"I have a baby," I protest, my voice indignant. "And a fledgling business to run."
"Your business isn't fledgling anymore," June points out. "And in case you haven't noticed, Olivia is getting bigger. You could use a little fun." She pauses when she sees the expression on my face. "I say all of this with love, obviously."
"Yeah, I can tell. Saying I need to," my voice drops to a whisper, "have a fling with the teenage hottie I hired to be a foreman sounds like a super responsible thing to do."
"He's hardly a teenager," June says, laughing. "And a fling sounds like exactly what you need. It wouldn't hurt you to get some."
"Who's getting some?" A male voice booms from behind us, startling me, and I turn to see June's husband Cade walking with Callie wrapped in a warm cotton blanket in his arms.
"Cade, take her back to the nursery if she's sleeping," June chides. "It's too chilly for her to be out here, even wrapped up in that blanket."
"Hush, woman." The edges of Cade’s lips curl up in a smile. "I don't want to put her down. Let me be a proud papa if I want to be. I'll bring her back inside in a minute. Besides, I'm toasty warm."
June rolls her eyes and sighs, but she smiles and pats Cade on the arm as he slides into the chair beside her. The way she looks at him and then at their children like they're the center of her world makes me simultaneously happy for her and jealous of her.
I don't know what Cade's story is exactly. June is quiet about his past, though she mentioned in passing once that he used to run as part of an outlaw biker club out in California – the Inferno Motorcycle Club. The sleeves of tattoos that run up his arms and down the back of his neck hint at his past. He's a good man, though. And he adores June and the kids.
So maybe, just maybe, Cade is proof that bad boys are capable of settling down and becoming good men.
"I'm not interrupting any girl talk, am I?" Cade asks. Olivia's high-pitched squeal cuts through his question. "Come on, Stan, don't put dirt in her hair. When she screams, she's telling you clear as day she doesn't like it. Put the shovel down."
"Nope, you're not interrupting," I say, too quickly. "At all."
But June can’t help herself. "I was just telling Autumn she should have a little fun."
"June," I warn.
"Oh, God, this is girl talk." Cade groans. "I should go back inside. That's what you're saying, right?"
"Luke Saint is working the orchard." June looks at Cade meaningfully.
"If there's one thing in life I've learned this far, it's when to keep my mouth shut about things and stay out of people's business, June-bug," Cade says. "That might be some good advice for you, you know."
"Oh, shut your mouth." June slaps him playfully on the arm. "She's single. He's single. And he's also hot."
"Oh, so my wife is telling you Luke Saint is hot, is she?"
"More like the other way around, sweetheart," June says.
"Luke Saint is telling you you're hot?"
"Shut up, you know what I mean," she says. "Autumn is telling me how irresistible Luke Saint is."
"Oh my God, that's not true!" I protest. "Well, I mean, it's true, but it's irrelevant. And seriously, when did my visit turn into an interrogation about my dating life?"
"Non-existent dating life," June says pointedly.
"Okay, my non-existent dating life. The very full, very busy, very scheduled, very orderly non-existent dating life that I have. I have a routine."
"See?" Cade asks. "She has a routine, June-bug. Leave her alone. You're starting to become as bad as one of the ladies down at the hair salon."
"Oh my God, I am not."
Cade leans forward, Callie in his arms, looking around June at me. "Luke Saint. I don't know him, but I know of him. His brother Elias is seeing the actress, River Andrews," he says. "Elias is a good guy. Ex-Navy. You want me to check this Luke guy out?"
"Yes," June says, grinning.
"No!" I protest.
"Didn't you check him out when you hired him?" she asks.
Did I check him out? A flush comes over me at the thought of how very well I checked him out, from his chiseled jawline to his muscled chest to the way his ass looked as he walked away in his jeans.
June giggles. "Forget it," she says. "I can tell by your reaction that you've been doing a lot of checking him out."
"Shush, you." I wave dismissively at her, focusing my attention on Cade. "Okay, fine. What do you know about Luke?"
"Nothing really," Cade says. "Aside from the business with his family."
"What happened with his family?"
"Well, I assume that's why he's back in West Bend," Cade says. "At least, that's why Elias came back here. Their dad died a little while back, some kind of accident in an illegal mine on their property. Their mother killed herself after that – guess she couldn’t handle being apart from him or something. No big loss there, when it came to the dad. Dad was a mean son of a bitch. An angry drunk, evil through and through. Everyone knew that, even back when I was a kid."