Harlequin E Contemporary Romance Box Set Volume 2: Maid to CraveAll I HaveThe Last First DateLight My Fire

by Rebecca M. Avery

  First, let me say thank you to Malle Vallik and the Harlequin E team for making use of my favorite word, “Yes.” This may be my twenty-sixth publication, but Malle was my very first phone call from an editor or publisher. Though I am a fan of email and the digital age in general, I have to admit it was absolutely thrilling to hear her say they loved my story and wanted to share it with the world. I still get giddy just thinking about it.

  Extra special thanks to Angela James and the editorial committee at Carina Press for not simply passing on this story, but for passing it on to Malle and her team. They truly went above and beyond.

  This book would not be in your hands if it weren’t for the enthusiasm of my incredible editor, Deb Nemeth. She has the uncanny ability to make everything tighter and sharper without losing one ounce of sweetness. If that’s not a cape-worthy superpower, I don’t know what is. I feel so lucky to be able to work with her.

  To date, I have yet to write one word for publication without the world’s best, most enthusiastic and, yes, awesomiest critique partner, Julie Doner, by my side. I hope I never have to. If you can’t tell, I think she’s superlative in every way.

  I am unbelievably lucky in so many ways, but one of my greatest joys is the existence of a small-but-vocal tribe of women we call the Super Cool Party People. Without these breathtakingly supportive friends behind me, in front of me, on top of me and sometimes in my head, I’d be utterly lost.

  Every day, I thank God for my own unexpected love, Bill—the only hero who could make the improbable story of us so damn right.

  And finally, I want to say thank you to you, dear readers. You awe and humble me. Thank you for letting me share this time with you.

  Chapter One

  “Guh.”

  Mia ran smack-dab into her sister’s back, causing the pallet full of cabbages she was carrying to drop to the ground. Green spheres bounced against concrete and rolled in every direction.

  “Damn it, Cara.”

  “Sorry.” But Cara didn’t move. She stood frozen directly in the path between the truck bed and their stand at the farmer’s market, cabbage strewn about her feet.

  Mia looked where Cara’s gaze was transfixed and groaned. “Is he serious? It’s not even fifty degrees. Can’t he wait for July for that crap?”

  “Who cares?” Cara fanned her face with her hand. “He can take his shirt off any day he wants. And if he gets cold, I will gladly step in to warm him up.”

  Dell and his stupid shirtless antics had put a serious dent in their farmer’s market profits last year. Cara didn’t care, but this wasn’t her full-time job. Mia was the one taking over the farm.

  Dell Wainwright might look like a god among men, but she’d jump around naked in front of everyone before she let him put her out of business. This farmer’s market was the best thing to happen to her share of Pruitt Farms, and to her personally. In the past five years she’d been selling here, she had finally learned how to come out of her shell.

  Yeah, Dell was not screwing that up. Six-pack abs or no six-pack abs. “Stop drooling and pick up the cabbage.” She gave Cara a nudge with her boot. “He’s the enemy, remember?”

  “If the enemy looks like that I’ll gladly turn myself in. What kind of torture are we talking?”

  “Gross.”

  “If you think that’s gross, you need your eyes checked.” Cara flipped her hair over her shoulder and bent down to pick up the cabbage at her feet. Her eyes never left Dell.

  Mia groaned again, but set to unloading the early spring haul onto the table under the Pruitt Farms tent. Meanwhile, Cara made no bones about watching Dell’s every move.

  Cara was always dating or talking about guys she wanted to date or pinning hot celebrity pictures to her Pinterest page. It wasn’t that Mia didn’t appreciate a hot guy, she just didn’t understand obsessing over one.

  Probably because twenty-six-year-old virgins didn’t know what they were missing.

  Mia set up the pallets, the price signs, made sure everything was just so, and maybe on occasion her gaze drifted to Dell and his broad, tanned shoulders as he hauled his own farm’s offerings from truck to table.

  He was still the enemy, but it didn’t mean she couldn’t look.

  “So glad to see you girls back this year,” Val greeted, ever-present clipboard clutched to her chest. “All year, right?”

  “Yes, ma’am. Couldn’t kick us out if you wanted.”

  Val wasn’t looking at her anymore, though. She was drooling over Dell, right along with Cara. Mia resisted the urge to hurl a cabbage across the aisle. Knowing Dell, he’d probably make a big show out of catching it.

  “Uh-huh. Very good. See you next week.” Val wandered off to Dell’s table. In two seconds flat Dell was making her giggle and blush.

  “You can’t stop staring, either.”

  “I’m picturing strangling him.” And if that picture included wondering what his skin might feel like under her hands it was just curiosity, not interest.

  “Hey, whatever floats your boat.”

  A group of women descended on Dell’s table. Usually the first hour of the first week of the market was virtually empty, but today had a bit of a crowd. A mainly female crowd.

  Not fair. What’d he do, advertise? Male stripper does Millertown Farmer’s Market.

  The group of women laughed and Dell made a big production of picking things up and putting things down and flexing and—ugh—he really was despicable.

  “You’re blushing.”

  “I am not!” Damn it. She totally was. Well, she’d come too far to be flustered by a pair of perfectly toned forearms. She was not the little girl who hyperventilated in the bathroom between classes if a boy even said hi to her.

  It had always been a joke, anyway. Say hi to Mia Pruitt and watch her self-destruct into a blushing, babbling mess.

  Dell wasn’t saying hi to her, joke or no joke, and he most certainly wasn’t a boy. He was an adult man and she was an adult woman. A confident, strong woman no longer the laughing stock of her tiny Missouri farming community.

  Every time someone bought a head of broccoli or cabbage from him meant it was a head they weren’t buying from her. So, essentially, he was stealing from her.

  Nobody liked a thief no matter how white their teeth were or how charming their grins might be.

  “You know what?” Mia dropped the cashbox onto the ground next to her chair with a loud crash. “Two can play his little game.”

  Cara laughed. “What does that mean? You going to take your shirt off?”

  “Not exactly.” Mia narrowed her eyes at Dell flirting with a young mom who carried a baby on her hip. Both mom and baby were charmed. Mom bought a bag full of vegetables. Probably wouldn’t eat half of them before they went bad.

  Mia might not have muscles and a five o’clock shadow women swooned over, but surely she could do something to undermine Dell’s sex-sells philosophy.

  If you couldn’t beat ‘em, join ‘em. She wasn’t sure how to join them yet, but she would damn well figure it out before next week.

  * * *

  “Mia’s boring holes through your skull with her eyes. Be afraid. Be very afraid.”

  Dell waved his brother off. “Please. Mia Pruitt is five foot three of all bark and no bite in a baggy sweatshirt.”

  “I don’t know. She takes this farm stuff pretty seriously.” Charlie stacked the last empty pallet on the truck bed. “Wouldn’t want to get in her way. Besides, she’s not bad without the glasses and the frizzy hair. Kind of cute, actually.”

  “I’m not worried about Mia.” Dell pulled on a threadbare Mizzou sweatshirt. “I take my farm stuff pretty seriously, too.” He spared her a glance. Cute was probably the right word for her. With her hair straight instead of a frizz of curls and the heavy-framed glasses gone, she no longer resembled Mia, Queen of the Geeks.

  But in the baggy shirt and at least one-size-too-big jeans, even a sexy mouth and big green eyes couldn’t push her beyond cute.r />
  Charlie laughed. “Yeah, nothing says serious like taking off your shirt and flexing your muscles to sell a few extra cucumbers.”

  “Hey, a true businessman does what he has to do.”

  Charlie shook his head. “Whatever you tell yourself to sleep at night, man.”

  His VP of Sales older brother could sneer at the farm and all that went with it as much as he liked, but with Dad making noises about selling instead of passing the farm on to Dell, Dell knew he had to kick ass this market season. That meant whatever tactics necessary, regardless of Charlie’s approval.

  If that meant taking off his shirt, so be it. A little harmless flirting and a few extra dollars in his pocket wouldn’t hurt anyone, but it’d help him.

  “Can we hurry this up? I’ve got a lunch date with Emily downtown in like an hour.”

  Dell nodded and picked up the pace. Choosing a noisy, bustling dinner at a fancy restaurant downtown over the quiet ease of lunch at Moonrise was beyond him. But then, the things he didn’t understand about his older brother were too many to count.

  Dell folded the awning and was tying it together when a pair of greenish cowboy boots stepped into his vision. He looked up, quirked an eyebrow at Mia.

  “Wainwright.” She was almost a foot shorter than he, so she had to tilt her head back when he stood to his full height.

  He nodded, tipped the brim of his ball cap. “Pruitt.” Maybe he should have worn a Stetson. This felt more like high noon than a friendly greeting.

  “Still stripping to sell a few extra heads of cabbage?” She crossed her arms over her chest, narrowed her eyes at him. “I thought maybe you’d grown up a bit since last year.”

  She had a dusting of light brown freckles across her nose. Kind of weird to notice it now, but then again he’d never spent much time looking at Mia. The girl who’d been the champion of awkward moments in high school, then come back from college quiet and unassuming. Of course, she’d never gotten up in his face and accused him of stripping before.

  Dell grinned. That meant she thought he was a threat. He primed up the charm and the drawl. “Don’t worry, darling. I’m sure there’ll be enough customers to go around. Not everyone is swayed by good looks and charm. Just most people.”

  She didn’t cower. She didn’t walk away. She didn’t even dissolve into the Queen of the Geeks she’d been in high school. No, Mia Pruitt grinned at him—which had to be a first, even if she’d grown out of most of her awkwardness since she’d come back from college.

  “Oh, I’m not worried,” she said. Then she sauntered away with enough confidence that Dell stared after her.

  “Woah.” The saunter. The grin. Even with all her recent changes, he’d never seen that kind of…attitude from Mia before. Was it his imagination, or was it kind of hot?

  Charlie slapped him on the back. “Told you not to cross her. Mia isn’t the girl hiding behind the pony at Kelsey’s birthday party anymore, if you hadn’t noticed.”

  Dell stared after Mia’s swinging hips. Apparently he hadn’t noticed that at all.

  Chapter Two

  “What’s all that about?”

  Dell frowned at the group of giggling women in front of Mia’s stand. This was definitely not the norm. Especially for a forty-degree drizzly Saturday morning. But there were at least ten women with umbrellas and rain boots surrounding Pruitt Farms’s stand, and the laughter kept building.

  “Sneak over and check it out.”

  Charlie rolled his eyes. “Yeah, I’m sure there’s a lot of cutthroat sabotage at the farmer’s market. She stole the secret patent to grow broccoli. Oh. Wait.”

  “Bite me.” Dell pushed Charlie away from the truck. “Stop being useless for once and find out what that’s all about.”

  “I’m not useless. I only waste my Saturday mornings here to keep Mom off my back about karmic payment and family support and blah, blah, blah.”

  “Yeah, well, do some supporting.” Dell shoved Charlie again. With a long, belabored sigh, Charlie walked over to the Pruitt side of the aisle.

  A couple stopped by Dell’s booth, obviously new to the market. Dell chatted them up, trying to keep his head in the game instead of across the aisle.

  The couple left with some radishes and Charlie meandered back to their stand. “So?” Dell prompted.

  Charlie shrugged. “She said check Facebook.”

  “Facebook? Give me your phone.”

  Charlie rolled his eyes. “You even know how to use my phone?”

  No, but did it take a rocket scientist to figure out? When he held out his hand, Charlie slapped the phone into his palm. Dell swiped his thumb across the bottom of the screen then stared. Shit. He didn’t know how to use a damn smart phone. All he saw was a bunch of squares with stock or finance in the title. “How do I get to Facebook?”

  “Give it back, moron.”

  “Just because I don’t know how to use a smart phone doesn’t mean I’m a moron.” Dell handed the phone back to his brother and shoved his hands into his pockets. He wasn’t some dumb farmer. He had his Ag degree from Mizzou.

  But it was no MBA from Wash U in big brother’s eyes. Or Dad’s. No one seemed to want to let him live down the fact he’d been wait-listed, either, all because of his crap-ass standardized test scores. Who cared about those stupid tests, anyway?

  His family, that’s who. Oh, and his girlfriend at the time, who’d dumped him for someone who could “intellectually stimulate” her.

  He hadn’t had a clue what that meant at eighteen. He had even less of a clue what it meant now.

  More giggling echoed across the aisle and Dell hunched his shoulders, glaring at Charlie. “Hurry up.”

  Charlie waved him off. “Nothing on Mia’s page.”

  “Well, what the hell are they laughing at, man?”

  And then Charlie started laughing. Pretty soon he was laughing so hard he was slapping his knee.

  “What the hell?”

  Charlie passed the phone to him and Dell squinted over the Millertown Farmer’s Market page. The last comment was from Mia Pruitt.

  Pruitt Farms has an extra special treat this week, ladies. If you want to see pictures of our intrepid Naked Farmer, Dell Wainwright, in his underwear, do I have the goods for you. Stop by from eight to nine Saturday morning for a peek!

  Dell shoved the phone at his brother so fast Charlie nearly dropped it, but Dell barely registered Charlie’s cursing because he’d already hopped the table and stalked over to the crowd of women. “Pruitt, you’re dead.”

  The giggling didn’t stop, but it did become more hushed as the sea parted, so he was standing face-to-face with Mia, only her table of goods—many of those goods in the bags of the women who normally bought from him—between them.

  “Well, howdy, Dell,” she drawled, flipping closed a family album. Wait a second. His mother’s family album.

  “Where the hell’d you get that?”

  “You look awfully cute in diapers, honey,” Deirdre, one of his regular customers said, giving his arm a pat.

  It took every ounce of salesman in him not to shrug her off or growl at Mia. “Hand it over.” She held it out and he snatched it from her hands.

  “Careful. Your mother will kill you if you tear one of her pictures,” Mia said sweetly. “And Deirdre’s right, you do look awfully cute in nothing but your underwear.”

  He forced himself to grin. “Aw, sugar, don’t be upset just because you’ve never seen me in my underwear.”

  She tried to grab the album back. But Dell was too quick. He flipped through the thick pages. There were indeed pictures of him in his underwear. Of course, he was under the age of eight in every single one of them.

  “I particularly like the bare butt one in cowboy boots. Adorable.” Val pointed to the picture on the upper-left corner. He resisted the urge to slam it shut on her fingers.

  “How did you get this?”

  Mia smiled, flashing perfectly straight teeth. “Some secrets are meant to be kep
t.”

  “Trust me when I say I could get any little secret out of you I wanted.”

  Mia rolled her eyes. “Just because you’re hot doesn’t mean I’m going to—I mean…” Some of her bravado faded as her cheeks went pink. “You can’t charm me.”

  But he kept waiting. Everyone they’d gone to high school with knew the key to unraveling any of Mia’s attempts at social interaction was simply to wait. In silence.

  “Oh, screw you. I got it from Kenzie. Have you forgotten our baby sisters are best friends?”

  Damn it, Kenzie. “I’ll kill her.”

  “You seem really obsessed with killing women today, Dell.” And old Mia was gone, replaced by this surprisingly quick-on-her-feet, good-with-a-comeback version. Even knowing she’d gotten a little bit better with people hadn’t prepared him for that, or the comment that came next.

  “Perhaps you should seek therapy.”

  Dell shoved the album under his arm. “Don’t think this is over.” He pointed his finger at her, ignoring that she looked sexy with her hands on her hips. As he stalked away, Mia’s laughter followed him.

  She was going to pay. Big time.

  * * *

  This time when Mia dropped a pallet full of vegetables, it wasn’t Cara’s fault. Instead, it was the sign under Morning Sun’s stand: Morning Sun Farms. Home of the Naked Farmer.

  The sound coming out of her mouth was somewhere between a screech and a snarl. Then Cara started giggling.

  “Oh, my God. He’s brilliant. Brilliant.”

  “Brilliant?” Mia sucked in a breath, tried to find some center of calm. All she found was more anger. “He’s a glorified stripper!”

  “A brilliant glorified stripper.”

  Mia bent to pick up the scattered radish bunches and cabbage heads. She couldn’t believe he was using the title she’d come up with against her. And he wasn’t even naked! Only half-naked.