Those eyes.

  She had about as much chance of dating him as she had flying to the moon next week, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t appreciate a good-lookin’ man when she saw one.

  And there was a lot about Christian Palacios to appreciate.

  Chapter 3

  Christian

  I myself am often surprised by life’s little quirks.

  ~Westley in The Princess Bride

  Christian scratched at the rash again, cursing fluently under his breath. The best thing about being bilingual was, he knew all of the best swear words in two languages.

  “What’s up with the rash?” Stetson Miller asked, jerking his head towards the swollen red bumps on Christian’s arm.

  “Nothin’,” Christian said automatically, dropping his arm by his side and flashing his boss a quick grin. “An allergic reaction. I just took a Benadryl. It’ll calm down here in a minute. Must’ve gotten into something.”

  Stetson nodded, unconcerned, already having mentally moved on. “Good. Look, I need to head over to Declan’s place for a minute. He’s fighting his new combine and needs me to take a look at it. You guys got this handled?”

  “Of course. We’ll be fine.”

  Stetson headed out, his pickup leaving a cloud of dust in its wake, as Christian turned back to the fence they’d been fixing, wiping at the sweat trickling down his brow. Two more farm hands were further down, fixing another weak spot, but after this, they could probably call it for the day.

  Which was damn good. Because petting Carla’s shop cat was quickly turning into an incredibly stupid thing for Christian to have done, and he was officially miserable. Fixing fence was never fun at the best of times, but doing it while wanting to tear at his skin was making the project just that much worse.

  He realized he was scratching the rash again and forced himself to stop. Picking up his wire pliers, he knelt down in the lush summer grass and grabbed the thin metal strand, pulling on it and tightening it up. Cows used any excuse in the world to go wandering out where they weren’t supposed to be, and a loose fence was more than enough of an invitation for them to take a stroll into the neighbor’s field.

  The rash on his arm was distracting as all hell, though, pulsing with each beat of his heart, and he had to grit his teeth to avoid the temptation to tear at the skin.

  So yeah. He was allergic to cats. He should’ve petted Carla’s shop cat like he should’ve eaten glass for breakfast. But he’d wanted some reason – any reason – not to leave the shop, and had been desperate enough to do something he damn well knew he shouldn’t.

  Desperation. It was a thing.

  And after causing one of the biggest flare-ups to his allergies that he’d had in years, he’d gotten what out of it again?

  That’s right, nothing at all.

  Carla had been so damn sweet, promising him that she’d drop the flowers off herself the morning of the party. It’d been the one thing he’d held onto after he’d left sans a date or a promise to chat later or even her phone number. He could’ve asked – he should’ve asked – but he had just as much experience asking girls out on dates as he did riding bucking bulls.

  He did both of those things a couple of times when he was young and dumb and full of cum, but hadn’t in years.

  In this moment, a bucking bull seemed a lot less scary than Carla Grahame. Her, with her thick, long brunette hair, and her big hazel eyes that could change from blue to green and back again in the space of a heartbeat, and her even bigger tits.

  She was gorgeous.

  She was way too good for him.

  Her straight, white teeth flashed through his mind, her natural cheeriness omnipresent even in his memory, when snap! The strand of wire broke, his pliers flew out of his hand, and the roll of wire zinged back onto the spool, the end slicing across his left forearm, leaving a thin red line in its wake, already oozing blood.

  He let loose with a few of his choicest swear words and Dave looked up from his work. “You okay, boss?” he called.

  “Yeah, yeah,” Christian said, waving the farm hand’s concern away. It was what he deserved for concentrating on Carla’s smile instead of the damn fencepost.

  Grumbling, he pulled the spool of wire back into place and began wrapping it around the T-post again. Between the bleeding cut across his left forearm and the rashy bumps across his right forearm, though, he was having a damn hard time paying attention to what he was supposed to be doing. His temper wasn’t much improved by the fact that his mother had been downright pissed with him when he’d visited his parents’ place after ordering the flowers from Carla. Didn’t he know he was supposed to ask her what kinds of flowers she was going to use? Didn’t he know that he was supposed to get all of these stupid details that only women cared about?

  Christian yanked the wire into place with a little more savagery than he probably needed to.

  Women.

  How was he supposed to know he was in charge of asking Carla all of these questions? No one had said a word to him about it.

  Show her the fabric samples and give her the budget, they’d said.

  Not Reenact the Spanish Inquisition on her ass.

  Pissy, his mom had huffed that she’d go and pick up the flowers the morning of the party to make sure that they’d work. He’d tried to tell her that Carla had offered to drop them off, but his mother had dismissed that suggestion angrily. No, she had to go check on them herself. She shouldn’t have let him order them to begin with.

  With a grunt, Christian clipped the wire and then looked critically at the fence repair. It looked good, which meant he could call it a day. Finally.

  He waved to the farm hands further down the fence to let them know he was heading out, and then grabbed his tool bag to head for the farm truck.

  So what if his mom was going to pick the flowers up for Nieves’ quinceañera. That didn’t mean Christian couldn’t trump up some other excuse to go back to the flower shop. He could…

  Dammit. He was drawing a complete blank. Yesenia, his favorite sister, didn’t have a birthday until February. It was the start of June. He wasn’t willing to sit around for another eight months.

  There was Mother’s Day, but that was even further away – almost a full year. Mother’s Day this year was why he’d crossed paths with Carla to begin with.

  Weeks ago, he’d been heading home from the morning chores when he’d remembered that it was Mother’s Day, and he hadn’t bought his mom a damn thing yet. Happy Petals had been right there, so he’d taken a left into the parking lot, intent on grabbing a small bouquet in under five minutes to save himself from the guilt trip that would’ve otherwise happened.

  Except…

  Well, he didn’t think the heavens had opened and the angels had actually sang, but he’d be willing to go so far as to say that they should have. There she’d been, behind the counter, working and smiling and chatting easily with customers, always moving, efficient but warm and friendly. He’d watched her for a bit, the stream of customers seeming to be neverending, and was just trying to decide if he had the guts to ask her out, when a kid – she had to be in high school – came over and asked him if he was going to buy something or not. Christian had flushed red; he hadn’t even realized that there was another employee in the store, and to be caught standing in the back and spying on Carla was mortifying.

  He blindly grabbed the bouquet nearest to him and thrust it at the high schooler. It wasn’t until she’d rang him up and he’d headed out the door that he’d realized that there was a Congratulations! balloon sticking out of the bouquet, with a pink baby rattle tied to the neck of the vase. Embarrassed, he pulled out the balloon and baby rattle, and had thrown them out in a trash can at the city park on the way home. He could only imagine what his mother would’ve thought if he’d presented her with that bouquet for Mother’s Day.

  No, waiting for Mother’s Day almost a full year to go back and see Carla again was even less tenable than waiting for Yesenia’s birthday.

  Surely he had an aunt or a cousin who had a birthday coming up. He’d ask Yesenia. She’d know, and might even tell him without forcing him to tell her why he suddenly cared.

  He felt his mood grow cheerier already. He’d get the birthdate of the next female relative of his – God only knew, he was related to so many, this wouldn’t be hard – and then with that in hand, could go back and order flowers from Carla again.

  And not pet the cat this time.

  And ask Carla out on a date.

  He could totally do that.

  Chapter 4

  Carla

  Who said life was fair?

  ~Grandfather in The Princess Bride

  Carla picked up another red rose and snipped it short, plucked the baby’s breath from its pile, and wrapped it all up quickly with florist tape, her fingers conducting the dance without missing a beat.

  She could probably make boutonnières in her sleep.

  She probably had at least once, come to think of it, during a late-night push. Boutonnières never had the good graces to come in gentle waves, but were rather like tsunamis, burying unsuspecting florists beneath their onslaught.

  “Aunt Carla, we want to play Go Fish,” whined Noah, her adorable 7-year-old nephew.

  Or, at least he was adorable when he wasn’t whining and complaining.

  So, not so adorable right now.

  “I know, dear,” she said, setting a third finished boutonnière down. Only 61 more to go. “I have to finish these first, and then we will, I promise.”

  “She’s busy,” Maggie said officiously. Carla opened up her mouth to thank her 10-year-old niece for her understanding, when she added, “She always is. She’s not going to play with us. C’mon, let’s go build a fort in your bedroom.”

  Carla snapped her mouth closed, her cheeks flushing with embarrassment. She didn’t think she was that awful of an aunt, was she?

  A fourth boutonnière was added to the growing pile and already, she was working on a fifth one as she watched her niece and nephew tear down the hallway to rip Noah’s room to pieces. She should probably tell them not to make it too big of a mess, but Maggie’s words stung, and she couldn’t bring herself to say anything at all.

  Honestly, this was all Sammy’s fault. If he’d given her more than two hour’s notice that she was in charge of watching her niece and nephew overnight, she would’ve asked her high school assistant, Valrea, to come into the shop for a few extra hours of work this afternoon. Valrea could’ve knocked these out and Carla would’ve been free to actually play with Noah and Maggie this evening instead of dragging buckets of flowers, snips, floral tape, and pins to her brother’s house.

  A thorn sliced through her middle finger and Carla quietly let out a curse, popping the offended digit into her mouth.

  “Sammy,” she muttered around her finger, fishing through her bag with her other hand for the always-present box of bandaids, “you owe me big time.”

  Instantly, she felt the guilt wash over her. Of course Sammy didn’t owe her anything for the privilege of watching her beautiful niece and handsome nephew. Why, she was downright blessed to be able to watch them.

  A couple day’s notice wouldn’t kill him, though.

  She shoved the thought down into the depths of her soul. How could she think such a thing of her younger brother? He’d had a babysitter arranged for tonight. He’d told her so when he’d called to ask her if she could step in instead. The babysitter had flaked on him, though, and so he’d had to ask her at the very last moment. Totally not his fault.

  Funny how his babysitters are always so flaky. The same thing happened the last two times he took his wife on an overnight trip. It’s almost like—

  Just then, Noah let out a blood-curdling scream as Maggie began yelling too, the cacophony reverberating through the house. Carla let out a sigh as she shoved herself to her feet, setting #27 boutonnière off to the side. Despite the fact that they sounded like someone was dying – or perhaps more than one someone – Carla knew better. They were fighting over something stupid, no doubt.

  Noah went quiet for just a moment and Carla winced inwardly as she headed to his bedroom door. Some people might be lulled into thinking that the sudden silence was him quieting down, but Carla knew better. It was just him sucking in a deeper breath so he could really—

  “Aahhhhhhhhhh!!!”

  And there he went.

  As she pushed the bedroom door open, revealing a wrecked room and two very petulant children, Carla promised herself that after she finished the boutonnières, they’d watch The Princess Bride as her reward for getting her work done, and not even killing any small children in the process.

  She wanted her own Westley – oh, how she wanted – but in the meanwhile, she’d just have to content herself with Movie Westley.

  Chapter 5

  Christian

  Anything you want.

  ~Count Rugen in The Princess Bride

  Christian finished up his morning chores out at the farm as quickly as he could, practically chucking the hay at a few of the slower moving cows. “C’mon, you guys,” he muttered under his breath. “My mamá is already pissy. I can’t be late.”

  Finally, cutting a few corners he could only hope wouldn’t come back to bite him in the ass later, he hollered a quick goodbye to Stetson and headed out for his parents’ house.

  Today was the Big Day. A person could be forgiven for thinking that Nieves was getting married, based on the size of this damn party, but considering Nieves was turning 15, Christian could only hope that marriage wasn’t anywhere close to being on the horizon.

  He was also quite sure that his mother had gone completely ‘round the bend. He had six sisters. He knew what a quinceañera should look like. He’d lived through five others.

  Today’s party was nothing like anything he’d ever seen before.

  Was it because Nieves was spoiled rotten?

  Probably. She was the baby of the family, in every possible meaning of that word.

  But his parents had managed to raise six other children who weren’t spoiled rotten. Somehow, with Nieves, they’d completely lost their minds and had decided that giving her whatever she wanted was exactly the right path to take.

  His mom had never said as much, but he wondered if it was because when the older six children had been growing up, they’d struggled for money. Oh, how they’d struggled. Moving from farm to farm, migrant workers without stability or guarantees that they’d even have a home the following week.

  Then Wyatt Miller hired Christian’s father, and things slowly got better. They had a place to live, even if it was a double-wide trailer. His dad was the foreman, so he wasn’t being laid off at the end of each season. They weren’t moving every couple of months, following the produce around the country.

  Of course, things got much better after Wyatt met and married Abby. If there was ever a case for a woman changing a man, it was Abby changing Wyatt. Christian would’ve swore that nothing on the planet could change Wyatt, but he would’ve been wrong.

  Abby Connelly did the impossible. Personally, Christian figured that Abby should wear a cape everywhere she went, because there was nothing closer to Superwoman than her.

  But not only did falling in love with Abby change Wyatt from the inside out, it also meant that he wanted to build a bigger and grander house than the old Connelly homestead. When Wyatt approached Christian’s dad about buying the old home and moving into it (and out of the drafty double-wide where the Palacios’ family had been stuffed for years…)

  Well, everything had changed again. Eighteen years after Christian’d graduated from high school and left his parents’ house, they were finally financially stable. They were finally the middle-class family that his mom had always wanted to be.

  And in her mind, that meant throwing the Party of the Year for her youngest daughter’s quinceañera.

  Christian pulled up in front of the old Connelly-homestead-turned-Palacios house, and let out a deep sigh. He had hours yet to go, a stressed-out mom who was going to be barking orders at him all night, and no chance of seeing Carla, thanks to his mother’s belief that he’d incompetently ordered flowers.

  How he could possibly have screwed up ordering flowers, he couldn’t begin to guess. Was Carla going to bring over beautiful flowers that matched his sister’s color choices? Yes.

  What else was there to worry about?

  Women.

  Which was when he saw Carla’s delicious ass sticking out of the back end of the bright turquoise Happy Petals van. There was a van no one ever missed – it was bright and cheerful and eye-catching.

  Just like its owner.

  Suddenly feeling about a thousand times better, Christian hopped out of his truck and hurried over to her side. She was there. She wasn’t supposed to be, but she was.

  He sent up a silent thank you to the heavens for this excellent bit of luck.

  She spotted him and smiled broadly in greeting, and then picked up an oversized cardboard box with a swirl of bright colors poking out of the top.

  “I thought my mom was going to pick this stuff up from you,” he said as he reached her side, and then took the box out of her arms, ignoring her protests. No woman was going to carry a heavy box while he was around.

  He breathed in deep. The flowers smelled good; Carla smelled amazing.

  “Your sister frantically called me just a little bit ago and told me they didn’t have time to come pick them up, and asked if I minded bringing them over after all. I told her of course not. She also asked if I had bright orange fabric – I’m hoping this will work.” She gestured towards a box filled to overflowing with construction orange fabric. It was ugly as sin, so of course Nieves would love it.

  The flowers in the box Christian was holding had been outshone by Carla’s beauty, but something about them now caught his eye. He did a double-take and stared down into the box.