Total pages in book: 99
Estimated words: 97053 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 485(@200wpm)___ 388(@250wpm)___ 324(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 97053 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 485(@200wpm)___ 388(@250wpm)___ 324(@300wpm)
“He’s not stalking you, is he?”
“No,” I reply. If he was stalking me, he wouldn’t have been so surprised to see me at the diner.
“He’s not our normal fruit-picking type,” Bray says.
“I’m busy, Bray. You need to leave me alone. If you don’t want to hire him, don’t.”
“How do you know him?” he asks.
I sigh, my shoulders sagging. “He’s a friend of Byron’s. Lives in New York. I have no clue why he wants to pick fruit, but if you don’t hire him and I hear you complaining that you don’t have enough help again, I’m going to bury you six feet under.”
“Jesus, Iris, you’re touchy this morning. What crawled up your ass?”
I sigh and spin my chair so I’m facing my brother. “Why are you bothering me? I have things to do. Staffing is your job. Not mine.”
Bray shrugs and heads out. He’s right. It is a little strange that Jack wants to pick fruit, but I was a little short on sleep when he suggested the idea this morning. If Bray hires him, I might sneak out and see what JFK doppelganger, Jack Alden, looks like doing a little manual labor.
Plenty of people would pay good money to see his shirtsleeves rolled up.
I jump in my seat as Bray pops his head around the door again. “If he breaks your heart, I will kill him with my bare hands.”
I grin as I roll my eyes. “Good to know.”
“I’ll tell him to his face. If he doesn’t like it, he can go and wash some dishes at the diner if he needs a day’s work.”
I nod, hoping that’s the end of our conversation. But Bray lingers. “I don’t really know what his circumstances are and everything. But I think you deserve a guy who doesn’t need a job from your brother.”
I tilt my head and look at Bray. We get on each other’s nerves a lot, and we bicker like teenage sisters, but it’s good to be reminded that he loves me.
“Thanks, Bray,” I say, resisting the urge I have to pull him into a hug. “You don’t need to worry.”
He mimes strangling someone, laughs, and then leaves.
By eleven, I’m caught up on all the most urgent things on my desk, and I can’t stop wondering whether Bray actually gave Jack a job for the day.
I come out of the office to see who’s about. Maybe I’ll run into Jack.
Do I want to run into Jack?
Who am I kidding? Of course I want to run into Jack. Even though I’ve been busier than the devil himself, images from last night kept pushing into my brain anytime I wasn’t one hundred percent committed to whatever I was doing. It was easier to pretend that Jack was just some good-looking guy from New York I had a walk with before last night—not that it had been easy. But I’d been able to tell myself that whatever we shared that evening wasn’t anything out of the ordinary.
But last night?
Last night had been anything but ordinary.
He knew my body like he’d designed me himself.
Every touch seemed to bring with it meaning. Like he’d crawled inside my brain and seduced me and then did it all over again with my body.
And I yearned for him.
Yearned to have him in my mouth, to feel him deep within me. To feel his come on my skin. I’d never experienced what it was like to really want a man before Jack. I would have done anything he asked of me last night.
And now? I can feel him between my legs, his teeth on my skin. His mouth on mine.
And I just want more.
I never want to give him up.
It’s stupid. I know it’s a hopeless situation. I know I don’t want to hope for more than I already have. Everything in my brain is telling me to stay as far away from Jack as I can.
But my brain doesn’t have rank over my heart. Apparently.
The barn my office is carved out of is used for stock overflow and right now it’s completely quiet. It’s really only used at the peak of the season. So I head out to see what’s going on.
There are people everywhere. Crates of packed fruit are piled up left and right, waiting to be put on a truck. And I can see pickers heading into the packing barn with the fruit that’s just been picked. Different customers have different packing requirements. But most want the fruit divided into packs that can be taken directly off market shelves. The fruit needs to be sorted through and weighed and those boxes put into crates for shipping.
Everything is picked, packed, and shipped same day. There’s no point in letting picked fruit sit around in the sun to go bad. It’s better staying on the tree or plant.