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Rachel nodded, then stood, smoothing her hands over her skirt. “I think we should see a little more of the fair.”
Dermot tried to read her mood. She seemed open to his suggestion, but at the same time, she looked sad… or worried. He wasn’t sure which. It wouldn’t have to mean more work for her. Maybe he hadn’t explained it the right way.
Her mood lightened as they ate their way up one side and down the other side of the food area. By the time they finished, Dermot was stuffed. Though he enjoyed fine dining in some of Seattle’s best restaurants, he had to admit that this was one of the best meals he’d ever eaten. Considering the company, he wasn’t surprised.
“Exhibits next or rides?” Rachel asked.
“Not rides,” he said. “I need to give myself some time to digest.”
She laughed. “I’ve never seen anyone eat so much.”
“I wanted to try everything,” he said.
“We haven’t even started with the brats and sweet corn yet.”
Dermot draped his arm around her shoulders. “What I’d really like is to go home. I’d like to take off all my clothes and turn on the fans and lie down on your bed and spend the rest of the day… digesting. Oh, wait, I meant to say kissing you.”
“One more thing,” she said, taking his hand.
They finished their day with a ride on the Ferris wheel, enjoying a rare moment of quiet together as they were swept up above the crowd and then back down into the bustle. He wrapped his arm around her shoulder and pulled her close, kissing the top of her head.
“This was a good day,” he murmured, Rachel tucked in the crook of his arm.
“It was,” she said.
“I think I tasted everything.”
“We didn’t even get to the baked potatoes. And there are chocolate éclairs and barbecued chicken and grilled cheese sandwiches and—”
Dermot groaned as he put his hand over her mouth.
“Stop.”
Rachel reached out and patted his belly. “You can work it all off in the barn.”
“And in bed,” Dermot added.
They got off the Ferris wheel and headed toward the parking area where they’d left the pickup. Dermot held her hand as they walked, uninterested in the displays they passed and intent on getting back to the farm as soon as possible. They passed a booth for solar-heating systems and the guy behind the counter stared at Rachel for a long moment.
“Rachel? Rachel Howe?”
Rachel stopped and turned, frowning at first before a wide smile broke across her face. “Danny! Oh, my gosh. Look at you!”
“Look at you,” he said.
The man stepped from behind the counter and held out his arms. Dermot felt a surge of jealousy and watched warily as they greeted each other.
“What are you doing here?”
“Business,” he said. “I’ve got a solar-heating and wind-power operation I run out of Janesville.” He grabbed a brochure and handed it to her.
Rachel flipped through it, nodding approvingly. “Gosh, I haven’t seen you since high school.”
“I barely recognized you. I wouldn’t have except for that smile. I could never forget that smile. Are you back for a visit?”
“I’m running my parents’ farm now. We’ve got our goats over at the 4-H petting zoo.” She turned to Dermot. “This is my—my friend Dermot Quinn. He works at the farm. He’s visiting from Seattle.”
Danny held out his hand. “Danny Mathison,” he said, introducing himself. “Seattle. Great city. I’ve been there a couple of times.”
“Nice to meet you,” Dermot said, trying to sound friendly. He didn’t like the way Danny was looking at Rachel.
Danny quickly turned his attention back to her. “So, you’re living in the area. That’s good. And you’re still single?”
“Yes,” she said, a pretty blush staining her cheeks.
“Me, too. Hey, we should get together some night. Get some dinner and maybe catch a movie. Maybe play a little saxophone?”
“That would be great,” Rachel said with a laugh. “Everything except for the saxophone.”
“Then I’ll give you a call,” he said. Danny leaned close and kissed her cheek. “It was really great seeing you again. You’re in the book?”
“Right where I’ve always been,” she said.
“Good.” He grinned. “Great.”
Rachel said goodbye and she and Dermot continued on toward the parking lot. “‘That would be great’?” Dermot parroted. “‘Hey, we should get together some night.’ You know what he meant, don’t you? We should get together?”
“I think he wants to go out for dinner and a movie,” Rachel said.
“No, that’s not what he’s got on his mind. He’s thinking you’re all alone on the farm and he’s going to swoop in and show you a good time and he’s going to get some.”
Rachel laughed out loud. “Get some? Like you’ve been getting some?”
“No, not like that. With us, it’s a mutual thing.”
“And what makes you think it wouldn’t be a mutual thing with him?” Rachel asked, her eyebrow cocked up quizzically.
“So you want to go out with him?”
“Maybe. He’s an old friend, he’s kind of cute and he’s got a good job. And he is geographically available, unlike you.”
“I’m here.”
“But you won’t be in another month,” she said. “Am I supposed to live like a nun after you leave?”
“Yes,” Dermot said. “That would be exactly how you should live.”
“You’re jealous,” she said.
“Damn right I am.”
Rachel shook her head. “You don’t have to be. I’m not going to go out with Danny. I’m kind of having a little fling with this farmhand. And he takes up all my time and energy.”
Dermot grinned. “All right. That’s better. And what was that stuff about playing the saxophone? What did he mean by that?”
“We used to sit next to each other in band,” Rachel explained. She slipped her arm around his. “Gosh, I went an entire year without a single guy even noticing me and now I’ve got two interested. I don’t know what to do with myself.”
DARK CLOUDS ROLLED IN right after breakfast, and the rain came down in sheets. Rachel had hoped to bale hay now that she had someone to work the wagon. But with the rain, it would be at least another week before the cut alfalfa would be dry enough to bale.
Dermot had been out in the barn, trying to repair a broken gate, and she’d been tempted to join him. But they’d spent so much time together that she was beginning to find it hard to think about anything but him.
He’d been at the farm for three weeks and yet it seemed as if they’d already spent a lifetime together. She’d grown so accustomed to having him around, grown to depend on him when things seemed to get impossible.
But if the days were good, the nights were even better. Once the sun went down, they lived in a sexy, delicious dream in which Dermot Quinn turned her into a wild, wanton woman. A month ago, she’d fantasized about a man who’d pull her into his arms and kiss her without a second thought, but never, in all her dreams had she actually expected it to happen.
And though the sex wasn’t strange or kinky, it was powerfully addictive. When he touched her, there was always an earth-shattering reaction. She wanted him to brush aside her clothes and kiss her naked skin, to pull her to the bed and seduce her until she trembled at his touch. Until desire bubbled up inside of her and she begged him to continue. Until she was completely and utterly spent, rid of every last bit of need.
How could she possibly live without him? She stared down at her accounting book, then slammed it shut. Why couldn’t she just enjoy Dermot while he was here? Why did her thoughts always turn to the future?
“Forget it,” she muttered. The last thing she needed in her life was another complication. Though sleeping with Dermot was very pleasant and more than satisfying, it wouldn’t be wise to succumb to such a powerful addiction. She’d just have to keep her emotions in check. Falling in love with him would be the biggest mistake she could ever make.
Rachel reached out and grabbed the recipe for goat’s milk soap that Dermot had found on the internet. She stared at it for a long moment. He’d gone out and purchased all the ingredients, but left it to her to decide what she wanted to do.
She pushed back from the table and found her sketch pad on the counter. Her box of colored pencils sat next to it and she retrieved them both, then sat back down. She ought to work on her greeting cards, since she’d fallen behind on the publisher’s schedule. But she’d been toying with an idea for a label, yet was reluctant to put it to paper.
Was it worth the time? She hadn’t even decided to stay on the farm and this was a project that would require a complete commitment to a future at Clover Meadow. But then, doing a drawing wasn’t exactly going to cost her anything.
She bent over her sketchbook and began, focusing on the perfect balance of text, graphics and illustration. She wasn’t aware of the time, but when she was finished, she glanced up at the clock. She’d done the entire label in less than fifteen minutes.
“Nice,” she murmured.
Rachel found a bar of hand soap under the sink and wrapped the new label around it. Her parents would have loved the idea. Her mother might have enjoyed making the soap herself and her father would have been tickled to know that goat’s milk could be used in a new way.
The screen door squeaked and she glanced over her shoulder to see Dermot standing in the doorway. He was soaking wet, water dripping off his hair and puddling around his muddy boots.
“If you’re going to come in the house, you have to take off your clothes on the porch,” she warned. “I just washed the floor.”
“I can do that,” he said, tugging off his T-shirt and tossing it aside. Bracing his arm on the door-jamb, he kicked off his boots, then moved to unbutton his jeans.
Rachel watched him, her gaze skimming over his broad shoulders and finely muscled chest. He was the most beautiful man, his body made for the kind of work he did on the farm. Over the past three weeks, his skin had been burnished brown by the sun.
“Are you sure you don’t want to do this?” he asked.
“I like watching,” she said.
When he was down to his blue cotton boxers, he stepped inside. Hooking his thumbs in the waistband, he slowly pushed them down over his hips. When they dropped to the floor, Rachel’s breath caught in her throat. Dermot walked across the kitchen in all his naked glory, a devilish smile on his face, then pulled her into his arms.
“Now that you have me naked, what are you going to do with me?” he murmured, his warm breath soft on her neck.
Rachel ran her hands over his slick skin. “You’re cold,” she said.
“Warm me up.”
She took his hand and led him through the house and up the stairs. He turned toward her bedroom, but she pulled him into the bathroom. She turned on the faucets and began to fill the huge claw-foot tub.
“Are we having a bath?” he asked.
“Yes. You are.”
“Are you going to join me?”
“No,” she said. “But I will wash your back.”
When the tub was half-full, he stepped in and sat down. Rachel grabbed a washcloth from the basket next to the tub and dipped it in the water. She’d studied his body so intently over the past few weeks that she knew every inch of skin from the tiny birthmark on his shoulder to the crooked scar on his knee.
She’d never taken the time to know a man quite so intimately. Rachel was left to wonder if he’d be the last man in her life. If she decided to stay on the farm, she knew her future might be spent in solitude. She bit at her bottom lip. Since Dermot had arrived, the choice to stay had become even more difficult to fathom.
Her promises to her father were made in a desperate moment, when he needed comfort and reassurance. But there came a point when she had to live her own life. And what if that life couldn’t be lived here on the farm?
“Are you all right?”
“Fine,” she croaked. This would be one of those moments that she remembered forever, she mused. Every one of her senses was so finely tuned that the memory was imprinted on her soul. She reached out and brushed the damp hair out of his eyes.
Dermot leaned over the edge of the tub and cupped her cheek in his hand. A moment later, Rachel was caught inside a long, lingering kiss, one that made her head spin and her body tremble.
She wanted to stop him, but she’d lost any sense of who or what she was. Every ounce of her attention was focused on the taste of his mouth, the feel of his lips against hers.
When he finally drew away, he met her gaze. Rachel forced a smile, then went back to washing his back, but he grabbed her hand. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” she said. “It’s just a gray day. And I’ve got a lot on my mind.”
“Tell me.”
Rachel shook her head. “It’s nothing.” She paused, then drew a deep breath and let it out. “I’m just trying to figure out my future and you keep getting in the way. Not that I don’t love having you here, because I do. But it just makes everything so much more difficult.”
“I don’t want to do that,” Dermot said.
“I know. But so much of my happiness right now is because I’m… you know.”
“Well satisfied?”
“Yes, that, too. But I was going to say relaxed. Less worried. The list of things that need doing on the farm is getting shorter and shorter every day. And it makes a life here more attractive. Which makes my decision more difficult.”
“So, what do you want me to do? We could spend more time in bed and less time working.”
“I hired you to work, not to… pleasure me.”
“I can multitask. I’m very good at that.”
Rachel smiled, well aware of his abilities both inside and outside the bedroom. “I just think that it’s going to take me a lot longer to figure this out.”
“I think it would help if you’d take your clothes off and get in the tub with me. A hot bath always helps me focus.”
“You take baths?”
Dermot shook his head. “No. Never. But I’ll say just about anything to get you in the tub with me.” He grabbed her hand and pressed a kiss to the center of her palm. “Come on. You’ll see.”
Rachel slowly undressed, then stepped into the tub and settled herself against his chest. He took the washcloth and sloshed water over her breasts and shoulders and she closed her eyes and relaxed into the warmth of his body.
“Let’s talk about your choices,” he said. “You can stay and run the farm.”
“Mmm-hmm.”
“Or you can sell it,” he continued.
“Those are my only two choices.”
“Could you lease it out? Find someone else to run it until you’re ready to make a decision.”
“I never really thought about that. My sister and brothers want to settle the estate. They want it sold.”
“All right. Would it make you feel better if you got the right kind of people to buy it? Maybe find a family who wants to continue the same type of work your father did? Would that help?”
“Yes,” she said. Rachel thought about the notion for a long moment. “A family, with kids, who want to raise goats and show them at the fair. With a mother who likes to garden and a father who wants to work for himself. This farm works best for a family.”
“Then maybe we need to find a family like that,” he said. “Can you think of anyone that you know?”
Rachel closed her eyes again and Dermot wrapped his arms more tightly around her. There were plenty of family farms in the area, but they were all struggling. Still, if she could offer a family a stable income, there would be buyers.
“I’m so lucky you came into my life,” Rachel said. She turned over and smoothed her hands over his chest, pressing a kiss to his damp skin.
Dermot kissed the top of her head. “I think I was the lucky one.”
“When you first met me, how long did it take before you knew you wanted to sleep with me?”
He smiled, nuzzling her temple. “I think it was about six or seven… seconds. I went through all the pros and cons on the ride to the farm. And then there was that kiss and it was game on from there. Since then, I can’t seem to stop myself.”
“Do you ever wonder if it might have been a mistake?”
He shook his head. “How could anything that feels so good be a mistake?” He laughed. “Are you really thinking it was?”
“Do you know what today is?”
“Wednesday?”
“You’ve been on the farm for exactly three weeks. That means that your time here is half over. In three weeks, you have to go home.”
His grin faded. “Really? It seems like I just got here. I don’t want to think about leaving.”
Rachel shrugged. “When you walked up to my truck, I thought you’d dropped out of the sky, like an answer to my prayers. But the longer you stay, the harder it will be to let you go.”
“I know,” he said. He kissed her again. “I know.”
As the water in the tub began to cool, Rachel knew they ought to get out. It was a perfect metaphor for the relationship. How long could they continue before it became impossible to let go? She was coming perilously close to the point of no return, to the point where his leaving would cause permanent heartache and unresolved regrets.
She wasn’t in love yet, but everything pointed in that direction. Dermot Quinn was a man well worth loving. And if she didn’t take that step, then another woman in another place and another life would. And he would be lost to her forever.
THE HEAT OF THE AFTERNOON was oppressive, the humidity thick in the air. Dermot reached for another bag of feed and hoisted it onto the back of the pickup. Harley and Sam, the two farmers he’d met his first day in Mapleton, sat on the porch of the feed store, watching him from beneath the brims of their caps. A few seconds later, another farmer joined them and they chatted, pointing in his direction.
Dermot sighed softly, then braced his gloved hands on his hips and turned toward them. “If you boys have any questions I can answer, just let me know.”
They seemed shocked that he’d called them out. “Nope. No questions,” Sam said.
“No?” Dermot asked, walking toward them. “I can see something is worrying you. Just spit it out.”
“We were just speculating on how much longer Miss Rachel was going to last on that farm,” Sam finally said.
“What difference does it make to you?”
“She’s got a nice piece of land there,” Harley told him. “And there are folks that are interested in having that land for themselves. In fact, there’s probably going to be quite a little bidding war if she ever decides to sell.”
“Well, she’s not going to sell,” Dermot said. “So you can let all those interested folks know that they can stop being interested and find themselves something else to do with their time.”
“Seems like you’ve made yourself very… comfortable over at Clover Meadow,” Harley observed. “We’re all taking bets on how long you’ll be staying.”
“Who knows?” Dermot said. “Maybe I’m not going to leave at all.”
He strode back to the pallet on the loading dock and tossed the last three bags of feed into the truck, then jumped down and got behind the wheel. He had dropped Rachel at the post office and they planned to do the grocery shopping after that. But Dermot was beginning to feel that this small town was just a little too small for him.
Maybe it was natural that people were curious about what was going on at Clover Meadow Farm, but he still didn’t care for anyone drawing conclusions about his relationship with Rachel. Yet why should it make him angry? Dermot cursed beneath his breath.
She’d have to live here after he was gone. People would talk, and gossip was never good for a woman’s reputation. Hell, he’d been the one to put all that at risk. Maybe she would have been better off with that Danny guy from the county fair. At least he was geographically available.
Dermot steered the truck toward the main street of Mapleton, his mind going through everything that had happened between Rachel and him. It had seemed so simple that day they met. They were both adults, both curious about the attraction between them, both willing and able. But in retrospect, Dermot hadn’t thought beyond the initial gratification.
If he really cared, then he wouldn’t have been so cavalier about moving into her bedroom. He pulled the truck to a stop in front of the post office and waited, peering at the front door through the passenger window. A pair of older women passed by on the sidewalk, and when they saw him, they immediately turned to each other and began talking.
Frustrated, Dermot pressed on the horn, startling the old biddies and sending them scurrying. A few seconds later, Rachel emerged. She ran down the front steps and he reached over to open the passenger side door. She settled herself in the seat beside him.
“We need to talk,” he muttered.
“This is from some lawyer that my brothers have hired.” She held up the envelope. “Registered mail. They want to have me removed as executor of my father’s estate. They’re saying I exerted undue influence on him when he wrote his will. They want to force me to sell the farm.”
Dermot gasped. “Jaysus, Rachel. Can they do that?”
“I—I don’t know. I can’t afford to hire a lawyer to find out. Do they think I wanted this? He made me promise, on his deathbed. I love the farm, but I don’t know if I want to spend my life there.” She covered her face with her hands. “Maybe I should just sell. It’s three against two. Eddie and I are the only ones who want to keep the farm in the family.”
He reached over and pulled her into his arms, then noticed the people standing on the street watching them. With a soft curse, he turned the ignition and started the truck.
Once he got out of town, Dermot followed the signs for a small county park that they’d passed a number of times. He headed down a quiet tree-lined drive and pulled the truck off into a parking lot, overlooking a picnic shelter. Reaching for Rachel, he drew her into his embrace.
When the tears suddenly came pouring out, he wasn’t sure what to do. Hell, he wasn’t really sure why she was crying. Was it because of the letter from the lawyer, or was she just so tired that anything would put her over the edge?
He stroked her back and whispered to her, softly telling her what he thought she needed to hear. When she finally quieted, he drew back and looked down into her watery eyes. “It’s going to be all right,” Dermot murmured. “We’ll figure this out, I promise.”
His hands lingered on her hips as his gaze fell to her mouth. Sniffling, Rachel leaned forward and touched her lips to his. “Thank you,” she said.
“For what?”
“For being the only one that seems to care about what I want.”
“Sweetheart, that will never change. No matter what happens, you can always count on me.”
She nodded. “How is it that you’re still single? Why hasn’t some woman married you and made you an honest man?”
“I don’t know,” Dermot said. “Maybe I just haven’t met the right woman yet.”
“When you do, she’s going to be very lucky.”
Dermot slipped his hands around her waist and pulled her body against his. He took his time, focusing on the feel of her lips beneath his, waiting for the silent cues to her need. His lips touched her left eyelid and then her right, kissing away the tears. “Tell me this makes you feel better.”
She sighed deeply as he kissed her temple. “Yes,” Rachel said. “It feels good.”
He hooked his finger beneath her chin and tipped her gaze up to meet his. And then he kissed her again, his tongue teasing at her lips before gently invading her mouth. But this kiss was meant to tempt her, to show her that this wasn’t just about desire. Rachel wrapped her arms around his neck and surrendered, and Dermot felt a familiar rush of heat course through his body as he pushed her back against the passenger door.
His hands slid down her waist to her hips, then circled to smooth over her back. How would he ever do without this? He’d come to crave the feel of her in his arms, the taste of her mouth, the scent of her hair. Dermot knew that he ought to step back, to regain his perspective. But everything about her drew him deeper, until he felt as if she were the only lifeline in a whirlpool of unfamiliar emotions.