But he wasn’t really looking at the pumpkin. He was looking at her.

She regretted kicking the slop bucket

From her position in front of the pigpen, with her hair trailing down her back in a messy ponytail and the legs of her blue corduroys rolled up, she saw he had sun-streaked dark hair and wore a suit. Tan. It looked expensive. He had broad shoulders and long legs.

Not, she thought, your average pumpkin buyer.

He was probably just another vulture—another Pat Oberlin or Rob Gazelle looking for a new angle on the Ashley Wakefield story. “Mystery heiress slops pigs.” Blowing stray hairs out of her face, she decided it would be wise just to ignore him.

With long strides, aware of the visitor’s eyes on her, she headed over to the chicken coop. None of the dozen or so hens appeared to appreciate her self-sacrifice as she crept around in the dried hay and manure— “shet,” Barky would say—and located their eggs. They were warm and brown and speckled with dried, and sometimes not so dry, manure. She held out the hem of her shirt and made a hammock for the eggs. There were eight. Not bad.

As she ducked back outside, the sun blinded her momentarily, and she sneezed. Then all at once there was a body in front of her, and a very deep voice said, “Ashley Wakefield?”

She jumped up, and the eggs went flying. They crashed with utterly final splats in the grass, on her sneakers, on his polished loafers. Before she’d recovered fully from the start, she glared at him and said, “Jackass.”

He had green eyes, very, very pale. And the suit was silk. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you.”

“Well, you did.”

He paused—not hesitated, she noted, just paused, as if to regroup, reassess. Perhaps the You piece hadn’t prepared him for a testy egg collector. “So I see.”

She shook egg goo off her foot. “Is there something I can do for you?” It was a demand, not a polite request.

“Yes, as a matter of fact.”

Wasn’t there always? He turned his foot sideways and wiped egg yolk and runny albumen off his shoe onto the grass. He grimaced. With its hard lines, his face was striking. He was tanned and solid and didn’t look at all like any of the reporters who had been stalking her.

He gave up on his shoe. “I was wondering if you might have seen a friend of mine. Mac—MacGregor Stevens.”

“A reporter?”

“No. An attorney.”

She wiped her hands on the hips of her pants. “I have an attorney.”

“Parrington, Parrington and Smith of New York. Yes, I know.”

So he had read the You piece. Naturally. A couple of barnyard cats showed up and started lapping up the eggs. Ashley left them to it. She headed down toward the apple trees in the side yard, near the trailer and the driveway. The friend of Mac Stevens followed. Glancing back, she noted his easy stride.