The Real Deal

Aunt Jeanie and her husband, Greg, run an organic egg farm, the kind that devotes acres of leg room to the ladies, so they can lay as many eggs as they wish, all in chicken comfort. Aunt Jeanie’s eggs are carried in several local farmers’ markets, a handful of regional grocery stores, and nearly every farm-to-table restaurant in a hundred-mile radius.

My stomach growls. I pat it with my free hand. “I think it’s safe to say I’m ready for some of Gretchen and Fredericka’s output.”

“Dear.”

That one word is filled with meaning. It says, Let’s talk. It’s filled with I must discuss something important with you.

“Yes?”

“I sent you an email a few days ago, and I never heard back.” She does her whisper thing again, as though it’s a scandalous secret, what she’s saying. “About the man I want you to meet.”

“I was crazed with work and forgot to reply,” I say as we walk across the soft grass to the back porch of the inn.

She pats me on the back. “I can only imagine how busy you are, living in Manhattan and doing makeup for a living. Must be crazy.”

“I paint,” I say, correcting.

She nods. “Right. Painting. Painting makeup. So I took the liberty of setting up a morning coffee date with you and Linus.”

“What?” I stop in my tracks.

“He’s so sweet,” she says, her pitch rising. “Linus is a lovely man with a solid, steady business. Greg and I both know him, and we can say that Linus is good, and kind, and smart,” she says, speaking for her husband, since she always speaks for him. I’ve barely heard Uncle Greg utter a word my entire life—but hey, maybe that’s what works for them. “Can you honestly tell me you’re meeting anyone like that in the city?”

She says city like it’s the far-distant capital in The Hunger Games, a strange and snooty land of otherness, bursting with pink-furred dogs and blue-haired women in pointy-toed heels who have no purpose other than to look pretty. There, I must spend my days whisking around in cool, smooth trams that speed efficiently above a mechanized metropolis.

“There are good men in the city,” I say, insistent.

She arches a brow. “Really?”

“Yes. As a matter of fact—” I’m about to mention Theo when Jeanie interrupts.

“—If memory serves, your last boyfriend was a bit of an ass. Remember what you told us at Christmas?”

I cringe as we walk across the yard. “I tried to block that evening from my brain.”

The memory of my one-too-many spiked eggnogs on Christmas Eve smashes back into me. That’s when I word-vomited up all the sordid details of the married man I’d unknowingly fallen for. I suspect that’s also when the Hamilton ladies went into full-on strategy mode, devising a plan to pair me up with a Wistful man. Kill two birds with one stone, they believe.

I meet Jeanie’s inquisitive gaze. “Fine, fine. Landon was a mistake. But that doesn’t mean every guy is like that. Theo’s not,” I say, feeling the need to defend my fake boyfriend. There’s no way a guy like Theo could even be categorized the same way as a guy like Landon.

She shoots me a look, ignoring the mention of my plus-one as she launches into her next point. “It’s so much better to find someone people know. Don’t you want to know that a man comes from a good family, that he’s truly single, that he’s not trying to pull the wool over your eyes?”

“Of course, Aunt Jeanie,” I say as we reach the steps at the back of the inn. The Hamiltons are the only ones here for the next four days. My mother doesn’t rent the rooms in the Sunnyside during the reunion, so that we can all take over the inn, rather than crowd into my parents’ home a mile away. “And I’m sure Linus is lovely. But I’m not interested in being set up.”

Her face looks crestfallen. “He’s so perfect for you, though, and you’d be nearby. Just give me a good reason.”

“I’ll give you three good reasons: I don’t live here, so I don’t want a long-distance relationship, I don’t want to talk about mortgage rates, and three—”

“She’s taken.”

That voice is like a note being plucked on a guitar, held long and lasting, and spreading through my body.

It’s possession. It’s ownership.

Theo steps onto the porch, the ends of his hair still wet from the shower, his skin smelling fresh and completely lickable, his brown eyes dark and intense. He loops an arm around my waist, yanking me close; then he drops a kiss to my lips.

Stars.

I see stars.

The world winks off as his lips dust mine, soft and gentle and lasting barely more than a second or two.

He ends the kiss as tenderly as he began it, and I want to bring my fingers to my lips to reactivate the kiss, to imprint it on my memory. I’m wobbly and woozy, but he keeps a steady hand on my hip, then turns to my aunt and extends the other hand. “I’m Theo. Nice to meet you. I’m sure Linus is a great guy, but I’m a bit partial to keeping April all to myself. Hope you understand.”

He shoots her that most delicious grin.

He’s greeted with one in return. Then an arched brow. “Be good to our girl. No shenanigans.”

If she only knew shenanigans are what we’re up to.

But unlike with Landon, I know the score. There’s no tricking me this time.





Chapter Thirteen

Theo

The eggs come from Aunt Jeanie’s organic egg farm two towns over. They’re delicious, soft and fluffy. The breakfast biscuits are courtesy of Tess and her husband, Cory. They run the local bakery. The apricot jam I’ve spread on mine is the perfect mix of sweet and tarty, and the jam is their creation, too.

The white china with blue vine etching hails from the antiques and consignment shop owned and operated by April’s auburn-haired cousin Katie, who is Jeanie’s daughter. Katie’s husband is in the coast guard, and has been called away on an assignment.

April’s brother, Mitch, sits next to me and has been talking about sports, and how the Yankees are killing it this season, and so is his fantasy team. He’s one of those guys who can talk about sports all the time, I suspect. Mitch looks like he plays sports, too. He has Popeye arms and an off-kilter nose that was probably broken more than once. He has two daughters, and his eldest already downed a cup of coffee, then excused herself. The younger one, wavy-haired Emma, stabs at her blueberries with the tines of her fork and makes idle chitchat with Jeanie about eggs. I suspect Emma knows the drill. What to say, what to do, how to manage the adults in the family.

I’m still waiting to find out what makes this gathering so unusual. So far this reunion seems 100 percent normal. I’m smothered in this family and all its quaint small-town-ness. I feel like I should break out in hives, but I don’t. I’ve learned Tess thinks I’m cute, Cousin Katie might be naughty since she said my tats reminded her of the hero in a motorcycle club romance that’s been keeping her up at night. Oh, and Aunt Jeanie is off April’s back, thanks to me.

I’ve never done that before—kissed a client on the lips. It’s amazing how unnecessary it actually is to kiss on a fake date. Hand-holding, arms draped over shoulders, possessive hugs, tender cheek kisses, even slow dances—I’ve done all that, but have never crossed the “lip line.”

Can’t say I regret breaking my rule. As soon as I overheard the tail end of the conversation, I knew two things: One, April could hold her own. Two, I had the perfect chance to stake my claim, and do the job she hired me to do.

Fine, there was a third thing, too. I wanted to know what her lips tasted like. The answer? Like oranges and sunshine.

I tell myself not to replay that two-second kiss over and over as we eat. It’ll only get me aroused. And that’s not a good state to be in in the midst of all this family.

Besides, the kiss was only two seconds. It was borderline chaste. Why the hell am I turned on by thinking of it again? Maybe because I slept next to her last night, because I saw those stars on her hip, because I touched her neck and that soft, silky hair. Maybe because we’ve been telling tales about our sex life, and for once I want life to imitate art.

“Cool T-shirt. Where’d you get it from?”