“Leon.” His voice is sharp. “I need you to help Noel while I’m gone. Treat her with respect.”
Leon groans like the fifteen-year-old he is. Sawyer must give him a glare I don’t see because he changes his tune. “Okay.”
“Are your friends coming today?” Sawyer shifts the conversation to business. “We need them ready to sort tomorrow morning. Jay’s coming with his crew.”
My little brother shrugs. “They said they’d be here.”
“Why don’t you text them and be sure.”
He lets out a groan and pushes out of his seat. “Good breakfast, sis.”
“Take another biscuit.” I put one in his hand as he scuffs out the door.
Sawyer stands, pulling his phone from his pocket. “I’ll check on the crate situation. Thanks, Noel.”
He’s out the door, leaving me at a table full of dirty dishes.
Taron sits back watching them go before turning to me. He’s so damn hot. “Are they always like that?”
My brow furrows as I pretend to think then nod. “Pretty much.”
“So you make breakfast, they eat it, give you a hard time, then leave you to clean it all up?”
“Well… I mean, it’s what we do. The house is mine.” Pushing away from the table, I start collecting the dishes and carrying them to the sink. Behind me, I hear him doing the same, and I turn around. “You don’t have to—”
“I came here to help.” He gives me another grin, and I chew my bottom lip, watching him carry dirty plates, his broad shoulders stretching his cotton tee. He’s gotta be at least six-two.
“I think Sawyer is expecting you to help with the men’s work.”
“The men’s work?” His voice changes. “Now that is something I would not expect to hear from you.”
“How come?” My eyes narrow. “You’ve never met me.”
“True.” He nods. “But I know your brother, and he said you graduated with honors and plan to go to business school in the fall.”
“I do.” Crossing back to the table, I pick up the last of the dirty plates. “And I don’t expect to have to lift and carry a bushel of peaches in a board room.”
“A bushel.” He holds a towel, and I wash the first dish, passing it to him to dry.
“That’s fifty pounds.” I hand him another clean plate, and he dries it, reaching overhead to return them to their shelf each time.
When he does it, his shirt rises, and I get a glimpse of the lines of muscle in his stomach. Hot.
“I see.” He looks at me again, and my eyes snap to the soapy water. “On the farm, work is divided by who can carry the most weight?”
“I don’t know about farms.” I pass him another plate, sliding my eyes to the side for another peek at his abs. “But at LaGrange Orchard, we put everybody where they can be the most useful. Like, you’re pretty good at drying dishes, and you claim you can make hoecakes—”
“I make damn good hoecakes. You’ll see.”
Leaning closer, I catch a whiff of his scent, masculine and clean. “Still, I wouldn’t waste your back in the kitchen when you’re needed on the loading dock.”
I flip the switch for the garbage disposal and help the food scraps down the drain. Akela trots into the room as if on cue, and I toss her the last piece of bacon, then I squat down to rub her fluffy white neck while she chews.
Taron crosses his arms watching us. “She knocked me on my ass this morning.”
“Akela!” Laughter tickles in my stomach, and I shake my face at her. She only licks my nose. “Did you knock Taron down?”
He squats beside me to pet her head. “Huskey?”
“Yeah.” I give her one more neck scrub and stand. “Somebody dumped her out in the field when she was a puppy. Sawyer said I couldn’t keep her, but he’s not my dad.”
His eyes sober at my words. “Sawyer told me what happened to your parents. That must’ve been rough.”
“It was a long time ago.” I don’t know why I always say that. No matter how many years pass, losing both our parents the way we did is a pain that never leaves.
Now my brother’s leaving home, putting himself in harm’s way.
With a sigh, I push those feelings away like I always do. Feeling bad doesn’t change a damn thing.
“Sorry all the women around here are throwing themselves at you.”
“I’m glad I was here to catch you.”
“Me too.” I blink up and try to smile.
We share a moment… until the back door opens, and Sawyer sticks his head in. “You planning to stay in the house all day or you coming to help?”
“He helped me with the dishes.”
“Hoecake, dishes… Get out here where I need you.”
“You’ll take that back in the morning.” Taron jogs down the steps after my brother.
I walk out to the porch watching his tight end as he walks away. Exhaling a little sigh, I step into my cowboy boots. The teenagers are milling around in the sorting shed, and if Sawyer’s prepping for the crew, I need to teach these kids how to sort peaches.
They’ll be coming in fast tomorrow, and we won’t have time for them to get behind. The next two weeks are going to be insane around here.
3
Taron
The foreman’s cottage is about thirty yards up the hill from the house. The door sticks a bit, but Sawyer pushes it open and crosses to switch on a small window unit.
“It’s stuffy, but it’ll cool off fast.” He opens a narrow door at the back corner. “Full bathroom here. Closet there.”
I drop my oversized duffel on a chair, looking around the small space. “Not bad.”
“You’re welcome at the house anytime, and you’ll eat with us.” He walks to the door, his boots thumping on the pine floors. “But here you’ll have some privacy… if you meet somebody or whatever.”
My mind tries to drift to Noel, but I catch it. Hooking up, especially with my best friend’s little sister, is not why I came to this tiny town.
“Nobody should mess with your stuff, but just in case.” His tosses me a set of keys. “Come to the loading dock when you’re done, and I’ll show you how to use the forklift.”
With that, he’s gone, and I give the place a quick scan. It’s small, but a double bed is in the corner with a nightstand and lamp beside it. A few books are on the shelf—both look like cowboy novels. Across the room, a mini fridge is on a counter with a coffee maker beside it.
Blinds cover the windows, and the chair where I dropped my bag is positioned in front of a small, flat screen television. I look at my phone—still no service.
“Whatever.” I’ve checked in with the only people I care about in Nashville.
It takes me five minutes to unpack, hang my few belongings in the closet and place my toiletries in the bathroom before I head out again, leaving the keys on the small table by the door.
Noel’s got a group of teenagers in the enormous peach shed, and I watch as she uses a basket of tennis balls to demonstrate sorting. It’s a good mix of boys and girls, and she’s encouraging but strict as she guides them through the process of finding the yellow balls with black lines down the sides and sorting them into baskets while stacking the all-yellow ones into crates.