He drew in a breath. It wasn’t an admission he wanted to make, but she’d find out soon enough. “I have a history with the woman my brother is marrying.”
“A history like you two used to play doctor when you were kids?”
“We were engaged.”
Beer shot out of Jenny’s mouth as she choked and sputtered. “Your brother is marrying your old girlfriend?”
“Yep.”
“How long after the two of you broke up did he start dating her?”
He ran a hand through his hair, long-suppressed bitterness rising in his throat. “To the best of my knowledge, it was about six months before we broke up.”
She grabbed his arm. “She cheated on you with your brother?”
“Apparently I have bad luck discovering the women I’m dating having sex with other men.”
She jerked back as if he’d slapped her. “I wasn’t having sex.”
“Neither was Kristin, officially. But she was on her knees in front of Jack with his pants around his ankles so—”
“Owen.” She squeezed his arm, but he shrugged off her touch.
“I was in my senior year at MIT, a nerdy kid with nothing to my name. I had a lot of ideas, but even more student loans. Jack is a year and a half younger than me and had joined the marines right out of high school. He was a big deal in Hastings—high school football star, military hero.” He took a long pull on his beer. “Kristin figured he was the better bet. Most people did.”
“But if you were engaged, she was supposed to be in love with you.” She poked his arm with the tip of one finger. “With you, Owen. Not some bullshit small-town reputation.”
“You’re right,” he agreed. “But that isn’t how it worked out.”
“What about—”
“After my first mesh router hit the market and I was a success?” He shrugged. “Like I said, I don’t get back to Hastings often. I’m sure Kristin is happy being a big fish in a small pond. She and my brother are a good match. They both like the spotlight.”
“Do you still have feelings for her?”
“No,” he said, although it wasn’t exactly true. He had feelings about being betrayed by the woman he’d thought he loved and his brother. Plenty of bitterness that everyone in his family except Gabby had swept Kristin’s faithlessness under the rug. They’d welcomed her into the family as if she and Jack were meant to be. Anger that his brother had never once apologized or given any indication of recognizing that he’d done something wrong in appropriating Owen’s fiancée as if she’d belonged to him all along.
He nudged Jenny’s shoulder. “I let her keep the ring, but it wasn’t worth anything compared to yours.”
“Don’t say that,” she hissed. “Don’t compare me to her. I hate her for what she did to you.”
Owen sighed. The funny thing was how easy it had been to fall out of love with the woman he’d planned to spend his life with. As opposed to the relentless drumming of need he continued to feel toward Jenny despite the way she’d betrayed him.
“Tell me about your plans for the nursery,” he said, wanting to change the direction of the conversation.
“I’ll go with you,” she answered instead, “and you don’t have to pay me.” She shifted again, set down her beer, and grabbed his shoulders. “We’ll make them think we are the happiest couple since Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks starred in their last rom com.”
He tucked a stray curl behind her ear, his whole body reacting to the conviction in her tone. He knew Jenny was a warrior and that, despite her hard shell, she had a tender heart. Her willingness to help him without taking the money she so desperately needed made his defenses crack like shifting ice after the first spring thaw. That was treacherous territory.
“Cooper would be so disappointed. He has plans for the Aloha State.”
A corner of her mouth curved. “His best friend is obsessed with Hawaii, and now Cooper thinks he’s going to grow up to be a video-game programmer slash professional surfer.”
“Not a bad way to make a living.” He rolled a strand of her fiery hair through his fingers, loving the silky feel of it. “But you’d be happy to spend your days digging in the dirt?”
“Something like that,” she agreed. “My mom was the Bishops’ housekeeper, but they also employed a gardener for their property. His name was Roy, and he was one of the sweetest men I ever knew. Mom and I lived in the carriage house, so I was around all the time. Ty and I were close, but his brother and sister didn’t like me. I didn’t fit in with their friends.”
“Idiots.”
Her smile grew wistful, and his chest ached. He knew all too well what it was like to be the odd man out.
“I started hanging out with Roy and pestered him to put me to work just so it would look like I was busy.” She shrugged. “Turns out I loved ‘digging in the dirt.’ I probably owe a thank-you to Charlie and Claire, because if they hadn’t made me feel like a second-class citizen, I might never have discovered how much I love plants.”
“Why do you love them?”
She searched his face as if she couldn’t figure out why he was so interested in her history. He couldn’t explain it, but he wanted to know every detail about this woman and what made her tick.
“I don’t know if you’ve noticed,” she said, wrinkling her nose, “but I have a bit of a temper.”
“Really?” He inclined his head. “I’ll remember that.”
“I spent a lot of time as a kid wanting to kick people in the shin.”
“Is that the youthful version of wanting to punch them in the throat?”
Her eyes narrowed and went dark at the edges. “How do you know I use that expression?”
“Use or overuse?” he asked.
She snorted. “Point taken. Anyway, being outside has always calmed me down. It gave me something useful to do with my hands besides wrapping them around the necks of all those snobby girls who were Claire’s friends and wanted nothing to do with me.”
He watched her chest rise and fall as she turned to look out to the yard beyond the house. “It’s more than that, though. From the time Roy handed me that first seed packet, I was enthralled. There’s something about being a part of the act of creation, you know?”
Her shoulders relaxed, and he could almost feel the tension from earlier tonight seeping out of her.
“I could make something,” she said quietly, “from almost nothing. My hands and the attention I paid to the earth and the water helped to create beautiful flowers, gorgeous herbs, and hardy plants. We could take a tiny tomato seedling and by the end of the summer it would be a huge plant bursting with vegetables.” She made a face. “I know it wasn’t really me doing the work. It’s Mother Nature and all that. But I was a part of it. I still am.”
“Working at the landscaping company isn’t enough?”
She tugged at the ends of her long curls. “I’m grateful to Ty. Really I am. He started Rocky Mountain Landscapes in the summers while he was still in college. He always found a place for me, even when I had to bring Cooper to work. As the business grew, so did my responsibilities.”
“And when he came to work for me, you took over,” Owen commented.
“Yes, but it was his dream. Not mine. I like working with regular people on choosing the right kind of plants, flowers, pots, vegetables . . . whatever floats their boat.”
God help him, there were so damn many ways the woman floated Owen’s boat.
“I know it’s selfish to want something for myself, when I had . . .” She paused, cleared her throat. “I have a job that pays good money and gives me flexibility to be with Cooper.”
“It’s not selfish, Jenny. You’re working hard to make your dream come true, and Cooper will see the value of that. Maybe not now, but he’ll recognize it as he gets older.”
She bit down on her lower lip. “I hope going through all this is worth it in the end.”
“Is a week with me such a horrible prospect?”
She rolled h
er eyes to the night sky, then met his gaze once more. “I don’t want to hurt you, but I don’t trust myself not to.”
He leaned in and claimed her mouth, unable to stop himself. He didn’t want to hear her fears or think about how foolish the arrangement was for both of them.
All he wanted was Jenny.
Everything else fell away as he tasted her sweetness and she moaned softly. He focused until the world was a pinpoint, with his desire for Jenny at the center.
Nothing mattered except that moment and pulling her even closer. He threaded his fingers through her hair, angling her head to deepen the kiss. She wound her arms around his neck, and somehow he maneuvered her so she was straddling him.
It felt like batting a thousand home runs and Christmas and the answer to every prayer he’d ever whispered in the dark.
He wasn’t sure how long they stayed like that, all hands and mouths and seeking need. But just as quickly as the moment began, Jenny wrenched away and out of his arms. She scrambled several feet away on the porch, her knees gathered in to her chest and her fingers pressed to her mouth.
“You can’t do that,” she said, her breath ragged. “Ever again.”
That pricked his temper, which was no easy feat. “Give me one reason why not?”
“Because . . .”
“Don’t tell me you didn’t enjoy it, Jenny.”
She shook her head. “I liked it way too much. That’s the problem.”
“Then we’ve got one hell of a problem.”
“I can’t be your date for the wedding.” She dropped her forehead to her knees. “You can see why, right?” She lifted her gaze to his. “You can feel why, Owen.”
“It will be fine,” he answered immediately, shifting closer, then stopping when she inched away. “We’ll make sure things don’t get out of control. There are no expectations. I told you that. You don’t have to do anything that makes you uncomfortable.”
She laughed. “You want me to be comfortable. I haven’t been comfortable since . . . well, I can’t remember the last time.”
“Except when you’re in the garden.”
She stared at him for several long moments, her eyes blazing with whiskey-colored sparks. “Yes,” she admitted, and he could tell it took something out of her to share that one word with him.
“We need rules,” she said after a moment.
“You don’t really seem like the rule-following type.”
“And it gets me into trouble every time.” She dropped her knees to one side and tucked her feet closer to her body. “Which is why we need rules.”
“Have you started a list?” He smiled when her eyes narrowed. She was concentrating so hard on ways to prevent the spark between them from flaming out of control.
He should be grateful. She might claim to be destructive, but Jenny had a stronger instinct for self-preservation than he could ever manage.
“No kissing,” she told him, her mouth pulling down at the corners. “Or touching each other.”
No way in hell was he adhering to either of those rules. “What about in front of my family and friends? That won’t be very convincing.”
“Fine,” she breathed. “Only in public.” She flipped her hair over one shoulder. “But no tongue.”
“Anything else?”
“Where are we staying?”
“Not with my parents,” he muttered. “I’m not that much of a masochist. I’ll rent a house in town.”
“I want a separate bedroom.”
“Done.”
“With a lock on the door,” she added.
He chuckled. “Do you think I’m going to sneak in to have my wicked way with you?”
“To be honest, I never thought you had a wicked way.”
That was a prick to his ego, although not a surprise. He knew his reputation.
“But now . . .”
A sliver of awareness sharpened the air between them. “Now?”
“Let’s just say I’m not taking any chances.”
Oh, yeah. No matter what a week with Jenny cost him—and he had a feeling he’d be paying with way more than his bank account—it would be worth it. The way she was eyeing him right now, like she was torn between bolting into the house and throwing herself at him, made everything worth it.
“Are those all the rules?”
She tipped up her chin. “Until I think of more.”
He didn’t bother to hide his smile as he placed the empty beer bottle on the porch rail. One way or another, he would find a way to make this woman his. “Keep me updated,” he told her and started down the steps. “Good night, Jenny.”
“Good night, Owen.”
Jenny was alternately relieved and disappointed when she didn’t hear from Owen over the next three days.
But she did receive discreet inquiries from three local jewelers regarding a piece of jewelry she might be interested in selling. Apparently the engagement ring was not only beautiful, but also once owned by an infamous Russian princess, making it worth far more than she’d ever imagined. She’d immediately texted Owen insisting that he take back the ring and to stop having jewelry stores hound her.
He’d sent back a winky-face emoji. A flippin’ winky face.
She was busy managing a big installation for the landscape company during the day while spending every evening working in the barn. She shouldn’t have had the time to worry about anything else.
Cooper seemed strangely more content since she’d made the arrangement with Owen, and while she assumed it had to do with the money, a part of her felt like there was more to it.
He was upstairs online when a knock sounded on the door around nine, and she assumed it was Owen, since she’d texted him a pile-of-poo emoji and a message that they needed to talk.
It was a lame excuse. She should be embarrassed by how much she wanted to see him. Instead, certain parts of her body were singing the “Hallelujah Chorus” and all she felt was a thrill of anticipation.
Until she opened the door.
Dina Sullivan stood on the other side, looking twenty kinds of a hot mess. Her normally long and shiny blond hair was greasy and dull and had been cut into a bob so uneven it looked like a preschooler had wielded the scissors. She wore no makeup and, although her cheeks were dry, her nose and eyes were both swollen and red as if she’d been crying for days. A young girl with two long braids and frightened blue eyes clung to her leg and a toddler boy was asleep in her arms.
“I left John,” Dina said, her voice catching on her husband’s name. “And I didn’t have any other place to go.”
Jenny swallowed and ushered the three of them into the farmhouse’s tiny living room. “It’s going to be okay,” she said automatically, although she had no idea how to make that statement true.
She turned as Cooper bounded into the room. “Go make up the pullout couch in my office,” she told him. “A friend of mine from high school is going to stay the night with us.” She felt a rush of love and pride when he didn’t bat an eye at the crazy-looking stranger standing in their house.
“I’ll get out the air mattress, too,” he answered, and headed back toward the stairs.
“He looks like Trent,” Dina said, her voice vacant. “My Dylan . . .” She placed a hand on the sleeping boy’s brown curls. “Looks just like his daddy, too.”
Jenny forced down her reaction to that comment when Dina let out a muffled sob.
“Okay,” Jenny repeated like the word was her new mantra. “We’re going to figure this out.”
Dina wiped the back of her hand across her nose and started to follow. The girl was practically strapped to her leg. Dina looked about as substantial as dandelion fluff, and with the two kids weighing her down, Jenny wasn’t sure she wouldn’t crumple into a heap on the floor.
“I’ll make it,” Dina said, as if reading her thoughts. She sank into a chair at the kitchen table and shifted Dylan in her arms so she could wrap the other one around her daughter.
Jenny crouched dow
n to eye level with the girl. “What’s your name?”
The girl glanced at Dina, who nodded. “You can talk to Jenny, sweetie. She’s Mommy’s friend.”
Crap. Dina must be in a particularly bad place if Jenny was now considered a friend.
“Emma,” the girl whispered.
“Are you hungry, Emma? Cooper and I baked my mom’s chocolate-chip cookies today. They’re a great pre-bed snack.”
“I wanna cookie,” the sleeping boy mumbled, his eyes still closed.
Emma nodded. “I’ll have one, please.”
“Did you use organic flour and non-GMO chocolate chips?” Dina asked.
“It’s my mother’s recipe. They’re the best you’ll ever have.” Jenny managed to smile at Emma while giving Dina a look that communicated exactly where she could shove her non-GMO chips.
“Sorry,” Dina mumbled. “John feels passionately about the kids eating organic.”
“Maybe John should think about how his passions affect the rest of your family,” Jenny answered, keeping her voice soft.
She took the carton of milk from the refrigerator and got two glasses down from the cabinet. “It’s organic,” she said to Dina as she poured.
She placed one glass on the table in front of Dina and the other at the next chair. “Emma, you sit here, and I’ll get your cookie.”
The girl stared at the milk for several seconds and then released her mother and climbed onto the empty chair.
With a small sigh of relief, Jenny opened the container of cookies. Emma took a long time to choose, given that the cookies were all the same.
By the time she did, Dylan had turned and was facing forward in his mother’s lap.
“I’m going to check on Cooper’s progress,” she told the sad little trio. “We’ll have beds made up for you soon.”
“I didn’t pack bags,” Dina muttered, her voice trembling. “We don’t even have toothbrushes.”
“I’ll find you some,” Jenny told her and placed a hand on the woman’s slim shoulder. “It’s going to be okay.”
Meant for You Page 11
