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

by Rebecca M. Avery

  He shrugged it off, not sure what to do with her sympathy.

  “You know, it’s not the worst-case scenario.”

  Dell laughed bitterly. “Right. A tornado hasn’t blown us over. Yet.”

  “It’s May. We’ve got time to do a little recovery. The market goes through October and Val’s talking about doing some winter dates. Yeah, it sucks and it’ll kick our ass a little this year, but it’s not the end of the world. We’ll survive. Maybe you won’t have better profits, but—”

  Dell pushed off the couch, stalked the interior of the cabin, which felt entirely too small for him, let alone him and Mia. “I don’t have a year. I have to excel, not survive.”

  “Dell, your dad is a farmer. He understands how weather works. How some years are worse than others. He’s not going to sell out from under you just because you had a rough year.”

  “You don’t have a clue, honey.”

  She was quiet for a minute and when he sneaked a glance at her, her eyes were back on the window or the rain outside it. “I guess you’re right. I was just trying to…”

  She didn’t finish the sentence, but he knew. She was trying to make him feel better. Huh. She was trying to be nice and supportive. Weird how good that felt coming from someone who was supposed to be his enemy.

  “I can’t imagine it,” she said softly. “It’d be like losing a part of myself.”

  Her gaze stayed on the rain-splattered windows. Thunder clapped and she jerked just a bit, her fingers clutched around her phone like it was some kind of anchor in the midst of all the chaos outside.

  Like losing a part of yourself. Yes, that’s exactly what it felt like. Even just the prospect of losing this place. He knew every inch of ground. The swell of the hill, the ancient peeling red of the barn, the way the earth smelled a little different during each season.

  If he lost it, even if he wound up on a farm somewhere else, it would never be the same. A part of him would be lost.

  It made sense she understood. Their childhoods must have been similar, growing up on a family farm, going to the same schools except college. They’d both come back and taken over part of the reins.

  He’d always believed her a foreign object because he’d been popular and she hadn’t. Because he had an ease with people and she had to work at it. She was so freaking smart and he was, well, not so much.

  But they weren’t so different after all, were they? She’d been the geek and he’d been the dumb farm kid who was the life of a party. And their reputations had reduced them down to some simplified version of people they really weren’t.

  He watched Mia watch the storm. She looked sad, but not defeated. Worried, but not devastated.

  Why did that give him some kind of weird hope?

  When he sat down on the couch this time, he didn’t think about keeping a lot of space between them. Instead, he slid right next to her. Mia shifted and blinked a few times. “Um. You’ve got that cold frame, too. So maybe you haven’t lost everything. It might provide shelter and keep some of the rain away. Definitely no hail damage to that stuff. Well, probably.” She went on chattering about all the possibilities. About all the ways he might not be totally fucked. All the ways he could cut costs and still come out a little on top.

  Every single possible chance he had. Dell laughed. Why he found that kind of adorable was beyond him at the moment. He leaned in, invading just a bit of her space. Hell, this day was already screwed, why not really screw it over? When he touched her cheek, she flinched, then her eyes went comically wide.

  “What are you doing?”

  He grinned. “Thinking about kissing you, actually.”

  She pulled her head back even more, holding out her hands like double stop signs. “You can’t kiss me!”

  It was such a strange response to him trying to kiss her, he was almost amused. Refusal he’d expected. Some kind of scathing comment, yup. A sort of weird panic complete with squeaky voice and bug eyes? It was actually kind of cute. “Why not?”

  She opened her mouth, a high-pitched squeaking sound escaping. She blinked at him a few times. “Because.”

  He grinned, liking the way the blush made her skin all kind of rosy. She was…sweet. A nice change from the girls he usually tried to kiss. Well, not tried. He always succeeded. “Because why?”

  “B-because. I…I don’t need a reason!”

  But she wasn’t scurrying away from him. Instead she stayed right there. And after blinking a few more times, some of the panic left her face and she actually looked like maybe she was thinking about it.

  Dell pushed a piece of hair behind her ear, fingertips brushing down the soft skin of her neck. Maybe it was stupid, but she was pretty and thoughtful and funny. It’s not like he had anything else to lose after today. What would be wrong with getting at least some enjoyment out of the evening? “Mia.”

  He liked saying her name. Watching her mouth open a fraction to suck in a breath. Yes, there were nerves there, but she was holding her ground. He’d spent a lot of time in his youth trying to figure out women, and while he didn’t have it down to a science he did know how to recognize interest.

  Mia visibly swallowed, her eyes darting to his mouth and then back to his eyes. “Um.” But she didn’t tell him to back off or screw off, so he bent his head closer, slowly, to give her time if she wanted to bolt. She squirmed a little, but stayed in place, her eyes on his. She didn’t even flinch when he rested his hand behind her neck, when the side of his thigh pressed against her curled-up legs.

  When his mouth was half an inch or so from hers he could hear her sharp intake of breath. Her hands were tightened around her phone in front of her chest and her eyes were still wide.

  But she didn’t move. He went to close the last distance between them, but before he could she squeaked and pulled her head back.

  “I’m a virgin.” She immediately clapped a hand over her mouth, apparently as surprised at blurting it out as he was hearing it.

  Dell pulled back. He couldn’t help it. He swallowed, tried to process the information. Mia was a virgin.

  Well.

  What the hell was he supposed to do about that?

  Chapter Eight

  Mia was five seconds away from running out of Dell’s cabin. Screw the rain. Screw her smashed windshield.

  She’d blurted out she was a virgin like some kind of crazed moron. Would it have killed her to keep her mouth shut and let him kiss her?

  Apparently. She’d done everything in her power to ignore the panic, to let him do it. Because, hell, why not? They were supposed to be enemies and everything, but he was cute and his comment about the farm being in his bones really got to her.

  He wasn’t some idiot doing this because he didn’t know what else to do. He wasn’t screwing with her just to get a few laughs. This farm was the world to him, and she knew what that felt like.

  Dell really did have that depth she’d been a little too drawn to that night at the bar. It wasn’t some ploy or some scam to mess with her. And now…

  And now he was slowly inching his way to the other side of the couch. She couldn’t read his expression, but it didn’t take a mind reader to tell he was freaked.

  And holy moly, why wouldn’t he be? Mia, Queen of the Geeks strikes again. She’d thought she was beyond freaking out the second a guy showed any kind of interest. She’d handled C.J. the other night at the bar. Danced with Dell. That was supposed to be progress.

  Dell had erased it with one “I was thinking about kissing you.” And surely she’d erased any interest he had in her with one crazed “I’m a virgin.”

  Mia covered her face with her hands. “Please for the love of everything holy forget I said that. Pretend the last five minutes didn’t happen. Don’t ever ever bring it up.”

  He was silent. Completely silent. As the seconds ticked by and the embarrassed heat in her neck and face eased, curiosity crept in. What was he doing? What was he thinking? Why had he even tried to kiss her in the first pl
ace?

  Maybe if it had been right after the see-through shirt incident she could understand. She might not have any guy experience, but she knew enough to know that guys liked boobs. Probably didn’t matter much who they belonged to.

  But he hadn’t tried to kiss her then. He’d tried to kiss her when she’d been in his oversized clothes, talking about sad things and—

  “Rain’s letting up.” His weight left the couch. “I’ll drive you home.”

  It was a struggle between mind and body to uncover her hands from her face, but she did it. Her face had to be flaming red, but so what? Being embarrassed wasn’t any more embarrassing than why she was embarrassed.

  What woman blurted out she was a virgin the first time a guy tried to kiss her? Especially if she was twenty-six damn years old.

  Probably the girl who managed to scare guys off before they even got to the I-might-want-to-kiss-you moment. The girl who couldn’t even get guys to look at her like that because she couldn’t shed that high-school reputation. Or who’d worked so hard to be a confident businesswoman that she’d also inadvertently kept herself apart. Head down, no non-business talk engaged, all so damn afraid she’d turn back into who she’d once been.

  Mia forced her legs off the couch. She couldn’t look Dell in the eye. She wasn’t so embarrassed about being a virgin. The information itself couldn’t be that shocking.

  But the delivery…

  Mia stifled a groan. She could not think of a way this day could be any more a failure.

  “I’ll get a bag for your things.”

  He disappeared into the kitchen briefly and returned with a plastic grocery bag. She held her hand out to take it, but he didn’t notice. Instead he picked up the wet ball of clothes next to the door and stuffed them into the bag before handing them to her.

  “Guess your shoes’ll be soaked, but they’d probably be soaked after a walk through the ocean out there, anyway.”

  Mia held the bag limply in one hand. He wasn’t going to address it. He was going to forget it, just like she asked. Pretend it had never happened.

  The relief washed through her so hard she fumbled with her boots. Yes, a little soggy, but she managed to get her feet in and laced.

  When they stepped out onto the porch the rain had fallen off into a steady drizzle and the thunder was only a low, distant roll. Mia snuck a peek at Dell. His face was expressionless as he stepped off the porch and into the puddles along the walk.

  She scurried after him. Part of her wanted to hug him in thanks, but considering she’d blurted out she was a virgin when he tried to kiss her, she’d probably mention she hadn’t been kissed next.

  She had a lot of embarrassing memories, but this one really took the blue ribbon.

  He pulled up the door of the ramshackle garage, then pushed it the rest of the way over. He was so good at pretending nothing had happened, she was beginning to think she’d imagined it.

  He climbed in the driver’s seat of his truck, she clambered her way up into the passenger seat. He backed out of the drive, squelching through mud and rain. He was blissfully silent all the way to the highway.

  He’d drop her off and she’d stay out of his way from here on out. She’d avoid his stand next to their property, never make eye contact at the market, and make sure to send someone else to get her hail-damaged truck.

  This was it. End of the line. No more bickering or bantering with him. No accidental meet-ups at the bar or impromptu visits to his house. Because every time she saw him she’d remember and relive that horrifying embarrassment, and every time he saw her beet-red face he’d remember, too.

  “So, is it like a wait-till-marriage kind of thing?”

  His voice suddenly filling the silence caused her to jump. She put a hand to her racing heart. He hadn’t seriously asked her…

  “Your family’s Catholic, right? So it’s like a church thing?”

  “No,” Mia replied, surprised when her voice didn’t squeak. “No. It’s not.”

  “Okay, so…”

  Mia squeezed her eyes shut. She was not having this conversation. She was not in Dell’s truck. None of the past hour had happened. Not one second of it.

  When she opened her eyes, she was in Dell’s truck, driving through rivulets of water running down the street, the “virgin” issue hanging in the air.

  No dream. No apocalypse. Just the cold reality of her crap way with men. Maybe with enough practice she’d get over that, but for right now her practice meter was at zero. “Look, it just…never happened, okay? Is it really all that surprising? You know me. I have two speeds—major embarrassment or totally invisible. And totally invisible has been preferable to getting laughed at on a date.” Or after a kiss. Or a non-kiss because she blurted she was a virgin.

  “Okay, so you were kind of a geek, and maybe you turned really quiet after you came back from college, but look at you. You’re—” He cleared his throat. “Anyway, the point is…” He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. “Actually, I have no idea what my point is.”

  She almost laughed, but couldn’t make it escape her mouth.

  “So, you’re waiting for the right guy, then?”

  “I wouldn’t mind a few Mr. Wrongs along the way.”

  When he chuckled, Mia bounced her head against the headrest of the seat. Why couldn’t she just shut the hell up?

  She snuck a peek at his face. He kept moving his mouth around. After a few seconds she realized he was trying not to smile.

  “What?” She demanded, not seeing the humor in the situation at all. She hunched in the seat. “Seems only fair I get to have a bit of fun, too, even if I do get a late start.”

  “You’re right. Does seem only fair.” Now he was outright grinning.

  What was wrong with her? Silence would not be the end of the world. Why could her mind never accept that?

  Mia looked in the back seat.

  “What are you looking for?”

  “Tape.”

  “For what?”

  She crossed her arms over her chest and let out an irritated breath. “My mouth.”

  He barked out a laugh. “I tell you what, Mia, you are funny.”

  “Fantastic.”

  “And you have a very nice mouth.”

  She blinked at him a few times before realizing her jaw had dropped. She snapped her mouth shut and looked out the windshield. The rain was down to a sprinkle, the streetlights reflecting on the dark pavement of the street as Dell drove into town.

  Was that flirting? No. No possible way. Not after this bizarre evening. But he had tried to kiss her…

  No. She was absolutely not letting her brain go down that train of thought. Even if he was flirting or complimenting or interested. He wasn’t just a Mr. Wrong, he was a Mr. Embarrassment Waiting to Happen.

  “What street?”

  “Corner of Oak and Willow.”

  A few minutes later and he pulled into the parking space in front of the old house turned into apartments.

  “Thanks.” Mia unbuckled herself as fast as she could.

  “You already get your stuff put up for market tomorrow?”

  Mia stopped halfway out the truck. “Um, yeah.”

  He nodded, staring at the windshield. “Good. Me too. Guess I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  “Sure.” She hopped the rest of the way out, closed the door before her idiot mouth could betray her again.

  She might see him tomorrow, but she was definitely not talking to him. Except for that whole battle of the sexes thing. And getting her truck.

  Crap.

  Dell knew he should push the truck into drive and go, but…

  He watched Mia hurry up the stairs of her apartment. Let it go, man. But how was she going to get to the market without her truck?

  And how was he supposed to figure out what to do with her if she just scurried away?

  Let it go.

  He’d never been very good at listening to the voice inside his head. He pushed out of the
truck and jogged up to the porch. He called her name and she stopped just a hair short of shutting the door completely.

  Slowly, warily, she pulled it back open. “Did I forget something?”

  “No.” No, he had. He’d forgotten his damn mind. “You got a ride to the market tomorrow?”

  She furrowed her brow. “I’m sure I’ll figure something out. Cara’s car is too small, but maybe we can switch with Dad and—”

  “I’ll give you a ride.”

  “Huh?”

  He shifted and looked at his boots. There was some little part of his brain saying the same exact thing. “I’ll give you a ride. There’s room in my truck and we’re going to the same place.”

  Her brows furrowed. “Why would you do that?”

  Because he was a moron, that’s why. “It’s pretty much on my way to Millertown, anyway.”

  “I thought you were trying to put me out of business.”

  He was hugely uncomfortable with that assessment. Anything he’d done or would do wasn’t about her, it was about him. Except this whole offering-her-a-ride thing. That was all idiotic, brain-dead him. “I’m not trying to put you out of business. I’m just trying to keep myself in business.”

  She pursed her lips together, eyeing him suspiciously.

  “Look, if you pay for half the gas I’m actually saving money, which is something I really need to do if everything looks as bad as I think it will in the light of day.”

  Her suspicion eased a little. “I guess it would be sensible.”

  Yup. Totally sensible. Except for the part where he was thinking about kissing her. Thinking about her comments about Mr. Wrong. He could definitely be a Mr. Wrong. He’d had ample practice.

  Fuck.

  Dell scratched a hand through his hair, trying to focus. “Right. So I’ll load myself up in the morning. I can pick you up at six, head over to your farm, load you up. We’re on the road by seven, there by seven-thirty to set up. That way I don’t have to listen to Charlie bitch and moan about getting up at five.”

  Her mouth curved into a small smile. “Guess it saves me from having to be Cara’s alarm clock, which never ends well.”

  He nodded. “Good.” See? Mutually beneficial. Didn’t hurt him to be helpful. In fact, if she paid half the gas, it might actually help him. He wasn’t making a mistake. He was looking out for himself.