"Of course," she says. "For yelling at me in front of my child and following me into my house and cursing in front of her and –"
"Hold up." I put my hand out, ready to stop this conversation. This chick might be hot, but she's obviously a lunatic. "I saved your ass and your damn orchard, despite your best efforts to burn it the hell down. So maybe you want to stop with the holier-than-thou lecture about yelling at you in front of your kid, and calm your tits down a smidge."
"Calm my tits?" She walks toward me. Are her nostrils flaring? I think they are. She looks mad. It's been a while since I've been around a girl who would get mad about that phrase.
Shit, it's been a while since I've spoken to a girl this much outside of the bedroom. Usually they're getting angry on the way out the door. I'm not like my stupid brother in that regard. Shit, Elias meets a fucking movie star and he's suddenly a family man. Relationships and I are not meant to be.
The Girl With No Name stands in front of me, her breath short. Those tits I was telling her to calm? Yeah, they're not calm at all. Instead, they're moving up and down as she inhales and exhales. "Yeah, that's what I said. Calm your tits."
"Eyes up, bucko," she says. "Stop looking down my shirt."
I shrug. "You just said tits. Where the hell am I supposed to look?" It doesn't help that she's wearing a t-shirt cut in a V, revealing the top of her cleavage. The thin fabric basically caresses the curves of her breasts before it follows her trim figure down to her waist.
"Damn it. I say ‘eyes up’ and yours go further down. You know what? Forget I even came here." When she whirls around, I stand there watching her walk back toward her SUV just to see her ass move in those fitted jeans before I realize she's about to leave.
And I still didn't get her damn name. "Hey, wait!" I call after her.
She pauses. "What?"
"Why'd you drive out here, anyway?"
"Are you going to stop gaping at my boobs like you've never seen a woman before in your life?" she asks, her eyes flashing.
Shit, she's really hot when she's angry.
I don't bother to stifle my laugh. "Not likely."
Her eyes get big, and she huffs before opens her car door. "Then, never mind why I drove out here."
I watch as she slides into the driver's seat. "Suit yourself," I call out. I'm half turned-on and half irritated by this girl. She's so goddamn argumentative about nothing.
She drives away, and I realize I still don't know her fucking name.
Why the hell are women so damn difficult?
4
Autumn
Ugh. That guy. What a juvenile, immature dickhead. He's so damn… cocky, shit-sure of himself with that stupid grin on his face and the “calm your tits” bullshit. I bet he gets away with murder just because he's hot. He's that kind of a guy.
And he is hot…
Heat rushes through me following the adrenaline and irritation that already flood my veins.
Luke Saint. He's no saint, that's for damned sure.
He's also young. Too young for me to be thinking the way I'm thinking about him right now. I'm too old to be getting flustered and red-faced over some guy who might look pretty but has an ego the size of Texas. I'm a mother, for goodness' sake.
And Pretty Boy is a total player. That is something I'm a hundred percent sure of. He's one of those guys who oozes sex from every pore of his body.
I don't know what I was thinking, going out there to see if I might be able to offer him a job. The thought of finding a new foreman right now in the middle of harvest makes me groan out loud.
I haven't even made it all the way down the dirt road from the river where Luke Saint is camped out before I see his truck behind me. He flashes his lights twice before I slow down, pulling over on the side of the road, even though I'm tempted to speed the hell up and just outrun him.
I don't get out of my car. He can damn well come to me if he wants to talk to me. I'll sit here behind the wheel, thank you very much. Just in case I need to run him over with my car.
Luke saunters up to my car like he does this every day, and I roll down my window. "Did I forget something?" I ask.
"Your fucking name," he says, leaning with his arms against the top of the window. "What the hell is your damn name, already?"
The way he says it, completely exasperated, makes me laugh. "You chased me down because you want to know my name?"
"I'm curious. It's a character flaw."
"Autumn Mayburn."
He nods, apparently satisfied. "Suits you," he says.
Because of the red hair. Like I haven't heard that before. I don't even bother trying to keep from rolling my eyes. "Is that it?" I ask. "Can I go now?"
"No," he says. "Who told you where the hell I'm staying?"
"Don't look at me like I'm some kind of psycho stalker chick who's going to boil a bunny on your stove or something. I asked one of the firefighters and he told me. If I'd have known that it was super top secret, I wouldn't have come out here."
"It's not super top secret."