“This could take you in a totally new direction. A profitable direction. Maybe at first it could be a sideline that helped the bottom line, but I’ve tasted your food. You could reimagine Hooper Farm, shift the emphasis to your recipes, your cooking.”
“They aren’t my recipes. They’re from friends and neighbors, so they’re their recipes. And my cooking is nothing special.”
“It is. And we can work out the rights to the recipes. Actually, that could be good, helping other people in the area when you start selling.”
He clicked to another photo.
The barn, looking stalwart instead of worn, Grandy in profile almost achieving noble. Winter fields framed by a front porch post.
Her.
In the kitchen. Having just chopped an onion, reaching for a pot with one hand, scooping the onion with the other.
It looked … elegant, graceful. Nothing like her at all.
She pushed her chair to the side so she could see his eyes. Yes, there was the same light of enthusiasm she’d heard in his voice.
“Quince, these photos are … amazing and gorgeous.”
“Thanks, but a pro could—”
“Not possibly do what you’ve done. You’ve caught the heart of Hooper Farm here. And I can see you’ve done a lot of work on this.”
“But?” he said with a faint smile.
She shook her head, not finding words.
“What part of the idea don’t you like?” he asked.
“All of it. Reimagining Hooper Farm into something else. Shifting the focus from farming.”
She expected him to deflate at that. Instead, he looked interested.
“Really? But you like cooking and—”
“I don’t. Not particularly. I’d rather be driving the tractor. But Everett needs good meals and I like eating, too, so I do it. It’s a lot of work, a lot of preparation for a short time while people enjoy it and then it’s straight into cleanup.”
“Sounds like farming to me.”
Her mouth twisted with a dry grin. He had a point.
“Maybe. But this—” She gestured toward the screen. “—isn’t me.”
“I had a feeling featuring you wouldn’t go over big, but it needs the warmth of a person and Everett isn’t going to make anyone want to buy oatmeal. You’re perfect.”
She shook her head again. “It isn’t what I want to do. It isn’t who I want to be. I’m a farmer. A crop farmer. I don’t want to be a market farmer and I sure don’t want to become a food manufacturer.”
“Homemade food producer,” he substituted. “I’m not saying give up corn or soybeans, but I know you give the oatmeal you grow to people in town. Why not grow more and sell it?”
“Sell it?”
“Yeah. You know, make a little profit. You should have charged Vanessa and the others.”
She shook her head. “I don’t want to charge my friends.”
“You do for bookkeeping.”
“That’s different. Besides, I don’t want to grow oats.” Even if she did, the time to learn the trade and establish a business? Hooper Farm didn’t have that kind of time. “More specifically, I don’t want to market oats. I’m a corn and soybean farmer. But I would like copies of these photos if you don’t mind.”
“Sure.”
He didn’t sound crushed. Not at all.
“And, uh, thank you. For trying to help. I’m sorry—”
“Don’t be. I don’t want you doing something you don’t want to do. But don’t count me out.”
*
For the past few days Anne had been almost solicitous of him, as if she wanted to make up for turning down his oatmeal idea.
It was rather sweet.
Especially since he was used to Zeke’s brusque “No” to the vast majority of his ideas.
He decided to take advantage of it.
“How about getting out of here and coming to the high school basketball game and then to Zeke and Darcie’s tonight?”
She shook her head. “Taxes. Everett said he’s going to town for dinner and if you’re gone, too, that means the whole evening to work on them.”
“Thought you’d finished.”
“Ours. I’m doing taxes for several other farms.”
“Do you charge them?”
“Most of the people pay me something.”
“In other words, you don’t charge. Even as tight as your budget is—”
“None of them are flush, either.”
“—and you stay locked up here working all the time instead of getting out and seeing people.”
“That’s—” She snapped her mouth closed. Something came across her face then. Something that made him oddly uneasy. She looked directly at him and said, “And what about you?”
“What about me?”
“You’ve been hiding out here.”
Blindsided. Completely blindsided.
Still, he produced a grin “Have you been talking to Vanessa?”
“Vanessa? No. What—? No, you’re not going to detour this. You get everybody else to talk about themselves, but you hang back, in the shadows.”
He leaned away, letting his lids drop lower. “Do I?”
“Oh, yes, you do. I bet you got away with all sorts of things like that at Zeke-Tech, specifically with Zeke and Vanessa, who don’t — didn’t—”
His lids flickered at her change of tense.
“—pay attention to people issues. So you’ve been able to hide out all these years not dealing with people.”
“Not dealing with people? Do you have any idea how many people a day I—”
“Strangers.” She waved her hand, grandly negating every one of them. “Or people you supervise. Nobody who’d ask you questions, poke, prod, and hold up a mirror to you.”
“Like I’ve done to you?” he asked with mild wryness.
“Exactly.” Her momentary triumph faded as he watched her absorb that. But she rallied. “Exactly as you’ve done with me. Which has been annoying and painful and helpful, all of which—” She looked up at him, eyes narrowed. “Ah, yes, how convenient — has kept me on the defensive, putting up barriers, and not asking you questions. That stops now.”
“So, what do you want to ask?”
“Who was she?”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
“She? At least half of the people I encounter are females, so—”
Anne took the plunge. “The one you don’t talk about.”
“How can I talk about someone when I don’t know who you mean?”
“You do know. You just don’t want anyone else to know.” She studied him. “But Zeke knows, doesn’t he? That’s why you’re afraid of Darcie.”
He shook his head in would-be bemusement. “Afraid of Darcie? She’s the best thing that ever happened to my best friend. Not to mention that she keeps him otherwise occupied enough that he’s not working me and the rest of his staff toward a very early grave.”
“Oh, yeah, you’re grateful, but you’re also afraid of her. Don’t try to deny it. I’ve seen how you react. It’s— Oh. Of course, that’s why you wouldn’t stay in the apartment they offered you. It would have been perfect from a practical standpoint. You would have been right there whenever Zeke needed you.”
“Now you sound like him. And as I told him, being constantly available is not a selling point to me. That’s why I declined their offer of the apartment.”
“Like you can’t handle Zeke,” she scoffed. “But Darcie, Darcie’s a different matter. Because she knows people. She pays attention to them. She figures out what makes them tick. And what they’re hiding. And you’re afraid she’d have you taken apart before you knew it. Especially if she has the head start of knowing about the woman you won’t talk about.”
He straightened, smiling his sophisticated smile. “I never knew farmers could have such vivid imaginations. Thought you were grounded in the realities of nature.”
Why hadn’t she noticed before how much sorrow there was behind that
smile?
He kept talking, smooth and calm. “I’m going upstairs now to connect with some of those people you said I try to hide out from. If I can get in twenty or so emails before dinner, I’ll only have half as many to deal with after dinner.”
As if emails were the point.
He’d reached the door when she spoke again.
“Quince.”
He paused. For a moment she thought that was all she’d get, but then he turned his head, still with that smile. His brows raised slightly.
“You’ve had it all your own way up to now. Asking all the questions. Not anymore.”
*
The sparkle in Anne’s eyes these past days warmed Quince’s heart.
And made his blood run cold.
She was a woman on a mission.
Okay, she was always a woman on a mission — Hooper Farm.
But now some of the zeal had been turned on him.
Not that she flirted with him or in any way invited carnal thoughts. Those didn’t need an invitation. They walked right in and took over on their own.
No denying he’d been attracted to her from the start.
Was it the bout of would-be stealth crying that had done it? Or had it started as soon as he saw that mouth meant to smile and the wearied eyes so far from a smile?
Either way, it was there.
He’d wanted to put his arms around her and tuck her head under his chin and hold her, letting nothing hurt her ever again.
Now she glinted looks at him filled with challenge and intelligence and he wanted…
Oh, hell, yes, he wanted. To be inside her. To make her gasp and tremble. To explore each other until their lungs and muscles demanded that pause when you melted against the other person, and breathing together was all you had left in you.
He was in trouble.
And he had no one but himself to blame.
He’d pushed Zeke to come back to Drago. He’d welcomed his relationship with Darcie. He’d encouraged the connections both Zeke and Vanessa had created between Zeke-Tech and the town. He’d set up the whole scenario that led to his spending so much time in Drago.
Then he’d rented a room in this farmhouse.
And when he’d recognized his attraction to her instead of leaving, he’d dug in deeper.
He’d told himself the farm was a problem he could solve and he liked to solve problems.
Since she was part of the farm, he’d needed to understand her to solve the problem.
Right. That’s what he’d told himself.
Now, she’d turned around and was looking back at him, taking up the challenge he hadn’t known he’d issued.
*
Quince had a strategy in arriving late at Darcie and Zeke’s.
They’d started these get-togethers as buffet dinners after Drago High School’s home football games in the fall. Since the change to basketball season with more frequent games, they weren’t officially dinners (though the amount of food didn’t change) and they were after every home game.
The guest list represented Zeke-Tech and various elements of Drago, and changed each time, except for a core group of Zeke and Darcie’s friends.
That was why Quince came late. The core group of friends.
He’d seen growing curiosity in Jennifer and Vanessa. Worse, he’d seen it in Darcie.
He stepped in, pushed along by the wind at his back, and spotted Darcie to his right. He moved left.
He needn’t have bothered.
Zeke grabbed him by the arm, leading him into a small room off the kitchen, closing the door after them. It was a good thing a light came on automatically because Zeke seemed too focused to be bothered with finding a switch.
“Is this… Did you just drag me into the pantry, Zeke?”
“I guess. I want to talk to you. Alone.”
“I never would have guessed.”
“Did you know Everett used to play chess with my father?”
“Chess? No. I know he plays poker.”
Zeke waved that off. “Of course you know that, you’re part of the poker game. But it was chess he played with Dad.” He leaned back against shelves of canned goods. “You know, it’s strange. I used to ride my bike out to that farm as a kid. When something was bothering me. Get up real early and ride and ride and ride. It seemed like it was the edge of forever. And I’d sit on top of a fence out by this field — you can’t even really see the buildings from there. Just fields and trees. Space and sky.”
Leaving his friend to his thoughts — and knowing that could last a while — Quince unfolded a step stool and sat.
“Wasn’t until this spring when I went out there that I found out Everett had known about me showing up back then. It’s his favorite spot, too, and we watched the sun come up together a couple times this spring…. But you know, he never once showed himself when I was kid. I wonder if he told Dad he saw me out there. Seventeen years they played chess, were friends — and I never knew.”
He shook his head. His elbow connected with a can of peaches and he pushed off from the shelves.
He followed Quince’s lead with another step stool before continuing. “You know Everett Hooper was the first one to help us get data for the optimum market program for truck farmers around here?”
Quince frowned. “But the Hoopers aren’t truck farming.”
“That’s right. But he helped us anyhow. And he got other farmers around to cooperate.” A smile flickered on Zeke’s face. “Even though he doesn’t trust computers.”
“Yeah, I’ve heard that rant. He can be quite eloquent on the topic — and other topics — when he gets wound up.”
Zeke looked at him. “What’s the problem out there at Hooper Farm? Everett seems worried.”
Quince wasn’t going to air their business. Before he could form an answer that didn’t tell that truth, Zeke added, “Something happening between you and Anne Hooper?”
It took him completely by surprise, so he was a beat late with his answer. But it was firm. “No.”
Zeke studied him, and Quince held still under the look.
This was the price he paid for having his best friend be happy.
His two best friends.
Since Zeke had found Darcie again and Vanessa had connected with Josh, they paid entirely too much attention to his emotional life.
It wasn’t comfortable — neither of them was subtle — and given a choice, he’d prefer they didn’t.
But what kind of friend would he be if he griped about bearing a little discomfort when both had blossomed in the past year?
“Why not?” Zeke finally asked.
“Sometimes it just doesn’t happen.”
“Because you don’t like her?”
Quince spread his hands. “Appreciate your faith in me, but something doesn’t always happen with every woman I like.”
“I suppose not, but why not this particular one?” Zeke had that going-to-pursue-this-question-until-I’ve-wrestled-it-to-the-ground tone.
Quince tried not to groan. “First, she’s nearly as against the idea as Everett is.”
“Really?”
“Really. Whatever Vanessa says about Mr. Smooth—”
“Who’s Mr. Smooth?”
Right this moment, Mr. Smooth was an idiot. Why on earth had he let that slip?
Quince calculated that the odds were better than even that Zeke would forget the whole thing if he ignored the question. “Women don’t fall for me the way some people think.”
“I didn’t mean her — I meant Everett. I can see why she might not be interested—”
“Thanks,” he muttered, his mouth quirking.
“—but I could have sworn Everett viewed the whole thing as a joke when you first went there and Anne mistook you for another of his suggested suitors. So—”
“How do you know about that?”
“Welcome to Drago,” Zeke said darkly, then continued as if there’d been no break in his words. “—what makes him take it seriously
enough now to not like it?”
Quince looked focused on a container of rice.
“Doesn’t matter,” he lied. “Because I’m not in the market for anything happening, as you put it.”
Zeke tapped his closed fist on the shelf next to him as he nodded, “That’s exactly my point.”
“You’ve lost me.”
“Why not? That’s what I asked before — why isn’t something happening between the two of you. You thought I meant Anne, but what about you? She’s a real nice woman. Pretty, too. And smart. So, why aren’t you in the market?”
“Zeke, you’ve found Darcie, and that’s terrific. But you’ve got to stop thinking everybody’s going to pair up like—”
“Like Jennifer and Trent? Or Vanessa and Josh? Especially Vanessa and Josh.” His smile was smug, definitely smug.
“You can’t tell me you’re taking credit for Vanessa and—”
Smug evaporated. “No. I just wanted her to — what’s Warren say? — get a life. She was working all the time.”
“Weren’t we all,” he murmured. “That’s why we’re grateful Darcie came into your life — so you had less time to keep us working.”
“Except for Vanessa. She didn’t like it. Not until I told her she had to come here and build the computer lab.”
“Who told her?”
Zeke didn’t like telling people what to do — unless it had to do with one of his innovations, then, watch out. But telling Vanessa he wanted her to be in Drago more than she’d planned? That he’d decided was Quince’s job.
“Uh, okay. You told her. But I told you to tell her.”
“Yeah, thanks for that.”
“Hey, she’s happy now, isn’t she?”
“I guess she is.”
“So she should thank us both. And— wait a minute. You’re trying to change the subject. She said you do that.”
“Right now the subject is what Darcie’s going to think about you disappearing for this long.”
“Oh, that’s okay. She’ll understand.”
“And what’s going on out there. Sounds like a riot.”
That was an exaggeration, but the volume of voices had risen. Enough so that even Zeke wondered about it and followed him out when he opened the pantry door.
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