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All I Have
Nicole Helm


Let the battle begin Mia Pruitt wishes Dell Wainwright would keep his shirt on. The Naked Farmer lures customers by stripping to his perfectly worn jeans while he and Mia sell vegetables from competing stands at the farmers' market. It's time for a showdown, and they're each in it to win.Yet when both farms end up in jeopardy, Mia and Dell suddenly find themselves on the same team. If their rivalry was hot, their attraction is steaming, but they can't seem to agree on a plan. If they could only learn to grow together, they might reap the best harvest of all…







Let the battle begin

Mia Pruitt wishes Dell Wainwright would keep his shirt on. The Naked Farmer lures customers by stripping to his perfectly worn jeans while he and Mia sell vegetables from competing stands at the farmers’ market. It’s time for a showdown, and they’re each in it to win.

Yet when both farms end up in jeopardy, Mia and Dell suddenly find themselves on the same team. If their rivalry was hot, their attraction is steaming, but they can’t seem to agree on a plan. If they could only learn to grow together, they might reap the best harvest of all...


“What are you doing?”

What was he doing? Well, he certainly wasn’t thinking. Mia was like a salve to a wound, and since everything was all mixed up and tangled anyway... “Considering kissing you, actually.”

She pulled her head back even more, holding out her hands like double stop signs. “You can’t kiss me!”

It was such a strange response to him trying to kiss her, Dell was almost amused. Refusal he’d expected. Some kind of scathing comment, yup. A sort of weird panic complete with squeaky voice and bug eyes? It was kind of cute.

“Why not?”


Dear Reader (#u8b9351f7-199d-555c-a864-cf9eb2cefdac),

I’ve been in love with farms since I can remember. The romantic side of me likes to think love is a gene, passed down from generations before. My grandfather had to quit farming long before I was born, but when I was a kid he bought back the farmhouse he’d grown up in. He’s always told me that farmhouse is his heart. The poetry of that sentiment stuck with me, and I was determined to put that heart into a book. So I wrote a story about two farmers whose farms were their hearts.

I sold that book (and a second book in the series) to Harlequin E in 2013, and in 2014 that book came out as part of the Harlequin E Contemporary Box Set Volume 2, and then on its own in September of 2014 under the title All I Have.

When Harlequin E folded, the awesome Harlequin Superromance team offered to move the entire Farmers' Market series to Superromance. Since the original two books were shorter, this came with the caveat that All I Have would need an additional 20,000 words. So, here we are!

All I Have is longer than the original version, but it’s the same story of two people whose hearts are their farms and belong to each other.

Happy reading!

Nicole Helm

nicolehelm.wordpress.com (http://www.nicolehelm.wordpress.com)


All I Have

Nicole Helm




www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)


NICOLE HELM grew up with her nose in a book and a dream of becoming a writer. Luckily, after a few failed career choices, a husband and two kids, she gets to pursue that writing dream. She lives in Missouri with her husband and two sons and dreams of someday owning a barn.


To my Grandpa Beck. You once said the farm was your heart, so I gave Mia and Dell your heart.

Many thanks to the people at Harlequin, especially Alissa Davis for believing in this book from the beginning and making it even stronger, and Piya Campana for bringing it to Harlequin Superromance. I will be forever grateful for having the opportunity to work with both of you.


Contents

Cover (#u1317ec09-42a5-5879-8eb6-c51cd5a230b2)

Back Cover Text (#u767fb11e-84d6-5210-95c8-5b5fdb005887)

Introduction (#u301c4f9f-3f20-5816-87c2-d99c85e48b38)

Dear Reader

Title Page (#u5c0d88b3-9dbc-575f-a01c-600eaa33b305)

About the Author (#u92c26eaf-b0bb-51bd-b4ac-f8c6760912f5)

Dedication (#u390f6f4f-c751-5ffe-b6fe-66f1c6c72a22)

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

EPILOGUE

Extract (#litres_trial_promo)

Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)


CHAPTER ONE (#u8b9351f7-199d-555c-a864-cf9eb2cefdac)

“GUH.”

Mia Pruitt ran smack-dab into her sister’s back, causing the pallet full of cabbages she was carrying to drop to the ground. Green spheres bounced against the concrete with a thud and rolled in every direction.

“Damn it, Cara.” At least cabbage was one of the hardier vegetables Mia had for the early-spring market. The drop wouldn’t really damage them.

“Sorry.” But Cara didn’t move. She stood frozen directly in the path between the truck bed and Mia’s stand at the farmers’ market, cabbage strewn about her feet.

Mia looked where Cara’s gaze was transfixed and groaned. “Is he serious? It’s not even fifty degrees. Can’t he wait until July for that crap?”

“Who cares?” Cara fanned her face with her hand. “He can take his shirt off any day he wants. And if he gets cold, I will gladly step in to warm him up.”

Dell Wainwright and his stupid shirtless antics had put a serious dent in their farmers’ market profits last year. Cara didn’t care, but this wasn’t her full-time job. Mia was the one taking over the farm. Mia was the one making this stand into a living. She cared, and she was going to find a way to combat him this year.

Dell might look like a god among men shirtless behind his table full of spring vegetables, but she’d jump around naked in front of everyone before she let him put her out of business. This farmers’ market was the best thing to happen to her share of Pruitt Farms and to her personally. In the past four years she’d been selling here, she had finally learned how to come out of her shell.

In its fifth year, the market had grown to fill up half a mall parking lot. Tables with awnings lined the outer lot. In early spring, there were only two rows, but by midsummer there’d be four. Each booth was made up of a variety of locally sourced items. From her and Dell’s locally grown vegetables to people selling meat, eggs, local and homemade cheeses and honeys and breads, and a few craft and soap stands.

Each year they had more customers, and each year Dell’s stand had directly competed with hers. She’d managed to build up her business to break even and was this close to making it profitable.

Yeah, Dell was not screwing that up. Six-pack abs or no six-pack abs. “Stop drooling and pick up the cabbage.” She gave Cara a nudge with her boot. “He’s the enemy, remember?”

“If the enemy looks like that, I’ll gladly turn myself in. What kind of torture are we talking?”

“Gross.”

“If you think that’s gross, you need your eyes checked.” Cara flipped her hair over her shoulder and bent down to pick up the cabbage at her feet. Her eyes never left Dell.

Mia set to unloading the early-spring haul onto the table under the Pruitt Farms tent. Meanwhile, Cara made no bones about watching Dell’s every move.

Cara was always dating or talking about guys she wanted to date or pinning hot celebrity pictures to her Pinterest page. It wasn’t that Mia didn’t appreciate a hot guy. She just didn’t understand obsessing over one.

Probably because twenty-six-year-old virgins didn’t know what they were missing.

Mia set up the pallets, the price signs, made sure everything was just so, and maybe on occasion her gaze drifted to Dell and his broad, tanned shoulders as he hauled his own farm’s offerings from truck to table.

He was still the enemy, but it didn’t mean she couldn’t look.

“So glad to see you girls back this year,” Val greeted them, ever-present clipboard clutched to her chest. “You’re going to stick with us all year, right?”

“Yes, ma’am. Couldn’t kick us out if you wanted.”

Val wasn’t looking at her anymore, though. She was drooling over Dell, right along with Cara. Mia resisted the urge to hurl a cabbage across the aisle. Knowing Dell, he’d probably make a big show out of catching it.

“Uh-huh. Very good. See you next week.” Val wandered off to Dell’s table. In two seconds flat, Dell was making her giggle and blush.

“You can’t stop staring, either.”

“I’m picturing strangling him.” If that picture included wondering what his skin might feel like under her hands it was curiosity, not interest. Or so she told herself, year after shirtless year.

“Hey, whatever floats your boat.”

A group of women descended on Dell’s table. Usually the first hour of the first week of the market was virtually empty, but today had a bit of a crowd. A mainly female crowd.

Not fair. What’d he do, advertise? Male stripper does Millertown Farmers’ Market.

The group of women laughed and Dell made a big production of picking things up and putting things down and flexing and—ugh—he really was despicable.

“You’re blushing.”

“I am not!” Damn it. She totally was. Well, she’d come too far to be flustered by a pair of perfectly toned forearms. She was not the little girl who hyperventilated in the bathroom between classes if a boy even said hi to her.

It had always been a joke anyway. Say hi to Mia Pruitt and watch her self-destruct into a blushing, babbling mess.

Dell wasn’t saying hi to her, joke or no joke, and he most certainly wasn’t a boy. He was an adult man and she was an adult woman. A confident, strong woman no longer the laughingstock of her tiny Missouri farming community.

Every time someone bought a head of broccoli or cabbage from him, they weren’t buying it from her. So, essentially, he was stealing.

Nobody liked thieves no matter how white their teeth were or how charming their grin might be.

“You know what?” Mia dropped the cash box onto the ground next to her chair with a loud crash. “Two can play his little game.” She was done just...taking it. Maybe it was time to fight.

Cara laughed. “What does that mean? You going to take your shirt off?”

“Not exactly.” Mia narrowed her eyes at Dell flirting with a young mom who carried a baby on her hip. Both mom and baby were charmed. Mom bought a bag full of vegetables. Probably wouldn’t eat half of them before they went bad.

Mia might not have muscles and a five o’clock shadow women swooned over, but surely she could do something to undermine Dell’s sex-sells philosophy.

If you couldn’t beat ’em, join ’em. She wasn’t sure how to join them yet, but she would damn well figure it out before next week. She was tired of being the passive taker-of-crap. She was going to act.

* * *

“MIA’SBORINGHOLES through your skull with her eyes. Be afraid. Be very afraid.”

Dell waved his brother off. “Please. Mia Pruitt is five foot three of all bark and no bite in a baggy sweatshirt.”

“I don’t know. She takes this farm stuff pretty seriously.” Charlie stacked the last empty pallet on the truck bed. “Wouldn’t want to get in her way. Besides, she’s not bad without the glasses and the frizzy hair. Kind of cute, actually.”

“I’m not worried about Mia.” Dell pulled on a threadbare Mizzou sweatshirt. “I take my farm stuff pretty seriously, too.” He spared her a glance. Cute was probably the right word for her. With her hair straight instead of a frizz of curls and the heavy-framed glasses gone, she no longer resembled Mia, Queen of the Geeks.

But in the baggy shirt and at-least-one-size-too-big jeans, even a sexy mouth and big green eyes couldn’t push her beyond cute.

Charlie laughed. “Yeah, nothing says serious like taking off your shirt and flexing your muscles to sell a few extra cucumbers.”

“Hey, a true businessman does what he has to do.”

Charlie shook his head. “Whatever you tell yourself to sleep at night, man.”

His VP of sales older brother could sneer at the farm and all that went with it as much as he liked, but with Dad making noises about selling instead of passing the farm on to Dell, Dell knew he had to kick ass this market season. That meant whatever tactics necessary, regardless of Charlie’s approval.

If that meant taking off his shirt, so be it. A little harmless flirting and a few extra dollars in his pocket wouldn’t hurt anyone, and it’d help him. Why did people have to assume that meant he was an idiot? He was raking it in.

“Can we hurry this up? I’ve got a lunch date with Emily downtown in, like, an hour.”

Dell nodded and picked up the pace. Choosing a noisy, bustling dinner at a fancy restaurant downtown over the quiet ease of lunch at Moonrise in New Benton was beyond him. But then, the things he didn’t understand about his older brother were too many to count.

Dell folded the awning and was tying it together when a pair of greenish cowboy boots stepped into his vision. He looked up, quirked an eyebrow at Mia.

“Wainwright.” She was almost a foot shorter than he, so she had to tilt her head back when he stood to his full height.

He nodded, tipped the brim of his ball cap. “Pruitt.” Maybe he should have worn a Stetson hat. This felt more like high noon than a friendly greeting.

“Still lowering yourself to stripping for attention?” She crossed her arms over her chest, narrowed her eyes at him. “I thought maybe you’d grown up a bit since last year.”

She had a dusting of light brown freckles across her nose. Kind of weird to notice it now, but then again he’d never spent much time looking at Mia. The girl who’d been the champion of awkward moments in high school, then come back from college quiet and unassuming. Of course, she’d never gotten up in his face and accused him of stripping before.

Dell grinned. That meant she thought he was a threat to her tidy little business. He primed up the charm and the drawl. “Don’t worry, darling. I’m sure there’ll be enough customers to go around. Not everyone is swayed by good looks and charm. Just most people.”

She didn’t cower. She didn’t walk away. She didn’t even dissolve into the Queen of the Geeks she’d been in high school. No, Mia Pruitt grinned at him—which had to be a first, even if she’d grown out of most of her awkwardness since she’d come back from college.

“Oh, I’m not worried. But you should be,” she said. Then she sauntered away with enough confidence that Dell stared after her.

“Whoa.” The saunter. The grin. Even with all her recent changes, he’d never seen that kind of...attitude from Mia before. Was it his imagination, or was it kind of hot?

Charlie slapped him on the back. “Told you not to cross her. Mia isn’t the girl hiding behind the pony at Kelsey’s birthday party anymore, if you hadn’t noticed.”

Dell stared after Mia’s swinging hips. Apparently he hadn’t noticed that at all.


CHAPTER TWO (#u8b9351f7-199d-555c-a864-cf9eb2cefdac)

MIAPULLEDHER truck into the parking lot at Orscheln and tried not to be irritated by all Dad’s sighing and grumbling. She drove too fast, braked too hard. The one and only place Dad ever criticized her.

Which was why, for the life of her, she couldn’t figure out why he didn’t drive himself. Or stay home.

“If you hate coming to town so much, you don’t have to come. I could always get whatever you need.”

“Have to ask Rick about this new vaccine.”

“You could do that on the phone. I bet Rick even has email.”

Dad harrumphed and got out of the truck. Mia trudged after him. Mostly, she loved spending time with Dad. He’d always been her biggest supporter, and one of the few people she felt understood her.

But going to Orscheln with Dad meant people didn’t get used to her as Mia Pruitt, serious farmer. They still saw the girl who had cried when all the chickens had been sold, or accidentally let all the kittens up for adoption out of their cage because she’d been trying to pet them.

Daughter of the town hermit, the man who refused to talk to anyone except Rick when he came in. Should another employee approach him, he’d turn and walk away. If Rick was out sick, Dad would hop in his truck and go home.

Oh, who was she kidding? Even when she came in without Dad she was a Pruitt, and there was a lot of baggage that went with that.

But she could pretend when she was alone. Pretend she was your average twenty-six-year-old vegetable farmer. Or something.

“I’m going to...look at some plants. You go ahead inside.” It was an excuse, a pathetic one at that, but maybe if she could pretend they hadn’t walked in together...

Mia stared gloomily at some pansies as Dad grunted and went inside. She was being kind of a crap daughter, and that made her feel guilty. Especially having been on the receiving end of the “go ahead inside, I’ll wait out here” line more than once.

“Of all the gin joints in the world, she walked into mine.”

Mia closed her eyes. Apparently today was really going to make her feel as if she was sixteen again. She glanced over her shoulder at Dell. He had his beat-up Cardinals hat on, equally worn jeans and a black T-shirt that did unfair things to showcase the muscles of his arms.

If she was a cat, she’d hiss at him. Instead, she mustered her best fake smile. “You’re wearing a shirt. What a novelty.”

“No shirt, no shoes, no service.” He grinned, and she hated that some part of her reacted to that grin. A weird flopping deep in her stomach; a floaty giddiness around her chest.

Yes, she was sixteen and still an idiot. “You got the quote all wrong, by the way.”

“Huh?”

“It’s, �Of all the gin joints, in all the towns, in all the world, she walks into mine.’ If you’re going to quote something, it should at least be the right something.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Figures,” she muttered, turning her attention back to the plants. She had no use for flowers. She lived in an apartment in town, and even if she lived at the farm, she’d certainly plant something she could sell the produce of.

Dell did not seem to take the hint, still standing uncomfortably behind her. Uncomfortably because...well. He made her uncomfortable. Because he was a butt, that was why.

“Are you following me?” she asked, trying to sound bored. Succeeding, too, if she did say so herself.

“It’s a small town, sugar.”

She would not be irritated by the cocky way he drawled sugar. She would also not be...other things at the way his voice was all gravelly and sure of himself. Not hot. Not even cute.

“And yet, how many times have I run into you here before? I do these errands every Tuesday morning.”

“Well, if you see me again, then you’ll know I’m following you. For today, it’s just an unfortunate coincidence.”

Unfortunate. Yeah. She certainly got no secret thrill out of seeing him outside the market. Please. She hoped to never see him outside the market. She didn’t even want to see him at the market.

“But while we’re here, together, on this beautiful day, why don’t you tell me what you’ve got up your sleeve so you don’t embarrass yourself at the market Saturday?”

She glanced at him again, giving him a condescending look she’d been practicing in the mirror. “First of all, we’re not together.”

“I’m standing here. You’re standing there right in touching distance. We’re talking. Together enough from where I’m at.”

“Why don’t you stand out of touching distance?” Because words like touching made her even more uncomfortable than she already was. How could she pretend to be calm and collected when she had to think about...touching?

She had the petty desire to give him a little push, but that would be silly and childish...and probably put her in contact with muscles she’d prefer to only fantasize about.

Except, no fantasizing.

“I don’t know why you have reason to be so antagonistic with me, Mia. Fair competition and all that. Jealousy isn’t an attractive quality.”

She rolled her eyes. “The day I worry about being attractive to you is the day I go brain-dead.” Jitters multiplied in her stomach. This was getting...weird. “Besides, if it’s fair competition, you don’t need to worry about what I’ve got up my sleeve.”

“I’m just trying to look out for you. You’ve built quite a new rep for yourself.”

She was not a violent person, but something about him made her visualize doing a lot of it. Unfortunately that also meant visualizing touching him. In a way that wasn’t all...violent. “The day Dell Wainwright is looking out for my well-being is the day I start taking my shirt off at the market.”

His eyes drifted to her chest, an almost considering look on his face. She crossed her arms over herself, the heat of embarrassment mixing with a different kind of heat.

“Go away, Dell. I am trying to do actual work here. I’m guessing you wouldn’t know what that’s like.”

There was a beat of silence, a moment of triumph that she’d shut him up, and then a twist of...something not so nice in her stomach.

“Naw, I just sit around my farm twiddling my thumbs.” He stepped away from her, a weird energy in the tense shoulders and the hard line of his mouth. “See you ’round, Pruitt.”

Mia frowned after him. She had no idea why she felt...kind of guilty and like a jerk. She hadn’t said anything too terrible to him, certainly not any worse than him calling her Queen of the Geeks.

So the weird twist in her stomach was out of place, and Dell was out of place for making her feel it. She was about to stomp into the store, but Dad’s voice sounded from behind her.

“That boy bothering you?”

Mia snorted, couldn’t help it. She turned to Dad, who’d obviously come out of the feed exit. It was nice Dad felt protective, but she did not need to be protected. Or comforted. Not anymore. “First of all, Dell Wainwright isn’t a boy any more than I’m a girl.”

Dad harrumphed.

“Second, I’m not... That stuff doesn’t bother me anymore.” Possibly because it wasn’t the same. Going toe-to-toe with Dell was less like being made fun of, being called names. It was more like battle. One she was more than equipped to fight.

It was weirdly invigorating. It made her feel capable and strong. If she could take on Mr. Prom King, she could take on anyone. If she could ignore the random bouts of misplaced guilt. Which she would.

She was going to take him on and win, and the more he poked at her, the more he’d find she didn’t roll over and hide anymore.

“Let’s go home.”

It was tempting. Tempting to put off what she’d come for so she wouldn’t have to run into Dell in the aisles, but not tempting enough to agree to.

“You can wait in the car if you want. But I have a few things that need picking up.” Because she was not a wimp. Not anymore.

* * *

DELLHEFTEDTHE tarps he needed onto the dolly, trying to ignore the fact he could see Mia at the end of the aisle doing the same.

He’d been kind of a dick, and it wasn’t his proudest moment, but she’d sure landed the knockout punch.

I’m guessing you wouldn’t know what that’s like.

As if farmwork could ever be anything but hard. As if he didn’t work his ass off every day trying to compete with her.

Her very fine ass.

Yeah, he didn’t want to be noticing things like that. So she wasn’t a social mess anymore? It didn’t mean he had any right or reason to be attracted to her. He didn’t have time to be distracted by stuff like that. Not with Dad breathing down his neck for profits. Proof that his ideas could stand the test of time.

Dell looked down at the tarps. It was another expense he didn’t need, but if he started cutting corners it would affect his crops. With both the weekly farmers’ market and five families getting community-supported agriculture portions from him, he didn’t have the option of risking product.

Life sure had been easier when he didn’t care about this stuff. No one and nothing depending on him. Then again, if he hadn’t been quite so laid-back, perhaps he wouldn’t be in this position now.

If he’d been like Mia and gone to a tough school and worked hard and come back with all As, would it have mattered?

There was no answer for that. Nothing he could do to change what had happened. All he could do was focus on the present and the future and doing everything in his power to make Dad sell the farm to him.

Mia Pruitt was a competitor and distraction he would not let get in his way. He started rolling his dolly toward the cash register, realizing belatedly she was doing the same and they were now in line. Mia right in front of him.

So much for not being a distraction. Her baggy sweatshirt was pushed up to her elbows, revealing elegant forearms and delicate wrists. At least they looked that way, until she hefted a sack of sand as if it weighed nothing.

Her gaze landed on him and she rolled her eyes. “Oh, for heaven’s sake,” she said under her breath, tossing her sack of tarps on the conveyor belt.

“You’re telling me.” He crossed his arms, determined not to say anything else to her. Karl rang up her purchases and she stared resolutely at her dolly.

Karl rattled off a price and Mia dug a credit card out of her back pocket, and even while he was expressly ignoring her, it was kind of hard to ignore her ass.

Yes, he was a dick.

She blew out a breath, fidgeted as the ancient machine slowly printed out a receipt. Finally, she spoke. Because as much as she’d changed, there were still pieces of the old Mia in there.

“For what it’s worth, I...” She raised her chin and looked him straight in the eye. Pretty green eyes. “I’m sorry,” she said resolutely.

He was taken completely off guard, so much so he could make only a kind of “Huh?” sound.

“Holy moly, why am I doing this?” she muttered, snatching the receipt from Karl. She glanced at Dell, expression full of self-disgust. “I have my issues with how you sell stuff, and I’m going to use everything in my arsenal to beat you, but...I don’t want to insult you in the process. It doesn’t feel good to me.”

“Are you insinuating it feels good to me?”

Her brows drew together. “No! I’m trying to be nice and apologize. Leave it to you to make that complicated.”

“Leave it to me? Isn’t that an insult?”

She grabbed the handle of her rolling tray. “Dell, you are the most annoying man I have ever met.”

He had to work really hard not to smile. Something about riling her up was way too enjoyable. “Also an insult.”

“Go to hell.” She smiled faux-sweetly. “Please. Now it’s an insult, but at least I’m being polite about it.” Much like at the market last week, she sauntered away.

It made no sense he was smiling after her. Then again, he was beginning to think nothing about Mia Pruitt made any damn sense.


CHAPTER THREE (#ulink_783a83b7-8dac-518d-abc9-046da4d42287)

“HOWBADLYDO you want to beat Dell at the farmers’ market?”

Mia looked up from the row of carrot seeds she was planting. Mia’s youngest sister stood with Kenzie, Dell’s little sister. Anna and Kenzie had been inseparable since kindergarten and Mia had never once felt weird about that.

Until now.

“Um.”

“The jerk told my parents he caught me making out in the barn. I want him to burn,” Kenzie said vehemently, clutching a book to her chest.

“Um.”

“It’s nothing all that bad,” Anna explained, always the cool head wherever she went. “We just have some pictures of him, and we came up with this idea where you could post on the farmers’ market page that you have pictures of the Naked Farmer in his underwear if people came to your booth Saturday morning or whatever. It would get you some extra customers, no doubt.”

“You have pictures of Dell in his underwear?” Mia squeaked. “Not that I...” She closed her eyes against the embarrassed flush spreading up her neck. “I have no idea what you two are trying to accomplish here.”

Kenzie opened up the book, revealing old photos in an album. Mia squinted. “Is that Dell?”

“Yes. In diapers. Underwear. It’s a little harmless embarrassment.”

Mia finally stood, trying to clap some of the dirt off her hands. The same uncomfortable twisting in her gut she’d felt yesterday at the store lodged itself there. “I’m not really into embarrassing anyone. I’ve kind of had my share of that, and it isn’t fun.”

“He walks around that market shirtless. Do you really think a few pictures from when he was a kid are going to embarrass him? I swear, he’s embarrass-proof. And being-a-decent-human-being-proof.”

Anna rolled her eyes. “Kenzie is overreacting.”

“Jacob said we shouldn’t go to prom together anymore!”

“You know he’ll change his mind.”

Mia tried to make sense of two seventeen-year-olds talking about things way beyond any experience she’d had in high school, but it was useless. Boys and prom might as well have been foreign words to her.

“The point is,” Anna said matter-of-factly, “Dell thinks he can beat you with the shirtless stuff. So play a little dirty.”

Mia had no idea why she was blushing again. “I’m sure our normal tactics are fine.”

Kenzie blew out a frustrated breath. “I told you,” she muttered to Anna. “Dell was right. She has no backbone.”

“Hey!”

Anna gave her a sympathetic look. “She’s kind of right. That’s not always a bad thing, but if you want to beat Dell you’re going to have to be a little meaner.”

“I don’t want to be mean. He’s not being mean to me.” Not really. It was nothing like high school, not when she could dish it back out.

Anna shrugged. “If he’s telling Kenzie you have no backbone, he isn’t exactly being nice. Regardless, if you’re not willing to go after him a bit, he’s always going to win.”

“This isn’t win-lose. It’s...sell. Sell enough to be profitable. That has nothing to do with Dell.”

Anna let out a belabored sigh. “Let’s go back to the house, Kenzie. We’ll work up some other revenge.”

The two teens huffed off together, heads huddled, obviously discussing Mia’s failings as a competitor.

Mia frowned and went back to her carrot seeds. The whole thing was stupid. More of the teasing and tricks she’d had to deal with when she’d been in high school. She was far more mature and worldly than Anna and Kenzie now. She did not need to feel peer-pressured into fighting dirty.

There was that annoying blush at the word dirty again. “I do not need to win, or be mean in the process,” she said, combining the seeds with the sand and carefully spreading the mixture into the row she’d already tilled. “This isn’t cutthroat business. It’s just...vegetables.”

She rocked back onto her heels. Cara always got on her when she caught her talking to herself. Or her vegetables. It was a habit. A habit of a lonely girl. She wasn’t that girl anymore.

Dell was right. She has no backbone.

Mia scowled at that. She had a backbone. Being a nice person was not being backboneless. And if he thought her apologizing to him yesterday was lack of backbone...he obviously didn’t know what being a decent human being was all about.

But he was clearly going to beat her in profits again, decency or not.

Mia got to her feet. She needed advice, and she already knew what Anna had to say. Cara would no doubt take the cutthroat side. So her only hope at getting a little reassurance was Dad. If she could get a few words out of him.

She trudged across her fields, making a mental note to stake the east tomatoes a little better. Dad was in his barn, studying one of the cows Mia knew had been sick. Dad had his beat-up spiral notebook in one hand, thoughtfully scribbling a few notes down.

Surely Dad of all people would agree with her. He hated conflict more than he loved his cows.

“Carrots coming along?”

Mia nodded as she took a spot next to him. “Yup. Sassy doing better?”

“Looks like.”

Mia stared at the cow for a bit, trying to work out a way to ask without bringing Dell into the equation. There was no doubt her father would immediately bristle at the mention of a member of the male species, no matter how innocently.

“Do you think I have a backbone?” she asked, deciding the best route with Dad was to go for straightforward.

“Huh?”

“Like, if there’s a problem or a conflict, do I stand up for things?”

Dad continued to frown at her. “This one of those things where you and your sisters ask me a question and there’s no right answer except you all getting mad at me?”

“No, I’m serious. Do you think I have the backbone needed to be a businesswoman? To run my business successfully?”

“You’re an excellent farmer, daughter.”

Which was ignoring the question and made her feel sulky. But she didn’t back down because she wanted to know. She needed to know what to do. “I’m talking about the business side of things.”

Dad scratched a hand over his beard, then looked longingly at his cows outside the barn, but she wanted his opinion. She needed to know if even her father thought she was being the fool here.

“You keep an eye on your finances, and you make smart choices, and...”

“I’m a softie wimp.”

“Aw, now, Mia.” Dad clasped her shoulder, and if Dad was offering physical affection she was a sad case. Which meant she had to work harder to be...ruthless. Even if it felt kind of crappy.

The end justified the means and all that. That was what business—even farming business—was all about, maybe.

“You’ll be fine. You’re a good girl. It’ll all work out.”

But she didn’t want to be fine or good; she wanted to be successful. She wanted a business that could sustain her for the rest of her life. She wanted profits and the confidence she’d built over the past five years.

So with a goodbye to Dad, she headed for the house and Kenzie’s book of pictures.

* * *

“WHAT’SALLTHATABOUT?”

Dell frowned at the group of giggling women in front of Mia’s stand. This was definitely not the norm. Especially for a forty-degree drizzly Saturday morning. But there were at least ten women with umbrellas and rain boots surrounding Pruitt Farms’ stand, and the laughter kept building.

“Sneak over and check it out.”

Charlie rolled his eyes. “Yeah, I’m sure there’s a lot of cutthroat sabotage at the farmers’ market. She stole the secret patent to grow broccoli. Oh. Wait.”

“Bite me.” Dell pushed Charlie away from the truck. “Stop being useless for once and find out what that’s all about.”

“I’m not useless. I only waste my Saturday mornings here to keep Mom off my back about karmic payment and family support and blah, blah, blah.”

“Yeah, well, do some supporting.” Dell shoved Charlie again. With a long, belabored sigh, Charlie walked over to the Pruitt side of the aisle.

A couple stopped by Dell’s booth, obviously new to the market. Dell chatted them up, trying to keep his head in the game instead of across the aisle.

The couple left with some radishes and Charlie meandered back to their stand. He looked as if he fit more in with the customers in his dark jeans, sweater and some kind of loafer shoes. His brother, the yuppie.

Didn’t make an ounce of sense to Dell, and probably never would. When Charlie didn’t offer anything, Dell nudged him. “So?”

Charlie shrugged. “She said check the market’s Facebook page.”

“Facebook page? That’s her grand plan? Give me your phone.”

Charlie rolled his eyes. “You even know how to use my phone?”

No, but did it take a rocket scientist to figure out? When he held out his hand, Charlie slapped the phone into his palm. Dell swiped his thumb across the bottom of the screen then stared. Shit. He didn’t know how to use a damn smartphone. All he saw was a bunch of squares with stock or finance in the title. “How do I get to Facebook?”

“Give it back, moron.”

“Just because I don’t know how to use a smartphone doesn’t mean I’m a moron.” Dell handed the phone back to his brother and shoved his hands into his pockets. He wasn’t some dumb farmer. He had his ag degree from Mizzou.

But it was no MBA from Wash U in big brother’s eyes. Or Dad’s. No one seemed to want to let him live down the fact he’d been wait-listed, either, all because of his crap-ass standardized test scores. Who cared about those stupid tests anyway?

His family, that was who. Oh, and his girlfriend at the time, who’d dumped him for someone who could “intellectually stimulate” her.

He hadn’t had a clue what that meant at eighteen. He had even less of a clue what it meant now.

More giggling echoed across the aisle and Dell hunched his shoulders, glaring at Charlie. “Hurry up.”

Charlie waved him off. “Nothing on Mia’s page.”

“Well, what the hell are they laughing at, man?”

Charlie started laughing. Pretty soon he was laughing so hard he was slapping his knee.

“What the hell?”

Charlie passed the phone to him, and Dell squinted over the Millertown Farmers’ Market page. The last comment was from Mia Pruitt.

“Pruitt Farms has an extraspecial treat this week, ladies. If you want to see pictures of our intrepid Naked Farmer, Dell Wainwright, in his underwear, do I have the goods for you. Stop by from eight to nine Saturday morning for a peek!”

Dell shoved the phone at his brother so fast Charlie nearly dropped it, but Dell barely registered Charlie’s cursing because he’d already hopped the table and stalked over to the crowd of women. “Pruitt, you’re dead.”

The giggling didn’t stop, but it did become more hushed as the sea parted, so he was standing face-to-face with Mia, only her table of goods—many of those goods in the bags of the women who normally bought from him—between them.

“Well, howdy, Dell,” she drawled, flipping closed a family album. Wait a second. His mother’s family album.

“Where the hell’d you get that?”

“You look awfully cute in diapers, honey,” Deirdre, one of his regular customers, said, giving his arm a pat.

It took every ounce of salesman in him not to shrug her off or growl at Mia. “Hand it over.” She held it out and he snatched it from her hands.

“Careful. Your mother will kill you if you tear one of her pictures,” Mia said sweetly. “And Deirdre’s right, you do look awfully cute in nothing but your underwear.”

He forced himself to grin. “Aw, sugar, don’t be upset just because you’ve never seen me in my underwear.”

She tried to grab the album back. But Dell was too quick. He flipped through the thick pages. There were indeed pictures of him in his underwear. Of course, he was under the age of eight in every single one of them.

“I particularly like the bare-butt one in cowboy boots. Adorable.” Val pointed to the picture on the upper-left corner. He resisted the urge to slam it shut on her fingers.

“How did you get this?”

Mia smiled, flashing perfectly straight teeth. “Some secrets are meant to be kept.”

“Trust me when I say I could get any little secret out of you I wanted.”

Mia rolled her eyes. “Just because you’re hot doesn’t mean I’m going to— I mean...” Some of her bravado faded as her cheeks went pink. “You can’t charm me.”

But he kept waiting. Everyone they’d gone to high school with knew the key to unraveling any of Mia’s attempts at social interaction was simply to wait. In silence.

“Oh, screw you. I got it from Kenzie. Have you forgotten our baby sisters are best friends? And she wasn’t too happy with you apparently.”

Damn it, Kenzie. “I’ll kill her.”

“You seem really obsessed with killing women today, Dell.” Old Mia was gone, replaced by this surprisingly quick-on-her-feet, good-with-a-comeback version. Even knowing she’d gotten a little bit better with people hadn’t prepared him for this, or the comment that came next.

“Perhaps you should seek therapy.”

Dell shoved the album under his arm. “Don’t think this is over.” He pointed his finger at her, ignoring that she looked sexy with her hands on her hips. As he stalked away, Mia’s laughter followed him.

She was going to pay. Big-time.


CHAPTER FOUR (#ulink_5b874c4a-45a5-50c2-b278-feafdf5cea36)

THISTIMEWHEN Mia dropped a pallet full of vegetables, it wasn’t Cara’s fault. Instead, it was the sign under Morning Sun’s stand: Morning Sun Farms. Home of the Naked Farmer.

The sound coming out of her mouth was somewhere between a screech and a snarl. Then Cara started giggling.

“Oh, my God. He’s brilliant. Brilliant.”

“Brilliant?” Mia sucked in a breath, tried to find some center of calm. All she found was more anger. “He’s a glorified stripper!”

“A brilliant glorified stripper.”

Mia bent to pick up the scattered radish bunches and cabbage heads. She couldn’t believe he was using the title she’d come up with against her. And he wasn’t even naked! Only half-naked.

Right?

Mia peeked above the table to make sure. Yep. He was still wearing jeans. Although they were loose enough to hang low on his hips and were liberally streaked with dirt and grass stains at the knees. He could be in a hot-farmer calendar with that getup.

All he needed to do was stick his thumbs through his belt loops, pull down the pants a little bit, maybe flex.

The image was not at all appealing.

Not at all.

Mia shook her head and focused on the vegetables. Putting them out in neat rows, hanging the pretty little price tags Anna had made for her in art class. Maybe Dell offered a certain kind of appeal to some women, but families would appreciate Pruitt’s cleanliness, cuteness and overall clothedness.

She told herself that all morning, but woman after woman, regardless of the number of children they were carting around, fled to Dell and his shirtless idiocy. A few families came by her booth and bought some vegetables. A few of the women came over and bought a pan of Mom’s cinnamon rolls, since Dell wasn’t offering any baked goods at his table.

But mainly, Dell was winning. And she didn’t know how to fight back. It was an old, familiar feeling. In the first grade, she’d accidentally tucked her skirt into her underwear and hadn’t noticed for hours. Six years old, and she’d been forever labeled a geek. The teasing had escalated each school year, and her attempts to fit in had only made it worse.

She’d never known how to make herself above the jokes, the snickers. She’d either tried too hard or stayed invisible. There was no in-between for her.

Mia took a deep breath and looked around the market. This space had given her the tools to be confident enough not to care what other people thought. To quiet the incessant voice in her head telling her she was doing everything wrong. She’d mostly found her in-between in adulthood and maturity, and that couldn’t be taken away.

She might not know how to beat Dell yet, but she’d figure it out. Damn right she would.

As the morning wore down, Cara started packing up. “Anna texted me she won her event. She wants us to meet her at Moonrise at twelve thirty.”

Mia muttered her assent, scowling at a grinning Dell as much as she could while they packed up the truck.

He sauntered over and Mia straightened to her full height. She wished for a few more inches so he wouldn’t tower over her like some kind of Paul Bunyan. At least he had managed to put on his shirt before he came over.

He pulled his wallet out of his pocket. “I’ll take one of your mom’s cinnamon rolls.” He grinned when Cara smiled at him, all but fluttering her lashes as she handed over the tin of gooey baked goods. “I sure worked up an appetite selling so much today.”

“Yeah, I’ve heard stripping is really hard work. Maybe next week you can add some glittery tassels.”

His jaw tensed, but then he smiled, his gaze drifting to her chest. “I wouldn’t mind seeing you in some glittery tassels.”

Wait. What?

He cleared his throat, shifting on his feet. “That’s not...what I meant.” He shoved the money at her. Mia grunted in disgust, trying to pretend she wasn’t the darkest shade of red possible. She took his money and opened the change bank.

“Oh, don’t worry about it, hon.” He drawled out the hon until Mia ground her teeth. “Keep the change.”

She needed one snappy comeback and she could forget this bizarre conversation had ever happened. But her mind was blank.

“It looks as if you guys might be needing the extra money after all.” He winked, tipped his baseball cap.

“Of all the arrog—”

“Thanks, Dell,” Cara said, stepping in front of her. “We appreciate it. See you next week.”

“Sure thing, Carrie.”

Dell sauntered off and Mia pushed her sister. “What the hell? He was being totally patronizing.”

Cara shrugged. “So what? He’s cute. He smiled at me. Apparently he wants to see you in tassels, which, oh, my God. And he gave us five bucks. That’s a two-buck tip.”

“He called you Carrie.”

Cara shrugged. “Hey, if he wants me to be a Carrie, I’ll be a Carrie.”

Mia slammed the truck bed shut and hopped into the driver’s seat, fuming. Keep the change. It looks as if you guys might be needing the extra money after all. She’d show him where he could shove his change.

She would not, not, not think about the bizarre tassels comment. Of course he didn’t mean it. No one could even see her breasts under her sweatshirt.

Even more important, she knew how Dell saw her. How everyone still saw her. She might have changed, but everyone from New Benton knew her as the girl who’d written and performed a one-woman play about cow milking at the school talent show in an attempt to get in with the theater kids.

No one wanted to see the girl who’d done that in anything other than a clown outfit.

Cara sang along with Carrie Underwood as Mia drove back to New Benton. The thirty-minute drive didn’t calm her. She was still furious when she slid into a booth at the Moonrise Diner.

Anna was already seated, her hair in a wet ponytail from her swim meet, a New Benton High jacket across her shoulders. She looked over the menu. A menu that hadn’t changed in any of their lifetimes. When she looked up, her head snapped back. “Uh-oh. Who crossed Mia? She’s breathing fire.”

Cara laughed, slinging an arm over Anna’s shoulders. “I’ll give you one guess.”

Across the table, Mia sneered at them.

“Ah. Dell. I take it he got payback for the pictures?”

“Yup. He’s still kicking her ass at the market. He even used the Naked Farmer thing to his advantage. Poor Mia isn’t taking it well.”

Mallory set their usual drinks in front of them. “You girls want the usual?”

“I want a salad instead of fries,” Anna announced, putting the menu back behind the napkin dispenser. Mallory nodded and then disappeared to put in their orders.

“You need to up your game,” Anna instructed, with the kind of surety Mia had never, ever had at seventeen.

She slumped in the booth. She was furious because she thought she’d gained the upper hand and Dell had proved that to be false without even trying. “How am I supposed to compete with beefcake of the month?”

“You have breasts.” Cara pointed to Mia’s chest.

Mia choked on the sip of soda she’d taken. “Excuse me?”

“I mean, you can’t take your shirt off, but you could show off a few of those assets you insist on hiding. Women aren’t the only ones who go to the farmers’ market.”

She couldn’t even begin to formulate a response to her sister suggesting she use her breasts as some kind of selling device. Why were they getting so much attention today?

“Cara’s on to something,” Anna said, tapping her chin. “All you have to do is get some tighter jeans. Not even skintight, just ones that actually fit. A T-shirt instead of the baggy sweats.”

“But—”

“We were right about the hair, weren’t we?”

Yes, a year ago her sisters had finally convinced her the perm wasn’t doing anything for her. Cara had gotten her an appointment with the hairstylist at the salon she worked at in Millertown. Shelly had made Mia’s mousy, flat hair look decent with the right cut and highlights.

“And the glasses.”

“Hey, I started wearing contacts for practical reasons.” Mia folded and unfolded the napkin in front of her. She’d gotten to the point where she’d broken so many pairs of glasses and spent so much time cleaning them when she was out in the fields, getting over her eye-touching phobia had been downright necessary.

Losing the glasses hadn’t been some lame attempt at being pretty. Even if she’d hoped the guys would magically start flocking once she went the contact route. Stupid movies giving girls stupid expectations.

Guys didn’t flock. She could turn into Jessica Rabbit and everyone would still see her as Mia, Queen of the Geeks. She might have gotten over some of her shyness and social anxiety, but it certainly hadn’t changed people’s perception of her. Not here. Not when she’d accidentally set her hair on fire in chem lab freshman year. Twice.

“Whatever,” Cara said with the wave of a hand. “The point is, guys are customers, too. Tight jeans, a low-cut shirt, you’re good to go.”

“I am not stooping to Dell’s level.”

“Suit yourself,” Anna replied with a shrug. “But don’t come complaining to us when his profits kick your profits’ ass.”

“You have a decent ass. You might as well flaunt it.”

“You guys are nuttier than a fruitcake.” Mia pushed out of the booth.

“Where are you going?”

“To the bathroom.” Mia knew the bathrooms of every establishment in New Benton like the back of her hand, having spent many a hyperventilating moment in each of their stalls. Moonrise Diner had the nicest of the lot, so if she was going to do a little hyperventilating, there were few better places.

Mia shut herself in the first stall, took a deep breath. She had a decent body underneath the baggy clothes, but she’d never felt comfortable showcasing it. She’d made progress the past few years in confidence and not caring what other people thought, but not progress enough to use her body as some kind of selling point. Wasn’t that just a few steps away from prostitution?

Mia exhaled. Took another deep breath. Dell had kicked her ass today. It didn’t take a look at his books to know he’d outsold her by almost half. All because he had a nice body and a swoon-worthy smile? How was that fair?

If she wore tighter jeans, a shirt that didn’t hide every last curve, well, it wasn’t as if she’d look any different than most of the women her age. It wasn’t using sex as a selling tool. It was another step in being more like a normal twenty-six-year-old woman.

She’d gained confidence the past few years, finding her sense of self. It would be nice if the rest would fall into place, but maybe there were still changes to make to get to normal.

Maybe dressing the part would even bring her closer to that actual having-sex step. Or at least a real-kiss step. A date would be nice. Having someone look at her with the interest usually reserved for Cara.

So maybe it wasn’t even all about the stand. Maybe this was a natural progression on the road she’d already taken. Start...dressing the part of a confident, successful young businesswoman who was possibly interested in a little male attention.

She would do this for herself, not just to compete, but to find her rightful spot in adulthood. Bolstered, Mia stepped out of the stall, head held high.


CHAPTER FIVE (#ulink_adfe1a4a-3e26-5f84-bbf2-6afc076334ba)

ITCOULDN’THAVE been more than thirty-five degrees this morning, but sweat poured down Dell’s back as he descended the hill in a steady jog. His entire family thought his three-mile-a-day habit was nuts, but few things were as refreshing as a morning run. Especially on cold mornings when frost danced on the grass and his breath huffed out in clouds.

He approached the small cabin at the edge of his parents’ property. It had been built for his grandparents before Grandpa died and Grandma’d moved into the assisted-living center in Millertown. Now it was Dell’s. Paid rent on it and everything.

Dell lifted a leg onto the wooden fence, stretching forward as he watched the sunrise envelop the sky behind the hill. On top of the hill was his parents’ house. Mom and Dad would be long since up. Kenzie would be snoring—loudly—in his old room.

Sometimes he missed living in the big house. Always having someone to talk to or bother. He definitely wasn’t solitary by nature, so living alone wasn’t exactly a luxury. In fact, some days it downright blew.

But he was going to prove to Dad he was a responsible adult. Living on his own, paying rent, running the farmers’ market and CSA parts of the farm, it was all supposed to show Dad that Dell was responsible and smart enough to take over, to run this place. That he wanted it for what it was.

So far, Dell had gotten a lot of skeptical looks and a reminder that he used to blow off chores to sleep off a night of partying. Or a rehash of when he’d wrecked the brand-new baler in an attempt to show off for a bunch of his buddies. Drunk.

Seven years ago. Was there a statute of limitations on blowing off chores or drunk baler-wrecking?

In Dad’s world, probably not.

Still, the old baler story was less of a problem than when Dad lectured him about being more like Charlie, getting out of farming altogether, telling him to “see the future.”

Dell inhaled the cold air, let it out, tried to blow the bitterness out with it. He’d been an idiot and a jackass for many years, for no particular reason other than he lacked direction and drive. Living up to everyone thinking he wasn’t much more than a pretty face had seemed a lot easier than proving them wrong, but when Dad told him he was thinking about selling to a developer, it had snapped Dell out of it.

He loved the farm. He loved this place and doing this work. Losing it wasn’t an option. Going into business, moving closer to Saint Louis. None of it appealed to Dell. No matter what it took, he was going to make his father see he had changed. He was going to make Dad see this place was his future.

Dell took care of the little cabin, even tried to keep it clean despite his messy nature. Occasionally he paid Kenzie to help him out in that department.

It was nice to have someplace that was his, that Dad couldn’t look down his nose at.

And it was always nice to have a place to bring a woman home to.

Mia’s image popped into his head. Such a strange intrusion he laughed into the quiet spring morning. A pig squealed in the distance and Dell jumped off the fence.

He had about fifteen minutes until Charlie would show up complaining about the early hour, and every damn thing, loading up the vegetables. It was nice to have company while he worked, but Charlie’s nonstop bitching was starting to get old and they were only into week three. Charlie was helping out to soothe Mom’s worries that his corporate lifestyle was ruining his karma. An idea she’d picked up from some corny TV show.

Dell didn’t give much of a crap about his brother’s karma, but the help was nice. If Charlie would stop complaining all the time. He wished he knew a way to make his big brother understand, to see the value of this place, to feel what it meant. So much more than just them.

On a sigh, Dell hopped into the shower. No more brooding over his family. He had work to do today.

What would Mia have up her sleeve? He doubted his turning around her Naked Farmer moniker to help himself had left her too happy. He probably hadn’t helped the situation with his “keep the change” comment.

Nope. Not happy. If Mia could shoot lasers from her pretty green eyes, he’d be deader than a doornail.

Why the thought cheered him after his depressing inner monologue earlier, he had no idea. Something about going toe-to-toe with Mia was...fun.

Whistling, Dell pulled on a pair of faded jeans, the kind loose enough at the waist to hang a little low.

He was no dummy.

He shrugged on a button-up flannel shirt, finger combed his wet hair, then grabbed his keys and wallet. Maybe if he texted Charlie to meet him at the vegetable shed, he could cut down on the amount of whining he had to listen to.

But when he stepped outside, Charlie’s sleek luxury car was already parked in front of the gate. Along with Dad’s truck. The two men leaned against poles of his fence, Charlie with a to-go coffee cup in his hand, Dad with his beat-up thermos.

They looked nothing alike. Charlie had Mom’s height, her darker shade of blond. He was lean and polished. Dell had inherited Dad’s bigger frame, light hair, dark eyes. But it seemed in terms of personality, Charlie had combined Mom and Dad to be the favorite and Dell was just...the odd man out.

He was the one following the old man’s footsteps. Charlie acted as if the old man’s footsteps were caked with manure. But of course Dad seemed to look at his own footsteps that way.

Not really the best comparison, since technically manure was a way of life around here.

Dell let out a breath and steeled himself for a round of disdain. They could keep trying this make-Dell-feel-like-an-idiot thing, but it wasn’t going to change his determination. “Morning.”

Dad and Charlie grunted in unison.

“Still doing the market thing, then?”

Dell didn’t flinch, didn’t scowl. “Yup. Told you I’d be doing it all year again. CSA stuff, too.”

“Can’t believe people pay money to come here and pick up a bunch of vegetables. What’s wrong with the grocery store?”

“People care about where their food comes from.”

Dad shook his head, muttered something about hippies. Which was hilarious. Mom had been the one to suggest he start a CSA. In her own practical way, she was the biggest hippie in New Benton. “Has he let you look at the CSA profits?” Dad said to Charlie, jerking his head toward Dell. “They’re pretty dismal if you ask me, but I’d like to know your take.”

This time Dell did scowl. He jammed his baseball cap on his head in the hopes it’d hide most of his expression. His brother might be a VP of sales, but he didn’t know a damn thing about Dell’s business. “Charlie hasn’t once set eyes on my spreadsheets. He sells crap, not food.”

“You should let him look. I don’t like what I’m seeing. Maybe we need a second opinion.”

“He’s not a farmer.”

Dad rolled his eyes. “More power to him.”

Dell didn’t know how many times they could have the same conversation. Run in the same loop. Probably over and over and over, since neither of them could understand the other’s point.

“Do I have to remind you you’re a farmer?”

“I wanted something better for my sons. Look at Charlie. He went out and made a name for himself. Didn’t get tied down to this burden. You don’t know what you’re getting yourself into.”

Charlie had the decency to look uncomfortable, but he didn’t speak up. Which was how things always seemed to go. Charlie was the great doer of what Dad and Mom wanted. Dell would forever be a disappointment.

If it meant the farm, he supposed he’d just have to suck it up and accept it. “I fell in love with this burden, Dad. This place. This work. I don’t want better.”

“Farming isn’t love.” Dad shook his head. “It’s hard work and dirt and hell on a body.” He drained his Thermos. “Head in the clouds.” He walked back to his truck, shaking his head.

How could he feel that way? How could he still work this land and feel that way? Dell didn’t understand it, wasn’t sure he ever would.

In silence, he and Charlie slid into Dell’s truck, drove up to the vegetable shack and loaded the truck for market. When they got back in and drove off Wainwright property, Charlie made a big production of tapping his leg, fidgeting in his seat.

“Spit it out.” He’d rather hear all of Charlie’s complaints than watch him try to keep them in.

“Look, Dell, you’re not dumb.”

Dell scowled at the stoplight in front of him. “I know I’m not dumb.” Of course, Charlie had read at a kindergarten level at the age of three. And solved for x in elementary school. While Dell had enjoyed remedial reading and math all through middle school.

But that didn’t make him dumb. Not in the areas that mattered.

“So, the thing is, you could have more than this.” Charlie waved at the farmland on each side of the highway Dell merged onto. “I know you like it, maybe you’re even good at it, but how much longer is small-scale farming going to be a lucrative career?”

“I don’t want more than this. This isn’t some compromise or slacker job. It’s what I want. It’s important. I don’t need lucrative.”

“You need to survive. And are you so certain it’s not that you want it just because Dad doesn’t want you to do it? Remember how you didn’t have any interest in playing basketball until I tried out, then suddenly it was all you wanted to do? And once I quit, so did you.”

Dell shifted. “It’s not the same.” It wasn’t, but he knew he couldn’t convince Charlie of that. First, because Charlie thought Charlie was always right. Second, well, he wasn’t about to admit he’d just been trying to get his older brother’s attention.

He’d given up on that. Charlie was always going to look down his nose at him. They were too different, and for some reason Charlie didn’t see the farm the way he did. Didn’t feel the history in it, the belonging to it.

Charlie didn’t say anything else, just shook his head and looked out the passenger-side window.

Dell watched as farmland morphed into suburbia. Tried to imagine living here, in a house all piled on top of another house, with nothing but streets and strip malls and perfectly manicured lawns.

He didn’t belong anywhere here, even less so in the packed-together city Charlie lived in. He belonged on that farm, where he could look out a window and see the swell of the hill, hear his own footsteps, dig in the land and grow something. It was his heart, and the work he did was important. Someday Dell would just have to accept he was the only one in his family who believed it.

* * *

MIASATIN the driver’s seat, working on not hyperventilating. Some positive self-talk, some reminders that, in this space, people looked at her as a professional, knowledgeable businesswoman, not Mia, Queen of the Geeks, whose verbal diarrhea always meant saying the wrong thing at the wrong time.

“Mia, get out of the car.”

“I will.” She nodded. Her feet ignored her.

Cara slammed her door shut. A few seconds later she jerked open the driver’s-side door. “Get out, young lady.”

“I’m older than you.”

“Mia.”

“Just give me a second.”

“Mia, look at me.”

Reluctantly, Mia met her sister’s fierce stare.

“Do you think you’re ugly?”

Mia frowned. “Well, no.” She wasn’t a bombshell, but she certainly wasn’t ugly. Decent haircut, no more acne, body in good shape. She wasn’t ugly. Didn’t mean she was comfortable being seen as anything other than background noise. She’d worked so hard at being background noise since coming home from Truman four years ago. Worked on quietly doing what she needed to do, not babbling, not embarrassing herself.

This step seemed to scream, “Look at me,” and as much as she wouldn’t mind some male attention, she wasn’t ready for the screaming insecurity that went with it. If she was ready for that, she’d probably have had a date by now.

“Then, suck it up, sister. You’re cute. No one’s going to look twice at you except people who know you and wonder how you hid that body for so long. You look like a normal twenty-six-year-old woman. Of course, if a guy comes over to buy something, I’d make sure to bend over.”

“Cara—”

“Just be you. Forget what you look like or what people think. That’s how you’ve gotten this far, isn’t it? You learned to stop worrying what people thought?”

That was true. Not an easy lesson to learn, or even one she’d mastered, but Cara was right. Who cared what people thought? She was wearing tight jeans and a T-shirt, for heaven’s sake. Not a G-string and some tassels.

She certainly wasn’t stripping, unlike some people.

Mia sneaked a glance over her shoulder at Dell. He hadn’t taken off his shirt yet, but it was unbuttoned all the way. Moron.

With a deep breath, Mia hopped out of the truck, earning her a back pat from Cara. “Thanks.”

“Anytime.”

Squaring her shoulders, Mia focused on setting up the booth, including their newest tactic: free coloring pages and crayon packets for kids. Next week Anna was going to do face painting. If Dell was going to go the man-ogling route, she would go the family route.

Pants that fit and a low-cut T-shirt just meant looking less like the crazy, isolated farmer she was. It had nothing to do with sex appeal.

Of course, if a single guy was interested...

Mia shook her head. Idiot fantasies had never gotten her anywhere. Certainly not laid. She might look a little more alluring than she once had, but all her work at invisibility had certainly kept any interested parties away.

Well, maybe with her new look she’d work on that next.

This morning, though, she was concentrating on selling the pants off Dell Wainwright. Not literally or anything. But, well, now that she thought of it...

Nope. Not going there.

Mia smiled brightly at a couple and their twin toddlers. “Good morning. Welcome to Pruitt Farms’ stand. Do you see anything you like?”

She chatted with the mother about what kind of fertilizers they used and if they were certified organic. In the end, the twins each took a coloring sheet and crayons, and Mia sold one of everything.

She also made sure to tell them about the face painting next weekend, and they promised to return.

Take that, Magic Mike.

“Dell keeps looking at you,” Cara stage whispered in her ear as Mia filled a bag with greens.

Mia refused to look over her shoulder. “So?”

“So? I don’t mean he’s looking at you like, oh, he happened to look over here. I mean, he’s jaw-dropped looking at you. Like, �damn, that girl is fine’ looking at you.”

She waved Cara off, placed the new bag onto the table. As another family passed their booth, she greeted, chatted and focused on her job. Once they were gone, she couldn’t take the curiosity any longer.

She lifted her eyes over the aisle to Dell’s table. There he was in all his shirtless glory, flirting with an older lady. Totally not looking at her.

Except when he handed the woman a bag of broccoli, his gaze met hers across the aisle. Something in her stomach flipped uncomfortably, and a warm sensation zinged down to her toes. Mia quickly looked down at her table, all too aware she was probably beet red from her shoulders to the roots of her hair.

From that point on, she promised herself not to look at Dell, and not to replay that weird moment his eyes had locked on hers and she’d felt something. Just from a look.

Nope. Not thinking about it.

She made it through the rest of the morning, pleased to see they’d sold more than last week. Some of that might have had to do with more people coming as the season went on, and that it wasn’t raining today as it had been last week, but still, progress was progress.

“Uh-oh, here comes trouble,” Cara said under her breath.

Mia looked up as Dell sauntered to their table.

She focused on packing up the leftovers. When he leaned his arms on her table and ducked under the awning, she was only momentarily mesmerized by the fine blond hair on his tanned, muscular forearms.

So not fair.

“That’s quite a getup,” he said, none too pleasantly.

She would not blush. She would not blush. She would not blush. She stood to her full height, chin up to add a few centimeters. Fisting her hands on her hips, she managed her best intimidating glare, even if her cheeks were probably pink as she looked down at his hunched-over frame. “What getup?”

He stood, motioned a hand up and down her front. “That.”

“What?”

He did the motion again. “That.”

Mia cocked her head, folded her arms under her breasts. When Dell looked at the sky, she nearly giggled. “I never pegged you for the modest type. What with the stripping and all.”

He scowled down at her, and it took a little extra effort to suck in a breath.

“I do not strip,” he said through gritted teeth. He leaned closer and, by God, her heart nearly leaped out of her chest. But she stood her ground. Standing her ground felt really good.

“I see what you’re trying to do here.”

“And what’s that?” Her voice wasn’t even breathless. Go, her.

He held up his hand to do the gesture again, but stopped midway. His baffled look turned steely and grave. “I’ve got too much to lose to let you beat me. A nice ass and breasts aren’t going to suddenly win you a bunch of customers. If you haven’t noticed, most of the market’s customers are families and women, not single guys looking for a hot girl to hit on.”

Oh, she was so not flattered that he’d said she had a nice ass and breasts. Or insinuated she was the hot girl. She was not at all pleased he’d noticed. In fact, it was totally demeaning.

She’d work on her outrage later.

“Yeah, families, Dell.” Mia pointed to the sign Anna had made her. Pruitt Farms, Family-Friendly Fruits and Veggies from Our Land to Your Table. “And I’m guessing a family with wife, husband and kids are going to come over to our booth with people fully clothed and kid-friendly activities. Free kid-friendly activities, at that.”

Dell’s jaw set tighter. “So what’s with ditching the baggy clothes if you’re so family oriented?”

Mia worked up her best dismissive smile. “Maybe I’m trolling for dates. Maybe I wanted to look different for fun. Maybe it’s a business tactic. Maybe it’s not. All you need to know is it’s none of your business.”

He took a deep breath, nostrils flaring with the effort. “You won’t win, Mia.” He shook his head and walked away.

Mia grinned. His words were a lie. He kept coming up to her demanding to know what was going on. He kept getting irritated by her tactics.

She was absolutely winning, and it felt awesome.


CHAPTER SIX (#ulink_ddc515e8-a657-5fde-a97a-a85e45c432ee)

“DOYOUKNOW how many calories are in one small square?”

“Moooom,” Cara groaned. “Don’t ruin this for everyone.”

“Well, it’s never too early to start being careful about your health,” Mom said primly, taking a sip of her milk. Skim milk. “There are ways to make desserts healthier.”

“It’s Grandma’s recipe!”

“Remember when Grandpa said they used to feed skim milk to the pigs when he was growing up?” Anna said with a grin, causing Mom to roll her eyes and huff out an annoyed breath.

“Yes, we did,” Dad said, taking a defiant bite of brownie. Dessert was about the only thing he ever got defiant over.

Mia picked at the brownies Cara had brought over. Like everything Cara made, they were delicious, but ever since the market this morning she’d felt...weird.

Buoyed, yes. But, and she hated this but, Dell saying she was hot kept playing itself over and over in her mind, and her stomach felt all jittery and nervous and not at all interested in food.

She did not want to care that Dell said she had nice...assets. Why would she care? Why would that please her? It shouldn’t. It was all very unstrong, unfeminist, unbusinesswoman of her.

But she was pleased. She couldn’t help it. A guy thought she was hot. That had never happened before. At least not that she knew of. The fact it was Dell?

You are an idiot.

“Earth to Mia.”

Jostled out of her annoying, embarrassing thoughts, Mia looked up at Cara.

“Ready to go?” She nodded toward the door, the international Cara symbol for “get me away from Mom before I lose it.”

“Yup.” Separation was definitely best when Cara got that squirrelly look about her. Mia didn’t feel like playing peacemaker tonight. She wasn’t sure what she felt like doing, but it wasn’t that.

They got up from the table, offering Anna hugs and Dad goodbyes while Mom followed, the typical anxiety waving off her.

“Why don’t you girls stay the night?” Mom engulfed Mia in a cinnamon-scented hug. She lowered her voice. “Sweetie, next time maybe you should wear one of those—what are they called?—camisole things under that shirt. It’s a little low cut. You wouldn’t want people to get the wrong idea.”

“Maybe that’s exactly what she wants,” Cara whispered, earning herself a jab in the side.

“What, dear?”

“Nothing.” Mia pushed Cara toward the door. “Ignore her. Do you want us to take the leftover brownies?”

“Oh, yes. Your father will inhale them before the night’s over if you don’t. Maybe next time you try my trick of making them with applesauce? Adding a little zucchini? It cuts back on the fat and—”

“It’s Grandma’s rec—”

Mia discreetly moved in between Mom and Cara. “Yes, Mom. Applesauce. Will do.”

“Oh, I hate you two girls living on your own.” Their mother wrung her hands, fretting next to the door as Mia and Cara shrugged on their coats. For two years Mia and Cara had shared an apartment. Still, every time they left the Pruitt farmhouse, Mom worried over the two young women living alone.

Cara rolled her eyes and groaned. “We’re only ten minutes away, Mom. Two years, and a serial killer hasn’t gotten us yet.”

Mia pushed Cara again. “You’re not helping.”

Mom clucked her tongue. “Stay the night. Silly to drive all the way home when it’s dark out.”

“We’re only ten minutes away,” Mia repeated gently.

Mom took a deep breath and let it out, offering a pained smile. “All right. All right. We’ll see you in the morning.” Cara and Mia waved as they stepped out the door.

“Don’t forget to get one of those camisoles, Mia!” Mom called after them. “And make sure to lock both locks on your door. Oh, and lock your car doors, even when you’re driving.”

Cara groaned into the evening quiet. “Seriously, how did we turn out normal? How did they even manage to produce three children? Never mind—I don’t want to know the answer to that.”

Mia climbed into the driver’s seat of her truck. Cara and Anna were on that normal spectrum, but she wasn’t always sure she was. How long had Mom’s outer monologue been Mia’s inner dialogue? She’d learned to manage the anxiety, push away the worry about what other people might think or do, but it wasn’t as if the voice had disappeared.

Cara turned in her seat, smiling weirdly as Mia pulled out onto the highway.

“Okay, so hear me out before you totally shoot me down, ’kay?” Cara practically bounced in her seat.

“Oh, God.”

“It’s Saturday night. We rocked it at the market today. You look like someone I wouldn’t be embarrassed to be seen with. I don’t have to work at the salon tomorrow.” Cara clutched Mia’s arm. “Let’s go to a bar.”

Mia laughed, shaking off Cara’s grip so she could have both hands on the steering wheel. “Right.”

“I’m serious! It’ll be fun. A few drinks. We find a few cute guys to chat up. Maybe you give a guy your number.”

Mia’s shoulders involuntarily hunched before she told herself to relax them. She was twenty-six, for heaven’s sake. This was what she should be doing on a Saturday night. Not sitting at home with her seed catalogs. Maybe this was the something different she was wanting.

Still, the idea left her vaguely nauseous.

“We’ll have fun! I promise! We can leave whenever you want. Please, please, please, please—”

“All right!”

Cara’s squeal was ear piercing. “Let’s go to Juniors. Way hotter guys there.”

“Super.” Mia tried to talk herself into some enthusiasm. She wasn’t going to meet a guy holed up in her apartment, and she probably wasn’t going to meet a guy working at the farm or even at the farmers’ market. If she wanted to drop the virginity, she was going to have to put herself out there.

If she could control her blushing, quiet the anxiety, keep her mouth under control, there was no reason this couldn’t be a fun evening.

And Cara wondered why she wasn’t more proactive in the dating scene.

Mia pulled into the crowded lot of Juniors. New Benton boasted only two bars, and Mia had never spent time at either, unless occasionally picking up a drunk Cara counted. Still, the whole town knew Juniors was where the young people went and The Shack was the old, townie bar.

Cara rummaged around in her purse as Mia parked in the back. She flipped down the visor mirror and began applying mascara, holding out a tube of something in her free hand. “Here.”

“Oh, I—”

“Just put on some lipstick. Oh, and some mascara.” Cara finished with the mascara, shoved both tubes of makeup at Mia. “Cara tip number one. Make sure to always wear lipstick. It makes a guy notice your mouth.” Cara waggled her eyebrows.

Oh, this was so not a good idea. She did not belong here. Of course, there hadn’t been any places she’d belonged growing up, outside the farm. Slowly, she was changing that. So maybe she needed to suck it up and try something different. Sometimes jumping into the deep end was the only way to learn.

Mia took a deep breath and flipped down her own visor mirror. In the truck’s pale dome light, she applied the lipstick and the mascara. She didn’t wear makeup often, but Cara had given her enough lessons that she didn’t look like a clown.

Hopefully.

“Ready?” Cara already had her door open. This really was her element.

She managed a weak smile. “Just give me a sec.”

“Oh, God, not the Stuart Smalley routine.”

“Just a second.”

Cara shook her head in disgust as she hopped out of the truck and slammed the door. Mia looked at her expression in the mirror. Stupid or not, a little positive self-talk always helped calm her nerves and bolster her confidence.

“I can do this,” she said to her reflection. “I am a confident, capable adult. Talking to a guy will not kill me. In fact, it’ll probably be fun.” It was time. Past time to fight anxiety and really go after this. Did she want to be alone forever without even kissing a guy? No. So she needed to make this work.

With one final “I can do this,” Mia hopped out of the truck and met Cara at the door to the bar. “Okay, I’m ready.”

“Because, gosh, darn it, people like you.”

“Shut up and move.”

Cara led her into the crowded bar. A few people greeted Cara and she waved. Even though Mia recognized a lot of the faces, no one called out to her. Her social circle was slim. Oh, sure, she talked to a few of the ladies at the market, had something passing as a friendship with some of the women there her age, but mostly her tried-and-true friends and confidants had the last name Pruitt. And did not hang out at Juniors.

Cara found a little table in a back corner. “You sit. I’ll go order us some drinks.”

“Just get me a soda.”

Cara shook her head. “Yeah, right. An alcoholic beverage is exactly what you need.”

Mia sat and looked around the room while Cara went up to the bar to order their drinks. People talked and chatted and yelled and laughed. In the corner, she felt somewhat separate from it all. Nobody looked at her. It was as if she wasn’t even there.

Depressing thought. Funny how she’d spent so many years wishing to be invisible but always somehow ended up the butt of the joke, then finally getting the invisibility thing down and now she was wishing for attention.

Cara sauntered back over, two guys following her. Mia recognized one as C. J. Pinkerton, who’d been in her class. The other guy looked familiar, but she didn’t remember his name. He unabashedly stared at Cara’s ass as he walked behind her.

C.J., though, smiled and took a seat next to her. Mia froze a little. He was smiling at her. “Hey, I’m C.J.”

Mia smiled, biting her tongue in time so she didn’t say something stupid like, Duh, we went to high school together. “Mia.”

He squinted, leaning in closer. “No shit. Mia Pruitt.” He didn’t say the rest of it, but she knew what he was thinking. Queen of the Geeks. “You look a lot different than you did in high school, huh?” Then he smiled, pretty and white, a little crooked. He was definitely cute, if a little skinny.

“I guess I do.” Mia took a sip of the drink Cara had put in front of her. She gave herself a mental high five. She sounded like a normal human being.

C.J. laughed. She’d made a guy laugh. Holy moly. For the next twenty minutes she managed to hold an entire conversation with a kind-of-cute guy without once hyperventilating. She might have blushed a few times, but maybe he didn’t notice in the dim light of the bar.

She talked about the farm. He talked about working at the Ford plant in Millertown. It was going well. Hell, it was going perfectly. He even scooted his chair closer to hers.

“Want to dance?”

Hopefully the involuntary squeak she made was inaudible over the hum of the crowd and music. Who knew a little lipstick and some cleavage could make such a difference? Mia smiled, hoped her laugh didn’t sound like some kind of nervous hyena. What if—? Nope. No what-ifs. “Give me a sec to run to the bathroom?”

C.J. leaned back in his seat and smiled. “Sure.”

Mia stood, walked calmly to the bathroom. Where she would normally go into the stall and hyperventilate, she walked over to a sink instead. She washed her hands slowly, deliberately. Deep breath in. Deep breath out. She could totally do this. If she ever hoped of getting even remotely close to having sex, she had to do this.

Her stomach pitched, but she wasn’t going to let that thought derail her. This wasn’t about sex. This was about a dance. One dance. A step. Just like all the other steps she’d made to get here.

She looked at herself in the mirror. She looked put together and cute, and no one had to know all the anxiety in her mind if she didn’t show it to them.

With a determined nod, Mia pushed out of the bathroom. Shaking her hair back, she put a little bounce in her step and walked back to the table. She faltered for a second when she realized C.J. was no longer at their table. Two new men had joined Cara.

Never should have given him a chance to realize what a colossal mistake he’d made by asking her to dance or the time to remember all her embarrassing moments. Well, that was fine. Mia swallowed down the hard dip of disappointment. Two new guys were sitting with Cara. From the back, they were pretty cute.

If step one had been talking to a guy without acting like a goof, then doing it again didn’t need to be a deal or a problem.

Mia stopped in her tracks when the first man’s profile came into view. It wasn’t some cute guy in her seat. It was Dell.

He lounged in the chair as if he owned it, the lip of a Budweiser bottle perched at his mouth. He must have seen her out of the corner of his eye because he turned and grinned.

“Well, well, well, this is a surprise,” he drawled, setting the bottle back down on the table. He made no effort to move, instead hooked his arm over the back of the chair. “Come here often?” he asked with a wink.

Mia clenched her hands into fists. She wasn’t sure whom she wanted to kill more. Cara, C.J. or Dell.

* * *

THEEXPRESSIONON Mia’s face was enough to keep Dell from being uncomfortable with her appearance. It was the “if I could shoot lasers you’d be dead” look, and it amused him to no end.

Although, now that he noticed, he was about eye level with her breasts while she stood in front of him, and that took care of amusement. Dell cleared his throat, took another swig of beer. “Gonna join us?”

She mumbled something incomprehensible. With Kevin sidled up to Cara, Mia had no choice but to take the chair next to Dell.

She wasn’t at all happy about that, and she made no bones about showing it.

“Buy you a drink?”

“I have a drink.”

Dell raised an eyebrow at the fruity mixed drink and its floating cherry. “Want me to buy you a real drink?”

She smirked. “No.” As if to prove a point, she took a dainty sip. She looked all around the bar, pretty much everywhere but at him.

Dell took another sip from his bottle, his eyes never leaving her. “C.J. said to let you know he was sorry, but he had to go.” Not that Dell had realized he’d been talking about Mia. Not that C.J. had said it to him. His “let her know I had to go” had been said to Cara.

Her being Mia. Something about that made him clench his hand even harder on his bottle of beer.

Mia frowned. “Why’d he tell you that?”

Dell shrugged. Better not to say anything at all than lie or admit that C.J. hadn’t told him at all.

She leaned forward, and Dell’s gaze was drawn to the V in her T-shirt. He’d seen women show off a lot more cleavage than that before, but because he’d pretty much never seen Mia’s cleavage, it was a little difficult to be a gentleman and return his gaze to her face.

She was blushing when he did. And scowling. “Why are you here?”

Dell nodded over to Kevin, who already had Cara practically in his lap. “Kev asked me to meet him at Juniors. So I did.”

“I mean, why are you at my table?”

“Kev was talking to Cara, so I came over. Then your boyfriend got a little peeved at that since he and I never have seen eye to eye on just about anything.” Because C. J. Pinkerton was a grade-A asshole. Dell couldn’t believe Mia would see anything in the guy. Surely she had better taste than that. “And since he’s a big old coward, he moseyed on out of here.”

“He’s not my boyfriend.” Mia looked down at her drink, and Dell was certainly not thrilled to hear it. What did he care? “And don’t say mosey. This is Missouri, not Texas.” She tacked on a “moron” under her breath.

He’d been enjoying her bluster before she tacked on the moron. He’d never much cared for being called that. Silence settled over them, and Dell tried to pretend she wasn’t there, but it was just so weird seeing Mia look...well, hot. It kind of irritated him. God knew why. “So this new look isn’t just for the market?”

She scowled at him, more death lasers shooting from her eyes. “It’s a new leaf. Haven’t you ever wanted to turn over a new leaf?”

Dell sipped his beer. Yeah, he knew that feeling pretty well. Only, didn’t matter how many leaves he turned, the old one still stuck in his family’s mind. “In a town like this, people see who you’ve always been.”

She toyed with the napkin under her glass, eyebrows together. “I don’t care what people see. It matters what I feel.”

Well, that was a nice attitude to have. He wished he could duplicate it. Wished what Dad thought or did didn’t matter, but when the guy telling you you’re irresponsible held the deed to everything you wanted, how could you not care? Even more so when he was blood related. Dell took a deep drink. He didn’t come to Juniors for philosophizing or talking to Mia Pruitt. He came for good company, pretty girls and a few laughs. To take his mind off all this crap.

Dell frowned. When had Mia become a pretty girl? He shook his head. This was all backward. He looked at Kevin, who practically had his tongue down Cara’s throat. Why had Kevin called him at all if he was just going to try to get in Cara Pruitt’s pants?

Dell would make his excuses and leave. He opened his mouth to do just that, but then realized he’d be ditching Mia with the make-out kids, and that didn’t seem very fair. Especially considering how uncomfortable she looked. Besides, they might not get along, but they could always talk about farm stuff. Not exactly the best Saturday night, but he enjoyed it and Mia knew what she was talking about.

“You guys got any cold frames out at your place?”

She gave him a puzzled look, rubbed her tongue back and forth across her bottom lip.

Oh, Jesus, noticing her tongue was worse than noticing her breasts. Breasts could be innocuous if you tried hard enough to make them so. You could pretend they weren’t there. You could pretend you didn’t have any interest in finding out what they looked like. A tongue licking lips...yeah, not so much. It was...there.

Dell cleared his throat, started yammering on about the cold frame he’d built last year. She finally stopped doing the tongue thing and he breathed a sigh of relief as they spent the next fifteen minutes talking about farming.

Damn, she knew her stuff, and she seemed just as into it as he was. Anyone who listened to their conversation would think it nuts two twentysomethings were sitting around talking about fertilizer over a few drinks, but hell, he was actually kind of enjoying himself.

“So how did it start?” she asked, narrowing her eyes at him.

“How did what start?”

“The stupid take-off-your-shirt thing. You obviously care about your farm, so what gives? It makes you seem like you don’t take it seriously.”

“I take it plenty seriously.” Oddly enough, it wasn’t as insulting as when Charlie dinged him for it. When she said seem like it was almost as if she was willing to believe he did take it seriously. “Last year I was talking to some lady about how hot it was and she laughed and told me to take off my shirt. Said I’d probably sell a few more tomatoes that way. So I took her advice.” Dell grinned. “She was right.”

“You know it’s totally demeaning, right?”

“Hey, you seem to be using my tactics.” He pointed at the V of her shirt.

“I am fully clothed!”

Outraged was a good look for her. Her cheeks got a little pink and her full lips made a sexy little O.

For chrissake. Sexy and Mia did not belong in the same sentence, even if she was.

“Keep telling yourself that, darlin’.” Dell touched her hand. Just the lightest brush of fingertip to wrist. She jerked it back so quickly her drink shook and barely avoided toppling over.

He’d blame it on the beer, except he’d had all of one. Maybe he’d just blame it on her antagonistic attitude. He had always liked to bother people. Good-naturedly, of course. Besides, if he flirted a little over the top, maybe he’d get her scurrying off and then he could stop feeling conflicted about being attracted to her. About enjoying the weird push and pull they gave each other.

She popped up out of her seat. “I have to go to the bathroom.” Her entire face was beet red as she turned to walk past his chair.

Dell chuckled. “Same old Mia.” The outside appearance might change, but deep down she was still awkward and geeky. Thank God.

She whirled around. “Wanna dance?”

He choked on his drink, sputtered and coughed as it burned down the wrong pipe. “What?” he croaked.

She smiled sweetly. Way too sweetly. “I said, wanna dance?”

Sweet baby Jesus, what on earth was Mia Pruitt up to?


CHAPTER SEVEN (#ulink_b97a2e97-61e3-507d-be17-abd31328f10f)

MIAWASPRETTY sure making Dell sputter over his beer meant she was winning at life. Same old Mia, her ass.

Then he grinned and unfurled from his seat like some kind of seedling in fast-forward time. Now he was this big, tall thing standing in front of her instead of safely seated with the table between them.

“Sure thing, sweetheart.”

Damn it. Talk about backfire. Not only could she not dance, but she’d never danced with a guy before. Now she was going to dance with Dell in a bar blaring poppy country music?

What bizarro world had she tumbled into? He was supposed to say no and disappear, not tower over her with that smug smile on his face. Not put his hand on the small of her back and guide her to the dance floor on the opposite side of the bar.

Dell’s hand was on the small of her back. Dell’s very big, very warm hand. Dell Wainwright. If her mind repeated the information enough times maybe she’d process it enough to react appropriately, or at least stop the squealing in her mind.

What was she supposed to do? Where was she supposed to put her hands? Where was he going to put his hands?

Dell stopped her on the dance floor, and before any more questions could circle in her brain, paralyzing all rational thought or function, Dell grabbed her hand and twirled her around.

On a breathless laugh, she ended up too close to the faded red cotton of his T-shirt, but he put his hand on her hip and guided her enough to the medium-tempo beat that she surprisingly didn’t feel like an idiot.

He laughed with her, eyes meeting hers briefly. A weird humming second of—what? Attraction? Awareness? Mia frowned at their feet. This was a bad idea.

He cleared his throat. “So what prompted this new leaf?”

Mia shrugged, trying to ignore the reaction of her body to his fingertips on the curve of her hip. As if every one of her muscles was contracting, trying to stop time and soak up this moment. Sure, it was weird it was Dell, but a cute guy was dancing with her in a bar. She wanted to soak up that experience and remember it. The chances of it repeating were slim. “Well, lots of things, I guess.”

“Name one.”

She glared up at him. “No.” Her...things were none of his business, and she didn’t want him thinking he could boss her around. He was not her friend. He was more like her enemy. Why would she pour out her weaknesses to him?

He chuckled. “Prickly suits you, Mia.”

She didn’t know how to respond. Dell was about the only one who brought out the prickly. Usually being mean or snarky made her felt guilty, and every once in a while that cropped up, but mainly he deserved it. The only other person who goaded her was Cara. Mia peeked over her shoulder to see Cara still cozied up to Kevin.

“Don’t know why he bothered to invite me if he was going to spend the whole night chatting up your sister.”

“You’re telling me. Coming here wasn’t exactly my idea.”

Dell laughed. “And here I had you pegged as a Juniors regular.” When she glared at him, he only laughed harder.

“I imagine you’ve spent plenty of time here.”

“Surely you can imagine me doing more interesting things than that.” His grin was so pretty and wide, if she wasn’t so embarrassed by what she could imagine, she might have smiled back.

Dell passed a glance over Kevin and Cara again. “Eh, probably for the best he’s occupied. Shouldn’t stay out too late anyway.”

“Got a curfew?” Mia fake smiled up at him, mentally patting herself on the back for the flippant tone.

This time when he laughed it was completely void of humor. “No, just a business I have to go above and beyond proving I can run if I ever want it.”

The information was so strange, Mia forgot all about the awkwardness of having one hand in Dell’s and her other hand very, very lightly on his hip. “Your dad’s not giving you the farm?”

“I’m working on it.” His jaw set, twitched. Obviously a sore subject. How...weird. “Your dad giving the farm to you?”

Mia nodded. “Anna can take over the dairy part if she wants, but I started buying five percent of the cropland last year from my market profits. As long as everything goes according to plan, I’ll own my share of the farm outright in twenty and Dad can retire.”

“Must be nice.” Dell stared at some point beyond her.

Well, who knew? The Naked Farmer wasn’t quite as frivolous as she’d made him out to be. She’d always figured Dell the type to take over his dad’s farm because he didn’t want to work at anything else, but farming was hard. Generally not something you did only because you fell into it. If he was fighting to convince his dad he could take over, maybe he had a bit more at stake with the farmers’ market stuff than she’d given him credit for.

Not that it mattered. The shirtless routine was stupid, and she certainly wasn’t going to let her guard down just because he had a few daddy issues or made her insides feel like melted Jell-O. Those were wholly secondary to beating him at the market.

“You know, I don’t think I’ve ever met your dad. How is that possible in New Benton?” He smiled down at her, but the way his lips curved was tight and uncomfortable, as if it was a very forced smile. A forced conversation.

Well, darn it. Dell wasn’t supposed to have hidden depths or be nice enough to force conversation. Mia looked at the faded logo on his chest. “Probably because he’s a hermit.”

Dell laughed, and she absolutely got no secret thrill from that. “No, seriously, outside of my family there are only three people he talks to. The priest at Saint Mary’s, Rick at Orscheln and the guy who buys our milk.”

The song ended, but Dell didn’t let go of her hand. Mia’s stomach did a weird flipping drop when he squeezed it instead.

“Wanna keep going until those two stop going at it?”

He gestured to Cara and Kevin making out in the dark corner. Mia grimaced. “Yeah. Sure.”

“You know, you’re pretty good at letting the guy lead in a dance. I thought you’d be trying to boss me around. It’s a little shocking. You’re not half-bad.”

Mia smirked. “Coming from the guy who coined �Mia, Queen of the Geeks,’ that’s quite a compliment.”

His head snapped back. “I didn’t make that up.”

“Well, you’re the first person I remember calling me it to my face,” Mia returned. When his face fell into surprise and discomfort, and then guilt, Mia shifted uncomfortably in his grip. “I remember it quite clearly. Nothing like the homecoming king and queen laughing at you in the cafeteria when you’re a lowly sophomore.”

“Hey, listen, I’m sorry.” When he moved to the music this time, the distance between them shrunk. He lowered his mouth closer to her ear, and Mia had to focus on the high school memory to keep her heart from escaping her chest and galloping out the door.

He made her stomach tie in knots, but it wasn’t the kind she was used to. These weren’t so much painful as they were...uncomfortable. Laced with a jittery excitement, a bizarre impulse to lean closer.

Oh, no, she could not do that. “Long time ago,” she managed to croak. She moved to get a fraction of the distance between their bodies back. “Might have hurt my feelings at the time, but I got over it.” Eventually. There were really only a few people she still harbored any bitterness toward, and Dell wasn’t one of them. He’d been careless, but never malicious.

“Well, I’m still sorry. I wasn’t big on thinking much beyond my own feelings at the time. Overhearing that nickname would be bad enough. Imagine it’s worse having someone say it to your face.”

Mia shrugged, more to hide the shiver as his breath danced along her neck. “High school. Most of us weren’t thinking. I’m not worried about it. I was a geek. Either trying too hard to fit in or too hard to be invisible. Neither ever worked. In a town this size, you don’t get to disappear.” Why was she talking about this? Oh, yeah, because she never could shut her yap when she was uncomfortable.

When Dell didn’t say anything, Mia bit her lip to keep the words from pouring out. She made it about five seconds before she couldn’t stand it. “I’m pretty sure there’s a statute of limitations on name-calling in high school. It ended a few years ago. Forget it.”

Since she couldn’t bring herself to look into his eyes, considering her face was probably red from the roots of her hair to the V of her shirt, she watched the underside of his stubbled chin move back and forth.

For the briefest flash she wondered what it might feel like, the whiskers against her palm. Against her face. But, oh, my God, so not the time. So not okay. This was Dell. Not some random guy.

“I’m not sure there’s a statute of limitations on anything,” he said grimly. “Mia, that was a really shitty thing for me to do. I know it probably doesn’t make much difference now, but I am truly sorry.”

“It doesn’t matter.” It didn’t. She wanted to forget about it. Forget about him and him suddenly being all nice and repentant, and, no, she didn’t want any of this. She wanted to hate him. He was making it impossible.

His mouth turned grim. “Right. Because you don’t like me anyway. I’m just the dumb guy taking off his shirt. You can say it. Heard it plenty.”

“I don’t not like you and I don’t think you’re dumb.” Mia squeezed her eyes shut. What a stupid thing to say. To admit. He was the enemy. Stealing her customers. Mia shook her head. How did she get to be on a dance floor in a bar dancing with the guy she was trying to beat in sales? Could she possibly get any dumber?

Just as Kenzie had accused her of, and Dad and Anna and Cara had backed up. She was a softie. Any sob story had her sobbing right along with the teller, sympathizing.

But this was Dell. Her enemy. Her only enemy. She didn’t need to feel guilty or assuage his guilt, either. “Look, I wish you’d keep your shirt on and stop stealing my female customers, but I don’t not like you.” Yeah, that helped. Why didn’t she just say, “I don’t not like you” fifty more times so he really got the message? Why didn’t she just lean right up against him and really show him?

The tap on Mia’s shoulder almost made her jump, it was so startling. Cara was grinning, practically intertwined like a pretzel with Kevin.

“Hey, Kevin’s going to give me a ride home.”

“Oh, uh, okay.”

“Keep an eye on her for me, Dell,” Cara said with a wink.

“Catch you another time, man.” Kevin offered Dell a goofy grin as Cara pulled him toward the door.

Mia looked back at Dell, realized her hand was still in his. He considered her for a second before speaking. “You, uh, need a ride home? Or I could buy you another drink.”

Mia reminded herself it was pity or guilt over high school or eight million other reasons beyond Dell Wainwright wanting to spend a few extra minutes with her. It was none of the reasons she wanted to spend more time with him, and she could really not afford to want to spend more time with him. “No. No, I have my truck. You should head home. All that stuff to prove, remember?”

He grinned. “Right.” Finally, finally, he released her hand, and she made sure to put more space between them.

“Bye,” she offered lamely.

“See you Saturday, Mia.”

She nodded, turned and tried not to scurry out of the bar like a frightened animal. She looked back briefly to see Dell watching her go. Swallowing down the weird suspicion that he’d been checking out her ass, Mia let herself break into a jog once she got to the dark parking lot.

This was the absolute last time she ever let Cara talk her into anything.


CHAPTER EIGHT (#ulink_0f713b70-45a1-5eae-ae5e-eb3b317adfc1)

“YOUCANMARCH right back out of here, because I do not forgive you.”

Dell stared at Kenzie, curled up on his old bed, a laptop on her lap. What had once been sparse and filled with camo and John Deere decor was now all pink and sparkles and girl.

Even Kenzie’s computer was pink.

She was, and always had been, a bit of a foreign object to him, but he hated when she was mad at him. Usually because she made him pay, but also because on more than one occasion she was his partner in crime.

Also, he thought his reaction to catching his baby sister making out in the barn with some guy was pretty tame. What he’d really like to have done was tie Jacob Masterson to a tree and shoot him with a BB gun.

“You know I’m looking out for you, right?”

“I can handle myself, thank you very much. Please don’t act all pious as if you weren’t doing way worse at my age. Charlie can give me that lecture. Not you.”

“What do you think is �way worse’—nope, never mind. Don’t answer that. You should be focusing on getting into a good school.” Not some idiot with a penis.

Kenzie snorted. “Did you and Charlie swap bodies?”

“No, I—”

“Have never lectured me before. Do not start. I will not be held responsible for what I do to you.” She slid off the bed, all grace and condescension. “The men in this family need to realize the women do not need to be told what to do. Being far superior to the three of you lunkheads arguing all the time. All because you can’t just accept that people are different.”

He hadn’t ever lectured her before. Usually they were too busy pulling pranks on Charlie or the like. But he was starting to see what his wayward youth had created, and he wanted to make sure she didn’t follow in his crap footsteps.

She shouldn’t have to fight to do what she loved, and he trusted no man when it came to his baby sister.

As for being one of the three lunkheads who couldn’t accept they were different... “I’d like to accept it. Surely you know that.”

Some of her flip teenage know-it-allness slipped. “Okay, you’re the least lunkheadiest.”

“Thanks.”

Charlie appeared in the doorway, clearing his throat. “Mom told me to come get you two. Dinner is ready.”

Kenzie shared a look with Dell. “Poor perfect Charlie. What a chore.”

Charlie’s eyebrows drew together. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing,” Kenzie said in a singsongy voice, waltzing past him and down the stairs.

Charlie frowned after her, then turned his frown to Dell. “Aren’t you two a little old to be ganging up on me?”

“Ganging up on you? How could we gang up on the infallible?” Before Charlie could speak, Dell pressed on. “Give her a lecture on guys, would you? She’s not listening to me, but since you’re the paragon of virtue, she says she’ll listen to you.”

“I doubt it.”

“Well, so do I. It’s worth a shot. They were not just kissing in that damn barn.”

Charlie grimaced. “She’s a smart girl.”

“She is, but Jacob is a dipshit and Rylie got knocked up. I don’t want her to be next. Not that she’d listen to me tell her that.”

“It is a bit of a miracle you don’t have any accidental progeny wandering around.”

“Is it any wonder Kenzie and I gang up on you when you say such sweet things to us?”

“I’m pretty sure you started it.”

“Now who sounds like a kid?”

Charlie let out an exasperated sigh. “I didn’t come up here to bicker with you.” He scratched a hand through his perfectly styled hair. “I just wanted to warn you that Dad is going to bring up the developer stuff.”

Dell swore.

“I know you don’t agree with it and I know you want to argue with him, and I even get why. But it’s a family dinner, and maybe you could let it go. This once.”

“Let it go?”

“Yes. I’m not saying you have to agree, just don’t argue. Mom asked—”

“Maybe Mom should do her own asking. You don’t have to always be stepping in for them, Charlie. Last time I checked they could fight their own battles. And you’re over thirty. You could stop acting as though their opinion on everything matters.”

“And you are getting rather close to thirty to still be acting like a child.”

They faced off for a few minutes, and it wasn’t the kind of face-off he enjoyed, as with Mia. No, this was all tension and bad feelings, and he wondered if anything would ever change. Or would it keep getting worse? Until there was nothing left.

“I don’t want to argue. I don’t enjoy this. But I love it too much to let it go. To sit down and be the dutiful son. It isn’t what I want, Charlie. I am not you.”

“Because that is truly the worst thing you could ever be?”

“No. Because it isn’t me. It doesn’t make you wrong or bad. It only means I can’t be something I’m not. I can’t pretend. And I won’t pretend this place doesn’t mean everything to me.”

“More than your family?”

“Maybe a piece of land can’t call you worthless, ever think of that?”

“I never—”

But Dell wasn’t interested in hearing what Charlie never said. Maybe he’d never said worthless, but they did their level best to make Dell feel it. So Dell went downstairs and sat at the dinner table with a smile plastered on his face, and every time Dad hinted around about developing, Dell shoved a bite of mashed potatoes in his mouth.

It wasn’t any use, though. Family dinner was filled with tension, even more than usual. Charlie escaped the minute it was over, under the guise of business—because his business was so much more important. Kenzie had disappeared to do homework, taking Mom with her.

So it was just him and Dad and pie, and the inevitable.

“We’d make a good chunk of change going with a developer,” Dad said, no longer beating around the bush. “Your mom and I could retire.” Dad shoved a bite of cherry pie into his mouth.

He thought of Charlie asking him not to say anything. Not to argue. But no one was here except him and Dad, and how could he pretend this didn’t mean everything?

“You can retire by selling to me. I’ve got enough for my section of the farm right now. You sell your pig operation to Dean Coffey like he’s been asking, that’ll keep you for a few years while I make enough to buy the rest.”

Dad shook his head. “Stupid,” he said through a mouth of pie. “Why can’t you get it through your head this place is nothing? Five years down the line you’re going to be surrounded by subdivisions and malls. You can’t hold on to this. Best let it go now.”

“I don’t care what I’m surrounded by.”

“Foolish.” Dad drained the rest of his milk, slammed the glass on the table. “You ever plan on settling down and having a family?”

“Christ.” Dell shoved a hand through his hair. What would it take? He’d been having this fight for years, and he’d gotten nowhere. When did he give up?

He looked down at the table. His grandfather had built it, and just as it belonged in Mom’s dining room, Dell belonged in this place. But maybe belonging wasn’t enough.

“Well?” Dad prompted.

“I don’t know. Not my concern right now. My concern right now is that this place belongs to me.”

“You’re a damn fool, and I’m not letting you screw up by not seeing sense. I don’t want to be bailing you out in a few years’ time.”

Dell pushed away from the table, his pie half-eaten. “Tell Mom I headed home.” He tossed his napkin on the table and walked out. There was no way he was spending another hour beating his head against the brick wall of his dad’s opinion. If everyone else got to escape, so did he.

As Dell stepped out on the porch, the family’s German shepherd greeted him with a tennis ball.

Dell hurled the tennis ball, smiled as Colby ran for it, tongue lolling out of her mouth as she raced down the hill. Nothing like a dog to cheer you up after a nice, tense dinner with dear old Dad.

Was it always going to be this way? He couldn’t be someone he wasn’t and leave farming. He could go work for someone else, but then the land he’d loved his entire life would be built over into a subdivision.

With a grunt, Dell hurled the ball again, trying to take some solace in Colby’s graceful strides.

The screen door creaked open and Mom stepped out. While Dell could see the years’ toll on Dad’s face every time he looked at him, Mom was exactly the same as she was in Dell’s childhood memories. Sturdy jeans and boots, a flannel shirt folded up to the elbows. Slightly graying dark blond hair pulled back into a braid. She didn’t wrinkle or change. She was just Mom. Strong, sturdy, calming. If it wasn’t for her, he and Dad would probably have come to blows at some point.

Mom stood next to him on the top stair of the porch, watching Colby return lazily with the ball. “You can’t let your father get to you.”

“I’m not sure I have a choice.”

“Of course you do. We always have a choice. I know it’s frustrating, but he isn’t trying to be the bad guy here, Dell. He’s wrong, but that doesn’t mean his reasons aren’t right.”

“That doesn’t make a lick of sense.” Dell bent down to scratch Colby’s ears. “You know Mia Pruitt?”

“Oh, sweet little Mia. Poor girl.”

Dell frowned, momentarily put off the point of bringing up Mia and how she was getting her family farm. “Why do you say that?”

“I just remember how she always seemed to be the butt of everyone’s jokes. And no one I’ve ever met is in more need of stick-up-her-ass removal than Sarah Pruitt. The woman made being a co-room mother for Kenzie’s kindergarten class a nightmare. That kind of stress from a mother can’t be good for young girls.”

“They seem fine enough.” Fine enough to dance with him and infiltrate his dreams in ways he was not at all comfortable with. “Her dad’s selling her his farm.”

“You know, it’s like that TV doctor says. Karmic debt.”

“You really need to stop watching daytime TV.” Dell took the slobbery tennis ball from Colby’s mouth. He stood and hurled it again, farther this time. “Besides, I don’t see how the two are related.”

“It’s not for you to see.”

“Mom, no offense, but sometimes that crap is a billion times more annoying than you just coming out and saying I’m a jackass.”

Mom laughed. “Maybe that’s why I do it.” She put her hand on his shoulder. “Dell, honey, I know there’s a lot of tension over this.”

“I don’t understand why—”

Mom held up a hand and he stopped as he always had. “I can tell you what it’ll take to change your father’s mind. He won’t like that I told you, and he’ll still complain about you not wanting something more—which is silly, of course, because your roots are here, and what more is there?”

“Mom—”

“The point is, it’s going to take some concentrated effort. He wants to see if this farm can support you and a family, should you choose to have one. Farming is changing. New Benton is changing. He wants to see this farmers’ market and CSA give you the kind of security the pigs and corn and soybeans do. It’s not wrong he wants to know you’ll be taken care of. I want that, too.”




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