“Jesus, I’d forgotten about your Star Wars obsession.” That just slipped out of my mouth. But as soon as I said it, the other guy’s eyes opened wide, and the look on Griff’s face made it clear that any further references to our tiny sliver of a past together weren’t going to be tolerated.

Though tiny sliver wasn’t good terminology for the boinking we’d done, because nothing on that man’s body was tiny.

Moving on.

“How can I help?” I asked. “I’m happy to get going just as soon as I’m able. After we have a brief discussion about cider and apples.”

“A brief discussion.” He stared me down.

“Yes. You repeat things very well. Good job.” I crossed my arms to match his posture. Maybe I’d been sent to Vermont on a fool’s errand, but I wasn’t going to cash in my chips just yet. If this errand could be saved, I’d save it. My future at BPG was at stake, and one grumpy farmer wasn’t going to have the last word.

“Follow me,” he grunted before turning and marching away.

“Yes sir.” I saluted the back of his head.

The blond kid chuckled to himself and went to look at the deflated wheel of my rental car.

THIRTY-ONE

A little safety pin

I’m a nice guy. Swear to God. But today it was pretty hard to tell.

Blame it on the stress of running a farm, or the shock of seeing Audrey Kidder there on our road, her legs longer than the drive to town, her fiery eyes staring up at me. Blame it on a sudden spike in the summer day’s temperature.

Whatever the cause, I started acting like an asshole at the moment I discovered Audrey’s perfect ass sticking out of that car on my dirt road.

Trying to clear my head, I walked her up our half-mile gravel driveway at a death-march pace. But she had on those little strappy shoes, damn it. So I slowed my pace and tried to find my manners. “How’ve you been for five years?” I barked.

Maybe I hadn’t quite remembered how to be civilized yet, though, because she looked shocked by the question. “Um, fine, thank you. I, uh, flunked out of BU. Then my mother sent me to Mount Holyoke where I repeated the performance.”

I shouldn’t have asked, I guess, because her story made me ragey. I’d busted my ass for four years to keep a football scholarship at BU because I knew it would leave more money in the college fund for my three younger siblings.

But Audrey had been a party girl. Always with her sorority sisters. Always looking for a drunken good time. Good-time party guy was the part I’d tried to play in college, but, meanwhile, I’d slept an average of five hours a night for four years so I could get everything done. Just like I did now.

“—so after I proved to everyone that a college degree was not for me, I went to cooking school where I graduated as the valedictorian. Go figure.”