Officially rattled, Luna went back to being Jameson’s tour guide. “Okay then,” she managed. “Just a few more things to see.” She took him to Stella’s Place.
“Guests love that it’s a renovated barn,” she said. “They can buy anything from locally sourced soaps to jellies to candles to—”
“Getting their fortune told?” he asked, pointing to the wooden sign out front.
“It’s very popular. People get a big kick out of Stella, she’s an attraction here in her own right.” She walked through the open double doors, but the place appeared empty. “Stella?”
Nothing, but that wasn’t unusual. Stella was nearly deaf from what she claimed had been a wild youth. Luna called it selective hearing. She gestured for Jameson to go through a makeshift doorway at the end of the barn—blocked by a curtain of hanging beads in the colors of the rainbow.
Jameson gamely walked through the beads and stopped short so unexpectedly that Luna ran into the back of him. “What the—” She peered around him and instantly understood.
Stella was on her zero-gravity apparatus, hanging upside down by her bony ankles, arms crossed over her equally bony chest, slightly sunken eyes closed, thin gray hair hanging all around her head like a halo.
“Is she . . .” Jameson moved forward and leaned down to put a finger on her throat, presumably checking for a pulse . . .
Just as Stella opened her eyes and cackled. “Bet you thought I was a vampire, right?” she asked Jameson, who to his credit hadn’t jumped out of his skin.
He shook his head. “I thought you were dead.”
“Aw, and you were worried. How sweet. I bet you were drawn to my aura.” She righted herself, holding out a hand. “I’m Stella, by the way. Who are you, Handsome?”
“Jameson Hayes,” Luna said. “One of the new owners. Gram, you’ve got to stop scaring people like that.”
Stella’s eyes went wide. “One of the new owners?”
“Gram?” Jameson asked. “As in grandma? The one who sends the texts?”
“Yes,” Luna said. “My very favorite person.”
“Love you too, girl,” Stella said, and hugged her. “To the moon and back.” She then turned to Jameson, taking his hand in hers. “So. Owner, huh? You’re going to keep us up and running, right?”
“Yes, he is,” Luna said, ignoring Jameson’s look. She knew he wanted to know more about why she wasn’t telling people that she too was part owner, but she wasn’t ready to go there. Wasn’t ready to be looked at like the new Grinch by the people she cared so much about.
Stella turned Jameson’s hand over, running her finger along his palm.
“What does it say?” Luna asked curiously.
Stella closed her eyes and began to hum.
Jameson slid his gaze to Luna. “Twilight Zone?”
Luna laughed. He had a sense of humor, who knew?
Stella opened her eyes and beamed up at Jameson. “Your future is up to you.”
Jameson smiled good-naturedly. “Nice to know. And nice to meet you.”
“Oh, the pleasure was all mine.”
Jameson made to go, but Luna stopped him with a hand to his chest as she pointed at Stella. “Hand it over.”
Stella sighed dramatically. “I wasn’t going to keep it. I was just practicing to keep the skills fresh. I always forget you’re the Fun Police.” But she handed Jameson his wallet.
He slipped it back into his pocket. “So do you give fortunes, or take them?”
With zero remorse, Stella smiled. “And don’t forget your fortune,” she said to Luna.
Oh boy. Just what she needed. “Not now, Gram, okay?”
“Honey, you can’t run from things that are scary.”
“Sure you can. Just this morning I ran from a spider in my shower.”
“I’m talking about love and commitment.”
Luna squelched a grimace and caught Jameson’s look of amusement.
Her grandma smiled and gently patted her cheeks. “Sometimes what we need the most is the one thing we keep pushing away because we’re afraid.” Then she aimed her smile at Jameson. “See you later, Handsome. Come for your fortune anytime.”
They walked outside and stood in the warm spring sunshine for a moment. “Speechless?” she finally asked him.
“Utterly.”
She laughed. “There’s only one known cure. A moment with some more of our rescue fur babies.”
“I’m not really much of an animal person.”
This was absolutely foreign to her. She’d never met a not-an-animal-person. “What’s wrong with you?”
That tugged a laugh from him. “Likely too much to even articulate.”
She looked at him.
“What?” he asked.
“I don’t know. Most men think they’re perfect.”
“I’m not most men.”
Because that flustered her again, in a way she wasn’t sure she liked, she started walking.
“Your gram must’ve been pretty great to grow up with,” he said, keeping pace with her.
“Once when I was a little girl, the two of us got stuck on the side of the road, struggling with a flat. A car with three guys stopped, not to help but to ask for directions to a local golf course. Gram sent them ten miles in the wrong direction.”
He smiled. “Like I said, pretty great.”
“She’s the legend who shaped me.” And because his smile was warm and genuine, that flustered her too. So she went back to something safe—being tour guide. She pointed to the orchards. “The trees are our pride and joy here. We grow the best Christmas trees and organic apple and cherry trees in the region. Pretty sure the ledger won’t tell you that.”
He smirked. “Once we’re digitalized, I’ll be able to let you know without that ledger.”
“How?”
“Because I’ll be able to departmentalize, analyze the data, and easily see what’s working and what’s not. That’s what I plan to do first. Digitalize.” He looked at her. “Assuming that’s okay with you, of course.”
He didn’t have to ask her, they both knew that. But he was asking, so she nodded. “Of course.” She pointed to the right of the trees. “The greenhouses are new in the past year. They’re part of the botanical gardens. Willow Green runs that department.”
Willow was at the gate in front of the botanical gardens, eyeing Luna with a brows-up expression.
“This is Jameson. Jameson, this is Willow. She’s our agricultural genius.”
Willow smiled at Jameson. “Nice to meet you. Excuse us a moment?” She dragged Luna to one side. “Why is Hottie Suit here? I know you didn’t sleep with him, you’re not glowing.”
“No,” Luna said. “But you are. Omigod, you were supposed to talk to Shayne, not—”
“I couldn’t help it!”
“Willow, you’re confusing him.”
“I’m confusing me too, so it seems only fair that he joins me. Do you know the dumbest thing I ever did as a kid?”
“No.”
Willow sighed. “Wished I was an adult. Now tell me what he’s doing here if you’re not boinking.”
“In case you were wondering, I can hear you from over here,” Jameson said, and when they both looked at him, he raised his hands. “Believe me, I’m actually trying not to.”
“But really,” Willow whispered, never taking her eyes off him. “Why is he here?”
“I’m one of the new owners.”
Willow gaped at him.
Jameson looked at Luna, clearly once again waiting for her to explain she too was an owner. Luckily Willow’s curiosity saved her.
“Well, I hope you’re planning on saving this place,” she told him. “Because I really like to eat. I mean, no pressure or anything, but don’t let us down.”
“I try very hard to never let anyone down.”
Willow smiled her brilliant smile at him. “Thank you.”
Luna was stunned. Willow didn’t like new people. Ever.
“Bleeeat.”
Dammit Ziggy was trotting toward them, picking up speed when he saw Luna. She bent low to scoop the baby up, but he bypassed her and galloped straight to Jameson, where he rubbed his face on Jameson’s pant leg.
Jameson looked down. “Did you forget to feed him today?”
“Of course not.”
Willow was watching thoughtfully. “You know, DZ’s always nice to strangers, but doesn’t usually get attached.”
“Well, obviously he’s confused,” Luna said. “The poor abandoned baby.” But then Jameson scooped him up and DZ, not looking scared in the least by his past, proceeded to nibble at the man’s ear. Damn. DZ most definitely liked him. A lot.
But not Luna. Nope. No way. He was a horrible person because . . . She bit her lower lip. Wait. Had she really decided he was a horrible person because he’d turned her down the other night? Okay, so maybe he wasn’t horrible.
But he did have a stick up his ass. “We gotta go,” she said, and started walking, not waiting to see if Jameson and DZ followed. She heard footsteps. No hooves though, which meant that the man who said he wasn’t an animal person was an animal person because he was still holding DZ.
“Hottie Suit?” he asked.
Grimacing, she kept walking.
“Luna.”
“Can’t hear you.” She kept walking, slowing when they came to a set of three-sided huts, each with wire fencing around it. “The first one houses our guinea pigs,” she said, opening the gate. Once they were inside, DZ jumped down to greet his friends. Luna scooped up a guinea pig and set her in Jameson’s hands before he could protest. “Her name’s Sally.”
He stared down at Sally like he was completely unsure of what to do.
Sally stared right back, then opened her mouth and let out an ear-piercing squeal.
Luna laughed. “She’s saying hi.”
“Guinea pigs are farm animals?”
“Well, no. But we rescued Sally and her family from a meth house out in the middle of nowhere last year. They’re super human friendly. Our guests love to hold and pet them.”
He carefully stroked Sally’s head and she squeaked again, this time in a demand for more.
“It’s easy to have the courage of a lion,” she said quietly, referring to when he’d called her a lion. “They’re gigantic and have claws and no natural predators. I’d rather have the courage of a guinea pig, a two-pound meat potato with zero offensive or defensive abilities, but who will scream at a human one hundred times its size if their lettuce is too wilty.”
His smile was small but real. “Noted.”
She broke eye contact when she got another text.
“You ever think about throwing that thing in the lake?” he asked.
“Only every day.”
Willow: He’s part owner???? And does he know he’s hot?
Luna put her phone away.
“Anything wrong?” he asked.
“Nope.”
He met her gaze. “Good. So you can tell me again why these people don’t know who you are.”
“They know who I am. I’m the same person I’ve always been. Luna Wright.”
He set down Sally and picked up DZ. “You know what I mean.”
Yeah, she did. She just didn’t know how to explain. At her heart, she was a people pleaser. Dumb as it was, she needed people, her people, to like her. If she became “the boss,” they might treat her differently, close her out. It was one of her biggest fears, and she didn’t know if she could survive that, being shut out by the people she counted on for . . . well, everything.
DZ had fallen instantly asleep all comfy cozy in Jameson’s arms. Ignoring the little pang that gave her, she sighed. “You know how Silas was kind of a hard-ass?”
“Yes. And no ‘kind of’ about it. He was absolutely a hard-ass.”
“My crew didn’t like him,” she admitted. “And they love me. And I’m not all that eager to lose the only family who stands by me through thick and thin no matter what, just because I’m the new Silas.”
“Your adoptive family doesn’t love you?”
“Well, yeah, but . . .” She hugged herself, not liking where this was going. “They love me, and I love them. But it doesn’t mean I want to be them. I’m just so very different, and it creates a barrier between us. It’s complicated.” Why was she still talking? She looked at her watch. “Would you look at the time? We really need to keep moving.”
“And people call me a closed book.”
“Not the first time I’ve heard that,” she admitted.
He paused, and she liked very much that he thought things through before reacting. But that was it. That was all he had going for him. Well, that and his very fine ass. And that he’d been nice to everyone here. And that he was still holding DZ even though the baby goat had shed all over his suit.
“So your crew,” he said. “The ones you call your family. You lie to them.”
She winced at the hard truth of that. “Not lying, exactly. I just haven’t yet disclosed the change in ownership.”
“Luna, it’s business. It’s not personal.”
He was wrong about that.
“Let me give you some advice you didn’t ask for,” he said. “Good business doesn’t always line up with being liked. That means you can’t do only the things that make other people happy because it’ll make your job harder, if not impossible. Trust me, I’m good at this.”
Oh great. She was talking to his ego. The surest way to an unproductive conversation with a man. Even this man.
He looked around them, taking in the sights she never, ever, got tired of. The lush valley. The gorgeous still-snowcapped peaks all around them. The sounds of the creek running along the eastern property line and wind rustling through the trees . . . “Here’s what I don’t get,” he finally said. “Your grandfather, despite his sometimes harsh disposition, was a good man. And a generous one. He left you this property that he loved, and yet you let people think the worst of him, your actual blood relative.”
“I’m not letting them think anything of him. They’ve formed their own opinions,” she said, even knowing he was right. She needed to fix this. She did. But deep inside a voice kept whispering . . . how great could he have been when he never told me who he really was?
Especially when he’d clearly chosen Jameson, taken care of him. But not her, not even after he found her and brought her to the farm.
Maybe . . . maybe the fault was all within her, maybe he hadn’t wanted to claim her.
And now she’d never know.