“We had a fire burn through here about six years ago,” I say as he turns to look at me. He has a way of doing that right at the perfect time to show me I’m being heard. “The house was saved, but almost everything else was lost. The Lavender. Machinery. Tools. Cars.”

  “I had no idea. I’m sorry.”

  I shrug and take a sip of my own coffee, recalling the devastation and the weight it put on Pop’s shoulders. How it felt like he aged so quickly during that time. “It was a disaster. The lavender was burned through and the heat of the fire somehow triggered the seeds of an invasive species called mallow to crack and sprout.”

  “Seeds? Where did those come from?” He takes a few steps toward me.

  “We learned that lesson the hard way. Apparently, they can lay dormant under the soil for years, and then extreme heat like a fire, can trigger them to imbibe, crack, and then grow.” I shake my head, remembering Pop’s despair. “The mallow took over the fields. Stole water nutrients from the new lavender seeds we were trying to propagate. They’d start to grow and then die. We tried everything but ended up having to use a ground clear.”

  “Which means the soil was poisoned and couldn’t grow anything for a certain amount of time, right?” he asks.

  “I’m impressed,” I tease. “How does a man who lives in a concrete jungle know about ground clear?”

  “We have a family home in Sag Harbor. We’ve had to use it there.”

  Of course, he has a house in Sag Harbor. Just a small reminder of what different worlds we live in.

  “So you understand why we couldn’t grow in our existing fields. It forced us to buy more land.” I point to the slopes he was referring to. “Gran and Pop were so stressed taking out a second mortgage on this house to pay for it when they didn’t have any viable lavender to harvest and profit from. Their anxiety was a constant around here, regardless of how hard they tried to hide it.”

  “Understandably.”

  “It took us a full two years to get up and running and back to our prior capacity, but the repercussions of that year are still being felt to this day.”

  “Two years.” He whistles. “That’s a lot of time to be without your commodity.”

  I nod. “It was. And of course, Pop couldn’t stomach the thought of letting Danny or George go since they’re like family, so he made the sacrifices instead . . .”

  “Sounds like the man I knew.” He smiles softly. “Did insurance help?”

  “It did some, but not enough to cover the cost of buying new land and waiting out a year to be able to reseed again.”

  “I can imagine. I’m sorry that happened.” He looks out the window and then back to me. “And now it’s all yours.”

  “It is.”

  “And how do you feel about that?”

  I hold his gaze and ask myself about how to answer his question. A question I’ve asked myself numerous times over the past few months.

  “Is it what I envisioned I’d be doing with my life? No,” I say with a reticent smile, “but you already knew that. At the same time . . . it’s where fate has led me to be. Is it a daily grind? Definitely. Especially when I’m learning on the fly and don’t have enough confidence in myself to be certain I know what I’m doing or how to do it. The Fields was Pop’s area of expertise, and while I helped out in between taking care of Gran and doing its social media, I was never knee-deep into the details.”

  “And now it all rests on your shoulders,” he murmurs.

  I nod but rise abruptly from my chair and move toward the coffee pot, uncomfortable with the questions that logically should come next. Why are you not sketching anymore? What happened to going to college and conquering the world? Why are you still in Cedar Falls?

  They’re all valid in their own right, but ones with answers that will give away too much. That Asher Wells—the Wells family, in general—is even more penniless now than we were back when his father accused us of being just that. The last thing I want him to know is that I’m struggling and that losing the farm and this house is a real possibility if we don’t have a strong harvest this year. That I’m doing everything in my power to get up to speed and figure out how to reinvent the wheel here so we can turn a profit and stay afloat.

  But he doesn’t ask, he doesn’t pry, and while I’m grateful that he doesn’t, I wonder what he’s thinking right now. What it is he sees when he looks at me, as he stands here in my kitchen in the early morning hours.

  Does he regret coming here last night? Is he simply being polite by having this chat when he really wants to go? Was last night as incredible for him as it was for me? Because last night was incredible, but now there’s a sense of reality setting in, and what the heck do we do now?

  My unspoken questions mixed with the weight of his stare on my back has nerves suddenly firing to life.

  “Speaking of work falling on shoulders, I’m sure you have plenty yourself that you need to get to. Don’t feel the need to stay on my account,” I ramble as I fiddle with the coffee filter, grab the sponge to wipe down the counter, and then straighten the dish towels on the counter. Anything to keep my hands busy.

  “Asher?” His voice is closer than I expected. I never heard him move.

  “Hmm?” I ask as I move toward the refrigerator.

  He hooks an arm around my waist to stop my progress. “You’re doing it again,” he says.

  “Doing what?”

  “Being skittish.”

  I look up to meet his eyes. He’s right. I’m acting like a stray dog who’s afraid of everything. This is not me.

  “I don’t do this morning-after thing very well, is all,” I finally say.

  “No?”

  “No.” I smile to cover my flushing cheeks. “In fact, I don’t do it at all so . . .”

  He angles his head and studies my face. “What do you mean you don’t do it at all?”

  I can see the moment he understands what I mean. That I’m not one to have overnight company. I swear he stands a little taller and his chest puffs out a bit more.

  “Am I the first guy to ever sleep over here?”

  “Until a few months ago, I didn’t exactly live alone.” Pop would have died of embarrassment if he’d walked into the kitchen and found a random man with bedhead drinking coffee. I think I would have too. After the conversation we had with Gran the other day, I venture to say that she wouldn’t have been at all embarrassed.

  Ledger’s grin widens. “So, is this making you uncomfortable? Me standing here, drinking your coffee, making small talk?”

  “Not uncomfortable, no.” I try to take a step back, but Ledger holds me in place, raising his eyebrows as if to tell me he’s not satisfied with my response. “I just . . . I just don’t know what that means or how this ends, or . . . whatever.”

  He reaches out and tucks a piece of hair behind my ear. “Well, it—or whatever—means we had a good night. The fact that I’m not rushing out is a good sign. One that means I want to see you again.”

  “There was a question?” I tease despite the ridiculous amount of relief I feel from his words.

  “Not at all.” He presses a chaste kiss to my lips. “And how it ends is I finish my cup of coffee and then head into work because I have to figure out new and clever ways to kiss Mayor Grossman’s ass—”

  “I warned you.”

  “You did.” He nods. “And when I walk out that red door over there, we’ll both spend our day thinking about the incredible night we had, all while trying to wipe the goofy smiles off our faces—that people will question what they are there for. Then, we’ll touch base later and see how we feel about seeing each other again. It’s as simple as that.”

  “What? You mean there’s no three-day rule about calling?”

  “I think fifteen years covered that for us.”

  I laugh. “Should I worry that this is something you have down to a science because you do it a lot?”

  “Not a lot. No.”

  My eyes stay locked on his, and I hate that the thought of him standing in someone else’s kitchen, having morning coffee irritates me. It’s ridiculous. Of course, he’s done that before. He’s extraordinarily handsome, wealthy, and educated. “The perfect catch,” I murmur out loud before I realize I have.

  “The perfect catch?”

  “Yep. I bet you’re the perfect catch for all those high-society, Park Avenue regulars in Manhattan.”

  Like I once aspired to be.

  “Hey. Don’t. That look on your face is saying too much.” That I’m not good enough for him. That I don’t fit in his world. That his dad was right. He brushes the most tender kiss to my lips and rests his forehead against mine. “I don’t care about the high-society ladies in Manhattan, Asher. Those women are perfect on the outside and boring on the inside. I prefer things a bit more complicated. A bit more real. And with more history to them.” He sighs and leans back, searching my face to make sure I’ve heard him. When he’s satisfied, he rubs his thumb back and forth over my lower lip. “I do have to get to work, though.”

  “So is this the part where you kiss me goodbye?”

  “It’s a hard job, but somebody has to do it,” he murmurs seconds before his lips slant over mine. The kiss is the perfect amount of soft yet demanding. He’s definitely in control—of the angle, the intensity, the length—and he’s somehow perfect at all of them.

  When the kiss ends, he walks toward the door and then stops to look back at me. There is a lopsided smile on his lips. “This is the part where you start thinking about me all day.”

  Asher

  “Meet me in Bear Valley? That’s it? After you leave the whole of Cedar Falls talking after last night, that’s the text you’re going to send me?” Nita says as she meets me on the sidewalk in Bear Valley, where I’ve been waiting for her to meet me.

  “It worked, right?” I give her a quick hug. “You’re here.”

  “I am here. You’re just lucky my babysitter was available today or else you’d be standing here with that smug grin on your face waiting forever.”

  “Remind me to thank her.”

  “Noted.”

  “And screw the town for talking.” I shrug as we begin to walk slowly down the sidewalk. And I mean that, sincerely. I refuse to let their stupid gossip affect anything about what happened last night in a negative way. “At least I’ve actually earned the gossip they’re dishing on me this time around.”

  “True,” she says and then nudges me. “So . . .”

  “So . . .” I toy with her. “Dare I even ask what the gossip is about?”

  Nita laughs. “Wayne’s curious how a man can last that long.”

  Wayne? The man who knocked on the bathroom door at Connor’s. “Poor Mrs. Wayne then.”

  “I know, right? And Judy Jensen is grumbling over how it’s you who pulled in the new, wealthy, eligible bachelor in town when she clearly has more to offer him than you do.”

  “Fuck her,” I say as I point to a cute shirt displayed in a storefront.

  “My sentiments exactly,” Nita says as she angles her head to look at it.

  We window-shop. This is our thing, the way we spend time together and unwind. When you struggle financially, there’s not much else you can do, so we’ve fallen into this routine where we head here or there and stroll around while we talk.

  “Nah,” she finally says as we move to the next window. “That color washes me out.”

  “What about Carson?” I grimace. “I need to call him and apologize.”

  “He’s fine.” She rolls her eyes and swats at my arm. “He came back into the bar. One minute nursing his bruised ego. The next lying about how he knocked the guy—er, Ledger—out cold.”

  “Which didn’t happen, by the way, but if people believe that then they should also believe I was bringing Ledger back to consciousness with a little mouth-to-mouth,” I say coyly with a flutter of my lashes.

  Nita bursts out laughing. “Personally? I think every woman in town is jealous of you, so you just keep on doing what you’re doing because you know what? Screw them.”

  “I’m not going to argue on that one.”

  “So, because there is in fact gossip and you did in fact disappear from Connor’s, can I assume the two of you worked through your differences, then?” She leans in and looks closely at a diamond pendant in the jewelry store display.

  “In so many words, yes.”

  “And the answers you were looking for were satisfactory and that more than kissing happened—according to Wayne, that is.”

  I laugh and point to a yellow diamond ring that sparkles. “Wayne is correct, yes, but you already knew that.”

  “So what changed your mind? Or rather tipped the scales for you?”

  “I decided that maybe this is what I need right now. Maybe he is. That I’m walking into whatever this is with the knowledge that he has a life, that I have a life, and in two months he’ll be gone.”

  “So, enjoy the time you have, void of any expectations?”

  “Yes.”

  “How very mature of you.”

  “Or stupid of me,” I mutter.

  “It’s only stupid if you forget to keep your heart locked down. Something that I might add that you’re pretty damn good at.”

  At least I have her vote of confidence on this.

  “Oh, look.” She tugs on my arm to go inside an apothecary store. There are soaps and lotions and a million other things to sniff and sample and fawn over. “Talk about pamper central.”

  I’m mesmerized by the scents running into one another and the décor and the product packaging. I pick up a tin and smell the candle inside. “Definitely pamper central.”

  “I could buy one of everything in here.”

  “I wouldn’t complain about that,” a woman says as she approaches us, smile big, eyes kind. “I’m Sarah. Owner and jack-of-all-trades here. Just let me know if you have any questions. Everything is locally sourced and made in my own garage,” she says.

  “Oh. Wow. That’s incredible.” Nita picks up another sample jar and smells it.

  “Thank you. I was laid off from my corporate job and was struggling with how to make ends meet. I fell back on what I knew best to save the day—making soaps and oils. It’s something my grandmother taught me when I was little. It was our bonding time. Who knew it would save the day?”

  “It’s amazing how that happens sometimes,” I say. “Congratulations. By the line at the cash register and the boxes stacked for UPS to pick up, it looks like it was the right decision.”

  “It definitely was.” Sarah smiles before being pulled away by a customer’s question.

  “I’m going to get a little something to take to Gran when I see her later,” I say. In less than ten minutes, I’ve purchased the gift I picked out for her, and we’re heading back out the door.

  “I definitely need to come back here.”

  “I know. It’s a treasure trove.”

  “You should tell her you grow lavender,” Nita says. “Maybe do a trade. Lavender for free products.”

  “I wouldn’t complain about that,” I say, looking back over my shoulder to note the store’s name. Just in case I need to know it in the future.

  “What are we doing here, anyway?”

  “Besides having some girl time?”

  She narrows her eyes and stares at me. “What are you up to?”

  I point to the little boutique at the end of the street. “I hear they’re having a huge sale this week.”

  Nita’s eyebrows shoot up. “Hell. I wasn’t going to ask for details about last night—”

  “Yes, you were.”

  “You’re right.” She laughs. “I was. But if we’re playing hooky to come here to buy you lingerie, I don’t think I need to ask.”

  “Not lingerie.” She narrows her eyes and tries to understand. “More like needing to up my bra and panty game.”

  “He was that good you’re going back for seconds, huh?”

  “Or fourths or fifths.” I slide a look her way just in time to catch her mouth shock open into an O. “So yes, I need something more than my practical T-shirt bra and boring panties.”

  “Otherwise called lingerie.” She laughs. “There’s more to lingerie than garters with stockings and scraps of lace, Asher, although I’m pretty sure Ledger wouldn’t mind you adding those to your repertoire either.”

  I roll my eyes as we cross the street. “So you’re really not going to ask about last night?”

  “Oh honey, you bet your ass I’m going to ask. I want all the details. His skill level. Your orgasm count. Size and shape are important details too.” She hooks her arm through mine as we enter the shop. “And every damn detail in between.”

  I laugh. I can’t help it because Ledger was right. I have the goofiest smile plastered on my face.

  Ledger

  Nine Years Ago

  “Don’t go anywhere, Ledger.” Callahan and Ford dart glances my way as they make their way around the conference room table toward the door. Both of them just as curious as I am as to why our dad has requested that I stay behind when they get to leave.

  I lower myself back down into my seat as Callahan mouths the word “sucker” to me before flashing a grin and heading out the door.

  Fucker.

  My dad moves toward the floor-to-ceiling windows that frame the conference room. His daily uniform is in place: starched, white dress shirt, a solid, bold-colored tie, gold cufflinks that my mom gave him on his birthday the year she passed, and dark gray slacks.

  I look at him expectantly, my knee jogging as the collar of my own dress shirt feels like it’s tightening around my neck. And I wait.

  No one rushes my father. He speaks when he wants to, and when he chooses to, you best be listening.

  “It wasn’t good enough,” he says in a calm tone, his back still toward me.

  What in the hell is he talking about?

  “Dad? Sir?”

  He turns to face me, his head angled to the side—much like I do when I study someone—and my palms grow damp with anticipation.