“I'm not sure meeting a tree farmer is on my vacation itinerary.”
His stride faltered, and his bear grumbled.Tough crowd.
The bear wasn’t wrong. This wasn’t going to be as simple as he’d thought.
Chapter Three
Alice
It seemed like the whole town was perfect—wonderful in every way. Except one, Alice mentally amended, with a glance at the sign advertising Grant’s trees that seemed to occupy her every thought.
So much for that restful vacation, she thought with wry amusement. And it seemed like this was going to be tougher to crack than she’d thought. She’d spoken to several of the townspeople, and they were all full of compliments for this Grant guy, and none of them seemed to have the first idea why she might have an issue with the way he made his living. She didn’t understand how they couldn’t see just howwastefulit was.
Shaking her head, she finished the last of her cinnamon latte, tipped the server, and stepped outside of the quaint café and into the beautifully decorated street. It was getting on for mid-morning, and her resolution from the day before was still strong: she needed to speak to Grant. Though, if he was anything like the rest of the town, she didn’t think it would be easy to convince him how harmful the practice was. But she had to try.
She strolled back round to the inn and headed inside for just long enough to get some directions from her host, Betty, and then climbed in her car and followed the road out of town. After a while it became less of a road and more of a beaten track, and then she turned the corner and saw it: row after row of beautiful trees, stretching out across the huge site.
Waiting to be cut down.
She parked the car and got out, stalking more so than walking to the front door of the cabin set beside the trees. She raised her hand but before she could rap on the door, footsteps had her spinning around.
“Hi, how can I—Oh, it’s you.” The man stared at her, looking dazed. Clearly, he’d heard about her questions in town and hadn’t been prepared for her to actually show up.
And I wasn’t prepared for how hot he is.
Alice blinked, her cheeks flushing red, and tried to shake the errant thought from her mind. Yes, okay, so objectively he was hot—smoking hot—but that didn’t change anything.
Broad shoulders and smoldering eyes don’t automatically come with built-in environmental awareness, Alice.And yet, as she stared at those eyes, she was having areallyhad time remembering what she’d come to say.Get it together!
“Yes, it is,” she said firmly. “Alice Palmer.”
“Alice. That’s a beautiful name.” A slow smile stretched over his lips, which she hadn’t noticed until that moment, on account of being busy admiring his eyes, but now that she looked at them…
She forced a scowl.
“Really. Does anyone fall for that line?”
“Line? I—” He shook his head. “I’m sorry. Start over? My name’s Grant. Grant West.”
He held his hand out to her and she stared at it. He let it drop, something like vulnerability flickering over his face for just a second that made her heart squeeze with guilt. But she couldn’t let her own feelings and emotions get in the way. It was clear no-one else round here was going to stand up for the environment.
“Yes, I’ve heard all about you and your tree farm.”
“And…that doesn’t make you happy,” he guessed, sounding a little bemused.
“No, it doesn’t,” she snapped. “I don’t know how things are done around here, but what you’re doing is wasteful and harmful and….wrong,” she finished lamely, wondering how on earth she was staring at his lipsagain.
“Woah, hold on there a moment,” he said, holding up his hands and curving those lips into a disarming smile—like they hadn’t been disarming enough already, for goodness’s sake. “I think there might have been some kind of misunderstanding.”
“Misunderstanding?”
He nodded. “See, I don’t harm any of these trees or cut them down.”
“I don’t know who you think you’re fooling, Mr. West, but I’ve seen trees—your trees—all over town.”
“Mm-hmm.” He quirked a brow. “And did you happen to look at the pots those trees were standing in?”
“….Pots?”
