He nods. “If I’m with you.”
When I glance at him, he doesn’t divert his gaze. He just lets his words sit. Like maybe he actually means what he says.
“I don’t want to run you into the ground,” I say, and I give him a quick grin. “I know you city boys are delicate.”
“I’m from here, remember?” he asks, taking a step toward me.
“Youdress uplike you’re from here.”
He narrows his eyes. “I’ve collected more sunflowers than anyone else on this farm today. I’ve eaten more seeds and stomped in more mud. And might I remind you, I’m the last man standing.”
I raise an eyebrow. “I’mthe last man standing.”
He reaches out, his palm landing on my jaw and his thumb brushing across my cheek. “Fine, you’re the last man standing.” He scrunches up his nose as his other hand wipes across my forehead. “Also the dirtiest one.”
I self-consciously wipe my hands across my face and—upon looking at them afterward—realize that probably only made the problem worse.
He grins at me. “I’m not done until you’re done, but mostly because I worry you’ll be out here all night unless there’s someone to physically force you to go to bed.” He pauses. “This feels a little bit like Pre-burnout Evie has taken the reins.”
I give him a flat look. “Normal Evie told you that in confidence. How dare you confront Pre-burnout Evie about it.”
He gives me a small smile, a drop of rain running down his cheek. “Well, I’ll have to apologize to Normal Evie. If we can really call her that.”
“Oh! You know what? You’re fired.”
He laughs, his hand falling to the back of my neck and tugging me closer. My hands land on his rain jacket, and if they weren’t so numb, I bet I could feel every single one of his rock-hard abs.
He kisses me lightly, our lips wet from the rain. Little rivulets of water cascade beneath my jacket with my face turned toward the sky.
I feel the sudden urge to abandon everything I’ve worked so hard for today, collapse into the mud and let him undress me despite the likely hypothermia.
His lips brush mine when he speaks again, his voice low. “I’ll give you one more hour, but after that, I’m locking you in the house.”
I grin. “Sounds kinky.”
He raises his eyebrows, the hand on the back of my neck tightening ever so slightly. “We can go in now if you want.”
Despite just how enticingthatoffer is, I can’t just abandon the sunflowers. “I have to do as much as I can tonight or I’m going to feel like I’ve failed the farm.”
He sighs. “I had a feeling you’d say that.” He turns, chopping another sunflower and fitting it into his bag. When I don’t immediately follow him, he turns and says, “Come on, Sunflower. You’ve got fifty-nine minutes.”
23
RYDER
Day two brought the temperature drop. Day three brings the wind.
While any sane person would call it and get ready to hunker down inside, Eve continues to bluster through the fields, collecting chopped sunflowers and dropping them into the buckets. In the morning, she sends Abby out with deliveries, loading the truck up once an hour with all the flowers she can possibly fit inside and sending her out to nearby flower shops.
And Abby, like some mythical saint of flower delivery, doesn’t skip a beat. She’s small, with long blonde hair that she ties up on top of her head every day, but her size is no indication of her attitude. I quickly learned, after suggesting that perhaps we should chill with the deliveries for the sake of not losing a truck—or worse, an employee—that Abby does not hesitate to tell you exactly what she thinks.
And she apparently thinks I’m a pansy who can’t deal with a little bit of weather.
Eve only shrugged, her grin poorly hidden as mirth danced in her eyes.
But midway through the day, the wind picks up and I can see the indecision haunting her. She eyes Vic, who also has not skipped a beat and continues harvesting flowers just like he has been for the past two days—and half a century—even as a particularly large gust of wind forces him to take a step back before continuing toward the truck he’s loading.
Eve hasn’t slept more than a few hours since Aiden stopped by to notify her of the storm. And while he was here the first two days, he opted to stay home with the animals as the storm moved closer.
