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

by Rebecca M. Avery

  For the billionth time, Mia closed her eyes and reminded herself she needed to focus on herself. On Pruitt Farm. On what was really important.

  Of course, that just made her glance over at Dell again. She hadn’t caught him looking at her once.

  “All right, Mia. Ready for BOTS?”

  Mia frowned over at Val. “BOTS?”

  “Battle of the sexes. Today it’s who can hull the most strawberries in a minute. We’re going to try to balance out the events each week. I hate to come off sexist, but I think it’s pretty obvious Dell would win just about every physical event. And we want there to be some suspense. I tell you what, this battle of the sexes thing was genius. Just genius. We’ve had an increase in customers and earnings each week.”

  Val led Mia over to the little tent where they’d set up two chairs and two cartons of strawberries. Mia squinted over at Dell’s booth, but didn’t see him.

  “You know, I heard a funny little rumor.” Val’s voice was low, conspiratorial.

  “Yeah?”

  “Someone said they saw you and Dell kissing.”

  “That is a funny little rumor.” Mia took her seat.

  Dell sat next to her. He didn’t smile. “Got quite a line over at your booth.”

  She glanced at her booth, then at his. Yeah, she was winning. It didn’t feel good at all. “It’s one week, Dell.”

  “For you.”

  Mia leaned closer so she could whisper while Farrah and Val set up. “So you’re pissed I’m earning more money than you?”

  He scratched a hand through his hair. “No. I’m not pissed.” He leaned back in the chair. “I’m not pissed at you. I’m just…pissed.”

  “I’m sorry.” And she was. She didn’t want him to lose his farm. But she’d done all the helping she could afford to do. Had to remember that.

  He glanced at her then. “Me too.”

  She got the uncomfortable feeling he didn’t just mean about the farm stuff.

  Val started talking to the crowd in her bullhorn. Farrah handed them knives. When Val shouted go, Mia methodically hulled the strawberries without much thought.

  Val and Farrah counted, then pronounced Mia the winner, and the crowd that had gathered clapped enthusiastically.

  Not one second of it gave her any pleasure.

  “Of course you’re going to win the girly activities.” Dell didn’t say it with any humor.

  “Don’t be a sore loser.” Maybe she was overreacting, but she hadn’t done anything wrong. She hadn’t. He didn’t get to make her feel like she had.

  His brows drew together, his mouth turning in to a hard-edged line. “I’m not losing anything.”

  Because she was irritated and apparently stupid, she kept going. “And for what it’s worth, you could probably keep your shirt on at least one damn week.” Her cheeks heated because, hello, that was jealousy talking and she’d never known jealousy to be an attractive trait.

  “Yeah, well you could have not made this guys against girls, because I’m losing customers right and left. So thanks a lot for that.”

  She opened her mouth to apologize. She knew how much each customer mattered to him this year. She knew he hadn’t talked to his dad all week and he could be in serious trouble.

  But, damn it, she couldn’t give up her farm for his. Maybe she wasn’t in as much danger, but what kind of person did it make her if she rolled over just because some guy had had sex with her?

  So she walked back to her booth instead of trying to explain to him or trying to figure out where they were. Didn’t matter.

  If there was anything she prided herself on when it came to the whole waiting-for-sex thing, it was that she’d learned how to be her own person. She’d stopped trying to fit in and she hadn’t sacrificed that for male attention. Ever.

  “You okay?”

  “Fine.” Mia pushed past Cara to get behind the table. She took a long drink out of her water bottle and purposefully did not look at Dell or anywhere near the vicinity of the Morning Sun Farms stand.

  Yup. This was too complicated. Fun till it’s not. Well, this wasn’t fun. Watching him flirt with other women wasn’t fun, and arguing with him over customers wasn’t fun, and feeling like her stomach was tied into a thousand knots was not fun.

  Mia blinked. She was not going to cry. She’d had a quickie affair. Good for her. No sense crying over it.

  Cara squeezed her shoulder and it took everything Mia had not to give in to those tears. Damn it, she didn’t want it to be over. She didn’t want it to be complicated. She took a deep breath and let it out.

  She couldn’t change the fact that Dell’s farm was in trouble any more than she could change the fact that she felt horribly sorry for him. She couldn’t change her jealousy any more than she could change the fact that they were competing for the same damn customers and apparently couldn’t do it without arguing.

  Another breath and she felt a little more in control of the tears. She’d had her fun, now it was time to move on. Dell loved his farm, yes, but she loved hers just as much. Helping a little hadn’t hurt her any, but if she kept things going with him she’d be tempted to help him and hurt herself.

  She couldn’t let her soft heart get in the way of her life.

  Why couldn’t she have realized that before her heart got involved?

  Chapter Seventeen

  Dell slowly climbed into his truck. Mia was already sitting in the passenger seat, staring at the windshield, hands clasped in her lap.

  Way to go, asshole.

  He wasn’t pissed at her. Nothing that had happened today was her fault. Not even the stupid battle of sexes thing, because if he hadn’t egged her on at every turn in the beginning of the season it would have never escalated this far.

  So, he had no idea why not being pissed at her had him acting like he was.

  “Just to clarify, I’m not expecting you to come to dinner tomorrow night or anything. I think I get the picture.”

  “Mia—”

  “No, look, we agreed. Fun till it’s not, and this isn’t fun.” She kept staring at her hands, twisting her fingers together in some intricate pattern.

  No. It wasn’t fun. Being irritated with her over something that wasn’t her fault wasn’t fun. Her having more customers than him today wasn’t fun. Him acting like an ass wasn’t fun. And thinking this might be the end of whatever thing they had going was really, really not fucking fun.

  “I mean, it wasn’t a relationship, anyway, right?”

  He stared at the spot on his steering wheel where the leather had worn away. It had been short, but it sure as hell had felt like a relationship. “I don’t know. Maybe it was.” He gave a passing thought to bashing his head into the steering wheel because he had not meant to say that out loud.

  “Well, anyway.” She gave him a small smile. “Whatever it was, was nice. Really nice. Better than nice.” Her brows drew together. “What I’m trying to say is thank you.”

  “Fuck. Don’t thank me.” Dell scrubbed a hand over his face, then looked over at her. You know what, they’d had a bad day. Not even a bad day. A bad morning. One bad morning. He could fix this. He didn’t have to walk away like some pansy-ass piece of shit.

  He took her hand because…well, because. “What if I said I was sorry?”

  She looked at his hand on hers, then back at his face. “What?”

  “What if I said I was sorry? Sorry for being a dick this morning. I meant what I said. I wasn’t pissed at you, but I know it came off that way. I don’t do pissed well.” Hell, maybe he didn’t do anything well. “The thing is…I don’t want whatever’s going on here to be over.”

  There. Laid it on the line. That would damn well fix it. But then all she said was “oh” and he wasn’t sure. “Do you want it to be over?”

  After a pause, she shook her head.

  His slow exhale sounded a little too relieved, but screw it. Screw every damn thing. “Good. So, we just gotta figure something out. Some way to make thi
s farm stuff not be the source of being shitty to each other.”

  “I wasn’t shitty to you.”

  “The crack about keeping my shirt on wasn’t sweet talk, sugar.”

  She huffed out a breath. “Well, it’s not exactly fun watching women paw all over you.”

  “No one was pawing over me.”

  “Val practically shoved her hands down your pants.”

  “If you’re jealous of a woman a good forty years older than me, you need your head examined.”

  Mia laughed and just like that she was smiling at him, and just like that it softened into less than a smile. She sat back in her seat.

  “Dell, maybe we’re just not right for each other.” Before he could argue, she kept going. “I don’t…I don’t think I can do this.” She visibly swallowed and looked down at her lap. “I’m a soft touch, and if we keep this up and you need something to keep your farm, I’d do just about anything to help. Even if it meant doing something stupid to myself. I can’t trust myself.”

  “You think I’d want that? I don’t want that.” Because her giving something up for him would mean he’d be even more indebted to her. It would mean he’d lost and everyone was right about him not being able to do this. “How about you trust me not to let you do something stupid?” Damn it, why did he feel so desperate? Why couldn’t he let this go?

  Because no one got him like Mia did. No one looked at him like Mia did. And nothing made him feel like Mia did.

  Shit.

  He took a deep breath. “I like…being with you. I don’t want that to stop because we had one crap morning. Just because we’ve got this one little thing complicating it.”

  “Is it really that little? I mean, what happens next week if I have more customers again? Don’t you think this is just going to repeat itself every Saturday?”

  He shrugged. He didn’t really want to think of that. “Every couple fights. What’s once a week?”

  “Dell.”

  “We’ll figure something out. We’re grown adults with two brains between us. Yours being far superior and all. We’ll figure it out.”

  She was silent, a silence that grew so big Dell began to fidget in his seat. Christ, he never fidgeted.

  “But…why figure it out?”

  “Huh?”

  Lines formed in her forehead as she looked at him so seriously that, in another situation, he might smile. “You have a line of women at your disposal every Saturday. Probably more than just Saturdays. What’s so special about me that we’d spend all this time trying to avoid the fact we’re competing?”

  Dell frowned and stared out the windshield. Blue sky and a nursery boasting tomato-plant sales. The problem wasn’t the answer to her question, the problem was voicing it. But she was waiting expectantly, so he had to.

  “I don’t know, Mia. You just…are.”

  When he worked up the courage to look at her, she was staring at the windshield with a baffled kind of smile on her face. Good or bad? He wasn’t sure.

  “That’s sweet.” She met his stare. “You really think we could work something out?”

  “Sure. How hard could it be?”

  “Okay.”

  “Good. So we’re on the same page, then.”

  “I guess so.”

  “And I’m coming to dinner tomorrow.”

  “Okay.”

  “And you’re spending the night tonight.”

  “Oh, am I?” She squinted her disapproval.

  Dell grinned. “Don’t worry, sugar. I’ll talk you into it.” When she grinned back he felt like he’d won the lottery.

  A really complicated and not at all smart lottery.

  * * *

  “Don’t mention alcohol. Or fertilizer. No mention of reality TV or bowling alleys.” Mia ticked off all Mom’s hot buttons.

  “Bowling alleys?”

  “Yes. They attract bad people and they’re dirty. If she asks if you have a gun you can say yes, but make sure you tell her you lock it up and hide the key even if you don’t. And—”

  Dell cut her off with a kiss.

  “And definitely don’t do that in front of her.” Mia looked at her parents’ house from the inside of Dell’s truck cab. Oh, this was stupid. Worst idea ever. Worse even than falling for Dell and letting him talk her into keeping falling for him.

  He patted her leg before shoving his door open. “Relax. What’s the worst that could happen if she doesn’t like me?”

  She sank deeper into the passenger seat. “I could hear about it for the rest of my life.”

  “That seems a bit dramatic.”

  “Welcome to life with my mother.”

  “Don’t be a wuss. Get out of the car, young lady.” He got out, but Mia didn’t. Dell skirted the hood to her side, opened the door and jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “Out.”

  “You can’t make me.”

  He grinned. “Wanna bet?”

  “This is stupid.”

  “You’re telling me. A grown-ass woman pouting about going to dinner with her family. Really stupid.”

  She glared at him. “I am not pouting.”

  “Come on. Let’s go or I’ll call you sugar in front of your mother.”

  “I hate when you call me that.” She hopped down onto the gravel of her parents’ driveway.

  He closed the door, his mouth brushing next to her ear. “Liar.”

  Mia almost smiled, but the dread over the evening won out. “Just be on your best behavior, okay? No grinning or flirting or—”

  “What about stripping naked and going at it right there on the table? I thought that might be a good idea.”

  She squeezed her eyes shut. Okay, she was being crazy. Point taken. “I’m sorry. It’s just…this is a first. Bear with me.”

  “Oh, I’m bearing. Wait till you have to have dinner with my family.”

  Jeez. What were they doing? Going to dinner with families and spending every night together. It was the makings of something real and big and lasting.

  But they’d yet to find any solution for what every Saturday morning would bring. Jealousy. Guilt. Hurt. Doubt. And so on and so on.

  Mia pushed open the front door. She couldn’t figure out the whys of what she was doing with Dell. The only thing she had a handle on was when she was with him, she kept wanting to be.

  And what was the harm in thinking he was right? That they could figure out some way to get around this little sticking point? It was just a farmer’s market, after all. She could almost believe it when she didn’t think about all that it symbolized for each of them.

  “Mia.” Mom wrung her hands. “Dell. So nice of you to come to dinner.”

  “Thanks for having me, Mrs. Pruitt.”

  Mom’s smile looked pained. “Well, we’re all at the table. Come on in.” Mom began walking into the dining room.

  “Are we late?” Dell whispered behind her.

  “No. Dad just tries to eliminate any chance for small talk with strangers.”

  “Seriously?”

  Mia nodded, stepping into the dining room. The table was set, everyone was sitting except her and Dell, and Dad was scowling even more than usual.

  The pit of dread in her stomach knotted itself together and grew heavier. Mia forced a smile and slid into her normal seat next to her father.

  With no preamble, Mom said prayer and then began to pass around dishes of food. Silence reigned.

  Well, shoot.

  Mia looked at Cara, who shrugged. Finally, Anna started talking cows. Dad grunted a few times before Cara tried with a story about yesterday’s battle of the sexes. Mom’s shocked gasp wasn’t exactly scintillating conversation, but it was fairly normal.

  Dell tried and failed, to start conversations, to tell a joke that would get a laugh out of someone besides her.

  He charmed approximately no one, but he tried. He was so sweet for trying. Oh, who cared about the rest of it? This sweet, hot, good guy wanted her. He wanted to be with her. Screw the rest.

&nb
sp; Mia took his hand under the table, squeezed. He smiled at her and squeezed back. Yeah, they could definitely figure out some way to make the farm stuff not get in the way of this.

  “All right…I can’t hold my tongue.” Dad tossed his napkin on his plate, his face red and his voice full of…anger? “What in the hell are you two thinking?”

  “Dad!”

  “Well, it’s just dumb. All there is to it. What possible sense does it make to see a boy who is your direct competition? Mia you’re smarter than this.”

  In her entire life, she couldn’t remember her father ever expressing disapproval with her. Not once. How often had Cara or Anna complained she was Dad’s favorite and got whatever she wanted from him?

  And now he wasn’t just expressing disapproval, there was utter disgust mixed in with the admonition. An admonition voiced in front of everyone.

  “I think it’s time to go,” Mia said softly to Dell, hoping if she was quiet enough the hurt wouldn’t reverberate in her voice. If she stayed, she might cry, and the last thing she was going to do was sit here and cry in front of everyone.

  “You stay. I’ll go.” He squeezed her hand.

  Mia shook her head, unable to look around the silent room. She stood. “I want to go.”

  “All right.” Dell followed her out of the dining room.

  Mia was a little surprised no one followed. Not Mom to worry over something, not Anna trying to smooth things over. No one tried to stop her from leaving.

  Mia stepped outside, swallowing down the lump in her throat.

  Dell slid his arm over her shoulders. “You okay?”

  Since she didn’t trust her voice, she just nodded. Even though it was a lie. They got into the truck and didn’t say anything as Dell drove off Pruitt property.

  Dell pulled onto the road, his finger tapping against his worn steering wheel. “So are you mad at him for saying it, or mad because he’s right?”

  Hit the nail on the head right there. This wasn’t just about how Dad had voiced his opinion; this was about him being one hundred percent right. What was she doing?