Later I would remember this moment as important. Standing there on Griff’s road, I’d gleaned the first prickle of understanding that a flat tire was just the start of my buzz kill. A brand new sinking feeling kicked in, because I had a hunch that Griff Shipley knew what he was talking about for once. I opened the price list in my hand to see that the first item on the list was, indeed, Apples: $0.99 / lb.

Fuck. “So you’re saying that a dollar a pound is not the market rate for wholesale apples?” I said it as sweetly as possible, but Griff’s face began to darken like a stormy sky.

“Listen, princess,” he growled. “You can buy shitty, mealy apples for that price from a giant orchard out west or from a farmer that got swindled into growing only Red Delicious during the eighties and can’t afford to re-graft his trees. But your guy wants organic apples, probably heirloom varietals. He wants bragging rights on the menu—apples grown locally in New England with no pesticides and blessed by virgins in the moonlight. That’s what he wants hand-lettered on the menu, right?”

“Right,” I agreed reluctantly. That was exactly how it worked.

“That does not come at a buck a pound. Not from me and not from any of my neighbors.”

Uh-oh. My heart sank a little further into the dirt, just like my rental car.

I wasn’t a stupid girl. Maybe business wasn’t exactly my forte, but I’d always been a good listener. And after listening to Griff rant for a minute, I already knew that when I visited the other farms in this county, every price on my page would be too low by half. And yet my job depended on sealing these deals.

I was so screwed.

“Now let’s get your shiny new car out of the ditch, shall we?” Griff was glowering at me. For real. Before today I’d never seen anyone actually glower. It was an expression found only in books, and on Griff Shipley’s ridiculously handsome yet grumpy face.

“It’s a rental,” I said in my own defense. “I can call for roadside service.”

Glowering Griff gave a weary sigh. “I’ll be rid of you sooner if I do it myself.” He raised two fingers to his mouth and blew an ear-piercing whistle. Then he waited while I tried not to think of those fingers and the things they’d once done to me…

“Got a problem, Han?” a voice called from the meadow beyond the trees lining the road. A few seconds later an attractive blond dude slipped between the trees to join us. He was big, too. But where Griff was dark, this man was fair with pretty blue eyes.

Apparently all the people who grew pristine organic food were beautiful themselves.

“Yeah, we do have a problem,” Griff told him. “We have to pull the princess here out of the ditch and change her tire. Then warp speed her ass back to the Death Star so she can report that the rebels are mutinying.”