She tossed her hair. “Does it matter how I respond? I wouldn’t want to interrupt your sermon.” She came closer, her big blue eyes looking up at me, a challenge gleaming in them. “And don’t tell me you’ve never tried to gussy up your cider house to appeal to the masses. If you don’t believe in marketing, what’s that?”

She pointed at a framed photograph on the wall. It was the first part of an informative display explaining how cider was made. We held tastings here during our busy apple-picking season. “My sister took that last fall. That’s our fruit in the wheelbarrow. So what?”

Audrey grinned like she’d caught me with my hand in the cash drawer. “The apples in that picture did not go into your big, manly cider tanks. These—” She jabbed one pink fingernail at the photo. “—are fancy grade, flawless fruit. You sold those apples to tourists. And in there”—she pointed at my tanks, and raised her voice—“you put apples that look like they got their asses kicked in an alleyway! So don’t even try to pretend you have no fucks to give when it comes to marketing!”

Christ on a cracker. The way her shapely mouth looked when she said fuck was ridiculously distracting. And I’d just been schooled by a girl who must have paid attention at least once in a while in culinary school.

Weirdly, I didn’t care that much. I just wanted her to say fuck again, preferably while riding my dick in the hayloft.

“What?” she snapped. “You’re staring at me.”

“Did you call me Grouchy Griff a minute ago?”

She rolled her eyes. “Maybe. Does it make you want to sell me cider at a competitive price?”

The truth was that I wanted very much to sell cider to the Big Corporate Assholes Group of where-the-fuck-ever. Unlike my fruit, the cider could become a brand name, and it needed to find its special market. If fancy restaurants carried my cider, I’d have an easier time convincing Boston wine shops to stock it.

Taking a small loss on the cider was probably a good business decision. If I could stomach it. “Dare I ask?” I walked closer to Audrey where she stood by the bottler. “What price does your employer expect to pay for a bottle of Vermont’s finest hard cider?”

For a moment she blinked up at me, then licked her lips.

Do not look at her lips. Do not think about them. Do not remember what she once did with… Fuck.

“My pricing sheet says three dollars for a seven-hundred-fifty-milliliter bottle.”

Well, that was a libido killer. “Three bucks? So they can mark it up to twenty? You’re shitting me. The bottle and the cork alone cost a buck fifty.”

Her shoulders sagged, and when she spoke again, it was in a soft voice. “I will tell my boss he’s insane, okay? But if you want me to change his mind, you need to give me something to go on. I need information, not another rant.”