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  Jonah’s skin chafed at the thought of being a nice guy while his neck flushed at the rusty praise.

  “Max says you agree with me,” Gabe said when Jonah didn’t respond to him. “You know, about how we should go our separate ways and stop trying to force ourselves to be a family.”

  “I do agree with you,” Jonah said, wondering what happened to his fervor for that plan. Mom wanted to be this guy’s mom. And Max’s. And Stella’s grandma. Jonah was beginning to feel like an ass trying to deny her that happiness.

  Gabe nodded and turned past the grocery store where Jonah had picked up citrus fruit and pasta for the lunch. The school came into view.

  Straight into town and left at the grocery store. I think I can handle that.

  Gabe parked near the scene of Daphne and Jonah’s make-out party, but didn’t move. He simply stared out the windshield as if facing a heavy decision.

  “I think I’ve changed my mind,” Gabe said. The hair on the back of Jonah’s neck lifted. “I think our folks want this. My wife wants this. So does my…our brother.”

  Gabe rubbed his hands over his face and through his hair, a gesture Jonah recognized as one of his own.

  “What do you think?” Gabe asked him. Really asked him, as if whatever Jonah might say Gabe would listen to. Consider. Allow to affect him.

  And suddenly, that gesture from the big brother he didn’t want moved him more than the shows of support Patrick orchestrated.

  A lump filled his throat and the inside of the truck was too hot to tolerate. Cold sweat ran down his sides. “I’ll be right back,” he said and left the truck before he did something stupid.

  “We have to stop meeting this way,” Patrick said, pressing a kiss to his wife’s bare shoulder.

  “Then you will have to stop sneaking into my cabin.” She laughed, flinging her arms out on the bed.

  A week of lovemaking, of sneaking into her cabin at night, of finding her alone in the gazebo in the afternoon. A week of relearning this woman’s body and sex. He felt like an addict. He couldn’t stand to be away from her and, those few moments he was, he spent planning what he’d do to her once he got his hands on her again.

  Thirty years of celibacy had given him a filthy mind and his wife was little better.

  Even now, tired from feeding this addiction as though he were a man half his age, he wanted her again.

  Couldn’t do much about it, but he wanted her. And it filled him with a powerful, virile glee, to want again. He longed to throw her over his shoulder and take her to a cave somewhere with a bottle of Viagra and food for a month.

  Moonlight lay over her like a silver veil, turning her body’s now familiar terrain into mysterious, uncharted topography. Her neck beguiled him, her sharp collarbone pressing against the thin white skin tempted him. Her shoulders, strong and wide, rising from the sheets like Venus from the waves, humbled him.

  He leaned over her, pressing kisses along those parts of her he most admired. Tugging down the sheets, he searched for new territory to adore.

  “Patrick?”

  “Hmm?” He’d reached the top of her breasts, full and round and womanly in a way that made him ache. And her nipples—

  “Patrick.” She pulled the sheet back up and ducked her head to look at him.

  Uh-oh. He knew that look. Hadn’t seen it in years, but he’d recognize it anywhere. His erection, tentative and tired, relaxed gratefully against his leg.

  “What’s wrong?”

  She wants to end it. He could feel it in his gut and, while he hadn’t thought far enough ahead to foresee this, he wasn’t surprised. He was suddenly sick to his stomach, but he wasn’t surprised.

  She was going to leave again, and it felt like his heart had hardened to stone in his chest.

  “Have you told the boys?” she asked. “About us?”

  “No,” he said carefully. Nor was he ready to. This was his secret, his and Iris’s. Telling the boys would require them to explain the things he was choosing not to think about. Such as, what was he thinking? Where did he think this was going? Was he planning on asking her to move here? To share a married life?

  Thinking about those things would require him to ask her and he wasn’t ready for her answers. Not if they weren’t what he wanted to hear.

  And, truthfully, outside of those soft cries she made from the back of her throat when they had sex, he wasn’t sure what he wanted to hear.

  She nodded. “I think that’s for the best, don’t you? For right now?”

  “Why are you thinking about this?”

  “Jonah.” She shook her head. “I think if he knew about us—”

  “He would be mad?” Patrick laughed. “It would be hard to tell the difference.”

  “He would be hurt. He would see this as a choice.” Her black eyes were liquid, gorgeous and honest. She pressed her hand against his chest, caressing the skin over his heart, her thumb grazing his nipple. “You over him.”

  Oh man, was there no way to turn in this situation without someone getting hurt?

  “Well, we won’t tell anyone,” he said, pulling the sheet down her body, until her breasts were revealed. Heavy and full. So beautiful.

  “It will be our dirty secret.” She smiled at him as his erection, rested, got back in the game.

  The moonlight limned Daphne’s asparagus, turning them silver in the magic hour just past twilight. She walked the narrow rows, out of habit, without thinking. The crop was mostly gone, the land ready to be tilled, ready for rest.

  Her strawberries were coming in, she could see them like hidden rubies one field over. If she had more acreage she could make the farm more of an attraction. Parents and kids could spend the day harvesting fruits and vegetables. She could have a jungle gym and sell cider in the fall. She could expand the orchard, the berry fields, maybe even the greenhouse.

  But even without the land, she had to admit business, she thought with a happy sigh, was booming. In a few months she’d have the fall crop then move to the greenhouse and the blackberries that sold like diamonds in the winter.

  Strange that success felt so lonely.

  Helen was gone—pizza and bowling with her father in Athens. Jake had backed off since the picnic, making their relationship far more comfortable for Daphne.

  But, as she had been since he’d come back, Daphne was alone on a Friday night.

  Jonah. Her body sighed his name. Her house was empty. The night was ripe and lush. She was practically hairless, thanks to the sadistic Delia.

  But bringing him to her home, making love to him in her bed, that would be a mistake. That would bring him too close to her world.

  New York. Cinderella. A night away from her life. That was what she could handle. Anything else would court disaster.

  Even thinking of him, here among the last of her asparagus, seemed like an invitation she shouldn’t be offering. But now that she’d made this decision about tomorrow night, about sex, thoughts of Jonah were guests that wouldn’t leave. They followed her around the kitchen, through the fields and greenhouse. They rode beside her in the truck when she took Helen to school, they slept beside her in her bed, breathing fire and taking up too much room.

  Tomorrow night, she thought. Her entire body hummed at the thought.

  She wasn’t able to even daydream about her night in New York City. She couldn’t imagine the dress, or what she’d look like or the hotel. She couldn’t figure out how she was going to kiss him, touch him. How she would get him into her room.

  That’s how foreign this experience was. It was a blank page. Her body already felt like someone else’s. Her face was so smooth, so clear—the chapped sunburn erased under Delia’s creams. Even her hands were better, though the gloves would still be a necessity.

  As for the wax…well. Wouldn’t Jonah be surprised.

  Her body burned hotter at the thought. The secret naughty thrill of knowing what her sensible cotton underwear covered.

  “Stop it,” she muttered, tired
of running over this in her head. Turning left at the end of the field, she came to the fence that separated her land from Sven’s.

  She eyed Sven’s property and wondered what more she could do. She’d called him four times today, alone. Not that it seemed to do any good. At this point, the old man could probably arrest her for harassment.

  Grasshoppers buzzed against her leg, filling the night with familiar noise.

  The buzzing in the pocket of her coat and sudden ringing of her cell phone added to the night music.

  “Hello?” she answered, expecting her new delivery guy.

  “Daphne Larson?” a male voice, heavily accented, asked, and she realized it was the elusive Sven. Apparently that fourth call had done the trick.

  “Sven! I’m so glad you—”

  “I have had another offer for the land. I am taking it, so stop calling.”

  “What do you mean you’ve had another offer?” Daphne tried not to yell at Sven, but really this was too much. Her hand hurt she clenched the phone so hard.

  “I have had another offer,” Sven repeated, a regular font of enlightened information. “Someone called two days ago and I told them I was selling the land. The man assured me that he could match what you offered and asked me to name a price. I thought it was a joke.”

  “How much did you tell him?”

  “A million dollars.”

  Daphne stumbled. Surely, someone hadn’t paid that exorbitant amount.

  “We settled on a half million,” Sven continued.

  She wasn’t sure if perhaps the buzzing in her ears, or her teeth cracking from biting down on them too hard, or even Sven’s thick accent made her hear that amount wrong. Because there was no way someone was going to pay half a million dollars for twenty acres and three falling down buildings close to the middle of nowhere. The land had limited value to anyone but her.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I think I misheard you.”

  “You did not,” Sven said. “Half a million. Can you match it?”

  Of course she couldn’t. But she thought of her jungle gym and hot cider.

  “Not right now, but perhaps in—”

  “I am sorry, Ms. Larson. I like you. I do. But I am a fool not to take this offer.”

  The line went dead. Her apples. The you-pick business.

  Was it always going to be like this? Second place? Never enough.

  Who would pay that much for land out here? Maybe Sven was making it up, fishing to see if she would more than double her offer.

  That had to be it. The land was barely worth what she had offered.

  Slimy bastard, she thought, staring down at her plants. Her soil. Was faking an offer even legal? She doubted it.

  Jonah would know the answer. She gripped the phone in her hand. She could call him, ask him to come over to discuss real estate…and somehow manage to get him to put his hand under her skirt again.

  She couldn’t even muster a smile at the thought.

  Her heart was heavy and disappointment sat hard on her. She’d wanted that land, had started to think of it as hers.

  “Cripes,” she muttered and walked through her strawberry patch toward the house. Pushing away thoughts of Jonah, of Sven’s twenty acres, of a future that wasn’t, in the end, supposed to be hers.

  11

  The countryside flew by in a green ribbon outside the passenger window of Jonah’s Jeep and Daphne watched it as though, at any moment, it might change, as though New York City would explode outside the car.

  “Are you all right?” Jonah asked. They’d been driving for half an hour and, so far, conversation had been about as lively as a funeral.

  How are you?

  Good.

  Good.

  School lunches are going over well.

  Too well. More kids have signed up.

  Good.

  Good.

  Cripes, I’m so wound up, she thought, her mind working far too much. She wanted to run for miles. Take a cold shower. Anything to work off this steam that built in her.

  She unrolled the window.

  “I’m good,” she said with a quick smile, then cringed at their mutually limited vocabulary.

  “Is it Helen?” he asked. “I mean, does it bother you to leave her alone for the night?”

  She shook her head. “Cameron’s there until dinner, then my mom is going to spend the night. Trust me. Helen is thrilled. I’m just a little preoccupied with work.”

  “Tomatoes giving you trouble?” he asked, but his smile was so sincere she knew he wasn’t making fun of her.

  “Strawberries,” she joked. “They are trying to unionize.”

  “I’ve always said you could never trust a berry.”

  “Actually…” She took a deep breath, wondering what she was doing. This whole New York experience was supposed to be a moment out of the ordinary. Yet, here she was pulling real life into this car with them. “I had a bit of a setback. I was trying to buy some land next to mine and I found out last night it sold.”

  “Sold?” he asked, his eyes sharp, his voice sharper, and she was glad for his reaction on her behalf. Her mother had simply said, “You win some, you lose some,” but this fierceness from Jonah was very nice.

  “Yeah, that farm beside mine. Someone paid a small fortune for it.”

  “Do you know who?”

  She shook her head. “It’s not that big of a deal. I’m still doing well, but I was hoping to expand.”

  “Maybe you still can,” he said, seeming distracted and she wondered where all that fierceness had gone.

  “Maybe,” she said, but she doubted it.

  Silence like fog filled the car so completely she felt as though she had to squint across the center console just to see him. As it was, their stilted conversation was practically shouted over the sound of wind whistling through the canvas roof.

  “What is one of the richest land developers on the East Coast doing driving a car like this?” she asked.

  “What do you mean?” His lip quirked even as he tried to sound offended.

  “I mean, were they out of Jaguars?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t need another car,” he said. “This one still works.”

  “Yeah, but you could drive anything you want.” She thought of her secret lust for a totally inappropriate Cooper Mini—with the racing stripes.

  “I could, but—” He looked at her. Assessed. She suddenly realized that Jonah was going to reveal something about himself. He was actually going to open up and hand her a little Jonah nugget.

  “Chicks dig the Jeep.”

  She tipped back her head and laughed. Oh, he was slick. The tension that had been coiling ever tighter in her since deciding to take the trip, relaxed.

  “Mom taught me not to waste,” he said when she stopped laughing. “And buying things I don’t need always seemed pretty wasteful.”

  “You didn’t have a lot growing up?” she asked, putting together the small pieces of him she did know.

  He shook his head, but remained silent.

  “We didn’t, either,” she said. “That’s why Mom cleaned houses and took care—”

  “Where was your dad?”

  “He left when I was seven.” She studied the familiar land outside her window. She hadn’t wanted Jonah in her house because it would make this too personal and yet, here she was talking about the things she rarely talked about—to anyone.

  No doubt he would be doing the math. Two men—a father and a husband—who had left her for greener pastures.

  “I knew a lot of kids growing up whose parents got divorced,” he said. “And I watched what it did to those kids and I always thought I had it better.”

  Understanding dawned in her and those bands of intimacy she’d been trying to ignore or erase since realizing he wasn’t the Dirty Developer, tightened. She felt every one of them. Heavy, thick bands of wanting him. Knowing him. And since she’d come to grips with wanting him, she was fine with those constraints. It was knowing
this man, this practical stranger, as well as she felt she did that made her uncomfortable—that made the steam inside her hotter.

  Nearly unbearable.

  “Because you didn’t have a dad?” she asked. “That’s why it’s better?”

  His blue eyes were both warm and cold. Sympathetic and distant—the very contrary nature of Jonah.

  “So I couldn’t miss him when he was gone,” he said.

  Her stomach dipped and twisted in sudden sympathy for the hurt kid that still lived in Jonah.

  Instead, she thought, her heart breaking for the guy, you walk around pretending you never needed a dad.

  I don’t want to know this about him, she thought desperately, even as she sucked up these crumbs of information like a Hoover.

  She clenched her fists and tried to clear her mind of this stupid curiosity. This foolish compassion.

  The landscape began to change. Fields gave way to homes, which gave way to apartments and stores. Grass was replaced by concrete. As they left her world behind, she felt herself get a grip and find the distance she needed to keep a cool head. She put the brakes on her heart’s little meltdown and got her head back in the game.

  They needed small talk. Chitchat. Empty banter. No more of this Dr. Phil stuff.

  “Are you excited about tonight?” she asked, brightly.

  “Good God, no.”

  “Really? An open bar, an almost guarantee of shrimp and, if we’re lucky, some sushi—”

  “You like sushi?”

  “I am sushi’s biggest fan.”

  “Well, then that part does sound good.” His charm was unexpected and effective.

  “Beautiful people will get drunk and do ridiculous things while wearing ridiculous clothes. Maybe—”

  “I’m getting an award,” he said, and she stared at him openmouthed.

  “What kind?” she asked, wondering why he’d made receiving an award sound like getting a root canal.

  “No idea,” he answered, checking his mirrors and changing lanes on the four-lane highway.

  “Well, are you excited about that?”