge tent that stayed up the whole summer?”

  “We could do that,” Pete enthused, earning a dirty look from Jack. “And we wouldn’t need catering trucks.” He sat up taller in his chair. “We’d want to cater it. But we’d need to get a license.”

  Georgia nodded grimly. “Kitchen inspection. And generally, a home kitchen won’t cut it.”

  I thought for a moment. “When you imagine your farm-to-table restaurant, where is it? Somewhere on the premises?”

  Pete and Georgia looked at each other. “We had this idea at one point,” Pete began cautiously, “about buying the old house across the street. It’s vacant, has been for years. And the property has enough space for a tent, maybe even a barn, for events.”

  “The Oliver place?” Jack sounded shocked. “The roof will cave in on your heads! That place is falling apart.”

  “Old houses have good bones, though,” Brad put in. “That house is solid. I didn’t know you guys were interested in it. My office has the listing.”

  “It’s really just an idea we’re kicking around at this point,” Georgia said. “We can’t afford it right now anyway.”

  “But I can see how it would work,” I said, my mind filling with images of intimate dining tables in high-ceilinged rooms. “You’d have to put in a brand new kitchen, I’m sure, and—”

  “This is ridiculous. Do you know what a new commercial kitchen costs? And that’s on top of the price of the house!” Jack grumped. “And there’s no guarantee people will even want to get married here.”

  “You did,” I pointed out.

  The look he gave me could have cut steel. “That’s because I belong here. It means something to me. Other people want fancy halls with marble and glass, not some tent right next to a barn.”

  “Calm down. It’s worth considering, Jack,” Pete said. “That’s all we’re doing. Considering ideas.”

  “I know what you’re doing. You’re trying to change things around here, make this farm into something it was never intended to be, and you don’t care what I say about it.” He stood, his chair scraping the wood. “So go ahead and make your website and take your pictures or whatever if she’s got you convinced that crap will make a difference, but she knows fuck-all about this farm and this family. She’s been here, what—two days? You can’t just show up somewhere and start messing with people’s lives like that.” He glared at me across the table, and suddenly I knew what this was about.

  “Hey!” Pete stood up too. “Apologize to her, right now. She’s a guest in this house and you have no right to treat her that way.”

  Jack’s face went even darker, and his fists clenched at his sides. His expression was a mixture of anger and shame, but his posture was pure Fuck-You-I-Won’t-Back-Down. No way would he apologize. Instead, he turned around and stomped out, slamming the back door behind him.

  My own temper flared—and I didn’t need a tray of scones to hurl at him, I had plenty of words to use.

  “Excuse me,” I said to everyone at the table. Then I raced out after him.

  “Hey!” I yelled, my heels poking into the grass as I chased him across the lawn. “I want to talk to you!”

  He didn’t even turn around.

  I broke into a run. “I said stop!” Catching up with him as he reached the path through the woods, I yanked on his arm.

  He turned on me angrily, shook off my hand. “I don’t want to talk to you, Margot. Get away from me.”

  “What the hell is your problem?” I demanded.

  His eyes were dark and tortured. “My problem is you, OK? You come in here with your fancy ideas and expensive clothes and shiny hair and big blue eyes and everyone loves you and it’s fucking with me. Everything about you is fucking with me. Just leave me alone.” He turned and took off again.

  “Get back here!” I yelled. “We’re not finished!”

  He didn’t even glance back, just kept marching through the woods toward his cabin.

  Dammit. Dammit! I stifled a scream that threatened to claw its way out of my throat and fisted my hands in my hair. He was so frustrating! So stubborn! So irrational! Why couldn’t he see that his family wasn’t trying to ruin his dream, they were trying to make it better? And I wasn’t trying to fuck with him, I was doing my job. It’s not like coming here had been my idea—they’d hired me!

  And what the hell was that about my eyes and my hair? What did he want me to do, put a bag over my head? I couldn’t help it if he was attracted to me! Did he think I enjoyed being attracted to him any better? Because I didn’t! I wished to God I’d never laid eyes on him! Fuming, I watched him disappear around a bend in the woods.

  Calm down, Margot. Pull yourself together.

  After a few deep breaths, I walked slowly back toward the house, trying to think of a way to explain what I’d just done. Jesus, I was a disaster these days.

  What was going on with me?

  As it turned out, the family members left at the table were twice as mortified as I was, and bent over backward apologizing for Jack’s behavior, assuring me they loved my ideas, and begging me not to take his words to heart.

  I said I was sorry for running out, promised I was OK, and asked them to contact me in a few days, after they’d had a chance to go over everything I’d proposed. “I have some vacation time coming, so I’ll just be parked in a beach chair,” I said, hoping my smile looked genuine.

  Georgia walked me out and insisted on giving me leftovers. “Please, take it,” she said, holding out the plastic container. “I’ll feel better.”

  “You’ve got nothing to feel bad about, Georgia.”

  “I do, though.” She shrugged helplessly. “I went to see Jack last night and pleaded with him to come today. I thought he’d listen with an open mind.”

  “Really?” I could have told you he wouldn’t.

  “Yeah. He’s not always this bad, it’s just…” She sighed, closing her eyes briefly. “I don’t know what it is. Something is going on with him, but he won’t talk about it.”

  “He’s a tough nut to crack, I agree.” And I wasn’t going to waste my time trying. He might look like a grown man on the outside, but he had the temperament of a stubborn brat. “Thanks for the leftovers. Breakfast was de
licious.”

  I went back to the cottage with every intention of changing into my bathing suit, grabbing some sunscreen, a towel, and my book, and sitting in the sand for hours. I’d earned it, hadn’t I? I’d read, I’d swim, I’d relax—what I would not do was waste one more second thinking about Jack Valentini.

  At least, I tried not to think about him.

  I put on the suit, rubbed in the sunscreen, and sat on the towel with my book, but all I did was stare at the same page, cursing his name and letting my anger fester.

  I mean, what an asshole! How dare he treat me that way! How dare he make those shitty remarks after I’d tried so hard to please him yesterday! And after that kiss—which he’d initiated! I’d been doing a good job keeping my hands to myself. This was on him, not me. Tossing my book aside, I crossed my arms and scowled beneath the floppy brim of my sun hat.

  That’s what his problem is. He’s mad at himself, and he’s taking it out on me. This isn’t just about weddings on the farm. This is about him being unable to handle the fact that he’s attracted to me—someone he sees as a spoiled rotten rich city girl who always gets what she wants. And even if he hated all my ideas, that doesn’t give him the right to be rude.

  Even a swim in chilly Lake Huron couldn’t take the hot edge off my anger. That asshole owed me an apology—and he needed to hear what I had to say! Maybe the old Margot would have stayed cool, brushed it off, taken the high road, but she had been replaced of late by New Margot. And New Margot didn’t hold back! She spoke her mind. She threw scones. She stood up for herself.

  So after spending the entire day dying to tell Jack Valentini just what I thought of him (and the entire evening drinking wine and eating leftover French toast casserole), I showered off the sand and sunscreen, threw on some clothes, and stomped through the dark to his house to do just that.

  Fifteen

  Jack

  I was lying on the couch, drowning in misery, when I heard someone approaching the cabin. Immediately on edge, I sat up and listened. My windows were open, and I heard a voice. A female voice.

  It was quiet at first, as if she were muttering to herself, but grew a little louder as she got closer. “…so you can go to hell, asshole. I’ve never been so mad at anyone in my entire life. How dare you say those things to me after what you did yesterday? You should be ashamed of yourself.”

  Margot.

  Was she coming here to tell me off?

  If so, I deserved it. I’d been way out of line this morning. But she had me so fucking worked up—I’d tried so hard to do what I said, look her right in the eye and feel nothing, and I’d failed. Everything about her got to me—the long blond hair, the blue eyes, the fair skin, the pearl necklace, the graceful hands. I couldn’t see her legs beneath the table, but they drove me crazy anyway. Then there were other things, not even physical—the lilt of her voice, the excitement in her smile, the confidence she had in herself and her ideas, the genuine enthusiasm for our farm. Other than a few nervous glances early on, she’d hardly seemed rattled by my presence. And I’d been a fucking mess.

  So I’d taken it out on her, on all of them. Tried to make them feel guilty for distorting my dream, when I knew they were just trying to build on it. But dammit! I didn’t want things to change around here. I didn’t want the farm to be something new and different. I didn’t want to be someone new and different. And Margot, who’d never been told no in her life, didn’t understand what it was like to feel like you were losing control of what mattered to you. None of them did! This wasn’t just about weddings at the farm. It was about everything in my life feeling so slippery all of a sudden. About being unable to hold on to what mattered.

  I sighed, closing my eyes as she drew closer.

  But I shouldn’t have treated her that way. It wasn’t her fault I was so drawn to her. She had no idea that she was part of what was making me feel so unsteady. I owed her an apology, but after that, I needed to stay away from her.

  I opened the door before she even knocked, and her mouth fell open in surprise. I was surprised too—she looked so different. Her hair was wet, and although she wore a flowery summer dress, she had no makeup or jewelry on. My heart knocked against my ribs. She’s so beautiful.

  Beautiful and fucking furious.

  Her mouth snapped shut, her eyes narrowing. “I have something to say to you.”

  “So say it.” I joined her on the porch, shutting the door behind me so the cat didn’t try to get out. I figured I owed it to Margot to let her bitch at me. What could she say that I hadn’t said to myself?

  First, she parked her hands on her hips and then she poked a finger in my chest. “You’re not nice.”

  I almost smiled. “No?”

  “No. I don’t know what you have against me, but I’m not here to make you miserable, I’m here to do a job. And I’m just as sorry about yesterday as you are, but you did not have to be such a jerk to me today.”

  “No, I didn’t. And I’m sorry.”

  “And you—” She blinked at me. “What?”

  “I’m sorry. You’re right. I was a jerk today. You didn’t deserve it.”

  She looked to the side and then back at me. “That’s it? You’re not going to argue with me?”

  “Did you come here looking for a fight?”

  She huffed. “I don’t know. Yes.”

  “Well, there’s nothing to fight about. I was a dick.” I stuck my hands in my pockets and took a small step back. Margot sweet and bubbly in broad daylight was tempting enough—Margot feisty and looking for trouble in the dark was downright dangerous.

  “Why’d you do it?” she asked.

  “That’s hard to explain.”

  “Were you getting me back for spying on you?”

  “No.”

  She chewed her lip for a second. “What about that stuff about my shiny hair and blue eyes fucking with you? What about telling me I’m your problem?”

  “You’re not my problem. That came out wrong.” My problem is the way I feel standing so close to you.

  She didn’t appear convinced. “What about what happened yesterday? In the barn. Are we ever going to talk about that?”

  I shrugged. “It was a mistake.”

  That earned me an eye roll. “No shit.”

  “Then why’d you ask?”

  Her brow furrowed. “I don’t know. Because you confuse me. I never know whether I’m coming or going with you. One minute we’re kissing, the next you’re yelling at me to get out. This morning you’re an asshole, tonight you apologize.” She slapped a hand to her forehead. “I can’t keep up.”

  “You don’t have to. Aren’t you leaving soon?” Please say yes. I can’t go on like this, wanting you this way.

  “In about ten days.”

  Fuck. I wasn’t sure I’d make it.

  Suddenly she clapped her hands over her face. “God, what am I doing here? I must be crazy. You’re a client.” She stepped off the porch and started hurrying down the path away from the cabin.

  “Margot, wait!” I was relieved she was leaving, but I couldn’t let her go alone. “I’ll walk you to your car.”

  “I didn’t drive,” she called, heading into the trees.

  My chest got tight, and I sped up, following her into the dark. “Margot, stop! I’ll drive you back. You shouldn’t walk alone at night.”

  “I’m fine.”

  “Hey.” Catching up to her, I grabbed her elbow and spun her around. “I’m not letting you walk anywhere near that highway in the dark, do you understand me?”

  Just enough moonlight spilled through the tops of the trees that I could see her eyes glitter with angry tears. “Let go of me.”

  “No.” I started trying to drag her back toward the cabin so I could get my keys, but she fought me.

  “Let go of me,” she said through clenched teeth.

  “No!” I roared, gripping her by the upper arms and drawing her in. “I can’t.”

  And without even thinking about i
t, I crushed my mouth to hers.

  She wiggled around in my grasp for a second, and I thought she was still trying to escape, but when I loosened my grip, she threw her arms around me.

  I reached under the bottom of her dress and grabbed the back of her thighs, lifting her right off the ground. She wrapped her legs around me, threading her fingers through my hair, fingernails raking across my scalp. Chills swept down my arms and back. It felt so good to be touched this way again, wanted this way—I’d forgotten how good, and the heat of it ignited a fire inside me that had long been out. She stroked my tongue with hers, kissed my jaw, my forehead, my neck, and my entire body thrummed with the need to be inside her, to be surrounded by the warmth of her desire. It was enough to shut off my brain—all I did was feel.

  Moving off the path, I put her back against a thick tree trunk, pinning her there, pressing the bulge in my jeans between her legs, rocking my hips to rub against her. She used her legs to pull me closer. Minutes flew by as our breathing grew heavier, our bodies more demanding. “Yes,” she whispered. “I want it. I want it.”

  Ten seconds of fumbling around with clothing later, I was sliding into her, my hands beneath her ass, her forearms braced on my shoulders. Her mouth was open, just above mine. “Oh God,” she whimpered as I lowered her onto my cock. “I want it, but don’t know if I can take it.”

  “You’re going to take it,” I told her.

  Her eyes closed as I buried every last inch inside her tight, wet pussy, her head turning to the side. “You’re so big it hurts.”

  “Want me to stop?” Don’t say yes, don’t say yes, don’t say yes.

  Her eyes flew open and she stared me down. “Fuck you. I want this. I don’t even know why I want this so badly, but I do.”

  It was enough for me. Because I needed this—needed to be this close to someone, needed to hear her sighs and moans, needed to feel her heat and softness, needed to release all the tension inside me. I needed it so desperately I couldn’t see straight.

  Pushing her back against the tree again, I drove into her, hard and fast and deep. She cried out at the peak of each thrust so loudly I put a hand over her mouth so that anyone within hearing distance wouldn’t think someone was being attacked by an animal.