Parker raised her hand as if she were back in school.The women had such an easy comradery that she didn’t want to disrupt it by butting in, even though she was starting to feel a sense of ease around them.“Um, hello.I’m single too.”She looked around the room to see the others staring at her with raised brows.“Not that I’m asking for material for any kind of bank.”Parker’s mind was overflowing with fantasy files that involved a certain farmer taking her in various places around the orchard.She almost slipped into her favorite when a snort of disbelief sounded from one side of the room.
“Girl, please,” Lottie remarked with a roll of her eyes.“You are too gorgeous to stay single for long, and besides, Travis has all but peed on your leg to stake his claim on you.If the two of you aren’t a thing by the end of the Harvest Festival, I’ll eat my favorite pair of Oxford pumps.”
Parker sputtered, wanting to deny that anything was happening between her and Travis, but that wasn’t exactly true anymore if it ever was.Even at the beginning, she felt the stirrings of something between them, and now it felt like so much more than that.They’d kissed and fooled around, and even though that didn’t guarantee a deeper connection, she’d been feeling one for a while and could tell he did to.
“I wouldn’t say he’s staked a claim on me, per se.”That sounded so animalistic, and yet Parker kind of liked the sound of it.To some, trying to claim her might have been about control, but she knew it wasn’t like that with Travis.He was all about taking care of her first, and if he wanted to throw her over his shoulder and do as he liked, Parker would welcome it with a smile on her face.The realization had her pressing her face into the palms of her hands.“Oh, I am in so much trouble.”
Lottie reached over and patted her knee.“If you’re worried about the whole ‘sleeping with your boss’ thing, don’t be.Travis’s dad owns the farm, not him.”Parker peeked through her fingers to see Lottie smiling.“Besides, his parents would probably be over the moon to find out that their son isn’t actually a practicing monk.”
Parker chuckled humorlessly.“I guess so.”
It was strange having so many people both know your business and actually be invested in the outcome of it at the same time.She had kind of gotten used to being mostly invisible to people except for those few moments they would interact with her either as their waitress or the person ringing up their sale.It had been a long time since Parker had had anyone thinking about her in any other capacity, and as nice as it was, it was also throwing her a little bit.
Lottie’s expression went from one of teasing to worry.“I didn’t mean to freak you out, Parker.”She bit her lips and looked around the room, the other women just sort of shrugging.“Do you even like Travis?”
“Ohmygod,yes.”The answer fell from her lips automatically.“But it’s complicated.I have Kit to think about, plus we’re only here through the end of the year.”
Would her not living so close change how he felt about her?Parker didn’t think it was only a matter of proximity.She’d seen the way some women would come to pick apples and hope to pick up on him at the same time, but Travis ignored them as he did almost everyone else.Not her though.Never her.
Lottie smiled knowingly.“And how has Travis been with your daughter?”
Parker smiled.Travis didn’t ignore her daughter either, making sure she always had an extra waffle or side of fries when they would go to the big house to eat.“Pretty great, actually.He’s hanging out with her right now.”Travis was the whole reason she was even there, enjoying some good, albeit a little more sexually explicit than she’d expected, conversation and more self-care than she’d taken the time to give herself in, well, ever.“She’s so chatty though, and he hates noise and people.”
Lottie nodded, one brightly painted nail tapping her chin.“Has he ever told you that it bothers him, her chattiness?”
Parker shook her head, the smile on her face growing by the second.“No.If anything he’s been far more patient with her than most other people.”Travis had taken all of Kit’s high energy days in stride and been just as steady with her on the days when her surliness seemed to come out more than usual.Parker could tell that Kit loved hanging around him and his parents more than just about anyone else she’d ever known too, but that was the other problem.“I’m not sure getting attached to anybody is a good idea.Finding another job in Applewood after the season is over seems pretty unlikely.”
Lottie waved off her worry like it was nothing.“When the time comes,ifyou need another job, and I sayifbecause I have a feeling you aren’t going to be leaving that farm, then you come to me and I’ll help you.”
Parker looked around the room, watching as the other women bobbed their heads in agreement.“Definitely take Lottie up on her offer,” Willa insisted.“She got me my job at the mayor’s office and knows just about everybody in this town.She’s right that you probably won’t need her help though.”
Parker raised a brow in question.“Why is that?Do you have a good feeling too?”
Willa chuckled and shared a look with her friend.“I don’t have a feeling either way, but it has more to do with Lottie being low-key psychic than anything else.”
Whipping her head back to Lottie, Parker chuckled when the woman waved off her friend’s assessment of her supernatural abilities.“I can’t read minds or predict the future.”She glowered at Willa, but there was no heat in it.“I just know everybody and have lived here pretty much my entire life.After so many years it’s become pretty easy to predict outcomes based on people’s past behaviors and what I know about them.”
“Huh,” Parker replied dumbly.She couldn’t imagine staying in one place long enough to gain that kind of information and ability to figure out how others would act.It sounded a bit like it was either a blessing or a curse.Not quite believing solely in the power of observation just yet, Parker was curious to get Lottie’s read on the room.“So what do you predict for all of us?As far as our love lives are concerned.”
Lottie blew a raspberry through her lips.“That’s easy.”Lottie looked around the room for a moment, staring at each woman for a good little while before talking.“Parker and Travis are going to be a couple by the time Thanksgiving rolls around, Autumn and Felix are going to elope sometime in the next six months, Nicole and Aiden are going to have a big, fancy wedding catered by his mother because he won’t trust anyone else with the food, and Willa will be pregnant by the end of the year.”Lottie snagged a cheese cube off the platter on the coffee table and popped it into her mouth.“That is if she isn’t already.”
All eyes moved to Willa who sat there with her mouth hanging open so wide you could drive a truck through it.“How the hell did you know?”
After a chorus of squeals and congratulations from everyone in attendance, Lottie sat next to her friend and pulled her into a hug.“Beckett has been making runs to the grocery store and coming home with ginger ale and saltines, you’ve been too tired to stay up and watch old movies with me when he’s at the firehouse, and for the last year that the two of you have lived with me, you have fucked like bunnies.Doesn’t take a genius to put all that together.”She pulled back and looked at her friend with concern.“Are you mad that I spoiled your surprise?”
Willa shook her head, a bright smile on her face as one hand came to rest on her still flat stomach.“Are you kidding?I’m too happy to care about spoiled surprises.”She bumped Lottie with her shoulder.“Besides, I’m just glad you haven’t announced it in the town newsletter yet.”
Lottie stuck out her tongue at Willa and moved back to her chair.“I wouldn’t do that until I got the official go ahead.”She gazed at Willa with barely contained excitement.“So when do you think that’ll be?”
Willa rolled her eyes, her expression fondly indulgent.“We’ve already told all our parents and Beck is telling his brothers tomorrow, but after that, you’re all good, girlie.”Lottie smiled and pulled out her phone, making a calendar alert from what Parker could see from her seat.
As Parker watched Lottie and digested the fact that she had been right about Willa, something else occurred to her.“What about you?”Lottie glanced up at Parker with confusion.“You never made a prediction for yourself.”
Lottie shrugged and continued to tap on her phone.“Don’t you know?That’s the seers curse.”She pocketed her phone and smiled sadly.“Destined to wander the streets of Applewood alone, predicting everyone else’s happiness as I grow old and eventually die from loneliness and lack of orgasms.”
Parker tried not to chuckle when Willa tossed another of her seemingly endless supply of pillows at Lottie.“Melodramatic much?”she asked with a laugh.“Besides, you have a date tomorrow night with Councilman Gutierrez.”Willa waggled her eyebrows comically, earning a chuckle from Nicole.
Lottie rolled her eyes.“It’s not a date, it’s a meeting to pump Anthony for information.And before you make a sex joke, I am not planning on pumping him for anything else.”
