Luke Read online

  I bristle at his words. "I don't even know what part of that statement is more insulting."

  "What do you mean?" he asks. "I said I'd concede that you're good-looking."

  "That's very generous of you."

  "Why did you show up at my place, anyway?"

  "I can't, for the life of me, think what in the hell possessed me to come out here," I say, putting the car in drive.

  He stands up and grins at me again. "I've heard your memory goes when you get older," he says.

  I press the gas pedal and pull out around him, kicking up a cloud of dust on the dirt road as I drive away. When I glance in the rear view mirror, he's laughing and shaking his head as he stands there watching me.

  What an irritating, arrogant prick. I'll just have to find a foreman the old-fashioned way.

  By the afternoon, I'm grumpy and no closer to finding a foreman than I was in the morning. One of the orchard workers I trust says he has a cousin -- twice removed or something – a couple of towns over who might be a good fit, but other than that, I'm coming up blank.

  And, I realize as I hear Olivia beginning her end-of-nap cry in the next room, now I've just run out of naptime too.

  "Hey baby doll, how was your nap?" I chatter to her as we go downstairs and I make her a snack while she tries unsuccessfully to open every cabinet door in the kitchen she can reach. I set down a pan of uncooked rice and beans and some measuring cups in the middle of the floor for her to play with, while I take ingredients for dinner out of the fridge.

  When the doorbell rings, I scoop Olivia up before she can protest, and yank it open, expecting one of the guys working out in the orchard. But it's not. "You."

  "Aw, now, you're not the least bit pleased to see me?" Luke Saint gives me that half-grin, the one I bet drives all the women his age wild.

  "What do you want?" I ask. "Look, I have a pot of water boiling in the stove, so you need to walk and talk." I don't wait for him, but he follows me to the kitchen, where I set Olivia back down to play with her cups and rice.

  "I thought you were busy today," he says. "With all your things to do, like wash your hair."

  My hand immediately goes to my head. "I did wash my hair, thank you very much. I also showered, for your information. Which doesn't always happen, actually, not with toddler." Do I not look like I showered? I'm about to sniff my armpits just to make sure, but he laughs.

  "I believe you," he says. "You look clean."

  "Uh…thanks."

  "Your kid is playing with uncooked rice. On the floor."

  "No kidding," I say. "It keeps her entertained while I cook dinner."

  "What if she eats it?"

  "I'm mostly positive she won't die from eating raw rice," I say.

  "Mostly," he says, looking at me warily.

  "Have you ever even met a child before?" I ask. "Scratch that part. I'm pretty concerned that you've not had very much human interaction, period."

  "I've had a ton of human interaction, for your information," Luke says, sauntering over to the kitchen counter where I'm peeling potatoes. "Mostly with females, obviously."

  I cough. "Obviously?"

  "I can be charming," he says.

  "Color me shocked."

  "Not with you," he says, wrinkling his nose as he looks at me. "Give me that peeler. I'm surprised you haven't ripped half the skin off your hand already, the way you're doing that."

  I hand him the peeler and potato. "There you go, hotshot. You think you can do a better job? Go right ahead. What do you mean, you can be charming but not with me?"

  "You're not my type," he says, taking the peels off the potato much more easily than the way I'd been mangling the poor vegetable. "So I don't have to turn up the charm."

  I don't bother to hold back my snort. "You're telling me you've got game?"

  "Red, I've got more game than you'd know what to do with."

  I groan. "Don't do that."

  "Don't do what?" he asks.

  "Call me Red," I say. "Give me a nickname, some stupid jock thing. Or frat thing. You're in college or something, right?"

  "You think I'm a jock or a frat guy?" he asks. "Wait, how old do you think I am?"

  "I don’t know," I say. "Twenty. Twenty-one. How old are you? Oh, hell, don't tell me you're eighteen."

  "Twenty-four," he says, puffing out his chest. "I've been out of college for three years, thanks. I mean, I haven't been out of college for twenty years like you or whatever."

  "I'm thirty-four, not fifty-five."

  "Honestly, I'd have pegged you for late twenties," he says. "You've really aged well."

  "I've aged well?" I ask. "Like a cheese?"

  "More like a wine," he says. "Wine sounds better than cheese."

  "Is this the famous game you were talking about earlier?" I ask.

  "I'm doling it out in small increments," he says. He turns, chopping the potatoes into cubes and dropping them into the water. "I wouldn't want to overwhelm you with the ol' Luke charm. Hope you wanted these in the water; I just assumed."

  "I don't think there's any danger of my being overwhelmed with the Luke charm," I say, watching as he begins to wash and chop vegetables, rummaging around my kitchen cupboard drawers like he owns the place. "Is there something you're looking for?"

  "A knife," he says. "Your knives are all wrong. Don't you have any basic cooking tools?"

  "Yeah, I have a knife right there."

  "This is a steak knife, and it's not even sharp. How do you make food?"

  "I use the knives I have," I say. "What's the problem?"

  He stops and stares behind me, and I follow his gaze to Olivia, who's bent over, licking the tile floor. "Is that normal? That doesn't seem normal."

  "Oh my God," I sigh the words. "She's a toddler. They lick floors. Olivia, stop licking the floor." Olivia has her tongue pressed flat against the tile now. I'm almost positive she's doing it just for dramatic effect.

  She's probably actually a genius baby who can understand what we're saying and is just screwing with us, I think as I open the fridge to pull out her sippy cup of milk so I can distract her from French-kissing the floor in front of the way-too-hot, way-too-young obviously not-that-bright firefighter who's standing in my kitchen peeling my potatoes. That practically sounds like an innuendo.

  "You're blushing," Luke says, gesturing toward me with the peeler in his hand, like it's a pointer or something. "Did she embarrass you?"

  I hand Olivia the sippy cup and she rolls onto her back and thanks me. "Did you hear that? That was a thank you. She even has manners. Did she embarrass me by licking the floor? No, of course not."

  Luke is looking at the chicken I've marinated, a look of disgust on his face. "Is this marinated in salad dressing?"

  "Yeah. The recipe was on the back of the bottle."

  He makes a strangled sound, and I start to walk toward the counter, but he shoos me away. "Back off, Red," he says. "You lost your kitchen privileges."

  "This is my kitchen."

  "Which is why you should lose your kitchen privileges," he says. "Since you should be ashamed of yourself and your poor culinary skills. Go over there. Play with your kid and her rice or whatever and I'll fix this mess."

  "Do you usually just waltz into strangers' homes and start cooking them dinner?"

  "Cooking them dinner?" he asks. "Us. I do the work of salvaging this mess of chicken you have here, that means I'm a freaking honorary guest at dinner."

  "My poor culinary skills?" I ask, just catching what he said. "I'm not a traditional kind of girl."

  He makes a sound under his breath, his back turned toward me, and I can't tell if he's laughing at me or scoffing. "No kidding, Red."

  "Are you going to stop calling me that?"

  He shrugs. "Probably not."

  "Okay, then."

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Luke

  The phone buzzes again and I glance down at the third message in a row from Bethany. Or was it Brandi? Or Bambi? I think it