Chapter Thirteen
“No, that's fine, leave them stacked and strapped,” Ben said to Jim Plover, one of his dad's longtime employees, whom Ben had appointed to the newly created job of general manager for all three satellite lots. After the truck incident, when Fiona had made it clear she didn't want Ben in her immediate environmentâor mostly clear, anywayâhe'd decided to stick with running the farm and had set up Jim to oversee the lots.
He tucked his phone deeper inside his hoodie as he spoke. The wind was howling and he could barely hear his own voice, much less Jim's. “Just make sure you batten down all the hatches. They're calling for this thing to hit harder than expected along the coast, so get it done, then get home safe. Once we're through the storm and we see what's what, I'll want everyone on the lots as early as they can safely get there. If you could work on making that happen, it would be great. Start the unbaling and get the trees set up, then worry about adding any of the festive touches. The trailer is all good to go? Generators fully gassed? For now anyway?” He nodded as Jim answered in the affirmative and confirmed the rest of the details as well. “Perfect. Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours, Jim. Number-one goal is to stay safe, you got me?” He hung up, confident that he'd chosen the right man for the job.
Jim wasn't as old as Kearney or some of the other full-timers, but he'd been with Campbell Tree Farm for more than a dozen years. He was in his midforties, married to an elementary school teacher, with one young daughter. Good guy, hard worker, nice family. Despite his younger age in comparison with most of the others, Ben had been mulling over the idea of seeing whether Jim would be interested in taking on a broader managerial role with the tree farm after the holidays. Ben was concerned that the older men who'd put in more time would think they should get that nod, but he was fairly sure if he presented it right, so they knew he was looking at the bigger picture and wanted someone who could take on the challenge as a long-term objective, they would understand. Plus, their roles would also increase as well, as would their salaries.
If he decided to keep the farm.
For now, Jim's home base was midway between Blueberry Cove and Machiasport, so it made perfect sense to make him lot manager, and would give Ben a chance to work closely with him. Jim would spend time on the two lots near him, and coordinate with Chandler Falls as well. That way Ben only needed to keep in touch with one person.
And you won't have any reason to stop by Blueberry Cove . . . see if a certain interior designer happens to be around.
He'd been trying to convince himself that Fiona was on his mind morning, noon, and night because she'd taken herself out of the equation, put herself out of his reach. That old wanting-what-he-couldn't-have thing. In the time since he and Annalise had finally called it quits, he'd come to realize that he'd always felt she was a bit beyond his reach, even when they were together, and that had been at least part of her allure, though he'd have denied it at the time. The fact that she was a tall, leggy blonde with the kind of face that would make supermodels weep hadn't hurt things, either.
He was a guy, and what guy worth his testosterone wouldn't want a woman who looked like that on his arm, even though he'd like to think he was looking for more in a woman than how she filled out a bikini. To be fair, Annalise was no dummy. Far from it. However, it wasn't usually her brains she flaunted in front of him when she was trying to woo him back. Again.
The only thing he could say in his defense was that clearly looks weren't everything, nor were smarts, as their relationship had been more rocky than smooth from the start. Also true was the fact that he'd usually been the one walking away, and had been the one to finally end things for good.
“Everyone gets at least one âwhat the hell was I thinking?' relationship,” he muttered. “Right?” Or a
What the hell was I thinking
with
?
relationship, anyway.
He paused to stare at the sky before going up the steps to the screened-in porch that backed the length of the old farmhouse and led directly into the big, family-style kitchen. The heavens looked every bit as ominous as the forecast. He changed direction and went around to the side of the house and into the woodshed. Better to get a stockpile indoors to keep the woodstove going since it was likely the power would be one of the first things to go.
He was on his third load when a pair of headlights coming down the long dirt and gravel lane from the main road back to the farm proper caught his attention. “Who the hell would be coming out here now?” He knew it wasn't any of his employees, as he'd just gotten done sending them all home a bit early to get a jump start on the holiday. He was hoping he'd see them bright and early on Friday morning when the gates opened for business, but at the moment, he wasn't feeling particularly optimistic.
Maybe one of the guys forgot something
, he thought, as he dumped the wood in a small pile inside the back screened-in porch, then walked around to the front of the house in time to see Fiona's little green Prius round the final bend.
Brilliant.
That was all his raging libido needed. Risking getting snowed in with the one woman he couldn't get out of his mind, but couldn't put his hands on, either.
I trust you'll do what's right.
Logan's words echoed in his ears. As if he needed the reminder. Dammit.
He brushed the wood pulp from the front of his hoodie and jeans, then stopped midmotion and swore under his breath. “Like you could pretty yourself up for her and that would suddenly make all the difference.” Right.
He crossed the side yard so she could see him as she came up on the cleared area the family used as a parking area, instead of taking the turn to head around back to where the farm outbuildings and tree fields were. Just as he wondered what in the hell had made her drive all the way out here, it occurred to him that maybe there had been some kind of emergency. What might warrant a home visit, he had no idea, but the pump of adrenaline the thought had shoved into his system was enough for him to pick up the pace and trot the last few steps as she pulled in.
“Everything okay?” he asked, as she rolled down her window.
“No, nothing is okay,” she said, looking a little bit cross and a whole lot put out. What she didn't look was upset or scared, so he figured no one was in mortal danger. Except possibly him, he amended silently, as she shot him the evil eye.
“Well, whatever it was I did this time, you know, you could have just called to chew me out. I'd have let you have your say before hanging up. Promise.”
“There's only one thing I want you to promise me.” She shooed him away from her door so she could open it and climb out. “But my toes are numb and I can feel my lips cracking as I speak. So, if you don't mind, I'd love it if I could go inside and yell at you instead.”
Ben thought it was probably unwise to let her see the smile that was threatening to curve his lips, so he did the gentlemanlyâand self-preservationistâthing and stepped aside, motioning toward the house with a sweep of one arm. “Be my guest. I was just hauling in the last stack of logs for the stove. The front door is unlocked and you know the layout. Nothing has changed from there to the kitchen since whenever you were here last. Meet you there.”
“Awesome,” she replied, looking like the suggestion was anything but, yet turning back and leaning in, presumably to grab something from the car.
He hadn't meant to linger, but his gaze got all hung up on the fit of her black jeans as she leaned in across the driver seat to snag what turned out to be either a very large red leather purse or a piece of carry-on luggage.
Before she could catch him staring and possibly swing whatever it was at his head, he finally yanked his gaze away and headed back around the side of the house as the dusk turned quickly to full dark.
There was absolutely no reason whatsoever for him to be grinning like a kid on Christmas morning while he did it, either.
He hadn't the first clue what had set her off this time, or why she'd felt compelled to drive all the way to Snowflake Bay to let him have it. All he knew was that he wasn't about to let her get in her little safe-for-the-environment-but-supremely-unsafe-for-a-winter- storm vehicle and head back to the Cove tonight. “She'd better have packed something to sleep in,” he murmured, then immediately pictured her in what he'd like her to wear to bed. Absolutely nothing.
As a kid, she'd never been exactly plump, more like sturdy. As a woman grown, she still came off as sturdy and strong, and could probably throw a pretty mean right hook if she was of a mind. But all the softness that had padded her short, sturdy body as a kid had now filled out into the kind of knockout curves that made men drool and do stupid things. “Like put their hands on their best friends' sisters' aâ” Yeah, he nipped that sweet little mental image right in the bud. Along with thoughts of all the parts of her that he'd like to nip.
Didn't you just get done lecturing yourself on the wisdom of letting certain parts of your anatomy dictate what woman you pursue?
Yeah, he thought, shaking his head. Although, he honestly didn't think of Fiona that way. At least, he hadn't until now, and even now, her physical appeal was all tangled up with everything else he knew about her. No matter what scale he used to measure them, she and Annalise Manderville couldn't be farther apart, except, perhaps, for how they affected his anatomy. And even then, that single kiss he'd shared with Fiona had rocked him in a way that no amount of body flaunting and seducing from Annalise, or any other woman, ever had.
He supposed it was because he'd known Fiona longer than any woman he'd ever dated, was so familiar with her and to her, that there was no way to backtrack and pretend like they were two people just getting to know each other. Although, in many ways, he supposed that's exactly what they were doing. Because if he really knew her, he wouldn't have been so clueless as to assume she thought of their childhood taunts as anything more than harmless teasing.
What he did know was that at no time in his life had he ever actually looked forward to being confronted by an angry woman. In fact, he supposed that was yet another part of why he'd stayed with Annalise for as long as he had. Like most men, he'd mastered every lesson in the
Conflict Avoidance 101
handbook early on in his dating life.
But this was Fiona. And while she had never made his life easy, she had always made it more interesting. “Maybe you're just a slow starter,” he muttered, thinking his personal life might have been significantly more rewarding if he'd also learned early on that an interesting and openly honest relationship was always the best approach.
He thought about his parents as he carefully stacked the pile of wood on the back porch on one arm, then pushed his way into the kitchen with the other. He'd never thought of them as being bickerers, because they weren't. But neither were they complacent with each other, or smooth. Not all the time, anyway. Theirs had been a relationship full of lively discussions and honest negotiations, peppered with the occasional inadvertent hurt feeling and heartfelt apology, and the far more frequent displays of sincere love and affection. One thing about his parents that he both admired and wanted for himself was that they not only loved each other, but happened to like each other a whole lot, too. And he'd learned from watching a lot of his friends' parents, as well as the folks who came out to cut down their annual Christmas tree, how much better it was when those two things went hand in hand.
Fiona was pacing the kitchen when he came in, and he couldn't help grinning. There was absolutely not a shred of his calm, serenely diplomatic mother in her, but then, that was more his strength. No, Fiona was a lot more like his dad. Grab hold of life with both hands and just shake it until it jumbled itself into a pattern that made sense. And if that didn't work, knock it all down and build it from the ground up the way it should have been built to begin with. He supposed that was exactly what she'd done in New York, and what she was doing again back in the Cove.
Question was . . . what was he doing? And why did he think he needed to involve her in any part of it?
He looked at her expectantly as he stacked the wood against the hearth behind the woodstove, on top of the other logs he'd already arranged there earlier.
“No, no, go ahead and finish what you're doing,” she said. “I want your undivided attention so I only have to say this once.”
Oh, if you only knew how undivided my attention is where you're concerned
, he thought. He didn't bother tempering his grin as he did as she asked. If he was going to roast either way, might as well get all the pop, crackle, and sizzle he could to go with it.
Once he was done, he stepped back out to the porch to brush off his hoodie, then went ahead and pulled it off altogether. He had three layers on underneath it, and the kitchen was already heating up from the fire he'd stoked on his first trip in. He scrubbed his hand through his hair, knocking off a few more pieces of pine tree and wood junk, then grinned again and gave up, going back inside to face the music that was Fiona McCrae.
“Can I get you something cold to drink before you yell at me? I've got iced tea, beer, water, and possibly a can or three of soda. Or I can put a pot of coffee on. In fact, I think I'll do that anyway. I could use some.” He looked over his shoulder as he stepped over to the counter and grabbed the coffeepot from the coffeemaker. “Unless that will divide my attention too much.”
“Oh, go ahead, make your funny little jests.” She paused in her pacing. “But yeah, I'd like a mug, too, if it's not too much trouble. I still have to make the trip back to the Cove.”