Grandma scoffs. “You can’t fool me. That dog has ranked top since you adopted him.”
“He’s a good dog,” Banks says evenly.
“Ripley is crazy about him,” Grandma says, and that’s true, but I’m not entirely sure she’s talking about Hudson.
Still, I’m the woman wearing a mock turtleneck in eighty-degree weather, so I shut the hell up and focus so hard on making coffee.
After the crew leaves bright and early to shoot at The Slippery Dipper today, I work on my usual tasks around the farm until it’s time to swing by the art museum to pick up the flowers from last night’s event. Banks helps me collect them and put them in the bed of the truck. “What will you do with them now?”
“Take them back to the farm and turn them into soil compost,” I say.
Under the sun in the museum parking lot, he stares at me for a beat, his lips curving up.
“What?” I ask breathily.
“That’s hot.”
“Composting my flowers?”
“Yeah. Being good to the earth.”
I laugh. “Makes it even harder to resist me, doesn’t it?”
“Yes,” he says, and he’s intensely serious. He heads over to the passenger door and opens it. The man loves driving.
“You and your control,” I mutter.
But before I can get in, he ropes an arm around my waist and jerks me against him, my back to his front, his hand coming down on the thin, crocheted floral belt I’m wearing since I’m in my vintage ’90s era today, it seems, with my jean shorts too. “And you like it,” he rasps out.
“I do.”
His arm cinches tighter. I melt more. He slides his other hand up my neck and into my hair. “Me too.”
“Is anyone watching?” I whisper, but I know the answer. With the movie shooting in town today, no one’s really following me. The photographers—from the Hollywood trade press to the paparazzi—are all on Main Street, hunting for the real action.
“I looked around. We’re good,” he says huskily, then runs his fingers up and into my hair. “Does your neck hurt today?”
“A little.”
“Want me to rub it?”
I want him to rub everything. “Yes.”
In the parking lot, with his arm locking me in place at the waist, he rubs my neck. It’s a better neck massage than the first one, especially since he sighs, and murmurs, and kisses the shell of my ear.
Eventually, when I’ve turned into a liquid state, I say, “So we’re forgetting last night?”
“Yes, this is forgetting.” He kisses my neck once—no hickey this time—and lets go.
Back at the farm, Haven texts me a few times during the shoot, sending little updates like this one.
Haven: OMG, I am pretending I run The Slippery Dipper!
Ripley: Dreams do come true.
Haven: I know. I’ve always wanted to run a cute shop!
Ripley: It’s not all sunshine and roses.
