Luna woke up before her usual crack of dawn. She blamed Jameson. She’d been just fine BTK—before the kiss. But ATK—after the kiss—she was having trouble. What kind of bad karma had she banked that the man she’d made the first move on turned out to be her new partner?
And don’t get her started on Silas hiding who he was from her and then leaving her his pride and joy.
Or that he’d ignored her all her life, and yet had taken in Jameson, a perfect stranger. She closed her eyes. Was she really jealous of Jameson? She did some soul-searching and decided that yes, she was jealous of Jameson for receiving her grandfather’s love and affection.
Sprout licked her face and she had to shrug off her feelings to smile at the true love of her life. “Hey, old man. Time to get out of bed.”
For the record, he didn’t. But she did. She showered, dressed, toasted a frozen waffle—breakfast of champions—and swooped up Sprout on her way out to morning rounds.
Two hours later, she’d dealt with an electrician on an ongoing wiring problem in the main barn and had stepped in to help Shep, who had two sick coworkers today. But sick her ass, she knew they were probably hungover from the party they’d been stupid enough to discuss on their radios yesterday at lunchtime.
She needed to give Shep a raise, because she knew he’d never do that to her. When she’d first hired him three years ago, she’d caught him sleeping a few times during his shifts. Several people had suggested he might be on drugs. But when she’d talked to him about it, it turned out he was homeless and living in his car, and being harassed by cops in the middle of the night for sleeping in public parking lots. Luna had given him one of the cabins to sleep in, and he’d never again fallen asleep on the job. He was now one of her best employees.
Even if he still couldn’t look her in the eyes after seeing her in her pj’s.
After giving Shep a desperately needed hand in the barn, she’d then had to hunt down Sprout and Miss Piggy, who’d taken themselves on a walkabout to their strawberry patch, where together with Sammy, their fifty-year-old, hundred-pound tortoise, they’d just about cleaned them out of strawberries before she caught them. “Guys! Seriously?”
The culprits, dog, pig, and tortoise, stared up at her, their entire faces dyed red from their feast.
“Gee, I wonder who ate our strawberries?”
Only Sprout had the good sense to look sheepish.
She radioed for Shep to come get the criminals. Sprout wanted to stay with Miss Piggy, so she left to head toward the orchards to see Willow, who’d have chocolate.
She really needed chocolate.
But Willow had gone on a supplies pickup. Damn. Luna was avoiding the office because she knew Jameson would be there. Not mature, but there it was. To say she was still reeling felt like the understatement of the century. For one thing, she’d been under the impression she’d earned her job here. Silas had even had her fill out a very long, complicated application for the job—when he’d clearly known he was going to hire her. The knowledge burned. The joke was definitely on her, and even worse, learning that he’d been a blood relation had brought back all those feelings she’d had as a kid, knowing she’d been abandoned before being adopted. She’d always told herself she didn’t care, that it didn’t matter.
But it did. She’d spent most of her life trying to figure out who she was and where she belonged, and she’d thought she’d found that here. Only now she had to wonder, was she here because she wanted to be or because she’d been manipulated? Before she could decide, her phone vibrated with an incoming text.
Jameson: I need to talk to you send hey there dammit ziggy hi dammit ziggy hi yes I see you yes you’re a good boy but you’ve gotta stop trying to eat my shoelaces . . .
Laughing, because who hadn’t been there with a voice-to-text gone wrong, but that it was buttoned-up-tight Jameson made it all the funnier. She did an about-face and five minutes later, entered the office building. She was heading down the hall just as Jameson came out of her office. His hair was standing on end as if he’d put his fingers through it. Repeatedly. Half his tie was missing, and if she’d been a betting woman, she’d have laid down her entire annual salary on the smitten Dammit Ziggy. Jameson had unbuttoned the top two buttons of his shirt and shoved the sleeves up his forearms. There were some questionable stains on his wrinkled trousers, and his fancy shoes were scuffed and dirty. She thought she’d done a pretty good job of hiding a smile when he narrowed his eyes at her.
“Everything okay?” she asked innocently.
The fulminating look he gave her only made her smile widen.
“I hear you had a meeting with DZ,” she said, “where you discussed how he is, in fact, a good boy.”
“Yeah, about that,” he said. “If he ate, say, part of a tie, would he need to see a vet?”
“Probably not. We’ll just check his poop and make sure it all looks okay.”
Jameson grimaced.
“Don’t worry,” she said. “He once ate Shep’s undies and was fine.”
“Noted,” he said. “And maybe I’ll skip ties from now on.”
“You can skip the suit entirely, you know.”
“So back to the books,” he said instead of answering her smart-ass comment.
Luna was confident in managing the farm. She was. But the books . . . well, that was her weak spot, and knowing it made her defensive as hell. “I told you, I do my best.”
Unfortunately, Jameson didn’t seem to share her favorite personality trait of jumping to conclusions and then getting all defensive at the drop of a hat, because he spoke in that low, calm voice of his, completely void of judgment. “I just wanted to know if you have more paperwork anywhere else that you haven’t logged yet.”
“Oh.” Feeling ridiculous, she took a breath. “Yeah. I’ve got a stack of invoices in my top drawer that I was going to get to today.” Probably. Maybe.
“Bleeeat.”
They both looked down.
Dammit Ziggy was chewing on Jameson’s laces.
Luna smiled. “Aw, you’ve really made a new friend.”
“More like a stalker. He even follows me to the bathroom.” He took in her smile. “You think that’s funny? He also ate the toilet paper.”
She laughed. “Please tell me you didn’t let him drink from the toilet. The other day he dunked his head in and sprayed Willow. She threatened to open the front gate and let him go.”
“Did she?”
“Oh, she opened the gate, but DZ knows where his bread is buttered. He took one look at the gate and trotted back inside.”
“The gate was wide open this morning too,” he said.
“You know, people don’t give animals enough credit. None of ours will leave. They love it here. It’s like Disneyland for farm animals.”
Jameson craned his neck and looked one way and then the other.
“What are you looking for?”
“The cameras. Clearly this is some twisted new reality show, right? It’s that, or I’ve been dropped into an alternate universe.”
Taking mercy on him, she pulled the two-way radio from her hip. “Shep, can you come get Dammit Ziggy? Over.”
“Will do. Over,” he said from right behind her. “What’s he guilty of this time? Chew terrorism?”
“Bathroom terrorism. Shep, this is Jameson. He’s lead farmhand. Shep, Jameson’s one of the new owners.”
Shep nodded a greeting and skillfully scooped up Dammit Ziggy in a way so that the baby goat couldn’t chew on his ear.
“So that’s how it’s done,” Jameson muttered.
Shep smiled. “Took me a long time to figure it out.” He looked at Luna. “Don’t forget Mrs. Smith’s fifth-grade class will be here in an hour, but I’ve got it handled. Just wanted to remind you.”
“Make sure to take pics for Milo to put up on social media.”
“Of course,” Shep said, and still holding DZ, walked out of the building.
Luna watched them go, a little pensive. The thing was, DZ was actually an excellent judge of character and . . . already madly in love with her new partner. She wasn’t sure what to make of that.
“Are the fifth graders getting a farm tour?” Jameson asked.
“No, they come once a week as time allows and they sit outside the animal pens and read to the animals. They love it.”
“The kids?”
She laughed. “The animals. But yes, the kids too. Do you know how many have never touched a chicken before? They’ll say ‘This is the best day of my life,’ which is pretty incredible. This whole farm is basically a kindness program. I know it sounds crazy, but it’s a good crazy. I’m proud that we march to a different beat here.” Her cell buzzed with another text.
Gram: Do people still say “hella”?
Luna: Yes, but you have to be in the Bay Area and under seventy.
Gram: Damn. Youngsters have all the fun.
“There it is,” Jameson said.
Luna looked up. “What?”
“Your real smile. I saw it at the tavern. Up until you ran off, that is.”
This was a true story. But the tavern had been BTK, up until the kiss. BTK Luna had been full of hopes and dreams.
But today, ATK, she knew the power of it now, her attraction to him, and she’d shoved it so deep she hoped to never find it again.
“Is it a text from your grandma?”
Grateful for the subject change, she turned her phone his way and he smiled. “She sounds like something else.”
Yes. He was correct. Her grandma was something else. “Come on. There’s something I want to show you.”
They walked to the far northeast corner of the property to the water tower, and she started climbing the ladder. She could hear him doing the same behind her and had the ridiculous thought that she hoped her jeans were showing off her assets enough to make him feel like he’d missed out on something good.
Because he had.
“Amazing,” he said.
She choked on a laugh, then realized he was talking about the view. Which, okay, was definitely amazing from up here. They could easily see the barns and other buildings, the various pens, the orchards and gardens and the fields growing grass and legumes to feed the animals.
“I come up here sometimes when I need a moment alone,” she said softly. Being up here felt sacred, and then she could feel his gaze on her.
“You probably don’t get very many of those.”
“I do not.”
“Hopefully having me here will help.”
She turned her head and their gazes locked and held. “Maybe.” She pointed out the boundaries of the land. “It probably hasn’t changed too much since you saw it way back when.”
He shook his head. “It has. It looks . . .”
“What?” she asked defensively.
He slid her a small, curious smile. “Lush. Well taken care of. Valuable.”
Well, okay then. “It is all those things. It’s also home to a lot of us, and we’d do anything to protect it.”
“Noted,” he said quietly.
She looked at him to see if he was being facetious, but he wasn’t. They climbed back down and walked past a large field with rows and rows of plants growing.
“What’s that?” he asked.
“Tulips. People will come from far and wide. For twenty-five bucks they can pick a bucketful.”
“No, I meant the animal lying down in the adjacent field. Is it okay?”
“Yeah.” She smiled. “That’s Kong, our donkey.”
“As in . . . Donkey Kong?”
She laughed. “Yes. He loves to lie down in the grass.” She hopped the fence. Kong lifted his head and grinned at her approach, baring his buck teeth in all their glory. Luna smiled back and lay down with him. The grass was fragrant and warm and cushy. “How’s my good boy?”
Kong snorted and nuzzled her.
Jameson had followed, she could hear his footsteps coming closer. “What are you doing?”
“Cuddling.”
“Isn’t that dangerous?”
“Nah, donkeys have a natural affection for people and are super gentle. They’re very calm in situations that would spook other animals.” She kissed Kong on the bridge of his nose.
Jameson was looking at her as if she’d lost her mind. And she absolutely had, but it had nothing to do with Kong. “Do you want a cuddle?”
“Yes, but not from Kong,” he said, and the air shimmered with that same thing from the other night—hot, dangerous attraction.
“No offense,” Jameson told the donkey.
Luna kissed Kong on top of his head and got up, turning to the man watching her as if she was fascinating—like an erupting volcano kind of fascinating. It made her feel like ruffling his unruffable feathers. “Your cuddle,” she said, and threw her arms wide, knowing damn well he’d fold like a cheap suitcase, just like he had at the bar, and pull back.
So it shocked the hell out of her when he closed the distance between them, wrapped his arms around her, nuzzling his cheek against hers, just as she had done to Kong—only the man smelled far better than the donkey.
Also, this was not the hug of a man who’d been indifferent enough to walk away from sleeping with her, so she felt confused as he let the hand between her shoulder blades dip to her lower back and press her closer still. They stayed locked together like that for a long, charged moment, and this time it was she who pulled back first. “Better?”
He flashed white teeth. “Much.”