Once Amelia is finished with her photos, we make the trek back through the farm toward her truck. We fill the silence easily as usual.
“It’s a nice farm,” I say, pretending I know anything about farms. “Good grass.”
Luckily, Amelia shares my brand of sarcastic humor. “Right? That’s clearly the best tractor too.”
“Yeah. The…green is good.”
“I’ve driven it,” she says proudly. “It’s pretty slow.”
I hum noncommittally as we again approach the greenhouses full of produce and one of flowers. In my limited knowledge of farms, this one feels massive. It has outdoor crops in addition to the greenhouses. Some dairy cows too.
Amelia and I continue to make farm-ignorant comments back and forth until I see a figure several yards away in one of the rows of huge pink flowers. My eyes are snagged immediately, and I do a double take. Annie. Her blonde hair is braided to the side, her face shielded by a big straw sun hat. She’s wearing work gloves and holding a pair of gardening scissors. Today she has a tight white short-sleeved shirt underneath her cutoff jean overalls. I swear the sunlight hits this woman differently than other people. It seeps into her skin, makes her glow.
I imagine running my hands over that sun-warmed skin, and desire punches me in the stomach. Or rather, somewhere farther south than the stomach. I stare—and everything gets worse as Annie bends over to clip a few long stems from the row of flowers. My gaze sweeps over the soft curve of her ass, down her tan legs to her brown work boots. She looks mouthwateringly sweet.
“How come you’re not commenting that she looks like Elly May Clampett?” asks Amelia, bumping her shoulder into my arm.
“Who?” My voice comes out as dry as the desert. Amelia barks out a laugh, and I shake myself from the daze to look at her. “I was just trying to figure out what the name of those flowers is.”
She smirks. “Uh-huh. Sure. Why don’t you ask the woman you’re gawking at?”
I wiggle my fingers in front of her smug face. “Can you do less of this please?”
She bats her eyelashes. “Less of what?”
“The matchmaking. I can feel it. This town has seeped into your brain and turned you into a disgusting hopeless romantic.”
“And I can turn you into one, too, if you’d just quit fighting it so hard. You’re not going to want to be a player forever, you know? And if you happen to meet a cute blonde flower shop owner and want to give dating a go…well, then—”
“I knew you had ulterior motives by asking me to be Annie’s dating coach. You’re going to be very disappointed when this doesn’t work out the way you want. I’m not going to fall in love with Annie or whatever it is you think is going to happen.”
“Yeah…the love part. That’s exactly what I think will happen.”
“Like hell. I don’t think I’m built for love.”
She narrows her eyes, still not convinced. “Then why did you say yes to helping Annie?”
Why, indeed. Because she has a hold on me that I can’t figure out. Because her eyes do this sparkly thing when she’s excited and the light hits them just right. Because the curve of her bottom lip is perfect. Because I feel desperate to know what wild thing she’s going to say next anytime she’s around.
“Because there’s absolutely nothing to do in this town, and I need something to keep me busy when you don’t need m—”
I cut off, my eyes drifting to follow the new scene playing out in front of me. James appears out of nowhere and walks down the row of flowers toward Annie. He’s carrying a bucket full of cut roses and the muscles in his arms bulge obnoxiously. He smiles at Annie and she looks overjoyed to see him. He sets down the bucket, and she launches herself into his arms for a nice big bear hug. The squeeze he gives her in return feels like a bit much.
Amelia hovers in my vision again, following my gaze. “Someone feeling a little jealous?”
“Not in the least.”
“Your jaw just flexed.”
“It does that naturally because it’s so square.”
“You mean it does that naturally when you’re jealous.” She drags out the word annoyingly.
I sigh and close my eyes, tilting my face up toward the sun, wishing it would burn me up. It would be better than having to endure Amelia on a mission. Last time this happened it was over tacos. I made the terrible mistake of telling her I didn’t like them—which happens to be her favorite food—and she proceeded to stop at every acclaimed taco place during a U.S. tour and made me try one from each restaurant until I found one I liked.