Luke Page 5

  reach the middle of her hand, her eyes close softly, just for a second, like she's blinking except it's just a moment too long to be that innocuous. She's enjoying my touch. Savoring it.

  Her lips part, just slightly, and I think I hear her moan, so softly I'm not quite sure. The fact that she's so turned on by my touching her hand makes me want to fucking explode, my cock rigid against the zipper of my jeans.

  It's been a long time since she's been touched by anyone, I can tell that immediately. That fact makes her vulnerable. She's been burned.

  That fact makes her the kind of girl I shouldn't be putting my hands on, not at all. That fact makes her the kind of girl I shouldn't be thinking about the way I'm thinking right now.

  I'm not the kind of guy a girl like her needs.

  I pull my hands away from hers and clear my throat. "Nothing. Absolutely nothing."

  ***

  "Are you sure you want this job?" Autumn walks ahead of me through the orchard, between the rows of apple trees.

  "Temporarily," I note. "Until you find someone more permanent."

  "Why?" She pauses to look at me, shielding her eyes from the sun.

  "Because there's no sense in you winding up burning down this damn property on account of a no good foreman."

  "You sure you've got nowhere else to be?" she asks.

  She asks like she's interested, like she wants to know the answer to why I'm hanging around West Bend. She has no idea what a complicated fucking answer that is. Shit, it's more than complicated. It's just plain ol' fucked up.

  My abusive asshole father was the reason I got the hell out of West Bend as soon as I turned eighteen. He died a few months ago, and the world is a better place for it. I don't give a shit that he's dead, except that my mother supposedly committed suicide after that.

  My father's death makes sense to me – the medical examiner ruled it accidental, a contusion to the back of the head. Shit, there was nothing unusual about that. The man was a drunk, a mean one, and stumbling around and falling into things was par for the course for him.

  But my mother, killing herself? After the man who made her life – and ours – a living hell was finally dead?

  Shit, that just hasn't sat well with me. After all that time she stayed with him, why would she kill herself when he finally died?

  I should be long gone from West Bend. Instead, I'm here for now, for reasons I can't explain to this girl, Autumn Mayburn, who comes from old money. Bourbon money. Yeah, I went home and searched her on the internet last night. Even if I didn't read what I read about her family's bourbon company, I'd be able to tell by the way she carries herself – sure and certain of every step she takes. She's classy.

  And I'm as far away from class as you can get.

  "Luke?" Autumn asks, jolting me out of my thoughts.

  "Yep."

  "You don't have someplace else to be?"

  "Nah. I'm here in West Bend for a little while," I say. "Taking some time off."

  Autumn looks at me for a long moment, and I think she sees right through my flimsy statement, but she doesn't probe any further. She just nods. "Okay. My gain, then." She pauses. "I think."

  I clear my throat. "What are you doing with this place, anyway?"

  Autumn laughs. "You mean how did I wind up running an orchard? That's kind of personal, don't you think?"

  "No. I meant, what are you doing with this place, as in what are your goals?"

  I walk beside her, and she doesn't laugh this time, instead looking at me out of the corner of her eye. "Why are you asking?" she says.

  "I noticed some things, walking around here, things you could be doing different with the orchard, planting more efficiently."

  "You know about orchards?"

  "I know trees," I say. "I worked for the forest service right out of college. You should hire a foreman who knows trees, you know. This being an orchard and all."

  Autumn sighs. "Yes, I realize. I was in a pinch, hiring the last one. I just needed someone to manage the employees out here."

  "Anyway, it matters if you're thinking bigger harvest, more production, that kind of thing. Spacing trees and things like that."

  Autumn nods. "Okay," she says. "Show me."

  We spend the rest of the morning walking down rows of trees, going out to the edges of the orchard, and I give her my take on things, point out changes I think might increase production when she's planning her planting again. The fire didn't damage much, hitting some of the trees that had already been harvested, and I tell her how she should replant the burnt areas more efficiently.

  She tells me about her plans for the cidery, how she's in local restaurants and shops, but planning to expand in the next year, looking for placement in larger restaurants and craft brew stores outside of West Bend.

  We walk and talk, and I find myself surprised by her knowledge of the orchard and her obvious love for it. When she shows me the cidery, she lights up as she talks about the brewing process and the different variations she's trying.

  She's taking me through the cidery, and as she talks, I can't hear the words coming out of her mouth any more, because I'm too busy watching her lips open and close. Those soft, lush lips. When she gestures toward something, half-facing me, it's all I can do not to grab her and push her up against the wall.

  "Luke?" she asks softly.

  "Autumn," I say, her name rolling off my tongue. Autumn. I think about how her name would sound coming out of my mouth when I'm fucking her, and I immediately regret it, because my cock goes rock hard and if she looks down, that's what she's going to see.

  "Stop looking at my tits," she says. But she doesn't sound annoyed. In fact, her voice is breathy. It sounds more like an invitation to look at her tits.

  "I'm not looking at your tits." Now I'm lying, because I'm obviously looking at them now that she said something. They're pretty fucking amazing tits, actually, her cleavage visible at the top of the v-cut of her t-shirt. When she inhales sharply, her chest rises, and my cock throbs at the sight.

  "Liar," she says softly.

  But when I step closer to her, she doesn't move away. "I think you want me to look at your tits."

  The corners of her mouth turn up, just slightly. "Of course you think that."

  I don't know what it is about this woman. I've known her all of two days, and she just seems to have a way of getting under my skin. "I think that, because it's a fact."

  "You think that because you're the kind of guy who thinks every woman in the world wants him," she says.

  I'm so close to her I can smell her, the light scent of her perfume lingering in the air between us. Her lips are slightly parted as she looks up at me, and all I can think about is how much I want to bite that lower lip of hers. "Well, that's pretty much a fact, too," I say.

  "You're an arrogant shit," she says. But she's smiling.

  "Not arrogant," I say. "Accurate." I trail my finger underneath her jaw, tilting her head up toward me, and she doesn't pull away. Her eyelids close lightly, and she practically melts against me, she wants it so bad. Fuck, she's not the only one who wants it.

  I tell myself that I should just turn away, tell myself that I shouldn't touch her. Except I'm drawn to her, and there's no way I can turn away.

  I touch my lips lightly to hers, just grazing them and – an overhead light flicks on in the cidery.

  Autumn jumps back away from me, like she's just been electrocuted.

  "Autumn!" A woman calls, bustling into the room, wearing jeans and a flannel shirt, her hair pushed up under a hair net. "Oh, sorry. I didn't know you were giving someone a tour."

  Autumn clears her throat, and she's suddenly businesslike, her voice crisp. "Mary, this is Luke. He's going to be the new foreman."

  Mary sticks out her hand. "Nice to meet you."

  "Mary knows everything there is to know about the day to day operations in the cidery," Autumn says. If I didn't hear the slight waver at the end of Autumn's voice, I wouldn't think anything
at all had just passed between us.

  Well, aside from the fact that my dick is as hard as a fucking rock right now. Mary doesn't seem to notice, and Autumn is pointedly ignoring me.

  "I don't know about being an expert," Mary says. "But if you have any questions, I'll be the person to ask. I can always find the answers to anything that's got to do with cider."

  By the time Mary leaves, Autumn is back to being all business, asking me if I have any questions, thanking me for my observations about planting the orchard. That's how she says it too – thank you for your observations. She's formal again, as if she didn't just tell me to stop looking at her tits in the cidery.

  At the front porch, she pauses and asks if I have any questions.

  "Just one," I say. "Want to finish what we started?"

  Shit, I just can't help myself.

  Autumn's face colors and she clears her throat. "Nothing was started," she says. "So there's nothing to finish. I'll get your paperwork together so I can pay you. There are a few forms you need to fill out."

  And just like that, she shuts down whatever the hell happened between us back in the cidery.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Autumn

  Things are back to normal at the orchard. Olivia and I are back to our regular routine -- the routine we had last week before Luke Saint blew into this place, a perfect storm of arrogance and sex appeal and boyish charm.

  Heavy emphasis on boyish, I remind myself. He's only twenty-four, ten years my junior. And that's a lifetime of difference, when you add a divorce and a toddler to the mix.

  I mentally chastise myself for even thinking about him the way I did, there in the cidery, when he just barely, for a moment, touched his lips to mine. But for an entire week, he's been extremely professional. And so have I. There have been no more situations like the ones that happened in the cidery -- or in the kitchen, when Luke put his fingers to my wrist, traced his finger along my palm.

  Even now, the thought of his touch sends a shiver up my spine. Damn it.

  Okay, so I haven't exactly been back to my regular routine. But fantasizing about Luke at night with my vibrator doesn't mean I'm interested in him -- or that anything is going to happen between us.

  Luke has actually been really helpful over the past week, more so than I anticipated. It's harvest time – my second harvest here – and that means it's chaos. But he's stepped in to manage with a surprising amount of skill, and has come to me with suggestions for changes in day-to-day operations in the orchard that have been insightful. He's not just a pretty face – which is all the more reason I should stop thinking about him like that.

  "Are you heading into town?" Greta's voice jolts me out of my thoughts, and I glance at the payroll file on the computer that I've been staring at for the last twenty minutes. Olivia is with her, and I hold open my arms so she can come crashing into them.

  "Oh, Liv-bug, I missed you so much," I tell her, even though I've only been working in the office for a few hours. I bury my nose in her and breathe in her baby scent. "Did you have a fun morning with Greta? Is it time for lunch with June and Stan and the baby?"

  "Are you all set, Autumn?" Greta asks. "Do you need anything before I take off?"

  On Wednesdays and Fridays, Greta takes classes down at the state college – she's working her way through school, part-time. And on Wednesdays, Olivia and I visit my neighbor June, and her kids. June runs a bed and breakfast just down the road. Her oldest child, Stan, is a year older than Olivia, and June just had a second child. June and her husband Cade basically adopted Olivia and I when we moved to West Bend. Now, they're closer to me than my own family is.

  This is my routine. This is what I do. I don't kiss twenty-four-year-old boys in my cidery.

  "We're good," I tell her. "How's that Economics class you're taking?"

  Greta rolls her eyes and sighs loudly. "Ugh. Rough. It's so lame."

  "Economics can be really interesting," I start, but laugh when she looks at me, slack-jawed, her expression exaggerated.

  "Seriously," she says. "Bo-ring. It's totally useless. At least my history class is more interesting. Oh, I'm going to be late. I've got to run. See you tomorrow, Autumn. Bye-bye, little Liv-liv! Have fun!"

  "Bye-bye, Gigi," Olivia says, waving to her as she disappears. She can’t pronounce “Greta” yet, so “Gigi” it is.

  I talk to Olivia as we grab all of the approximately one million supplies we need for a simple trip down the road to June's house and then into town for groceries. Olivia babbles to me, nonstop chatter as I get ready and load her into the car.

  We're down the driveway when I see them a hundred yards away, on the edge of the property, repairing a fence post.

  As if I see any of the rest of them.

  I see him. Luke.

  He's shirtless, his back glistening with sweat, his muscles rippling in the sunlight, clearly visible even from this far away.

  "Aw, crap." I groan the words aloud, pausing for all of a second before I turn down the access road that runs along the fence, silently cursing my own foolishness. I shouldn't be doing this, turning the car along the access road right now. I should have pretended I didn't see him, and kept driving, gone to see June, kept my routine the way it's been.

  I'm a mother, with her child in the car seat, headed to a play date, for goodness' sake.

  I'm flirting with disaster, and I know it. And yet, I can't stop myself.

  When I roll down the window, Luke stops what he's doing, setting down his roll of wire and pliers. He turns toward me and I swear he moves like something out of a movie, as if he's walking in slow motion. He might as well have a soundtrack to his movements, as he saunters over to me. I don't know where to focus as he walks – on the smug smile on his face, or on his chest muscles, covered in tattoos, glistening in the sunlight, sweat rolling down them in rivulets. It's probably fifty degrees outside and he's shirtless, like it's the summertime.

  He's the sexiest thing I've ever seen. And I'm gaping at him like I'm a silly lust-struck teenager.

  Luke leans over, his forearms on the edge of the car window, and peers inside. "Hey Olivia," he says, his voice suddenly a sing-song he seems to have adopted just for her. She giggles and says hi back, and he grins at me. "I think she might like me."

  "She likes licking the floor in the kitchen, too," I say, trying to sound flippant except I can't wipe the stupid grin off my face. Or ignore the insistent throbbing between my legs. "So there's obviously no accounting for taste."

  How the hell does he smell so good? He should smell like crap, working outside for hours like this, doing manual labor. Fuck, even his sweat smells sexy.

  "Aw, now, she's developing good taste," Luke says. "Like her mother."

  I force my eyes away from him, looking straight ahead – business-like, professional. If I were to look at him, at his lips just inches away from me, I don't think I could help myself. I breathe in deeply, trying not to picture the way his lips felt against mine, or the way his touch sent a shiver through me, to my core.

  I clear my throat. "I'm going into town after visiting a friend," I say. "Should I bring back some lunch for you and the guys? I mean, it'll be more of an early dinner by the time I got back, but I figured I'd ask." Am I babbling? I force my voice to be steady, clearing my throat again to hide my sudden nervousness.

  "Sure, Red," he says. "That'd be nice."

  "I told you to stop calling me that," I say. Except I'm not sure I mean it anymore. I've always hated stupid pet names, but the way Luke does it is growing on me. The nickname rolls off his tongue -- languid, familiar, intimate -- and it makes me picture him saying it while he's close to me, his lips against my ear.

  Hell, it makes me think about him saying it while he's inside me.

  "Whatever you say, Red," he says. When he saunters back to the group of guys, slowly like he knows I'm watching his every move, I find myself exhaling the breath I didn’t even know I was holding.

  "Play date with June," I sa
y to Olivia as I put the car in reverse and back down the access road. But it's a not a reminder of where we're going. It's a reminder to myself to get my damn head screwed on straight.

  ***