I told myself hiring Poppy was practical. She needed work, I needed hands. The season was already pushing the timeline, and my last hire had quit two weeks ago to follow a girl to California. I didn’t have time to be choosy, even if Poppy didn’t look like she knew a petunia from a pinecone and she looked at the greenhouses as if they were alien spaceships.
Or that was what I told myself.
I didn’t do complicated. I didn’t do people. I liked my seedlings and my solitude.
I’d come to Lone Mountain over ten years ago, newly graduated from college and wanting to make my mark in the world—on the earth. Selling organic seedlings to co-ops, even big business who knew the value of keeping food safe and clean.
I hadn’t come alone though. I’d brought the woman I’d intended to spend the rest of my life with. Fresh out of college, her view of the world hadn’t included the long hours, unpredictable weather and the lean years of sacrifice.
She’d left before the first frost and never looked back. The bitterness had faded, replaced with the knowledge that I was where I was supposed to be. The solitude had stayed because I’d let it.
As usual, I was up at four-thirty, the black coffee burning a hole in my stomach as I headed to a greenhouse. I’d slept like hell. I was blaming the weather. Not a set of pretty brown eyes.
I went through my morning checks—nutrient levels, humidity, soil temp—trying to keep my head in the game. But every time I turned a corner, I expected to see her.
She showed up at five on the dot.
The door to the greenhouse creaked open, and the morning chill followed her in. I didn’t look up, keeping my focus on a tray of seedlings, but my skin prickled. I knew exactly where she was. I could smell her—that wildflower-and-honey scent that wafted through the air, fresh enough to cut through the damp smell of the greenhouse.
I’d walked through the greenhouse without thinking about anything but work for years. She’d been here twelve hours and already took up a corner of my attention.
“You’re on time,” I grunted, finally looking at her. I’d expected her to be late. The kind of woman who called her employer a brooding mountain man on the first day didn’t strike me as someone who took early morning report times seriously. Rather more of a suggestion.
She was wearing another pair of black leggings that left absolutely nothing to the imagination and were a direct assault on my self-control.
She looked like a sunrise in a storm.
My first thought was I didn’t believe in love at first sight. All the fairy-tale crap. Relationships were hard. They took time to build.
Or at least that was what I told myself.
Because I had never felt this immediate spike of hunger either. A deep-seated need to see her working in my dirt, her skin flushed from the mountain sun. Hell, I wanted to see what she looked like under the sun with nothing on but one of her smiles.
I didn’t know what she was running from, but she’d run straight into my territory. I wasn’t a nice man. I was a mountain man—silent possessive and used to getting what I wanted. And looking at her, I realized I wanted a lot more than a nursery hand. I wanted to see if she tasted as good as she looked.
“I told you I was reliable,” she said, her voice bright and snappy. She looked around the greenhouse, her eyes wide with that enthusiastic look that screamed she was way out of her depth.
“We’ll see,” I said, walking toward the equipment rack. I grabbed a pair of work gloves and tossed them to her. She caught them, but she looked at the heavy leather like it was a foreign object. “Today, you’re working in here. We’re rotating the propagation trays.”
She bit her lip and looked like she wanted to say something.
I sighed, but asked, “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” She shook her head, and a few strands of hair escaped the messy bun on top of her head. I resisted the urge to smooth them back behind her ears.
“Ask the question, Poppy.”
“What’s a propagation tray? I know what the word means, but not what it has to do growing things.”
When I thought about it, I didn’t make much sense either. “They’re seedling trays.”
“Oh. I get it now.”
“Good. The seedling trays need to move from the east wall to the center tables to catch the filtered light. It’s heavy work, Poppy. Not for the faint of heart.”
“I’ve got plenty of heart, Cord,” she shot back, as if she’d heard that kind of thing before. Doubt about her abilities. “Just point me toward the dirt.”
I led her over, showing her the system. I knew she didn’t have a green thumb. Hell, she probably hadn’t ever owned a houseplant. But something inside me wanted to see her try. I wanted to see her get a little dirty.
