Loving Bailey (3 page)

As he’d gotten to know her and by extension
the rest of her family, he’d come to love her. Not that he had any
intention of letting her know that.

In his world, romantic love didn’t last. It
hadn’t for his parents and it sure as hell hadn’t worked for him
and Anna. When she left, it had ripped his heart out by the roots,
although now that he was older with some perspective, he wondered
if he hadn’t know all along how things were going to turn out.
Building the soil, building his farm, that lasted. It changed
season to season like the name of Bailey’s restaurant, but it
lasted.

A hand came down on his shoulder and he
jumped like a scalded cat, dropping the handful of greens he was
holding.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you.” Amanda
looked down at him and smiled, pretty and much too young and
invading his personal space. Crap. It was going to be a
problem.

He shook off her hand and climbed to his feet
so he wasn’t kneeling in front of her. She licked her lips and
tossed her blonde ponytail. Definitely a problem.

“What do you need, Amanda? I thought Jake had
you cleaning out the greenhouse.” He pitched his voice in what he
hoped was a firm, business-like tone.

“I was, but it got so hot.” She lifted her
T-shirt away from the front of her body and fanned herself with it.
“I thought maybe I’d come out, cool off and help you for a while.
You know, take a break and pick up a shovel.”

She smiled a toothy smile and Trace fought
the urge to roll his eyes. Christ, he was going to have to have the
“I don’t get involved with interns” talk with her. Maybe he could
get Jake to do it. Either way, he didn’t have to deal with it
now.

“Sure, that would be great.”

Her predatory smile got even bigger and he
forced himself to stand his ground.

“You can finish cutting the rest of this bed.
I’ve got a delivery to make.” He put the scissors in her hand,
ignoring the stunned expression on her face and headed to the barn
to retrieve the things he’d put aside for Bailey.

He packed the tub with the best his farm had
to offer, including four quarts of strawberries. It was more than
she probably needed, but he couldn’t think of how else to show her
how he felt. He couldn’t come out and say I love you, but he could
feed her. On second thought, he went back and got a tall galvanized
pot and filled it with peonies from his bushes. He wouldn’t have
enough to sell at the market, but he wanted Bailey to have them.
The pale pink flowers reminded him of her, lush and delicate at the
same time.

He hoisted everything into the passenger
seat, strapping the flowers in with the seat belt. The sweet scent
of peonies filled the cab and he backed out, determined to do
something even if he hadn’t decided exactly what. It was one thing
never to have Bailey because he wasn’t willing to risk changing
things between them. It was something entirely different to lose
her to a guy with soft hands and fake work shirts.

Bailey prepped vegetables for that night’s
dinner while Jen shaped the yeasty rolls.

“So tell me again,” said Jen, smoothing the
small ball of dough with her hands and setting on the tray with the
others to rise. “You went for your walk at your normal freakishly
early time and he was waiting for you?”

“On the porch, sipping coffee. I didn’t even
know they rented out the Newport Cottage.”

“Not the point.” Jen started on the second
tray of rolls. It was always a guess as to how many to make. Sunday
dinner could be busy and they didn’t want to run out, but they were
closed the next three days. Any rolls they had left over wouldn’t
even be good for croutons by Thursday. “I can’t imagine voluntarily
waking up early for, well anything. And he got up just to see you.
Hot damn.”

“Not a fair comparison. You wouldn’t get up
early because the kids never let you sleep.” Bailey peeled the
woody end of the asparagus spear and stood it next to the others in
the bowl of water.

“True, but still that means he likes you. A
lot.”

“Maybe. Maybe he just wanted an early morning
walk,” she said yet she couldn’t help but smile. It felt good to
have someone’s interest without having to work so hard for it.

“Hmpf,” Jen snorted. “He likes you and he’s
yummy. Really yummy. You could grab handfuls of that wavy hair and
get beard burn on your inner thighs.” She paused for a moment,
holding a ball of dough and lost in her own thoughts.

“Jennifer!”

“Well you could. Question is, are you gonna?
And what about Trace?”

“What about Trace? He’s never going to make a
move and I’ve done everything but flash my breasts at him like a
biker chick. I couldn’t have been more obvious. Trace is not going
to happen.” She heard the wistfulness in her voice and stomped it
down mercilessly.

“Okay maybe, but I still think he’ll get
around to it. I know he likes you. He just moves slowly.”

Bailey knew they were alone, but she glanced
around anyway before she spoke. She’d confided in Jen years ago,
but that didn’t mean she wanted the rest of the world to know she
was the oldest living virgin outside of a convent.

She hadn’t planned it. She liked sex – at
least she was sure she would when she got around to actually having
it. She and her vibrator were good friends and she kept a backup
supply of batteries.

Back in high school she’d seen one too many
of the girls she knew have their lives derailed by an unplanned
pregnancy. That and the fact gossip spread faster than lice in the
small town she grew up in and her brothers would kill anyone she
had sex with was effective birth control.

By the time she arrived at culinary school,
she’d been so focused on her career, she hadn’t taken much time for
a social life. And the half drunken fumbles with the few guys she’d
gotten close with hadn’t given her much hope for the act itself.
Then there was the restaurant and all the work and worry to make it
a success. She decided to wait for a grown man, but no one had
shown up. Not until Trace.

She really had thought he was the one.
Someone she could explore sex with and someone she could trust.
Maybe even give her heart to.

It didn’t look like that was going to happen,
and she was done waiting.

“How much time am I supposed to give it?” she
asked, looking up from the asparagus to stare at Jen. “I’m
twenty-five. I’m so far past the time when most people do it, it’s
started to turn into this big weird thing. Enough already. I’m done
waiting for someone who may never come around. He might not even
like me that way.”

“He likes you like that,” Jen said with an
eye roll.

Bailey glared at her and Jen held her flour
covered hands up in surrender.

“Okay, okay, so give up on the farmer for now
and do the hot writer. Everyone’s first time is rubbish anyway.
Practice until you get it right with Spencer and then move on.
Unless you think it could be something more.”

“God no. I mean I like him. I think I could
really like him and there is definitely a zing there.” She thought
about how just holding hands with Spencer made her body react.
Definitely a zing. “But he’s going back to the city. I live
here.”

“People move,” said Jen. She moved the second
tray of rolls to the other counter and covered it with a towel.

“Not me, and he doesn’t strike me as someone
who would be happy living on top of a mountain. Why are we talking
about this anyway?” She put the last asparagus spear into the bowl
with the others and went to place it back into the walk-in cooler.
The heavy door closed behind her and she missed Jen’s response. She
set the bowl on one of the wire shelves and picked up a box of
grass fed beef she planned to break down for that night’s special.
“Besides,” she said, opening the cooler door with her hip and
hefting the heavy box in her arms. “I’m not looking for a long term
commitment.”

She glanced up in time to avoid running into
Trace as he set the plastic tub of produce, including more
strawberries than she knew what to do with, onto the metal work
table. He turned to face her, his arms full of pale pink
peonies.

“What kind of commitment?” he asked.

Behind him she saw Jen mouthing the words
“tell him.” She had obviously lost her mind.

“Nothing, nothing important,” Bailey said.
She took a step closer so she could smell the sweet, feminine scent
of the flowers. “Oh, these are so beautiful.” She stroked the soft
petals of a grapefruit sized bloom. “You must have a ton of them if
you can bring me this many and still have enough for market on
Tuesday.”

“I wanted you to have them.” He held the
galvanized pot out to her and she took it in her arms, losing
herself for a moment in the overwhelming abundance of flowers.

Jen mouthed “told you” and made kissing
faces. Bailey turned so she couldn’t see her friend. “I love them.
Peonies are my favorite. Thank you.” She set the flowers on the
counter to admire. “They’re perfect in that pot, too. There’s more
than enough here to do all the tables in the restaurant.”

“I thought maybe you’d want some for
upstairs, too.”

Trace looked so pleased with her reaction to
the blooms, she reached out to catch his hand. He didn’t pull away
like he usually did. He held her hand for a moment in his much
larger one, warm and rough from working in the earth. Heat flared
low in her belly and she sucked in a breath.

“I better get out of here,” he said. “Let you
get ready for dinner.” It took another moment before he let go of
her hand a turned to go.

Jen looked over her shoulder to make sure
Trace had closed the door behind him. “I told you he liked you like
that.”

Bailey ignored her and went to collect the
vases from the dining room, more confused than she’d been when she
started.

Trace used his hand to dig a hole in the soft
earth. It was one of those cool spring mornings where the soil felt
warmer than the outside air temperature; he loved the contrast of
sinking his cold hands into the warm dirt. Sitting back on his
heels, he reached for the bag of potato sets.

A couple of weeks ago, he cut the seed
potatoes into chunks, making sure each piece had an eye. He let the
cut surfaces harden over, and during the week of Saint Patrick’s
Day, he put the first batch in the ground. They were already
inching out of the ground and sporting dark green leaves on thick
sturdy stems.

This bed was his third planting. He
succession planted potatoes so he would have a steady supply of
small new potatoes all spring and most of the summer. He never had
trouble selling as many as he could grow, and the potatoes he let
grow to full size he could winter over in the root cellar.

He nestled the shriveled chunk of potato with
the tiny bud of its eye into the earth and mounded the soil around
it. In a few weeks he’d be able to sink his fingers in the dirt
around the plant and tease out the new potatoes growing near the
surface.

Bailey loved his new potatoes. He had a bag
of Russian Red fingerlings she’d asked for waiting to go into the
ground. He had to send away for the seed potatoes, but it was worth
it to grow something which pleased her. And generally the things
she requested turned out to be some of his bestsellers at the
market and with the other restaurants he supplied.

She liked the flowers, too. He’d miss them
tomorrow when his regulars were ready to buy them and he didn’t
have any to sell, but he couldn’t bring himself to regret it. Her
face lit up when she saw them, bright and flushed and happy. When
she’d leaned in to smell the peonies, he’d smelled the rosemary
citrus scent of her shampoo or perfume. Whatever it was that made
her smell like his Bailey.

She held his hand which had to be a good
sign, and the sneaky writer had been nowhere to be found. He’d
peeked in the window like a stalker when he got there and saw no
sign of Spencer with the clean hands and even cleaner shirts. All
in all a promising development.

Lost in his thoughts, he’d just finished
covering another set when someone plopped down beside him. He
turned to see Amanda, hair pulled back and lips slick with gloss,
kneeling next to him.

Where the hell was Jake?

“Jake sent me to help you.”

Of course he did. Which probably meant Jake
had gotten tired of fending her off himself. He didn’t have the
same rule against getting involved with interns that Trace did, but
he did have a new girlfriend and it looked serious.

“Okay, thanks. Have you planted potatoes
before?” He expected her to say no and was surprised when she
nodded, her pretty blue eyes shining.

“In my grandma’s garden when I was a
kid.”

Trace fought the urge to point out she wasn’t
much more than a kid now. He passed her the bag of sets and leaned
back on his heels. “Here you go, have at it.” He watched her plant
the first two hills and when he was confident she knew what she was
doing, he crossed the other side of the bed and started to work
opposite her.

They planted in companionable silence, and
sooner than he imagined they were at the end of the row with empty
bags.

“Nice job,” he said, rocking to his feet.

He dusted his hands off on his jeans and
reached down to give Amanda a hand up. He pulled her to standing
but she kept going, falling against his chest. He reached out to
steady her, but her arms went around his neck. Before he had a
chance to react, she’d pulled his head down and kissed him,
throwing herself wholeheartedly into the effort.

Grabbing her hands, he untangled her arms
from his neck and took a big step back. He opened his mouth to say
something and looked up in time to see Bailey walking away.