Where Love Grows

www.millsandboon.co.uk

To the women who have made me who I am. I

treasure you all. And in memory of my Aunt Lou—

the inspiration for Mee-Maw.

CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Acknowledgment

I couldn’t have written this book without help from a great many people—too many local farmers in my area to name individually here, but thank you all. Thanks to Kenny Chesney for the music that helped inspire this story and helped motivate me when the going got tough. A big hug goes to my better half for putting up with life on hold while I was writing. Acknowledgments also go to my critique partners Tawna Fenske, Cindy Miles, Stephanie Bose and Nelsa Roberto, to my agent Miriam Kriss, and to my absolutely wonderful editor Laura Shin, whose revision suggestions really helped me turn the corner.

CHAPTER ONE

CRAIG ANDREWS WAS moving in for the kill.

He’d trapped Becca Reynolds as neatly as any hound would trap a rabbit.

She swallowed hard, her mouth dry. To reach for the tumbler of water in front of her would be a sign of weakness, wouldn’t it?

Yes. Better to have a mouth that felt as if a sandblaster had let loose in it than to have her actions prove it.

“Miss Reynolds…”

Andrews pivoted on his Testoni dress shoes and held up a single sheet of paper. The corners of his mouth lifted, but the expression bore about as much resemblance to a smile as a shark’s chompers did.

“You based your conclusions on weather patterns and the very scientific NASA photographs.”

“Yes. Yes, I did. It is my—”

But before Becca could explain how she knew the hailstorm had been nothing but cocktail ice and a few migrant workers beating plants down in the field, he held up one perfectly manicured hand.

Really. The fop spent more on his appearance than she and her father spent on their monthly office lease.

And now she was stuck on the stand, testifying in the first federal criminal-fraud case she’d investigated. The case was a slam dunk, or so she’d assured the feds and the insurance company who’d hired their firm.

It certainly didn’t feel like that now.

“You even went so far as to say there were no tomatoes planted—”

She gritted her teeth. “No. I said there weren’t as many tomatoes planted as Mr. Palmer said. His insurance claim forms indicated he had several hundred acres—”

“Yes, yes.” He waved away her answer. “How much do you know of the weather in this part of the state?”

“I’m a private investigator, Mr. Andrews. I’m not a meteorologist.”

“Ah, but you based your findings on meteorological evidence. So is it going to rain today, Miss Reynolds?”

With the prosecution’s objection offered and sustained, and the laughter in the courtroom finished, Andrews came back. “Were you aware, Miss Reynolds, that this part of the county had heavy spring rains?”

Her stomach clenched. “No. My…recollection of the rainfall levels indicated that they were a little above average but not inordinately heavy.”

“But if your recollection—” Andrews’s emphasis of the word dripped with sarcasm “—was faulty, would that impact your analysis?”

Becca swallowed hard again and this time succumbed to the call of the water on the witness stand. No way had she goofed those rainfall levels. She’d looked at them, standard procedure. She glanced at her father, the senior partner of Reynolds Agricultural Investigations. It was only after he glowered at her in a way that screamed “Don’t screw this up!” that she answered Andrews’s question.

“Possibly. It depends.”

“You based your entire opinion on the analysis of photos. You said that you would be able to see evidence of tomato crops from satellite photos taken the week before, right? Isn’t that correct?”

“Uh, yes. The red—”

“Would show up.” Andrews spun again on his Testonis, this time to face the jury. “But if the fruit was unripened? If the tomatoes were still green on the vine…”

Becca wanted nothing more than to run from the courtroom and make it to the nearest bathroom stall. She didn’t have the luxury of that option, so she stuck it out. “If the rains were heavy enough to delay planting, the ripening could be delayed, as well. But it would have to be extremely heavy rains—”

“Something like these?” Andrews turned back and dropped the printout into Becca’s hands.

It was worse than she thought. She’d never seen this report—it totally contradicted her own research. If these figures were accurate, the farmers in the area would have needed an Evinrude on the back of their tractors to navigate these rains.

After he’d dragged the offensive numbers out of Becca and retrieved the printout, he said, “Your Honor, I would like to admit into evidence rain reports from the county extension agent in the early spring of that year.”

Becca sat, numb, twisting her hands in her lap, her fingernails digging into her palms. Andrews smiled again.

“Did anyone from Reynolds Agricultural Investigations—um, how did you put it—go on-site?”

She closed her eyes.

When would I have had time? Would that have been between visiting my dad in ICU and keeping the firm open while he was out?

But she bit back the words, which she knew would open a whole other can of worms with Ag-Sure, their client. Opening her eyes, she forced out, “I did not personally go on-site, no.”

“Did anyone from Reynolds Investigations—eh, how did you put it—go on-site?”

“No. The satellite images showed clear evidence—”

“Of unripe tomatoes. Oh, yes. Right. Perfectly understandable. I mean, you just get paid to rip apart farmers’ lives. We wouldn’t want you to get dirt under your pretty little fingernails. You should leave that to the farmers who are trying to scrape out a living.”

Even before the prosecution could get out its objection, Andrews withdrew the question. “I’m done with this witness,” he said.

“NOT GUILTY.”

Becca’s blood pressure spiked as she heard the bite in her father’s voice.

“The jury’s back already?”

“Yeah, while you dashed out for a bite to eat.”

Her fingers tightened on the fast-food bag she had in her hand, supper for the both of them. “Dad, I wasn’t gone—”

But her protest that she had truly been gone for only ten minutes got interrupted by another of his impatient growls. “The federal prosecutor isn’t happy, and neither are the insurance-company suits. This verdict torpedoes their earlier turndown. They aren’t happy in the slightest, Becca. They’re talking about using another firm.”

“Because of one—”

“One verdict? Hell, no. It’s not the verdict that they’re mad about. It’s you.”

“Me?”

“Me?” he mimicked her. “Yes, you. You blew that case. You should have been on that farm, interviewing the workers, interviewing the neighbors. You damn sure should have had the right rainfall figures. That lawyer sliced you up like a deli ham.”

Becca gritted her teeth in an effort to hold her tongue. Not for the first time she asked herself why she wanted this job, why pleasing her dad was so important to her.

Uh, maybe because after the subject of a story you wrote sued you for libel, no other newspaper or magazine would hire you?

It hadn’t been libel. Becca had written the truth in that article, and the target of her investigation just couldn’t stomach it. She’d survived a humiliating lawsuit only to lose the fledging magazine she’d started up. In the countersuit she’d filed, the jury’s decision to award her damages had come too late, and still, Becca had yet to see any money.

She tried to calm down by reminding herself who she was: An award-winning investigative reporter. Her dad had been the one, after his heart attack, to ask her to join his firm. It had seemed like a good idea at the time.

“Dad…you were sick, remember? You were in ICU with your heart attack. I couldn’t be in two places—”

“What I needed you to be doing was looking after the business. But I guess that’s too much to expect from you.”

“That’s not fair! I worked hard, gave you my best effort—”

“If that case was your best effort, then I am expecting too much from you. Honestly, I thought you’d season up. I thought you’d have gotten smarter after—”

Her father stopped in midsentence. He shook his head and turned to head down the empty courthouse corridor.

Becca’s anger bubbled up within her. She could not let her father’s dropped conversation go. “Say it, Dad. You might as well say it. I’m a failure. I’m a disappointment. You took me on only out of pity. Say it. Because that’s what you’re thinking.”

“Thinking? You really want to know?” He whirled around and stabbed a finger in her direction. “I’ll tell you what I’m thinking. I’m thinking I’m a damn fool for ever thinking I could grow you into an investigator. I’m thinking I’m a damn fool for ever thinking you’d be grateful for me bailing your butt out.”

“If you’re referring to the libel suit…and the bankruptcy, why don’t you just spit it out, Dad?”

Her father shot a look around. “If I want a prayer’s chance of saving Ag-Sure as a client, they don’t need to hear even a whisper about you getting sued for libel. But yes, that was what I was talking about. You go into business, start up that—that magazine against my best advice, you get mired in a counter-lawsuit you had no business even filing…”

Becca swallowed. The way he said those things, she might even believe she was a complete flake.

“I won that lawsuit, Dad. And that magazine had a name—Atlanta Insider. Couldn’t you just once call it by its name and not hiss and spit? It was a going business until I had one bad break. It will be again. One day. Just because the judgment is being appealed doesn’t mean I won’t eventually get my money.”

Her father blew out a long breath and looked off into the distance. “Let’s focus on the problem, okay? Right now one of our biggest clients is going south. I just wanted you to do your job. You’re here. You earn a paycheck. You know what to do. I’ve trained you.” He ran a hand through his clipped cut. “You just…lose focus. Even with your own business, half the time you were cutting deals to nonprofits—”

“It was my business, Dad. I got to choose how I billed my time.”

“Right. Well, this is my business, and I say you’ve screwed up for the last time.”

Becca sucked in a breath. “Are you firing me?” The memory of her long series of fruitless job interviews with magazines and newspapers rushed back to her.

“It’d be the smart thing to do. I’d fire any other employee who screwed up like you did.”

“I did not screw—”

“Dammit, take responsibility for this!”

Some men in suits filed out of the courtroom, and Becca saw her father’s eyes track them. She lowered her voice and said, “Dad, you have to believe me…”

“Go home. I’m going to try to save this account. You just…” He gave her a withering look. “Just go home.”

She watched him go after the suits, then she gripped the fast-food bag a little tighter in her hand and bolted for the stairs.

“AW, HONEY, DON’T FRET. You win some, you lose some.”

Gert, the office manager who’d run her father’s life for so many years that she was like part of the family, patted Becca’s arm.

“But, Gert, Dad was right. I did screw up. Those farmers were guilty—all of them—and they got off. I should have seen that delayed-planting defense coming. I’ll bet that county-extension agent was in on it from the get-go. Had to be. I checked as soon as I got loose from that courtroom, and the rest of the reported rainfall in that area was nowhere near as much.”

“Which bothers you more? That they got off…or that your dad was mad at you?”

“You have to ask?” Becca sighed and gazed off into the distance.

“I thought so. Listen, I don’t have to tell you that your dad is a type A personality who doesn’t like to lose. He gets mad. He blows off steam. He gets over it. By tomorrow, he’ll be coming in here like nothing’s wrong.”

“Yeah, right. You forget one little thing, Gert.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“You get to go home. I happen to live with the man.”

Not for the first time did Becca grieve over the loss of her own space. Just two years before she’d had her little house, her business, a future separate from her father’s. Then, bit by bit, she’d lost it all.

First came the libel suit, stemming from a puff-piece-turned exposé on a prominent Atlanta businessman’s not-so-squeaky-clean business practices. Then, just to come on with a strong offense, Becca had countersued with defamation charges. Later, when she’d won the libel suit and a half-million-dollar judgment from the countersuit, she’d counted on the money to help bail her out of bankruptcy.

Only, it hadn’t come. Neither had any job offers from the multitude of weekly and daily papers and magazines she’d applied to. Even if Becca had prevailed, just the fact that she’d been sued was enough to make an editor or publisher wary.

“Your father loves you.”

“Yeah, but that box isn’t on an employee performance review, and you know it.”

Gert didn’t contradict her, but then that was to be expected. They both knew Becca’s father only too well.

Becca slid from the corner of Gert’s desktop and made a beeline for her computer. The one thing that could make her feel better might await her in her in-box.

There it was: an e-mail from Rooster.

You nail that big presentation?

That was all, just that in the subject line. So like Rooster, straight to the point. She’d met him on an online farming community a few months before, and the two of them had hit it off.

“Uh-huh, I heard that sigh. It’s that online fella again, isn’t it?”

Gert’s all-knowing smirk couldn’t take away from Becca’s pleasure.

“If you must know, yes.”

“Sometimes I wonder. Why don’t you go out with a real flesh-and-blood guy?”

“Like I have time.”

“You would if you didn’t stay on the Internet all the time, wasting your life away mooning over some guy who could be a psychopath, for all you know. He could be right here in Atlanta, right across the street with a telescope, casing the joint.”

“Uh, Gert, I think you need to lay off the crime dramas. To put your overactive imagination at rest, Rooster and I agreed a long time ago not to mess things up by trading any identifying info. No real names, no locations, not even the names of pets. Simpler that way.”

“If you say so. Me? I think you’re just afraid of disappointing some other guy besides your dad.”

Gert’s comment hit close to home. Becca fretted at the pang she felt from it.

A part of Becca had been excited to work for her dad. Finally she’d had the chance to earn his approval and help him out with his investigative firm, to show him she could use her journalist skills on this job.

Today had left her feeling the eternal screwup, still haunted by her past bad decisions.

But before she could say anything, the office door opened, letting in a sweltering wave of Georgia heat—and her father.

Her dad’s face was a perfect mirror of the weather.

He approached her desk and slapped down a file folder.

“Your last chance.”

“What?”

“I’m a fair man. The suits at Ag-Sure have given us one more shot at getting things right, so I’m passing on the favor.”

“They want us to reopen the case?”

“No. That ship has sailed. This is another one. It took me a lot of talking to convince them that we wouldn’t make a hash out of this one, too. It’s here in Georgia, about halfway between Macon and Savannah, so you get your butt down I-75 and nail these guys. Fast.”

Gee, Dad. Most fathers would have just said, “I’m sorry for losing my temper.” In her heart, though, Becca knew how hard this was for her dad, how scary it was for him to let her take on a case that could well determine their future with Ag-Sure.

She met Gert’s gaze across the room and took in the office manager’s almost imperceptible nod. Yep, this was as good an apology as she was going to get.

She flipped open the file, scanned it. “Asian dodder vine? I’ve never heard of it.”

“Never been east of the Mississippi, according to the insurance company. But there’s a group of farmers claiming it’s overtaking their cotton like kudzu.”

“But, Dad, how can you fake kudzu?”

“That’s your job to figure it out. Get busy. You’ve got a day to research, and then you’d better be packed and headed south. The insurance company wants to see results…If you don’t, they’ll have our heads on a platter.”

Sunny_76@yoohoomail.com: I’m leaving on a business trip that I have to take, don’t know if I’ll have Internet access, so I may go radio silent for a few days.

Rooster@yoohoomail.com: I thought you just finished up that big project for work? Figured you could take a break.

Sunny_76@yoohoomail.com: I did finish it up, but it sort of imploded on me. I screwed up. So this trip is a penance of sorts.

Rooster@yoohoomail.com: Your job’s not on the line, is it? Because if you’re short on rent money there in the big city, you can always head down here, grab a hoe and remember what it’s like down on the farm.

Sunny_76@yoohoomail.com: I miss being on a farm…well, my grandparents’ farm, at least. Sometimes I wish I could go back.

CHAPTER TWO

“WHOA, LADIES! Easy! No call for fighting!”

But Ryan MacIntosh’s exhortation fell on the deaf ears of a pair of six-year-olds bent on destruction. He pulled back just quick enough to escape a female fist flying for the other’s face.

He made a grab for the fist, saw that the nails were done in a metallic purple nail polish with a constellation of stars. He closed his fingers around the wrist and shoved—as gently as he could—the two girls apart.

Stepping between them, his chest heaving, Ryan struggled for some earthly clue as to what to do next. “Enough!”

“But she started it!”

“She did! She was holding!”

Ryan squelched back his own temper, not an easy thing to do with the August sun beating down on his red hair. He set his jaw and gazed at the upturned faces of the two soccer players.

“Both of you. On the bench.”

When they would have argued with him, he shook his head and pointed toward their respective benches. “Go on and you might get a shot at playing again before the game ends.”

As the girls trudged off the field, Ryan could feel parental wrath lasering in his direction. A fight had to break out on the one game that the referee didn’t show up for.

The other coach shrugged his shoulders and called for a time-out. Ryan indicated for his crew to get a drink. He didn’t have to say it twice. They gathered around the Thermos like cows around a salt lick.

Cows would be easier, he thought. A chuckle brought him back from a momentary image of cows in shin guards, kicking a soccer ball up and down the field.

The chuckle came from Jack MacIntosh, his cousin—and the reason Ryan was here rather than on his John Deere, plowing his sadly neglected back forty.

“What?” he asked.

Jack laughed again. He adjusted the casted leg he had stretched out on a folding chaise lounge. “You nearly got clocked by a six-year-old. Doesn’t say much for your reaction time.”

“Hey. It was supposed to be you out there, remember? I could have left your sorry—” Ryan did a quick edit, mindful of the small fry around him “—rump in a sling after you broke your leg.”

“Begging your pardon, cuz, but you forget that I broke this leg hooking up your satellite antenna.”

True enough. Despite Ryan’s griping he enjoyed coaching soccer. This was Jack’s cup of tea usually, what with Jack’s daughter, Emily, involved in whatever the rec department offered. But since Jack was laid up with a bum leg, Ryan had discovered just what a great feeling it was to coach the kids.

He caught the glowering looks scorching between the two girls involved in the fight and sighed, amending his last thought. He liked coaching soccer—not preventing hand-to-hand combat.

He’d done enough of that earlier in the day dealing with Murphy.

Crooked SOB. Murphy’s words came back to him.

“Some investigator type’s supposed to be coming down here to sign off on these claims, Ryan. Now, don’t muck it up. Just say what you gotta say, keep your mouth shut and we’ll have a check cut before you know it.”

Right. Slugging Murphy probably hadn’t been the smartest thing to do, but the guy just would not take no for an answer. He wanted Ryan neck-deep in his scam, for insurance purposes if nothing else. It didn’t matter that Ryan was as good as an accessory for knowing about the plan, even if he kept his mouth shut.

If I could only be sure Gramps hadn’t been involved.

The Blue Devils coach hollered, “Hey, MacIntosh! You ready to finish up this game?”

Returning to the present, Ryan swigged down a healthy gulp of the orange atrocity he’d gotten from the Thermos. As he headed back for the game, he saw a woman pushing her way through the gate.

Even if she hadn’t been a knockout, he would have noticed her. It was the way she dressed—a lightweight blazer paired with jeans that clung to well-proportioned legs. Who wore a blazer to a kids soccer game in south Georgia?

As he hollered for Emily to throw the ball in, Ryan stole another glance in the new arrival’s direction. Honey-brown hair that would go golden in the summer sun, a little smile playing on her lips, more than a dab of confidence in her walk. This was a woman who knew what she wanted—and where to find it.

Ronnie Frasier’s girl took off on a long drive the wrong way. Ryan hollered for her to stop, but his soccer player never heard him. Instead, the ball went into their own net with frustrating ease.

He stood, moved his cap from his head and used his forearm to wipe away the perspiration that had beaded there. Honestly, this was harder work than getting the harvest in.

If there is any harvest this year.

Ryan pushed the thought from his mind. He glanced over at Jack, saw his cousin talking to the new arrival.

Saw Jack pointing in his direction.

Ryan’s stomach sank. Had to be that private investigator the insurance company had said they were sending.

Just his luck.

But then, he’d had a crop of bad luck for the past six months. If Ryan had believed in karma, he’d be convinced he’d been a scuzzball of the first order in a previous life.

All he’d wanted to do was save his grandfather’s farm and look after Mee-Maw.

And avoid Murphy.

Somehow Ryan didn’t think his goals would mesh with those of the pretty little thing waiting for him on the sidelines.