Aroused

by Clover Hart

  Aroused

  The ABCs of Love - Book 1

  Clover Hart

  Contents

  Love is in the Dare…

  The ABCs of Cherry Valley

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  The ABCs of Love

  About the Author

  Love is in the Dare…

  About this book

  Cherry Valley is a small town with a big heart, known for its luscious cherries and beautiful sunrises over farmland and ranches. Country girl Mandy Burnett doesn’t want anything about her beloved home to change, either — especially when a couple of big-city businessmen show up, scouting for the perfect place to locate their tech start-up.

  Good luck with that! Mandy’s not about to take the invasion of the nerds lying down, even if she wouldn’t kick one of them outta bed unless she wanted to do it on the floor …

  The minute Zach Hamilton sees Mandy working behind the counter of the Screaming Beans Coffeehouse, he’s a goner. She’s wholesome and appealingly different from the cosmopolitan singles he’s used to, but it seems this straight-talking woman has got some pretty major emotional shields up whenever he’s around.

  But Zach is determined to win Mandy over, and all it’s going to take is a series of dares — a sure way to arouse her interest!

  Yup, it’s all fun and games until flirting turns into something neither of them ever expected …

  The ABCs of Cherry Valley

  According to Abigail Peters

  Hey, I’m Abby, and this blog’s all about my beloved hometown (Hint, hint: amazing cherries, wine, and beautiful sunrises over farmland and ranches)! Everyone says I’ve always been precocious and have never been able to keep my opinions to myself. Now that I’m 21, I’m even worse.

  What-Say-You Wednesday

  It had to happen someday, right?

  Cherry Valley had to be discovered.

  Anyone who’s older and wiser than I am (and there are many) has always told me this simple fact about Cherry Valley: we started off as a one-horse town nestled between the mountains and the plains. Land was farmed, ranches were ranched, and our first movie theater had a balcony, velvet curtains, and a marquee out front that old Mr. Darnell would change by hand every week.

  We stayed like this for a while. Hell, we didn’t even know what a caramel macchiato was until it rather recently moved into town right along with the newcomers who camped out at the emerging coffee shops, ate artisanal tacos, and (Lord have mercy!) shopped at our shiny-new health food store.

  In other words, not so long ago, we were a bunch of small townies, but every year, we’ve grown into bigger townies. We’ve actually been changing for a while, and Cherry Valley newbs have brought a lot to our farm-fresh table. Thank goodness for that, too, because we’ve gone through some tough years, and we need the economic infusion that all these new ideas and small businesses bring. They’ve given us a big old kick in the complacent butts that we’ve been sitting on while watching the world outside go by.

  I know, I know. A lot of you say that there’s a cost to all this — more traffic and less small-town soul. Prices have gone up and the value of being a good neighbor has gone down.

  Big change means that there’s a chance down-to-earth CV might never be the same again.

  And now some of you are saying that things are about to get worse. You see, there’s a small yet up-and-coming tech startup from San Francisco named Full Circle Technologies that has put our town on its shortlist of places to lay down some roots.

  It’s happening. Now. Finally.

  You know me — I’m firmly on the side of progress, but I understand the cons as well as the pros. That’s why I’m inviting you to share them in the comments section. What is the price of progress, Cherry Valley? Or maybe you’d like to sound off about the cost of just allowing our town to rot …

  Whatever your valued opinion is, one fact remains: no matter what happens, you and I will always keep the warm heart of Cherry Valley beating!

  Cherry Dreams and Smiles,

  Abby

  Chapter 1

  Mandy

  Seriously?

  I’m leaning against the service counter at the Screaming Beans Coffeehouse and scanning Abby’s latest blog. This one’s about some adventurous tech nerds who’re checking out my hometown to set up shop here.

  Seriously.

  I roll my eyes and sip from my mug of strong black coffee while scanning my computer screen. The comments on Abby’s site sure aren’t encouraging for Full Circle Technologies — farmers and ranchers are already picking up their pitchforks and torches. I’m pretty sure that, whenever these geeks get to town with their avocado toast and 3D-printed pork pie hats, the old-school folks around here are going to chase their heinies right out of Dodge.

  It’s true that this town has grown and changed, especially recently, but techies?

  Well, if I might say it sweetly — hell, no.

  “Morning, Mandy,” says my latest customer.

  I look up to see Cal sitting down at the bar. As usual, he’ll order some real coffee, unlike those nerds who’ll probably be asking me to make junk such as vanilla lattes with soy add-ons. He’s the local rancher type who wears faded jeans and Carhartt jackets, a guy I went to high school with seven years ago. He’s got a face like a bulldog linebacker who used to roam the football field, and he isn’t exactly the newbie type who belongs in the trendiest coffeehouse in Cherry Valley. But he’s a decent sort who, like most people around here, is looking for a better job than the one he has working on his parents’ spread, and he’s welcome here any day of the week.

  “Morning, Cal.” I immediately go to the pastry case to fetch a to-go slice of the cherry pie that he always orders with his takeout coffee. At the same time, I look around to see that my other customers are content while working on their computers and fiddling around with their phones at their pine tables. Some of them are seated at the counters facing Main Street, illuminated by the bare lights hanging down from our low-beamed ceilings.

  At the other end of the bar, Abby Peters, the blogging wonder herself, adjusts her earbuds and types away on her next post, totally oblivious to the cyber-tempest she’s whipped up after her What-Say-You Wednesday went live a half hour ago. In the light slanting through the windows, her hair is as red as her firecracker nature.

  Cal glances at her and raises his eyebrows at me.

  “You read it?” he asks.

  “Sure did.”

  “She can sure stir it up.”

  “She’s always had that distinct talent.”

  I remember when Abby was a freshman at Cherry Valley High. I’d just graduated and was working on a local farm with big animals, but you bet I heard all about the gangbusters kid who published articles in journalism class that were winning kudos for the school.

  I box up Cal’s pie and set it in front of him. “What did you think of Abby’s post?”

  “What did you think?”

  “Well, I almost feel sorry for the Full Circle Technologies peo
ple who’re eyeballing this place. They have no idea the reception they’re about to get.”

  “From what I saw on Abby’s blog, most people in this town are ready to meet the nerds at the ‘Welcome to Cherry Valley’ sign themselves, but they won’t be carrying baskets of muffins with them.”

  “I don’t know.” I cross my arms over my long-sleeved tee shirt, which boasts a picture of … you guessed it … a screaming bean! “I’m not about to chase these techies back to Silicon Valley or anything, yet I’m skeptical, even if this might be good for us. They could bring in a lot of jobs, and we could use that around here. But …”

  “But?”

  Boy, I wish Cherry Valley guys had more opinions than this. There’re times I’d like a good argument.

  “But,” I say, “I have a feeling this town is going to give these nerds the pea soup treatment from The Exorcist.”

  Cal’s expression doesn’t change. He has no idea what I’m talking about and … really? The freaking Exorcist, scariest movie ever? But before I can say projectile vomit and forceful expectoration of demon fluid and ruin what should’ve been a decent analogy, he’s past it.

  “You just never know,” he says. “I’m skeptical, too, but you might even get a raise here in Screaming Beans. With that tech firm around, more people would come in here to buy all the more expensive, foofier coffees on the menu. Speaking of which …”

  I offer him a sheepish smile. “Oops. Some barista I am, huh?”

  Cal’s smooshed features crinkle into a smile. “Don’t worry. Someday you’re gonna be the town’s best large-animal vet. No coffee experience needed for that.”

  “Thanks, Cal.”

  I turn around and bend down to a box of paper cups on the supply shelf, and when I glance over my shoulder to say something else to him, I see his eyes fixed on …

  Hey, he’s looking at my ass. Really looking.

  And he isn’t stopping.

  I hear a voice from the end of the bar. “Hey, Cal …?”

  I glance over at Abby just in time to see her shaking her head at him in polite chastisement. Behind me, Bad Cal clears his throat.

  Now, truthfully, I believe we all boil down to one thing — animals. We’re evolved ones, to be sure, but the more science classes I take at the community college, the more I agree that the male species has a special mission in life, and that’s to spread his seed.

  The thing is, I don’t want Cal’s seed anywhere near me.

  When I glance at Abby, she’s biting back a smile while tooling around on her computer.

  I pull myself together with all the dignity I can muster and fill Cal’s cup with his usual plain coffee, then pop a lid on it and bring it to him. I am all business as I ring up his purchases at the register.

  He lingers even after he pays me, and I shuffle from one Western harness boot to the other. Everyone around here knows that I’m not one for flings, and I’m too busy for dating nowadays. They never talk about it much, but every time they look at me, I know that they know how, a few years ago, I was thoroughly and publicly romanced and then ditched by a tourist who came through town.

  Left-in-the-Lurch Mandy, I once heard someone say behind my back. Luckily, my sister Penny was with me, and she smacked them but good.

  “Listen, Mandy,” Cal says as he stands there with his pie and coffee in those big rancher hands. “Some buddies and I are going to the Footloose Saloon tonight. Would you …?”

  Oh, crap, first he perused my butt and now he’s asking me out.

  I beat him to the punch. “Gosh, I’ve got classes tomorrow and a bunch of studying to do. Thanks, though.”

  Was that too perky for a dust-off?

  Cal’s shoulders stiffen under his sturdy jacket. He shakes his shaggy head. “I don’t get why you’d take all those boring science classes anyway.”

  As he splits, I want to gently remind him that I’m going to be a veterinarian someday. He even said as much, and I’ve put in a few summers on a local farm sticking my hand up cows’ asses to prove it.

  But from the classes I’m taking now, I also know that foiled courtship attempts by males in nature often result in less enthusiasm for future mating endeavors.

  And that’s why Cal is hoofing it out the door, thank God.

  Down the bar, I see Abby sitting there with her earbuds out, waggling her eyebrows at me.

  “Whoo-whoo,” she says in her playful voice. “Hot times in the Screaming Beans.”

  “Stop it,” I say, going over to her.

  “This is just too good to stop, Mandy. Hey, did I ever tell you that whenever I see Cal, he looks to me like an emoji that’s all scrunched up? You know, like …” She turns her computer around to show me an emoji that looks like >&< .

  “Huh.” I tilt my head, checking it out. “You should display that masterpiece on the campus gallery wall.”

  Abby goes to Cherry Valley Community College, too. Around kids like her, I feel like a bazillion late-bloomer years old.

  She turns her computer back around. “Would it be redundant to mention that Cal has a thing for you?”

  “No, it’d just be unnecessarily mortifying, thank you.”

  “Why? I mean, beyond the fact that every fourth guy who comes in here hits on your supercute self.”

  Maybe Abby has forgotten about my history.

  It doesn’t matter, because … “I’m not interested in Cal. None of the guys in this town really do it for me.”

  “Well, then all you have to do is wait until Full Circle Technologies gets themselves over to Cherry Valley. New opportunities galore.”

  “Hah. Really? Nerds?” And out-of-towners?

  She has forgotten about my track record.

  I grab a rag from under the counter and start to wipe off the pinewood surface. “I know how rah-rah you are about them coming here, but I hope they don’t choose our town. They’ll bring all their snarky city tee shirts and pretentious bullshit with them, and deep down, you know it. We’ll be infected by their evil global empire ambitions, too.”

  “Mandy,” Abby says, leaning her elbow on the counter and propping her chin in her hand. “Just give them a chance, will you?”

  Fat chance of that, I think, as another customer enters Screaming Beans and I turn on my 100 percent small-town smile.

  Chapter 2

  Zach

  I can’t remember the last time I landed at an airport small enough to have me climbing out of a plane on a stairway and then going to pick up my luggage from a sad pile on the asphalt.

  That’s because I’ve never fucking done it before. Don’t get me wrong — it’s not like my business partner Barry and I have been dropped into the middle of a video game wasteland where we’ll need to scavenge for our next decent meal or maybe even some electricity. But I’m already thinking that Cherry Valley might not be what I thought it’d be.

  As I pull my luggage from the other bags and sling the strap of my laptop case over my shoulder, Barry looks at the mountains behind us. Then he gives a sarcastic nod.

  “I love the smell of cow shit in the morning.”

  I don’t comment while he makes quick work of yanking his own baggage from the pile. A few fellow passengers stare at him, but he just stands there looming over them as they shrug and head for the shoebox of a terminal straight ahead. Now, Barry doesn’t just loom because he’s a head taller than everyone here except for me. I’ve known him since we went to Stanford together, and with his dark hair and all-seeing eyes, he’s every bit the standout, smartass New Yorker he was when I first met him. He’s even wearing a graphic tee with a damned picture of Pizza Rat under his sport coat, and I know that he’s just daring someone from Cherry Valley to be the first to ask what the hell that’s about.

  Long story.

  When I see an elderly farmer man checking out my own shirt underneath my field jacket — a tee featuring the Rebel Alliance symbol from Battlefront — I remind myself that first impressions are the only impressions, and I grin apologe
tically at him for Barry’s big mouth. He leaves us with a perplexed look.

  Barry, the dick, only glares at me.

  I mutter, “Good start, Aaronson. Will you be insulting someone’s daughter next?”

  “Only if she smells like Cherry Valley seems to.”

  “Maybe you just need your sense of smell fixed. That’s not cow shit you’re getting wind of — it’s something new and exciting called fresh air.”

  He gives me an excuse-the-hell-out-of-me look. “I see. Next you’re going to tell me that those plane stairs we just lumbered down are the latest in jetway innovations. And, damn, just look at this state-of-the-art baggage claim area!” He gestures toward the now-empty spot where our luggage was piled. “Hamilton, I’m telling you, if this place is as podunk as I’m beginning to think it is …”

  “It’ll be fine.” I start walking.

  “Maybe we have different definitions of ‘fine,’” Barry says, matching me stride for stride. “Because tell me again — why the fuck are we here?”