She gave him a small smile and nod in return before beelining it to the inn.
Once she’d safely entered the inn, he put the truck in drive. Sharing a meal with her in his kitchen had been enjoyable, even with all her questions. She’d gotten him to open up more in the past three days than he had in the past year. Partly because he didn’t want to let her win their battle of wills.
But another part of it was her. She was easy to talk to.
And now that he knew she loved Rumi, he felt a kinship he hadn’t felt with anyone else. Not even Nicole. She’d loved when he whispered poetry to her, but she didn’t feel it deeply enough to be moved to distraction or remember the verses. Nicole was more practical. Even about love. After her diagnosis, they’d loved each other deeply, but she’d held a piece of herself back. The piece, she told him, she wanted him to have from the woman he fell in love with next.
Next.
That was a tricky word he tried not to overthink because he couldn’t predict next.
He’d certainly never imagined seeing Kennedy again.
Or thought he’d lose Nicole when he had. Life held no certainties. He’d learned that more than once.
He walked into his house and found Barley and her puppies sound asleep and his kitchen clean, the baby bottle and nipple drying separately on a paper towel beside the sink, the passports exactly as he remembered leaving them.
Kennedy not only spoke her mind and invited conversation, she had class. She was gracious. In college they’d been so competitive with their schoolwork, they’d never taken the time to learn anything personal about each other. With age came maturity, though, and he’d be lying if he said he didn’t like this new version of their friendship. If you could even call it that. “Kennedy Martin” and “friend” still didn’t exactly go together.
You were friendly enough to kiss each other.
That she initiated the contact was the reason why—he wasn’t sure he would have followed through on the urge. It was one more thing he liked about her. She was no shrinking violet.
Needing to get his mind off the beautiful and fascinating doctor, he grabbed his laptop and sat on the couch to do some work. His family had no idea he had a meeting with a friend interested in investing in his nontoxic pesticide. During his travels with Nicole, they’d met a winemaker in Italy. Marco and his wife owned a vineyard, and they’d hit it off on their visit there. So much so that Marco had kept in touch over the years.
Maverick had been thinking about mass-producing his pesticide as a means to add further financial stability to the ranch, and Marco wanted in. The older man saw potential; he just needed documentation.
Maverick opened the business proposal he’d been working on for the past several months. The numbers were there. The action points. If this happened, Maverick could hire help for the ranch and build a small processing plant, then take a step back. Knowing the ranch and inn would not only survive, but thrive without him twenty-four seven meant he could go back to veterinary school.
He worked late into the night putting the finishing touches on the project, and then before he could change his mind, he emailed it to Marco. This would give the man plenty of time to go over the proposal before Maverick arrived. And take the weight off Maverick’s shoulders sooner rather than later.
Falling asleep took all of two minutes, an image of Kennedy standing in the middle of bright green grass in bare feet and a sundress, a mischievous smile on her face, sending him off to dreamland. If he thought he had even a chance of keeping his mind off the beautiful and compelling woman, he was sorely mistaken.
…
The next morning, some sixth sense told Maverick to check on the trees. He hadn’t observed them carefully enough during the past two visits with Kennedy as his sidekick. She had a way of hijacking his attention. Whether silent or talking nonstop or staring at him, it didn’t matter what she did—if she was near, he couldn’t fully concentrate.
And he had to be sure the trees were in good condition before he left town.
He drove the electric utility vehicle through the far edge of the farm as the sun rose over the mountains. The smell of the salty air and views of the ocean popping in and out between the hills made this location unique. Their ranch held the distinction of being close enough to the coastline to swim in the Pacific and ten minutes later stand in a forest of pine trees. The ocean breeze carried away the dust and grime found on most ranches and left behind bright surfaces and shining scenery.
This morning though… “Damn it.”
He parked and took a closer look at the trees. Several of them had dead, diseased, or damaged branches. Others oozed sap from multiple holes, a sure sign of insect damage.
“Damn it,” he repeated. The last thing he needed was an insect problem this late in the growth cycle and with only days until his scheduled flight out of the country.
If fault lay with his pesticide, he was screwed.
Crawling on all fours, he dug into the soil with his bare hands, checked the irrigation lines, looked for bacteria or fungi under the tree bark.
It took until noon, but with help from Hunter, their cousin Miles, Uncle Tim, and their groundskeeper, Jerry, they inspected every single tree with a careful eye. Maverick lifted his cowboy hat and wiped the back of his hand across his forehead, wiping away the perspiration.
“You’re right,” Hunter said. “The problem is isolated to the southeast corner only.”
“With no clear explanation as to why,” he grumbled. What made that area vulnerable when it hadn’t been before? Why the hell today and not a month ago when he would have had plenty of time to figure it out? He may have learned quite a bit about trees over the past three years, but he wasn’t an arborist, and right now he wished his dad hadn’t let go of their tree manager, albeit for financial reasons.
Pressure built in Maverick’s shoulder blades. They probably wouldn’t figure out what caused the problem, but at least they’d caught it before any permanent damage had been done.
“Jerry’s coming back with a small crew,” Hunter said. “I’ll stay with Uncle Tim and Miles and we’ll prune the affected trees so you can do what you need to do.”
“Be sure everyone uses rubbing alcohol between cuts to disinfect the tools.”
“We will.”
“I’ll owe you a beer later.” Maverick put his hat back on his head.
“You’ll owe me at least two,” Hunter said around a smile. “And a cheeseburger.”
Maverick patted his brother on the back and left to do what he needed to do: spend the afternoon in his greenhouse shed doing quality control on his tree food and then double-checking the delivery system hub. The small slice of solitude where he worked on creating his special mixture normally kept his mind sharp. Focused.