Green Mountain Collection 2

by Marie Force

  “Thank you again, Hunter. You’re saving my life in more ways than you know.”

  “Have fun in France. We’ll take care of things here.”

  “I feel much better about going than I did before.”

  “We may even come to visit.”

  “That’d be great. We’d love it.”

  She left him with a wave, and Hunter sat back in his chair, chewing on the end of his pencil and thinking about taking Megan to France. Wouldn’t that be something? He who hadn’t taken a real vacation in years was suddenly coming in late to work—or not coming in at all—“forgetting” to shave and planning a trip overseas. He’d heard about life changing on a dime, but other than Caleb’s tragic death, it had never happened to him.

  Until that first life-changing night with Megan, his routine had been utterly boring and completely predictable, just the way he’d thought he liked it. But she’d made him want more. She made him want to bust out of his staid existence and shake things up like he never had before.

  With that in mind, he left a message for his grandfather detailing the meeting with Nina, sent an e-mail to his father and siblings about the purchase of the diner, shut down his computer, turned off the light on his desk and closed his office door behind him.

  “I’m taking the rest of the day off,” he said to Mary, whose eyes bugged in surprise.

  Before she could formulate a reply, he was headed down the stairs. He burst into the warm autumn sunshine, giving thanks for the clean getaway from the office. Leaving dust in his wake, he pulled out of the parking lot and headed for Megan’s house, hoping he’d find her home but willing to wait for her if she wasn’t there. He’d wait forever for her, if that’s what it took.

  CHAPTER 23

  Finished with work for the day, Megan returned home and went straight for the shower to wash off the stink of onions and peppers that clung to her hair and skin after hours of hustling Butch’s famous fried potatoes. The customers went nuts over them. Megan had grown to hate the smell of them even if she loved the taste.

  Hoping to see Hunter later, she shaved her legs, too. Before he got a chance to touch those freshly shaven legs, however, they would be having a conversation about what he’d said earlier in regard to his plans for the diner once it changed hands.

  If he expected her to be involved going forward, they were going to need to resolve a few things about what she would and would not be party to. The thought took her by surprise. Had she made a decision about staying in Butler, working at the diner and committing fully to her relationship with Hunter? When had that happened?

  Still reeling from the realization, she stepped out of the shower, put her hair up in a towel and put on the cozy robe Nina had given her last Christmas. It wasn’t quite time to put on the heat, but there was a definite chill in the air this time of year. Megan loved autumn in Vermont. She loved the color and the apples and the crisp air and the bright blue skies. The only thing she didn’t love was that it led directly into the long and snowy winter.

  The thought of facing another winter in the Northeast Kingdom had her wondering if she was crazy to stay here when she hated snow so much and could choose to live anywhere in the world now that Nina and Brett were leaving.

  If Hunter hadn’t come into her life the way he had, there’d be nothing at all keeping her in Butler. Except for the customers she saw every day at the diner who’d become family to her and Nina over the years. On Thanksgiving, they prepared a big turkey dinner for the people in town who had nowhere else to go, and the diner was filled to the rafters all day with thankful, happy friends.

  On Christmas, Butch went all out with prime rib and baked stuffed shrimp that made Megan’s mouth water just thinking about how good they were. His honey-baked ham and pineapple on Easter was another of Megan’s favorite meals of the year.

  For the holidays, they broke out fancy white tablecloths and candles on the tables. They spent hours decorating the diner to make it look more like a home than a restaurant. The sisters had taken pride in the role they’d played in the community, never more so than on holidays. They knew all too well how difficult that time of year could be without their parents. The diner patrons had helped to fill the void for them.

  And Butch … He might not have much in the way of personality, but the man could cook like no one she’d ever known, and she would miss him if she didn’t see him every day anymore. What would become of him? Where would he go? He didn’t have anyone to call his own either. Their merry group of misfits had come together in a family that had become important to Megan—and to Nina, who’d spent most of the last few days in tears as customers poured into the diner to wish her well.

  Megan had seen the fear on the faces of the people who’d come by to see Nina. Where would they go every day? What would they do without their diner “family”? What would Megan do without those people when she was already going to be without Nina in her daily life? The thought of moving away from them, away from the town that had always been her home, away from Hunter and whatever might be developing between them, made her feel sad in a way she hadn’t felt since she lost her parents.

  Sure, she’d love to be anywhere that didn’t include six months of snow, but at some point she’d decided she’d rather put up with the snow than leave Butler and all the people who mattered to her.

  Euphoric to have settled on a decision about her immediate future, she went to answer a knock on her door. Expecting to see Nina, she gasped in surprise at the sight of Hunter. “What’re you doing here?”

  “Took the rest of the day off.” His hungry gaze shifted from her face to the V of her robe and then down farther before taking the same slow path back to her eyes. “May I come in?”

  “Sure.” With every nerve ending in her body on fire after his slow perusal, she stepped aside to let him by. “I should go put some clothes on.”

  He reached for her hand to keep her from escaping. “Please don’t.” Drawing her into his embrace, he kissed her. “Hi there.”

  “Hello, yourself.”

  “Am I interrupting anything?”

  “Nope. I just got home and took a shower.” She was thankful she’d had enough time to wash off the onions and peppers before he came by. As usual, he smelled like a high-end department store in New York City and looked like he’d stepped right out of an equally high-end men’s fashion magazine. “I feel underdressed.”

  “I like you that way.” He nuzzled her neck, which dislodged the towel from her hair. “Mmm, you smell so good.”

  “You really left work early to come see me?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  She tilted her head to give him better access to her neck. “Isn’t that sort of out of character for you?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  Knowing he’d stepped so far out of his usual routine because he wanted to spend time with her sent a flutter of giddy happiness straight to her heart, which was already beating faster than usual thanks to his lips on her neck.

  “Hunter?”

  “Hmm?”

  “We need to talk.”

  “Nothing good ever comes of those words.”

  “Please?”

  “Okay.” He withdrew from her neck reluctantly. “What do you want to talk about?”

  “Come sit.” She took his hand, led him to the sofa and sat next to him, curling one leg under her body so she could look at him while they talked.

  “Are you naked under there?”

  “Focus,” she said, amused and aroused by his obvious interest in her.

  “I am focusing. I’m one hundred fifty percent focused on you—all of you.”

  His warm hand caressed her inner thigh, which made her forget all about why she wanted to talk to him. Because she loved the way his hand felt on her leg, she didn’t push him away but had to force herself to focus after lecturing him. “What you said earlier about the changes you want to make at the diner … I want to talk about that.”

  “Okay.”

  “
If you buy the diner—”

  “We are buying the diner. I just met with Nina, and we worked out a deal.”

  “Oh. I hadn’t heard that.”

  “Happened thirty minutes ago. I’m sure she hasn’t gotten the chance to talk to you yet.”

  “Right … Anyway, if I’m going to be part of it—”

  He raised that brow that made him look sexy and rakish. “If?”

  “I want to be part of it, but we need to agree on a few things.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “You can’t raise the prices.”

  “Megan—”

  “Hear me out.” She took a deep breath, trying to keep her emotions out of the mix. “That diner is about so much more than coffee and eggs. It’s about a community. It’s about people who have nowhere else to be on a given day. It’s about widows and widowers who’ve lost the most important person in their lives, but can come to the diner every morning and have coffee and toast with others who understand them. It gives people like your grandfather and his friends a place to ‘check in’ every morning. Not all of his friends have families like yours. If they don’t show up, someone goes to find out why. If you make it too expensive, they won’t be able to afford to come there, and what will become of them?”

  As she spoke, he tucked strands of her damp hair behind her ears and ran his finger over her cheek. Despite the way his touch aroused her, she didn’t allow him to distract her. It was important that he understand her feelings about the diner.

  “You really care about these people, don’t you?”

  “Of course I do! They’re family to me—and to Nina. We take care of them, and they take care of us. If we change what we’re about there, it’ll hurt people who’ve already had enough hurt in their lives.”

  “You make a very compelling argument.”

  “But?”

  “No buts. I hear you, and I agree that raising the prices isn’t the right thing to do in light of what you’ve told me.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes,” he said, smiling widely, “really. Why do you sound so surprised?”

  “I thought you’d put up more of a fight.”

  “Why would I when you make very valid points?”

  “So it’s that simple? No price increases?”

  “It’s not that simple. The diner is operating in the red, which is not sustainable for the long term. Eventually Nina was going to have to do something about that or risk going under.”

  “So what’s the solution?”

  “I don’t know yet, but I bet if we put our heads together we can come up with a plan that works for everyone—us as the owners, you as the management and the customers.”

  “I haven’t yet agreed to be your manager.”

  “I know, and I’m not looking to put any pressure on you. You’ve got some big decisions to make, and I don’t want to make them any more difficult.”

  She glanced down at the hand that sat on her leg like a branding iron. “You don’t?”

  He shook his head. “I want you to be happy, Megan. Whatever that takes, I’m onboard.”

  “I want to be here, and I want to run the diner and be with you, but I also don’t want to miss out on an opportunity to make some changes.”

  “What kind of changes?”

  “I hate the snow. It scares me and makes my life so complicated for months on end. I’d like to live somewhere that didn’t get so much snow.”

  “Okay. What else?”

  “I’d like to write more.” She felt her cheeks get warm as she made that confession. Her desire to write had always been something she kept close to the vest because it felt private. Only Nina had ever known she liked to write, and now Hunter knew, too.

  “What else?”

  “I want to travel. I want to go places and see the world.”

  “Anything else?”

  She couldn’t seem to look at him as she shared this last one. “Someday, down the road, I might like to have a family of my own. Not right away, but someday.”

  “Okay. Is that everything?”

  “For now.”

  “Look at me, sweetheart.” His fingers on her chin compelled her to meet his warm, sexy gaze. “I can’t do anything about the snow. That’s a fact of life here in Vermont, unfortunately. But if you’re willing to put up with that, along with my promise to drive you anywhere you need to go any time it snows, I can help you get all the other things you want if you give me the chance.”

  “As sweet as that is, it’s not your responsibility to help me get what I want out of life, Hunter.”

  “What if I were to tell you that helping you to get the things you want would make me happy?”

  “Why?” she asked, her voice barely a whisper.

  “I don’t know if you’re ready to hear why.”

  CHAPTER 24

  He hadn’t said the words, and he was right, she probably wasn’t ready to hear them. Not yet. But she certainly understood what he was not saying. “You’re a very nice guy.”

  “This is what I’m trying to tell you.”

  Her laughter broke the tension that had grown and multiplied during the intense conversation. His smile lit up his handsome face, and Megan couldn’t resist him when he looked at her that way. She put her hand around his nape and drew him into a kiss. “He cooks, he irons, he bakes and he makes dreams come true.”

  “You forgot balances the books and makes you come multiple times every night. What can I say, babe? I’m a Renaissance man.”

  “And he’s funny and cute and sexy and adorable.”

  “All those things? You shouldn’t let a guy like that get away. You might regret it for the rest of your life.”

  “Yes, I’m quite sure I would.”

  He put his arms around her and kissed the top of her head. “We’re going to figure this out. We’re going to see to it that you get everything you want and things you’ve never dared to dream.”

  “You make me believe all of that’s possible.”

  “It is. I want to share with you something my brother Colton told me after he got together with Lucy. They’ve worked out an arrangement to split their time between New York where she lives and his mountain here. I told him that sounded kind of complicated and asked if he was sure they could make that work. He told me it didn’t matter where they were as long as they were together. He said being with her made him a better man, that they were stronger together than they were apart, and because of that they were willing to do whatever it took to make it work.”

  “That’s really amazing. They’re so lucky to have found each other.”

  “So are we, Megan. You make me want to be a better man so I’ll be worthy of you. You make me want to climb mountains if it’ll make you happy or make you smile or laugh. I really love when you laugh.”

  Megan’s eyes burned with unshed tears. “How can you be real?”

  “I’m real, and I’m smitten, and I’m consumed with the desire to be close to you in every possible way. You’re all I think about.”

  “For the record, there’s no way you could be a better man than you already are.”

  “There’s always room for improvement.”

  “While that might be true, I’m starting to think you might be perfect for me exactly the way you are.”

  “I can live with that.”

  She smiled as she kissed him, and let him take her away from all her worries and fears. Wrapped up in his arms, it was easy to believe that everything would be fine. He would see to that with her. Together, they’d be stronger than they were apart. She loved what Colton had said about Lucy and their relationship. That was what she wanted, too.

  “What do you have planned for the rest of the day?” Hunter asked as he kissed from her lips to her neck.

  “Nothing much.”

  He made her feel treasured and aroused and uncomfortable and adored with the way he held her and kissed her. She couldn’t get enough of his kisses. Now that she had spent time with hi
m, her fantasy crush on his brother seemed like a distant memory, completely eclipsed by the reality of Hunter.

  “Want to hang out with me?”

  “I might be persuaded to do that. What’d you have in mind?”

  “We could go for a walk or a drive or anything you want.”

  With her hand flat against his chest, she looked up at him. “Could we maybe stay here?”

  “We could do that, too.” He kissed her, groaning when she drew his bottom lip into her mouth and ran her tongue back and forth over it. “You want to watch a movie?”

  She shook her head.

  “I could bake you some more cookies.”

  “Maybe later.”

  “So what do you want to do?”

  Holding his hand, Megan stood and gave a tug to bring him with her.

  “Where are you taking me?”

  “I feel a nap coming on.”

  “I never nap in the middle of the day.”

  Wondering if he was for real, she turned back to him and caught the teasing glint in his eyes. “Oh, thank goodness. For a second there, I thought you weren’t as smart as everyone says you are.”

  With his arms around her waist, he picked her up and carried her laughing into her bedroom, depositing her on the bed before joining her. “I’m every bit as smart as people say I am.”

  “That’s a relief.”

  He pulled on the tie to her robe and revealed her to his heated gaze. Rising to his knees, he bent to kiss her belly.

  Megan ran her fingers through his hair, loving the way he looked at her. Then he stopped and rested his forehead against her stomach. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing at all. I just want you so badly all the time.”

  “Come here.”

  He scooted up on the bed so he was lying next to her. “I’m here.”

  Megan knelt on the bed and unbuttoned the red-pinstripe dress shirt he’d worn to work. On the cuffs, she noted his initials, HEA, and laughed.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “Do you know what HEA stands for?”

  “Um, Hunter Elmer Abbott?”