Community service never looked so good

Monica Accord knows trends, not tractors...fashion, not fertilizer. But she’s stuck working on Noah Cameron’s farm after one mistake lands her with community service. Monica remembers Noah from high school, but she definitely never knew about the crush he had on her. Now it just feels as if she’s some bothersome city slicker.

Yet she soon realizes there’s more growing between her and Noah than just crops—a lot more. As long as the revelation of a family secret doesn’t ruin their chance of a lifetime...

“Here, tell me what you think.”

She held her wrist near his face. He bent to sniff, his lips accidentally touching her warm skin.

He jerked away. Crouching this close to her was hard enough, but his lips touching her? Even a spot as innocent as her wrist, with her blood beating warmly just below the surface.

“What change did I make to my perfume today?”

Wary, because his lust threatened to undo him, but also curious, he leaned close again, damn careful not to make contact.

“Spice. Incredibly subtle.” He sniffed again. “Cinnamon. No, cloves.”

Her smile enhanced the loveliness of the day. “How do you do that? You’re right. It’s cloves. Not much, though, because its scent can overpower everything else.”

She dropped her arm into her lap and he missed her nearness, even though he knelt right beside her. How incredible must it feel to lie beside her?

Dear Reader,

I have always loved stories about the attraction of opposites, about those people who knock us off our feet no matter how hard we resist! We know we shouldn’t be attracted, but *sigh* we are.

Monica and Noah appeared as secondary characters in In from the Cold. I wanted them to have their own stories, but with each other? Never! They were wily, though. They started sneaking around behind my back, then demanded that I write their romance.

Monica is all about designer clothing; Noah wears Birkenstocks and army surplus. She loves fashion magazines; he reads Kierkegaard. She is refined and elegant; he is an environment-loving farmer.

Despite all of his efforts to the contrary, Noah is in love with Monica. The more Monica gets to know Noah, the more trouble she has resisting him. In the end, they fall in love. The attraction of opposites triumphs again.

I hope you enjoy this story! I loved writing it.

Mary Sullivan

Safe in Noah’s Arms

Mary Sullivan

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Despite growing up in a large city, MARY SULLIVAN loves to write about small towns. Maybe because of the countless hours spent as a child listening to her mother’s fascinating stories about life in rural Newfoundland. Since her days working in commercial darkrooms, Mary has gravitated toward careers that require creativity, alone in her own private space. Her interests are simple: cooking, entertaining, reading and long walks on nature trails. And puzzles! She can’t get enough of cryptic crosswords! She loves to hear from readers and can be reached through her website, www.marysullivanbooks.com, where readers can also sign up for her newsletter.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Introduction

Dear Reader

Title Page

About the Author

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

Extract

Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

Standing amid the hustle and bustle swirling around her like a colorful carousel, Monica Accord thought back to when it all started. She wasn’t a violent person, but she thanked her lucky stars that she broke Noah Cameron’s arm all of those years ago.

* * *

THERE WERE THREE kinds of days in Monica Accord’s life—days when she didn’t care, days when she knew she should care and the odd, rare day when she actually did care.

This morning, driving onto Noah Cameron’s organic farm outside of Accord, Colorado, she cared.

Too bad. Life would be easier if she didn’t have a conscience.

She parked beside Noah’s ancient pickup truck, which was next to a big old farmhouse that appeared to be abandoned. White paint peeled from the railing on the veranda. One eaves trough hung askew—it was a forgotten house, the owner off to parts unknown without a backward glance.

Was she at the wrong place? She had understood it to be a working farm.

Yesterday, the court’s directions to the farm had been clear. The address was correct. This had to be the right place, but she couldn’t be sure. Situated as it was down the highway that ran south from Accord, instead of north toward the attraction of Denver’s shopping centers, it ran counter to Monica’s internal compass. She rarely drove out this way.

And no one came out of the farmhouse to greet her.

She glanced at her watch—7:00 a.m. Maybe Noah was already up and out in the fields, or maybe he was already in town at his store. Maybe she wouldn’t have to face him this morning.

She could live with that. The shame burning a hole through her stomach concurred. Though at least the shame was better than emptiness. Something, anything, was better than nothing.

Bewildered, she glanced toward the fields. Ah. There was the proof of a working farm. Meticulously and perfectly tended, and an obvious indication of where the owner put his energy—the fields were cared for a heck of a lot better than the house.

She stepped out of the car and studied the yard. Sorry-looking place.

In yesterday’s courtroom when Judge Easton had intoned, “Guilty of a wet reckless,” and had sentenced her to two hundred hours of community service, she’d thought she would be talking to high school kids about the dangers of drinking and driving.

She would have taken that on happily. Because what she had done last Friday night had been beyond reckless—there was no excuse for drinking and driving.

As her daddy had said after the verdict, “You don’t make mistakes often, sweetheart, but when you do, they sure are doozies.” He’d softened it with a hug before walking out and leaving her to pay her five-hundred-dollar fine. Fair enough. It had been her mistake and hers alone.

Lecturing kids would have made sense.

But no-o-o-o. Judge Easton had given her a far tougher sentence.

This whole terrible experience had moved with mind-numbing speed, as though she was caught in a vortex. Was she the only person who’d done something wrong last weekend? She’d committed a crime on Friday night and, boom, she was in a courtroom a few days later. She’d barely had time to hire herself a lawyer, but then, the facts were not in dispute. She had been drinking. She had run down Noah on his bike and had broken his arm. She’d heard he also had plenty of scrapes and bruises.

She shivered. She was lucky she hadn’t killed the man.

The judge sentenced her yesterday and, boom, she was to start right away. Today. Was it a slow point in crime or did Noah have some kind of pull with the courts?

The whole town knew Noah as an ethical guy. Truly, she didn’t think he’d do anything like pull strings.

If anyone had pull, it was the Accords, not the Camerons. Not that they’d ever used it. She strongly doubted the justice system in Montana was corruptible.

Was this rush because of the time of year and the fact that Noah needed help immediately? She imagined June must be a busy month for a farmer. Maybe that was the real and simple answer.

So here she was, serving all two hundred hours on Noah’s farm, near him, with him. Crazy old judge. What did he think Monica knew about farming?

She’d expected to have to atone, but with Noah? Pure, simple torture.

Why couldn’t it have been anyone other than arrogant, holier-than-thou Noah Cameron on that dark road last Friday night, he of the über-huge brain who lorded it over others every chance he got?

They had gone to high school together, him one year behind her, but even then she’d been intimidated by the massive mind lurking inside the hippie exterior.

From her youngest days, she’d been made to feel inadequate by him.

Even worse, these days she worked for his mother. And Olivia Cameron wasn’t the least bit happy that Monica had hurt her precious Noah.

Didn’t anyone—the judge, Olivia, Noah, the townspeople—get that she would never intentionally hurt anyone, least of all someone she would happily never have to deal with for the rest of her life?

For years, she’d pushed the guy off her radar, but now she couldn’t avoid him. She had to spend the next couple of months with him—her entire summer—all because of a mistake fueled by loneliness. Still, she knew there were no excuses.

She approached the nearest field with trepidation. Ha! She’d bet Noah would never believe she even knew a word like trepidation, let alone its meaning and how to use it properly.

Stepping over a couple of puddles, more miserable than she’d been at any time in the five years since Billy’s death, she moaned low in her throat. A bird somewhere nearby sang in response.

She should have worn sturdier shoes. Rubber boots, maybe. Problem was, she didn’t own any. Until yesterday, she’d never owned a pair of jeans, either. She didn’t do denim.

Across a long field of swirling dirt in leftover patches of early-morning mist, to a stand of trees in the distance, plants dotted rows of dark earthen hills like tiny green hieroglyphics, a foreign language she would have to learn by immersion—and fast. Sink or swim.

She used to be that new, that green and full of promise, like those plants. Where had it all gone?

Fascinated by their burgeoning vulnerable beauty, she squatted and rubbed a tender leaf between her fingers, both the plant and the soil still cool in the early day.

Babies scared her. Small helpless creatures terrified her. These soft plants intimidated her. What if she killed them?

If she bent over and walked down the rows with her palms outstretched, she could read them like braille, but she still wouldn’t understand their needs, or how to keep them alive. She still wouldn’t know how to farm.

Her lawyer had told her not to worry, that Noah would guide her.

She wouldn’t be surprised if Noah kicked her off the farm upon first sight. In the pit of her stomach, that blasted recurring shame stabbed at her with a hot poker. Her tummy had been doing somersaults all morning.

She didn’t want to be here, to have to face the man she’d hurt.

She touched the plant closest to her.

“How do I help you to grow?” she whispered.

Against the bright green, her hands screamed “pampered,” her nails manicured with OPI’s Not So Bora Bora-ing Pink. These hands that had never gardened—had never even tended a houseplant—had to learn how to dig around in the dirt.

What had the judge been thinking?

What on earth did one night of loneliness and one drink too many have to do with farming?

She spotted Noah across the field, watching her, red hair blazing in the sunlight. Noah, she’d noticed, presented two faces to the world—the happy, easygoing hippie and the über-intelligent, fierce activist.

At the moment, he’d added a third. Angry farmer—directed at her.

The heat that had roiled in her belly all morning crawled up her chest and into her throat, choking her.

Her mind refused to remember what she saw Friday night, but echoing sounds gathered, drowning out the nearby bird’s sweet melody. The screech of her tires on wet pavement. The awful thud of Noah hitting her car. The shattering of her windshield and tinkling of glass raining down on her in the driver’s seat.

The silence of Noah’s prone body.

She didn’t want to be here.

* * *

A WILDFIRE RAGED inside of Noah.

His right arm ached from overuse.

His left arm itched inside the cast.

He needed to be able to work whole, unhindered. Almost as badly, he needed to wring that pampered, rich, entitled woman’s neck.

Since last Friday night, he’d cursed Monica Accord from here to the Pacific Ocean, but his anger still hadn’t cooled.

He didn’t want to see her today, didn’t want her on his farm infecting the goodness here with her shallowness, but what choice did he have?

The prosecutor had consulted with him before requesting the sentence for Monica; otherwise, they would have been inflicting the offender on the poor, hapless victim. Which wouldn’t have been right. And he’d agreed with their decision.

He might not want Monica here, but he needed her, and he found the sentence fitting, forcing her to learn exactly how hard this job was, and how much her selfish act of drinking and then getting behind the wheel of her car had set him back.

He had told the courts that, yes, he would have her here to serve her community service.

Let her get her precious hands dirty for a change. Daddy couldn’t buy her way out of this fix.

He knew he was being hard on her, but he had a right to be.

He tore out a couple of weeds and tossed them into the pail by his side, seething with an anger that hadn’t abated even a fraction since the accident.

He hated this. He wasn’t an angry man. Passionate? Oh, yeah. Angry? Nah. He left that for other people. He was a lover, not a fighter, but man, he wished he had a heavy bag to punch for an hour or two. He needed to vent, badly.

Trouble was, it would amplify that he had only one useful arm.

He flexed his neck to ease the tension that had lodged there like a recalcitrant tree stump, going nowhere no matter how hard he tried to yank it out.

Stop. This doesn’t do you any good.

Filling his lungs with the fresh scent of morning dew, he tried to clear his mind. Usually, not much got him down at this glorious time of day—not worries, not memories.

He’d already been out here weeding for two hours, the drill usually as calming as yoga or meditation. Even so, rage flexed its fists in his chest, pummeling his ribs, beating up on him from the inside out.

He didn’t need this.

An engine sounded in the distance, then in his driveway. He heard it because he’d been waiting for it.

She was here.

He dropped his spade and stood—it was a real struggle to rein in his emotions. Useless exercise. Fury flooded his veins. Every last item of produce he grew was destined for a food kitchen in Denver, or for families living miles around who had fallen on hard times.

Now this—a broken left arm and too much work to do alone in his current state. Whatever didn’t get grown and harvested couldn’t be eaten by those in need.

Why couldn’t it be anyone but Monica here to help him? At the moment, he’d take aid from a goat if it was a viable option to get more accomplished. He really didn’t want to deal with that woman.

Court-appointed or not, help was help. He glanced toward the driveway and his breath backed up in his throat.

Monica Accord stepped out of her baby blue BMW convertible, cool and composed, pale blond hair in place, long legs encased in designer jeans, a Victoria’s Secret model and Sports Illustrated swimsuit-issue model rolled into one. A classy one.

Monica Accord could no more do trashy than the Pope could break-dance.

She walked toward one of his fields, stepping close to his rows of new radish plants, a puzzled frown furrowing her otherwise perfect brow. He tracked her progress, ’cause the thing with Monica was that walk was too normal a verb to describe her movement. Monica did nothing so mundane as walk. She glided, floating with a lithe elegance that mere mortals couldn’t imitate.

God, she was gorgeous with the sun running warm rays over her skin as though infatuated with her.

Who wasn’t?

His heart boomeranged inside his chest, beating hard enough to hurt. Twenty years after leaving high school, she was still the golden girl, and he was still the guy who had an unrequited crush on her— disgusting in a rational thirty-seven-year-old man.

He tossed his spade into the pail with the weeds.

Still a fool.

He needed his wits about him. Sure, he was a smart guy, but Monica Accord could scramble his brain in creative ways.

She bent over and touched a plant. Her lips moved. She was talking to it? Wasn’t that a little New Agey for Monica?

Wrapping his anger around himself like a protective shield, he approached. She noticed him. He glared and watched guilt heat a path up her neck and into her cheeks. Good. She was the reason he was in this hellish predicament.

A swift glance at the cast on his arm had color infusing her face. When she noticed the healing scabs on his forehead, she winced.

When he reached her, she said, “I’m truly sorry.” No “hi” or “how’s it going?” She sounded abject and looked miserable. Good. She had screwed him royally.

There wasn’t one ounce of compassion or forgiveness in him for her.

“Y-y-y-ou have any id-d-d—” He hissed in a breath, furious. Not this again! Stuttering, for God’s sake. He’d worked his butt off to overcome his affliction, but a split second in Monica’s rarefied company and a bad case of stupefying adoration threatened to lock his tongue.

Steeling his nerves, he pulled himself together and started again.

“You have any idea what you’ve done to me?” He hated the victim-like sound of that “to me,” but said it anyway, skipping the niceties and gesturing with the cast. “You have any idea how much trouble you’ve caused me?”

“I can only imagine, Noah.”

“No, you can’t,” he snapped and was gratified when she flinched. He’d pierced her cool elegance. Since early adolescence, her effortless physical grace had mocked his gangly limbs, old clothes and wild hair. He’d grown up since then, had added muscle in all the right places, courtesy of hard work. His thin face had matured; his jaw had hardened. He refused to cater to fashion or vanity and yet, women found him attractive. Except for Monica, of course. He had the worst desire to crash through her facade and break down her boundaries, to make her as human as the rest of the world.

As human as me.

“I can’t get my work done.” Bitterness churned up from his belly like acid reflux. “You’ve screwed me at my busiest time of year.”

Had she ever once in her life thought of anyone other than herself?

“You’ve got big amends to make. Huge.”

Hurt lingered in her eyes and he fought the urge to soften his words because he wasn’t mad at just her. He was furious with himself because even after the nightmare of her hitting him with her car and breaking part of his body, his knee-jerk, teenaged reaction to her was to turn to jelly.

Some boys never grew up where some girls were concerned.

Those boyhood memories, those significant moments of teenage mortification, rose too close to the surface. She had never been intentionally cruel. He just hadn’t existed for her, in her world—not even on the periphery of it. What boy wants to be invisible to a beautiful girl?

Back then he’d been a tall redhead, growing like a weed. How could he possibly have been invisible to her?

That wasn’t all of the truth, though, was it? There had been that one time when she’d seen him and had been cruel. Intentionally? He didn’t know.

There’d been a gaggle of pretty girls standing in the hallway at their lockers when he had walked by. He had thought of them as worldly fourteen-year-olds to his thirteen-year-old unsophisticated self, aggressive in his opinions because without them he was just...awkward.

Monica—tall, gorgeous and perfect in every way—had been in the center of the whirling vortex of giggling femininity.

One of the girls had pointed to him and whispered something to Monica. She’d glanced his way, coolly, because that’s how she did everything—with calm self-assurance.

His ever-hopeful young self had thought, This is it. Monica Accord is finally going to acknowledge me, and talk to me!

After that one brief glance, she had turned away, dismissing him and leaving him to feel invisible again. And after a word to her friends that had set them off giggling, he became worse than invisible. He was shunned and ignored and left to feel worthless.

He didn’t know what mean or unkind remark she had said about him, but his hatred of her had started that day. Problem was, it was worse than pure hatred. It was love-hate from afar and he was a fool for still falling under her spell, especially when he clearly still meant nothing to her.

He knew he meant less than nothing to her because, since high school, she’d spent the better part of her adult life ignoring him, except for that damned polite little smile the odd time when their paths crossed. And that he could do without.

In the grand scheme of things, this was peanuts. In his work with the poor and needy, especially in New Orleans after Katrina, he had seen true hardship. He had no illusions this wasn’t on the list of the worst things that could happen to a guy, he knew that, but it had happened during those impressionable, early adolescent years, a time fraught with raging new feelings.

As it turned out, it had been a pivotal event that had shaped his life for years to come.

Her behavior on the previous weekend, drinking and driving, cemented what he had always known about her—Monica Accord was still as self-centered and self-indulgent as ever. The town might accept her goody-two-shoes image, but he knew better.

The cast on his arm and his bruised ribs told a more accurate story.

So, no, he had no use for her, but today he required her help. No choice. It put him in the impossible position of needing her, but not wanting her.

Her gaze dropped, and then shot back to his face. “You’re wearing socks...with sandals.”

“So what?”

“It’s so unfashionable.”

“Seriously?” Still an airhead, believing that fashion was more important than anything. What about poverty? Need? What about war? What about—? Ah, hell, none of it mattered to Monica.

“It’s chilly in the mornings.” That he sounded defensive further inflamed his irritation. “My toes freeze if I don’t wear socks.” Crazy woman. What the heck difference did it make? “So? How many hours did they give you for a DWAI?”

“Two hundred for a wet reckless.”

“They dropped the driving with ability impaired?” he asked, incredulous. Once again the rich got favors while the common man was screwed. “Why? Did you get a break because you’re one of the mighty Accords?”

The delicacy of her frown bothered him. Was there anything Monica did that wasn’t attractive? “Not exactly, Noah. In fact, Dad wasn’t happy when Judge Easton took his seat to preside over my sentencing. He said I was lucky he hadn’t made things worse, not better.” She fiddled with the hem of her shirt. She was nervous? Couldn’t be. Not Monica. “I don’t know why it got knocked down. You’d have to ask my lawyer how he reduced the charge. He worked it all out.”

Despite what Monica’s father had told her, he and the judge were cronies. Had to be. What else would it have been? Once again, money talked, and that made him livid. “Your lawyer? Don’t you mean your daddy’s lawyer?” He was being sarcastic and cutting, and he didn’t like that in himself, but God, he was mad. At a time when he needed to be strong in order to get massive amounts of work done, she’d turned him into half a man. Helplessness fueled his outrage.

As an awkward kid trying to come to grips with bones that were growing too quickly for his muscles to keep up, he’d been beat on by a group of nasty boys, repeatedly. Day in and day out, they would hold him down while Kenny Rickard whaled on him.

Helpless to defend himself, he’d grown to hate that feeling.

He wouldn’t complain, though. He’d never once snitched.

Over time, he had grown into his bones and his gangly limbs had filled out. These days, at six-one and two hundred pounds of lean muscle, he could fight anyone who tried to hurt him, but Monica Accord could still bring him to his knees with nothing more than a glance. Plus, she’d handicapped him physically.

Worst thing she could have done to him was to make him feel helpless.

“You broke my arm.” Lame. She already knows that, Cameron.

Her pretty lips thinned. “For God’s sake, not on purpose.” She sounded angry.

Good. Welcome to my world.

He stepped closer. “Let’s get something straight. I’m not happy about you being here, but you caused this—” he pointed to the cast “—so I’m going to work the daylights out of you. Farming is a tough, physical business, so be prepared to work like you’ve never worked before for your mandated two hundred hours.”

A woman like Monica would never have volunteered for such a job.

Disgusted, he growled, “Let’s get started. Follow me.”

He turned away, but she touched his good hand to stop him. Fireworks zinged up his arm.

“Okay, Noah, you want to clear the air? Fine.” He’d never heard her sound so hard. “I’m not any happier about this than you are. I hate that I broke your arm. I don’t like hurting people.”

She took a deep breath, to calm herself he assumed, but what the hell did she have to be angry about? She hadn’t been injured in the accident. “I’ve never driven drunk before—never—but as my lawyer said, it takes only one time for something bad to happen. I’m sorry I hit you. I will pay to replace your bicycle. I’ve already offered more than once.”

“It was vintage. It can’t be replaced.”

“Well, I’m going to try. Give me all the details you can and I’ll track one down.” She tilted her head to one side. “Or can yours be fixed?”

“It’s in bad shape. You really hit me hard. We’re both lucky all I got was a broken arm. You could have killed me.”

He wasn’t sure, but he thought she shivered.

“Maybe you have a conscience, after all,” he conceded. “In my experience, rich people rarely do.”

“Stereotype much, Noah?”

“As I said, I’ve come by it honestly. Through experience.”

One long-fingered hand rubbed her stomach. What was that about? “I am really, truly sorry. I don’t know how many more times I can say it. Let’s move forward from here, okay? Show me what I need to do to help you.”

So, the spoiled girl knew how to be reasonable. Okay, he could be, too.

“Do you know how to farm?”

“Nope.”

“Do you keep houseplants?”

“Never.”

“Do you know anything about plants?”

“Nada.”

“Oh, crap.” Visions of how useful she would be to him evaporated like the last vestiges of morning dew dried up by the sun. He stared at Monica in her designer jeans and absolutely useless loafers.

His silly dreams of a capable helper came to a screeching halt. She was going to be useless to him—even less so than he’d imagined.

None of his friends or family had the time to help him out, and he couldn’t afford to hire employees.

Instead, he was stuck with Monica Accord.

What made it all truly rotten was that despite despising everything that Monica stood for—her princess-in-an-ivory-tower lifestyle, her frivolity, her designer clothing that embodied crass consumerism, her uselessness—Noah still felt those awful pangs, the ones he’d had in high school that had been worse than the growing pains in his long legs, worse than the way the other kids made fun of his retro clothing and taunted him his fervent fights to save the environment. He still felt those awful, unwelcome and debilitating pangs of unrequited puppy love.

For two hundred long, long hours, he would be stuck with Monica, golden goddess, former cheerleader and prettiest prom queen Accord High had ever seen.

As he led her around to the back porch of the house to hunt down a pair of rubber boots that might fit her, he said it again, with feeling. “Oh, crap.”

* * *

FOR THE FOURTH time in the two hours Monica had been weeding, Noah yelled at her.

“What are you doing?” Along with his harsh shout came a shadow that cut off light.

Behind his head, the sun created a halo around Noah’s too-long red hair. Wisps of it had escaped his ponytail and curled in the heat.

“That’s not a weed,” he cried. “It’s a radish.”

Rats. She’d screwed up again. Cramming it back into the earth, she shoved soil around the roots with shaking hands. She’d been pulling up too many plants. She just couldn’t tell them apart. She wished she could. Contrary to what Noah seemed to think, she didn’t like screwing up, especially when he’d drilled into her that she was wasting food.

“It will be okay.” She picked up the pail beside her and watered the radish. “Honest, I’ll check it again tomorrow to make sure it survived.”

He crouched down, too close. Noah had grown up well. Really well. His eyes sparkled like bright green gems. The man exuded a lot of heat. His mouth, a flat slash that divided his red mustache and beard, signaled his disapproval. Usually when she saw him around town, his lips were full and on the verge of an ever-ready smile—not that she’d noticed.

“No, Monica, it won’t recover from being yanked out of the soil when it’s still so young. Would you recover?”

Abruptly, he stood and stomped away, clearly agitated, but spun back and moved close to her again. “Every plant that dies is food that doesn’t make it to someone’s plate. Understand?”

“I know. You’ve already told me a million times since I got here.”

“You know nothing about hunger or poverty. All you’ve ever known is privilege.”

Why did he take such pleasure in making her feel ashamed of who she was? “I get it, Noah. I truly do.” Monica stood, because she didn’t like that he was taller than her at the best of times, let alone when she was kneeling in the dirt. “Whether or not you choose to believe me, I’m trying my hardest to do a good job.”

She took off her sun hat and wiped her forehead with her sleeve. It came away damp with sweat. “You have to understand how new this is to me, Noah.” She touched his arm, but he pulled away, so she dropped her hand to her side. Even before she’d hit him on Friday night, he’d always seemed to go out of his way to avoid her. Why did he dislike her so much? “I want to get this right. I really do. Okay?”

“Okay,” he muttered, but she had the sense it wasn’t, that there was something going on beneath the surface that Noah wasn’t explaining to her—something she couldn’t figure out on her own.

It messed with her nerves so she gave up trying. “I have to leave. I start work in forty-five minutes and I have to wash up first.” She took a small pink notebook and matching pen out of her back pocket and wrote down a sentence indicating she’d put in her first two hours of her sentence. She handed the book to him. “Initial here, please.”

“Aren’t you the organized little beaver?” Ignoring the pen, he fished a pencil stub out of his jeans and scrawled his initials across the page, a messy slash beside her tidy script.

She held back a knee-jerk response, totally getting that he had a right to be angry, but his sarcasm hurt. She rose above it by ignoring it. One of them had to be the adult here.

“Write down all of the details about your bike, too.”

When he’d finished and handed the notebook back to her, she said, “I’ll be back tomorrow morning at the same time.”

She trudged to her car, tired already, and she still had to put in a full day at work.

With Noah’s hot gaze burning through the shirt on her back, she started the car and drove away.

Once in town, she detoured to her apartment to shower and change for work. It wasn’t quite ten and here she was having her second shower of the day.

She threw on a bit of makeup then ran out the door.

For over a year now, Monica had been working at The Palette, the only art shop in town. She stepped through the doorway and found the gallery cool, a godsend after the past two hours spent under the hot sun.

The owner, Olivia Cameron, Noah’s mom, stood talking to one of the sculptors whose work they stocked. Gorgeous Aiden McQuorrie had his focus squarely centered on Olivia. Even though she was fifteen years his senior, she held him in sway. Monica sighed. So romantic. Everyone in town knew they were getting it on every chance they got. In the year since Olivia had started to date Aiden, after much persuasion on Aiden’s part to get her over her reluctance because of their age difference, she had blossomed.

Monica smiled. Understandably, Aiden was Olivia’s favorite sculptor.

When Aiden stepped past Monica to leave, his glance sympathetic—he knew how angry Olivia was with her—he squeezed her arm then left the gallery.

Olivia approached, every beautifully dyed strand of hair in place, her peach suit expensive and understated—her sophisticated demeanor a sharp contrast to Aiden’s rough-hewn, restless energy.

Another case of the attraction of opposites, like me and Billy.

Olivia, a former housewife, had started the art gallery years ago and, through determination and sheer grit, had nurtured it into a successful enterprise.

Oh, how Monica admired her. She would love to be a businesswoman, but had no idea what kind of business she would start.

Working on commission in an art gallery and living on a small widow’s benefit, Monica didn’t have a lot of money, wasn’t married and didn’t have children, nor did she really have a career. In short, she was floating through life, about as aimless as a leaf drifting on the surface of a stream.

She certainly wasn’t directing her life toward any place she wanted to go.

Olivia glared at Monica. It was all too much—first her son and now her. Monica’s nerves jangled like someone plucking loose guitar strings. Olivia had been cool with her since she’d run down her son last week.

It made Monica’s heart ache because she truly liked Olivia. They’d become good friends. Monica had—dare she think it?—begun to see Olivia as a mother figure.

Now the relationship suffered because of Monica’s flawed decisions on Friday night. Monica couldn’t be more grateful to Olivia for giving her a job, for showing faith in her, but Olivia had also gifted her with friendship...only to now withdraw it.

It hurt.

Monica stifled her longing for things to be normal. She had loved spending time with Olivia on their monthly spa days. She would secretly pretend she had a mom she could hang out with.

The sadness of that loss overwhelmed her. It left a heaviness in her heart more burdensome than the guilt she felt when she was with Noah. She wanted her affectionate relationship with Olivia back. She turned away to surreptitiously wipe her damp eyes.

Struggling to make amends, she said, “I’m sorry I’m late, Olivia.”

“How did it go in court yesterday?” Olivia asked, her tone too cold for Monica’s liking. “Everything okay?”

“I have to perform two hundred hours of community service.”

Monica straightened a painting. She genuinely loved the shop and the art they sold. A little more challenge in her job wouldn’t hurt, but at least this brought in a paycheck. “My lawyer plea-bargained down from a driving with ability impaired to a wet reckless.”

Olivia’s mouth thinned. She didn’t like the break Monica’s lawyer had managed to negotiate any better than Noah had, but then she was a mother bear concerned for her cub. Monica just wished Mama Bear wasn’t also her boss.

“Community service?” Olivia asked. “There’s nothing like that available in Accord. Where do you have to go? Denver?”

“Noah’s farm. I have to grow plants.”

A mean little smile tugged at the corners of Olivia’s mouth. “You have to farm?”

Oh, dear. It looked like Olivia was going to enjoy Monica’s discomfort just as much as Noah. “I don’t know a thing about farming and now I have to help Noah grow his vegetables. Yes. I have to farm.”

Olivia’s glance took in the sleeveless sage linen dress and the rose pumps Monica had donned in a hurry a few minutes ago.

“Good luck.” The hard edge of Olivia’s voice saddened Monica even while she tried to cut Olivia some slack.

“I was already there this morning pulling up plants instead of weeds. They all look the same to me. Noah was angry.” Monica crossed her arms and grasped her elbows. She knew she sounded unhappy, but there wasn’t much she could do about it. What had the judge been thinking? She needed to talk to Daddy, to find out why he’d groaned when Judge Easton had entered the courtroom yesterday morning. Unless Monica had it wrong, there was history between the two of them—and now she was paying the price.

Olivia’s glance skimmed Monica again. “Do you even own a pair of jeans?”

“Of course,” she said, but relented and told the truth. “I bought a pair yesterday after I left the courtroom.”

“You’ll still need to keep your full-time hours.”

“I’ll put in all of my hours. No problem, Olivia.” She didn’t ask her dad for help these days. She was trying really hard to get by on her own. It had taken her years to learn that self-sufficiency provided rewards far greater than material goods.

She’d stopped shopping as a hobby a couple of years ago. The dress and shoes she wore today were a few years old. Fortunately, her style was classic and she took care of her clothes.

Olivia led her to the office in the back. “Noah works on his farm for four hours every morning before he comes into town to open the army surplus store.”

That ugly old thing. The town should demolish it. Force it to shut down. All of the other shops on Main Street had spruced up their storefronts to bring in tourists. Why shouldn’t he have to, as well?

Her mind went back to what Olivia had said. So Noah had already been out weeding for a couple of hours before Monica had arrived this morning? Insane. “Four hours? Before he opens the store? What time does he get up?”

“As far as I know about five.”

“As in a.m.?”

Compelled, she did the math. Two hundred hours. If she went to the farm for two hours in the morning before coming to work—no way was she getting up at five—it would take her one hundred days to complete her service, if she worked there every day. More than three months, and she would have to work longer hours on her days off to make up the time faster. A little faint, she leaned against the wall.

Olivia grasped Monica’s arm. “You try real hard to make it work, to make up for how much you hurt him.” She picked up her purse. “I’m running across the street for a coffee.”

The slamming front door put an exclamation point to her exit.

She’d left without offering to bring back something for Monica, unheard of in their relationship to date.

As Monica had already done a dozen times this morning, she rubbed a hand over her roiling tummy.

Making amends was a heck of a lot harder than it looked.

CHAPTER TWO

“CAN YOU BELIEVE this whole cockeyed situation?” Noah asked Audrey and Laura when he arrived at Laura’s café for lunch. They were crowded into Laura’s office in the back behind the kitchen. “I’m stuck with Monica Accord on the farm.”

He and his best friend, Audrey Stone, ate together most days, either at her flower shop or at Noah’s Army Surplus, and took turns bringing food. He’d chosen the bakery today so he could vent to both his best friend and his sister.

“She broke your arm,” Laura said, patting her brother’s cast. “It was the best solution. She can be of use to you on the farm.”

“Ha! She threw a bunch of weeds onto the compost heap even after I’d told her they belong in the garbage. How is that useful?”

“She might become better at it than you think.” Laura pushed her long hair back over her shoulder. She’d inherited a more subdued version of their father’s red hair than Noah had.

“Are you kidding? She overwatered the turnips so I can’t water them tomorrow. She didn’t water the radishes enough, so I have to water them again this evening. I need less work, not more.” He banged his fist on Laura’s desk, rattling a bunch of papers, a soup ladle and a bag of cloth diapers delivered by her service. “The woman’s too stupid to know a rake from a curling iron.”

Laura stood abruptly and picked up the diapers. “I have to go. It’s feeding time and I’m ready to burst.”

Noah perked up. “How’s Pearl doing?” Flat-out chuffed to be a brand-new uncle, his curiosity about and fascination with his niece grew with each passing day.

“Growing by leaps and bounds.” Laura tucked the diapers under her arm and picked up the soup ladle to return it to the kitchen. “Who left this here?”

“Probably you.” Noah laughed. Laura left a trail of cooking utensils wherever she went. The woman was as passionate about preparing food as he was about growing it.

“You two stay here and finish your lunch.” Resting her hand on Noah’s shoulder, Laura said, “Give Monica a chance. I almost lost Nick by judging on appearances and past behavior. People grow, Noah. They change.”

After Laura left the room, Noah finished his quinoa salad and felt Audrey watching him the whole time. He knew why. Monica used to be married to Audrey’s brother, Billy Stone, until he died in Afghanistan. She probably felt some kind of loyalty to Monica.

“I’d rather do anything this summer than teach spoiled Monica to farm,” he said, disgust coloring his tone far more than the situation warranted. “It’s distasteful to me.”

“I understand, Noah, but be careful you don’t make assumptions that are unfounded,” she said. “Or based on clichés about rich women and Monica’s blond good looks. You’ve had a bad string of luck with women.”

When he opened his mouth to object, she raised her hand. “Don’t worry. I won’t bring up the elephant in the room.”

The elephant in the room was that Noah had always chosen women who had an uncanny resemblance to Monica, and who were just as wealthy.

It confounded him that he would choose women like her. “That’s all been nothing more than coincidence.”

“Really? Deirdre? New Orleans? A dead ringer for Monica.”

Noah was angry instantly. He’d put a lot of energy into forgetting Deirdre and her betrayal. He didn’t need Audrey bringing it up now.

“Don’t go there, Audrey.”

“Deirdre might have looked like Monica, but Monica is nothing like that woman.”

“Okay, so I showed poor judgment. I won’t again. Okay?”

Unfazed by his anger, Audrey urged, “Everybody underestimates Monica. Just don’t let your bias have you judging her wrongly.”

Both Audrey and Noah had been on the receiving end of the false assumptions that people made based on flimsy evidence—Audrey because of the way she chose to dress in retro forties and fifties clothing, and Noah because of the same thing—the way he chose to dress—and also because of the green, organic lifestyle he lived. He would probably fit in better in a big city than in rural Colorado.

But in Colorado, he got to grow things, to plant seeds and produce something out of nothing that could feed those in need...and it was the best feeling on earth.

In high school, he and Audrey had bonded as the misfits who didn’t dress like others. They’d been best buds ever since.

“Noah, you weren’t too hard on her, were you?”

With one hand, he wrestled his empty Mason jar into his cooler bag, avoiding her gaze. “I wasn’t patient with her,” he admitted, but, compelled to defend himself continued, “For Pete’s sake, Audrey, every time I look at her I still get tongue-tied. When she showed up at the farm this morning, I actually stuttered!”

Her eyebrows shot up. “That bad? Still?”

“Yeah. It’s still that bad. When’s the last time you heard me stutter? It’s like I’m thirteen years old again! And for what? For a spoiled, ditzy blonde.” So, yeah, he’d been harsh, but that was a whole lot better than stuttering.

“Noah, don’t call her names. You forget that Monica is family,” Audrey admonished.

Chastened, he calmed himself and said, “I do. I often forget. I’m sorry. It’s just that I’ve never understood how you two could be so different and yet get along so well.”

“First, it’s because she’s not quite who you think she is, and second, because we both lost our mothers when we were so young. Mine when I was five, but poor Monica in childbirth. She never even knew hers.”

“And this helped how?”

When Audrey hesitated to share, Noah bumped her shoulder with his. “I’m just trying to understand this space alien who’s tearing up my radishes.”

Audrey huffed out a laugh and then grew serious. “Okay. Here goes. Losing a parent so early leaves a hollow spot in your life along with a low-grade sadness. It doesn’t matter how deeply you bury the sadness, it’s still there. Often, you feel like you don’t have anyone to talk to about it, even your other parent. My dad was grieving, too, but didn’t know how to express it.”

“What about Billy?”

“I think he dealt with it by ignoring it, by surrounding himself with friends. By becoming the class clown and making sure that everyone, including himself, was always laughing. Plus, when it happened, he was older and less dependent on Mom than I was.”

“That makes sense.” Noah picked at his egg sandwich. “Monica felt that way, too?”

“Yes. She also understood that it makes you different from your classmates and friends who still have both parents. Mother’s Day is particularly hard.”

Finished with her salad, Audrey passed him her empty jar. “Knowing that someone else in the world understood how I felt gave me a measure of comfort, even though I was already a teenager by then.”

“Okay,” Noah conceded. “She might have more depth than I’ve given her credit for, but she pulled up eight of my baby radishes before I caught her. It frustrates me, Audrey. That’s food that won’t make it onto some hungry person’s plate.”

Audrey sobered. He knew she admired his passion for feeding the needy. Of all of the people in his life, she truly understood him.

“She said she thought they were weeds,” he continued. “They were the only plants in a row I’d already weeded.”

“Sounds like a problem with communication.”

“Yeah, there was definitely a problem. I communicated. She didn’t listen.”

He stared at Audrey, begging her to understand how screwed he was.

“What am I going to do about her, Audrey? I’m thirty-seven years old, a sane and reasonable grown man, but I’ll be seeing her nearly every day this summer and I might as well be back in high school.” He added miserably, “Déjà vu all over again.”

* * *

AT LUNCHTIME, MONICA headed to the bar at the end of Main Street, knowing her father had his midday meal there every day. She wanted to question him about his relationship with the judge.

She’d tried to contact him last night, but he’d been out and hadn’t been answering his cell, leaving her with the strange suspicion he was avoiding her.

In the courtroom yesterday, she’d been upset by the judge’s lack of professionalism. His sly looks, the pleasure he seemed to take in convicting her, had irked her and yet, he had agreed to the plea bargain that got her sentence reduced. So confusing. She meant to get to the bottom of it.

The scents of fried food made her mouth water, but Monica was watching her figure.

When she slid into the booth across from her dad, he didn’t seem surprised to see her.

She ordered a cup of coffee with skim milk and a toasted bagel with light cream cheese. Her father picked up his glass of Scotch to drain its contents, looking everywhere but at her. Curious.

“What was that all about?” Monica asked.

“What?” He stared at a point behind her left shoulder.

“You know what, Daddy. I heard the noise you made when Judge Easton entered the courtroom and sat on the bench. When he passed down my sentence, he actually smirked.”

Milton Ian Accord rattled the ice cubes in his glass. He hated his first name. Everyone in town knew him as Ian. Why on earth the Accord family used such old-fashioned names was beyond Monica. Monica. Case in point. An old-fashioned name.

They used names of ancestors that had been handed down from generation to generation. She supposed it was simply tradition.

Ian carried his age well, but signs of unhappiness, of discontentment, hovered around a sullen mouth. Whatever was bothering him had come on lately, but he wouldn’t share it with her.

She stared at him hard. She wasn’t going away. He finally gave in. “Gord Easton and I went to high school together.”

“High school?” That old man and her dad?

He nodded.

“Same grade?”

Another nod.

“That’s hard to believe. He looks a lot older than you.”

“Gord likes sun, whiskey and cigars, and has the money to indulge as much as he wants.” Tone derisive, he glanced around as though checking to make sure the man wasn’t sitting nearby. Was the drink making him paranoid? Lately, there’d been a lot of this furtive checking-his-surroundings behavior. He wouldn’t respond to direct questions about it, though, and Monica had run out of ideas to get out of him what was going on.

“He pampers himself with regular visits to the spa,” Ian continued, “but with his lifestyle, it’s like throwing a coat of paint on a house that’s about to keel over. He owns a boat in Florida and spends all of his spare time on it.”

“That explains his too-tanned skin—the alcohol and cigars explain how dull it is. The guy needs a good diet and exercise regimen.”

Her dad laughed. “That isn’t going to happen.”

“So you went to school together. That doesn’t explain his animosity toward you.”

Dad raised his glass and signaled the waitress for another. He ran his finger around wet rings of condensation on the table then said quietly, “It started in high school, but got worse over the years. We’re both competitive. I seem to have a golden touch where investments are concerned, a real knack that Gord lacks. He envies my skill.”

“But how would that have started in high school? You were already investing back then?”

“No. It wasn’t that. In school, we were both in love with the same girl.”

“Mom?” On a dime, Monica’s mood became wistful. She wished she’d known her. Mom had died giving birth to her, and didn’t that just leave her feeling bad, even all of these years later. Monica figured that was the thing that continually felt missing from her life—her mom.

With a philosophical shrug, her dad said, “I won the fair maiden’s hand in marriage. And that’s where the competition started. Gord was angry for years afterward. But how could we know the joke would be on the two of us?”

When Monica realized her dad was slurring his words, her already low spirits plummeted further. How could he be drunk at only one in the afternoon? This was so recent, she didn’t know what to make of it.

“Mom’s death was a joke?” she asked, her voice a sharp knife cutting the air.

Ian reared back. “God, no. Of course not.”

He didn’t elaborate. He’d been making a lot of cryptic remarks lately, but whenever she asked for clarification, he would change the subject.

“Well, what do you mean?” she queried. “What joke?”

His gaze had become unfocused. “Huh?”

“What joke was on you and Judge Easton?”

He shook his head and shuttered his expression. “Nothing.”

She knew that closed look. No trespassing. This part of the discussion was over. She knew her dad well enough to understand she wouldn’t get any more out of him. Okay, then she would change her tack.

“So he was getting revenge on losing Mom by sending your daughter farming? How does that make sense?”

“You never knew...your mother’s parents died when you were still a toddler. Do you remember them?”

She shook her head.

“Your mother grew up on a farm. She and her family were the products of generations of farmers.” When the waitress brought Monica’s food, she also brought her dad another drink. Monica frowned, but he ignored it. “Gord thinks it’s funny for my pampered daughter to now have to work on the land.”

Monica’s hackles raised at being called pampered, but only briefly. She was and she knew it. Or had been. Daddy had always given her everything she’d ever wanted.

Those days were gone because of her self-imposed austerity plan. By hook or by crook, she was supporting herself from now on.

She lifted the coffee to her lips.

Dad sipped his drink then said, “The farm Noah owns? The one Judge Easton sent you to?”

“What about it?” She took a sip.

“Used to be your mother’s.”

Monica finished choking on her coffee then wiped her mouth with her serviette. “Mom grew up on that farm and you never told me?”

“There was no point in mentioning it.” Dad swirled his Scotch in his glass.

To a daughter craving every detail about a mother who had never actually existed in her life, Monica disagreed.

Why had Daddy felt it necessary to hide it from her? Or had he just never thought that her heritage mattered to her?

It did. She already knew all there was to know about the Accords. Talk about heritage. Dad had been super proud of his.

His great-grandfather Ian Accord had been a railway baron, had made his fortune building spur lines all over the West. Then he’d settled in the big Victorian that was now the town’s B-and-B and bought up the surrounding land. When settlers flocked to the area, he sold that land at inflated prices, increasing his fortune. He spent his life nurturing and building his wealth for future generations.

Apparently, Daddy came by his business acumen honestly.

Ian had built schools and the bank and the library, along with an impressive city hall.

Then he had married a woman from back east named Maisie Hamilton and had started a dynasty.

Daddy had finished it.

Or maybe Monica had.

The likelihood of her having a family was slim to none.

She’d never worried about it until now.

“There’s been a lot of death in our family, hasn’t there?” she asked quietly, thinking of grandparents on both sides dying too young. With Mom’s parents, it had been a car accident. With Dad’s, a plane crash in the Rockies, with her grandfather at the controls in bad weather. Within weeks, her extended family had been decimated. No wonder Dad had been a heavy drinker for a while back then, or so she’d heard. Seems he was at it again. She wondered for the umpteenth time what was going on.

“Yes,” her dad agreed soberly. “Far too much death.”

“It’s just you and me, Dad. We don’t have any other family left. Lots of deaths and too many only children.” Dad had been an only child, like her. She missed having aunts and uncles.

“Yeah,” he said shortly, his gaze sliding away, and Monica wondered what that was about.

Where was the history on her mother’s side? Who were the Montgomerys? When she had asked him questions, he’d been vague at times, loquacious but nonspecific at others. He’d talked about Mom’s character, her personality as bright as a new penny, her laughter that lit up a room, but nothing about her background.

Mom used to live on that farm.

When she asked, “So I’ll be farming where Mom grew up?” she heard the yearning in her own voice.

Her father’s lips compressed into a hard line. “Yep.”

“So,” she mused, “Judge Easton thinks it’s poetic justice to send me off to my mother’s farm to muck around in the soil and get my hands dirty.”

“Essentially, yes. He probably agreed to the lesser charge to avoid jail time, to get you onto the farm.”

She should be angry. In fact, a flash of refreshing righteousness passed through her, but was quickly replaced by curiosity. Mom had lived on Noah’s farm. Monica would be putting her hands into the same earth her mother probably had.

Monica had relied on Daddy through the years to make her mother real for her. She did so again now.

“Tell me about her.”

Ian Accord glanced away too swiftly and Monica wondered yet again what his action meant. Dad was shifty today. Indirect.

In the next moment, though, a sad, sweet smile spread across his face and he opened his mouth to speak, bringing Monica into that dreamy state she entered before going to sleep at night.

“Did I ever tell you about the time she put a frog down the back of my pants? I was only ten, and she did it at school. I ran around the schoolyard like a chicken with its head cut off, trying to get that thing to shake out of one of my pant legs.”

He laughed. “I pretended to be angry with her, but I wasn’t really. I was already halfway to being in love with the girl.”

Daddy’s memories about Monica’s mother had always been a lonely little girl’s favorite bedtime stories.

That evening when she got home from work, she reached for the only photo she had of her mother. Her mood threatened to turn melancholy. That troublesome loneliness dogged her again. Look how it had gotten her into trouble last week. She couldn’t let it get to her tonight.

Best to shake it off.

One thing she could do was make amends to Noah as best she could.

She turned on her computer and went online to search for vintage bikes. She had told Noah she would replace his bike and she meant to. He might not think her useful or smart, but there were two things she knew well—shopping and vintage anything.

Two hours later, she was ready to admit defeat. Who knew vintage bikes would be so hard to come by?

The only lead she found was a man in California who rebuilt bikes from parts. Tomorrow morning, she would get Noah’s wrecked bike from him.

* * *

MONICA ROLLED OVER in bed onto her back and stared at the ceiling, motivation to get up and start another day eluding her. Her radio alarm had gone off at 6:00 a.m. and the same questions she faced every morning troubled her.

Do I care? Should I care? Why should I care?

On the radio, a female sang a bright and chirpy song. The falsely engineered cheer passed over her like a specter.

She spread a hand across the empty side of the bed, across the sheets that had been washed hundreds of times since Billy had gone to war. His pillowcase, though? That she hadn’t changed or washed since he’d left for Afghanistan. For many nights afterward, she had curled herself around his pillow, drinking in his scent and missing him.

She changed and washed the sheets every week, turned and flipped the mattress twice a year, vacuumed under the bed, but never, ever, washed her late husband’s pillow or pillowcase.

I miss you, Billy.

He’d been dead five years. Shouldn’t the pain have eased by now? Why couldn’t she let go of the grief?

You already know, don’t you? What would you replace it with? What would fill your emptiness without your grief for your dead husband?

She hated when her smart-alecky brain or psyche or common sense, or whatever it was, knew the answers to questions she didn’t really want solved.

The vacancy on Billy’s side of the bed represented the gap in her life, in her soul, but then, it had always been there, hadn’t it? Even long before hormones had kicked in and she’d started looking at cute, funny Billy Stone differently, she’d been empty. He’d become the most magical creature she’d ever known. He’d made her laugh.

He’d been everything. Her first, her one and only. He’d made love like an oversized puppy dog, with enthusiasm and greed and joy. Even in bed, they’d had a lot of fun.

She’d never slept with another man. She wouldn’t even know how to approach sex with someone else.

He’d filled in the hollow, hungry holes that had been part of her for as far back as she could remember. Now he was gone and those holes were back, and she didn’t have a clue how to fill them.

She reached over and flicked off the radio, cutting off some irritating song that would be played half a dozen more times before the day was over. The ensuing silence closed in on her, broken only by the tick of the ormolu clock on the mantel in the living room.

She hated the silence, hated all silence, had always hated that void that needed filling, and the feeling that something was missing. There was too much quiet and emptiness in her life these days.

On Friday night when she’d gone out drinking, she’d been going bonkers in this apartment. She’d been sick of the sound of her own voice, of the irritating ticking of the clock, of the useless, mind-numbing junk on TV.

Billy used to keep the void at bay. His practical jokes, wisecracks and ceaseless banter used to destroy the silence. Used to annihilate it. Now it was back in full force and Monica was lost.

No wonder she’d gone drinking when the silence of her apartment had made her climb the walls. She just shouldn’t have driven home afterward.

She crawled out of bed with the energy of an old woman, reluctant to face Noah’s wrath when she pulled plants instead of weeds. They all looked the same to her.

Then she remembered she was going to the farm her mom had grown up on.

Okay, maybe today she cared a little.

* * *

NOAH WALKED ALONG the row of green peppers to check on Monica and found her with her back to him, bent over at the waist plucking something from the earth.

Gold stitching on the back pockets of her blue jeans hugged the curves of her perfect derriere. Why, oh why, couldn’t he lust after a normal woman, someone with as much depth as the people he admired in life? But no, he had to be as shallow as the next man and want the one woman in town with the least depth of character.

Audrey’s voice rang in his memory. Everybody underestimates her.

He tried to soften his stance. Hard to do when he desired a woman he didn’t respect. Cripes, he wished she would squat to weed instead of bending over.

She straightened, noticed him watching her and pointed to the pile beside her. “See? Only weeds.”

“That’s great.”

“Before I leave today, will you put your wrecked bike into the trunk of my car?”

“Sure, but why?”

“I’m going to take care of it.”

It was useless to him. She could do what she liked with it. “Listen, are you going in to work today?”

“No. Your mom and Aiden are both there. I have today off because I’ll be working on Saturday.”

“Good.” He hated to ask, didn’t want Monica anywhere near this task, but had no choice. He needed her two good arms. “We have to leave the farm, to help some locals.”

“What kind of help?”

“Feeding their families. I need you to come with me.”

“You mean as part of my sentence?”

Heaven forbid she should give of herself unless someone forced her to. “Yeah, as part of your community service. I have to pack and deliver food, but I can’t do it with this bum arm.”

“Okay, show me what to do.”

“Let’s fill this first.” He pulled from behind him an ancient child’s wagon.

“That looks old.”

“I guess it is,” he answered with a shrug. All he cared about was that the thing was useful. “I found it in the shed.”

She grasped his arm. “That’s a Radio Flyer.”

“So?”

“So, it’s a vintage children’s wagon. I love vintage.”

She did? He would have never guessed she’d like old stuff. “Never mind that. We need to harvest some of the spring vegetables today.”

“There are vegetables ready this early? Which ones?”

“Spring onions. Garlic scapes. Asparagus. Broccoli rabe. A little watercress.”

“I lo-o-ove asparagus. I could eat it year-round.”

The way she said lo-o-ove made him crazy, horny. Angry at his knee-jerk response, he reined himself in. He wasn’t a randy teenager, for God’s sake.

“It’s amazing in risotto. There’s this recipe I use—”

“You cook?”

She reacted to his surprise with a snooty lift of her chin. “Of course. Why wouldn’t I?”

“I’ve just never thought of you as being, I don’t know, domestic?”

Judging by the defiance in her expression, he’d offended her. “Cooking is one of my favorite hobbies.”

Noah just managed to bite his tongue before blurting cook for me. He liked food, but couldn’t bring himself to spend enough time in the kitchen to make really great, tasty stuff. Healthy, yes. Gourmet? No.

“It brings me joy,” she continued. “So to whom are you taking these veggies?”

He stared at her. To whom? Who used that kind of grammar anymore?

“Will they know what to do with garlic scapes?” she asked.

“Do you?”

“Yes. In fact, may I buy some from you? There aren’t any in the shops yet.”

“I can’t sell them. I’m a nonprofit.”

“Hmmm.” She set a finger, with its pink nail, against her chin. “How can we get around that? I’d really like some for dinner tonight. Can I make a donation to a charity in your name or something?”

“Yeah. We can work out something like that. You can make a donation to the food bank in Denver.”

She smiled and his world became a brighter, ever-expanding thing. “Great! I’ll take some asparagus, too. Anyway, you didn’t answer my question. Will the people you’re taking these to know how to use scapes? They’re kind of a new trend. Most people just use straight garlic.”

He shrugged. “You can ask when we get there.”

She smiled...slyly, he thought. “You’re going to let me come inside when you deliver the groceries? You’re not going to make me sit in the truck?”

He’d wanted to do just that, but he couldn’t carry in the produce on his own. How had she known?

“Of course. Why wouldn’t I invite you in?”

“Because you don’t want to harm your holier-than-thou reputation by being seen with an airhead like me?”

She’d skewered him, her assessment so dead-on it left him speechless.

She waved a hand. “Never mind. Let’s move on. What should I pick?”

He pointed to one row. “Let’s start with the green onions. You pull up about half of this row. I’ll go cut down a row of asparagus.”

When the wagon was full, Noah led the way to the barn. “These are the boxes I fill.” He pointed to a bunch of plastic crates stacked neatly against one wall.

She started to fill one, but he stopped her. “Let’s take them to the truck. If you fill them first, you won’t be able to lift them.”

“Oh, Noah, give me a break. I can lift a crate full of these veggies. Potatoes, turnips, maybe not. Green onions and garlic scapes? Can do.”

Together, they filled the crates, fitting vegetables in for minimum bruising. When they were done, Monica bent at the knees, put her arms around the first one and stood. Noah watched as she carried it to the back of the truck, impressed despite his misgivings.

“How are you so strong?”

“I work out four times a week. I never let anything get in the way. Workouts have been my lifesaver.”

He followed her back to the barn. “Lifesaver?”

“After Billy died, I needed something to do to work through the grief.” She mentioned her grief matter-of-factly, without self-pity. Cool.

Funny, he’d never really considered how much she would grieve for Billy. He’d thought she’d go out shopping and that would be that. Man, he could be an idiot sometimes.

“When things got really bad...” She paused to pick up a full crate.

Things had gotten bad for her. He’d never given her much thought at that time outside of the standard expressions of compassion, but she’d lost her husband, for God’s sake.

He had spent his adult life avoiding contact with her and didn’t really know who she was, outside of someone who would drink and drive. Who would knock him off his bike. And ruin his bike. And break his arm. And prevent him from getting his work done. There was all of that that was still wrong with her.

“Gabe Jordan taught me how to lift weights.” She returned to what she’d been saying. “And how to set up a good running program.”

Gabe. Billy’s best friend. For a while after Billy’s death, the town had speculated that something might be forming between Gabe and Monica. Next thing they heard, Gabe was marrying the new woman in town, Callie MacKintosh.

Subdued because he had indeed underestimated her, he said, “Let’s fill a couple more and head out.”

Before they left, she returned the tools she’d been using to the shed, as he’d taught her. He had to maintain his tools meticulously since he didn’t have money to replace any that weren’t cared for properly. Nice to see she was paying attention to him.

“Should I take my own car?”

He was tempted to say yes to give his libido a rest, but the thought of the two of them driving separate vehicles to the same places went so far against the grain with his need to conserve, that he couldn’t let it happen, not even if it meant spending time with her in the too-tight cab of his ancient truck.

“We have to come back here to pick scapes and asparagus for you anyway, so ride along in the truck with me.”

She slipped off the big old rubber boots she was still borrowing from him and into the baby blue suede loafers she’d been wearing when she got here this morning.

“Where is your bike?” She joined him at the truck. “The one I wrecked?”

“In the back stall of the barn.”

“I’ll put it in my trunk now so I don’t forget it.”

Curious. “What are you going to do with it?”

“I’m going to try to get it fixed.”

“I don’t think you can.”

“Let me be the judge of that.”

As if she knew anything about bikes. She helped him retrieve it from the barn anyway, along with the parts that had been knocked off, and then she loaded it into her car trunk.

It was a mess. He didn’t expect to see it again.

They drove for a couple of miles in silence, mileage underscored by the constant rolling hum of tires on pavement. He wracked his brain for something to say to this woman he barely knew even though they’d grown up in the same town, had attended the same schools, had witnessed the same births, deaths and marriages. How could a couple of people who’d shared so much also have shared so little? They were neither friends nor strangers.

What did he expect? That’s what came of living in the same town but avoiding each other—of him avoiding her, that is. He didn’t know what had been going on in her head all of those years. And he was becoming curious.

CHAPTER THREE

“DON’T YOU EVER TALK?” Monica’s question cut through the tension in the cab.

“Huh?”

“Why are you so quiet? Don’t you believe in casual conversation?”

He bristled. He talked all the time to people with whom he was comfortable. He was not comfortable with Monica. Not by a long shot.

He thought of all of the times in high school when he’d wanted more from her—not more attention, but any attention. She hadn’t even noticed him. Now she wanted more from him? In his book, his respect had to be earned.

It wasn’t something she deserved just because her name happened to be the same as that of the town’s founding father. Nor because she had money and he didn’t. She had no right to his conversation or his inner thoughts because she hadn’t earned them.

“I talk when I have something important to say.” Damn. He hadn’t meant to sound so cold.

He felt her withdraw. He needed to monitor his responses and treat her better. He wasn’t mean-spirited. Not usually. Her scent, so different from his own, filled the cab. “Why do you smell different today than yesterday?”

“You noticed?” She sounded surprised. “I thought it was a subtle change.”

“It is subtle. I mean, it’s like you changed your perfume, but didn’t. Like it’s the same perfume, but slightly different. Yesterday, it smelled more citrusy, like lemon, and today it’s more...not quite floral, but sort of like bergamot.”

When she didn’t respond, he glanced away from the road for a second to find her staring at him with her mouth open.

“I’m impressed, Noah.” She nodded slowly. “Seriously impressed. You have a sensitive nose. That’s exactly the change I made.”

“Say what? The change you made? What do you mean?”

“I make my own perfume.”

“You do?” She kept surprising him, piquing his curiosity. “I’ve never known anyone who made their own perfume.”

“I’ve been experimenting with different essential and natural oils.”

“Why? There are a million perfumes on the market.”

“I know, but I haven’t found one that suited me perfectly. There’s always something wrong with them, or something missing. Or, they’re way too strong. I like concocting original, personal scents.”

“So you added bergamot to the perfume you were wearing yesterday?”

“I have a base perfume that I’ve been slowly working on. I have several different mixtures going at any given time.”

“Why bergamot?”

“Because I like it in Earl Grey tea. It’s fragrant and floral without being sickly sweet.”

“You know, I have wildflowers in my fields.”

“What kind?”

“All kinds. You should check them out.”

“May I steal some?” May I, not can I. Perfect grammar again. He liked it.

“Of course. I also grow herbs.”

“You do? You grow them fresh on the farm?” She sounded excited.

“Yep.”

She was silent for a while and then asked, “Will you teach me about them? Help me learn to recognize them?”

“Sure.”

Silence fell again.

“May I turn on the radio?”

He nodded and she fiddled with the knobs. The cab filled with music, but she kept the volume turned low, sort of as background filler.

“So these are people who don’t have enough money to buy their own groceries?” Monica asked as they approached the small Keil ranch.

“The Keils are having trouble making ends meet right now.”

“Why? Is the father crippled or something?”

Noah tensed. “Nothing so Dickensian. Robert has been hanging onto his small ranch for years. He’s a hard worker, by the way.” A note of defensiveness had crept in.

Flatly, Monica replied, “I didn’t say he wasn’t.”

“Rich people—” he glanced swiftly down at the designer jeans she wore “—often assume that anyone out of work or hungry is just lazy.”

She stared out the window, but said, voice low and quiet, “Noah, please stop making assumptions about me. You don’t know me.”

His conscience pricked, he relented. “Fair enough. I’m sorry.” He found he was sorry in truth. They had to get along—they were stuck with each other. And this roller coaster of flaring and abating tension would exhaust them both.

She deserved an explanation. Maybe then she would understand how a simple family managing all right could suddenly find themselves in dire straits through no fault of their own. A reversal of fortune could happen to anyone. As he thought about it more, he realized that Monica probably would understand, because hadn’t Billy’s death been a reversal of fortune for her? Her fortune being her happiness?

“Robert was hanging on, doing all right for himself and his family, when his wife got ovarian cancer. Kayla beat it. She’s in remission. But the medical bills just about bankrupted them. I imagine they’ll be paying for years.”

“Oh.” Monica’s voice sounded small. “I remember Kayla from high school. She was a year or two behind me.” Then she appeared to have a thought. “They own land. Why can’t they grow their own vegetables?”

A reasonable question. “Kayla kept a large kitchen garden before the cancer, but the illness depleted her energy stores. She’s just now getting back to a semblance of normalcy. There’s only so much Robert can do. He has his own chores caring for the cattle and planting the big fields with feed. He can’t also be maintaining the kitchen garden.”

She seemed to be thinking hard.

“The problem for most people,” he explained, “especially small farmers and ranchers, is that they live close to the edge. If something happens, a child gets sick, or we have a really dry summer, they have no buffer. Nothing to fall back on.”

“Are there lots of families like that around?”

“More than you’d think. Things got real bad in 2009 with the recession. Economy’s picked up a bit since then, but not enough. People have their pride, too—which is another problem. They don’t always ask for help, then suddenly you hear they’ve gone bankrupt, or lost the ranch, or moved away for no apparent reason. I don’t want to see that happen to the Keils. They’re good people who’ve lived here for generations.”

He turned up the long driveway. The house and grounds were clean and tidy.

The last time Noah had been here was late last autumn when he’d brought a couple of boxes of root vegetables to get them through the winter. He’d helped Robert fill the old root cellar. They’d have surely eaten those vegetables by now.

He glimpsed the herd in the pasture, noticeably smaller than last summer. Robert was either selling off cattle, or slaughtering and eating them. Probably both. You can’t make money on slaughtered cattle, but a family’s got to eat.

Monica retrieved one of the boxes of food from the back.

“You sure you don’t want to wait here?” Noah held his breath. Now that she’d put him in his place, he found he was doing a one-eighty. He wanted her to visit with the Keils, wanted to make these people real to her, make this more than court-ordered community work. He needed her to understand why this was important.

“I’ll come in.”

Yes. Noah released his breath. Monica had more backbone than he’d given her credit for. Or maybe it was just morbid curiosity.

Robert and Kayla greeted them at the front door with their three young children.

Like the house, the children were clean, but their clothing had seen better days.

Kayla was thin. She used to be a round, jolly woman. Now, her blouse hung from too-slim shoulders, but she offered them a smile and a welcome.

Noah noticed Kayla checking out Monica’s clothes and wished she’d worn something other than designer jeans and suede loafers. Even her attire for the farm was more expensive than the average person’s. Did Monica own anything cheap? Not likely.

At least she smiled at Kayla and said hi.

Despite Kayla’s discomfort—she looked intimidated by Monica—the woman invited them in for coffee. Some people never failed to impress Noah. This was why he raised crops for those less fortunate than himself—because of grace, and because these were good people who deserved a break.

After setting the box of food on the kitchen counter, Monica accepted a cup of coffee. Kayla handed Noah a cup and he sipped. Weak as dishwater.

They all sat at the kitchen table. Conversation was scarce and awkward. Monica gave Kayla surprisingly good ideas for using the garlic scapes, nothing that would cost the family much to implement.

Kayla blurted, “I’ve been looking for work, Noah. Robert and I won’t have to depend on you forever.”

“Hey, that’s great. What kind of job are you looking for?”

Kayla’s fingers worried the hem of her blouse. “Simple things. I was a cashier at the grocery store when I married Robert. I’ve been home with the kids ever since.”

Noah didn’t respond, didn’t want to dash Kayla’s hopes. She’d been out of the market for, at a guess, ten or so years, and her skills were limited.

Monica and Noah rose to leave.

Noah said goodbye and left the house. Monica whispered something to Kayla before she followed him to the car.

Whatever she’d said to Kayla had put a smile on the woman’s face.

In the truck, he asked, “What was that about?”

She fiddled with the air vents to get a breeze blowing her way and flicked on the radio again, with the volume low. “What was what about?”

“What did you whisper to Kayla to make her so happy?”

“I told her I had a dress I didn’t want anymore and I would bring it out to her for her job interviews.” She buckled herself in and they left the property, driving down the highway toward the next delivery. “I’ll bring her some makeup, too.”

“That’s really something.” Noah couldn’t hide his surprise. “That’s really nice of you.”

“I’m not the monster you think I am.”

He tensed. “I never said you were a monster.”

“Oh, please, Noah,” she scoffed. “You think I’m vain and selfish.”

“Yeah. So?”

He expected her to take offense, but she chuffed out a laugh. So, Miss Monica had a certain level of self-awareness of how she was perceived by others. “Honestly, Noah, you’re too blunt. Thanks for the boost to my ego.”

The interior of the truck heated with the goodwill emanating from Monica. She had a sense of humor about herself. Noah would have never guessed. He liked teasing her. “Hey, I believe in being honest.” He softened that with a smile in his voice.

“I like good clothes and nice things, but I’m not selfish.”

“No, I guess not.” Noah smiled at her, momentarily in harmony with a woman who wasn’t as bad as he had assumed.

His perception of Monica shifted.

The next family they visited had had a string of hard-luck events that had left them destitute.

“This damned economy.” Back in the truck after the visit, Noah pounded his fist on the steering wheel. “When will this recession end?”

Monica remained silent, a thoughtful frown furrowing her brow.

They made one more stop, again staying for coffee.

Truck empty and produce gone, they headed home.

Monica stared out the passenger window at the passing scenery.

Noah hoped she’d learned a few good lessons today.

As though she sensed his regard, she met his gaze. “You’re doing this all wrong.”

He choked on his saliva. When he finished coughing, he stared at her. “Wrong? What the hell are you talking about?” Honest to God, he was a peace-loving guy, but she made his blood boil.

Frowning, she admonished, “Watch your language.”

He ignored that, dealing instead with the salient points. “I feed the hungry. I work my fingers to the bone to help the poor. I wear cheap clothes, not designer duds.” His disgusted glance raked her body.

“Keep your eyes on the road,” she said, calm despite his raised voice. “It isn’t safe to look at your passenger while you’re driving.”

“Says Ms. DWAI. Oh, pardon me, Ms. Wet Reckless.”

She pressed her hand against her stomach. “That’s a low blow. I told you I’ve never done it before and I never will again.”

“I don’t care. Why did you say I’m doing this all wrong? What, in your not-so-humble opinion, am I not doing right?”

“First of all, we shouldn’t have had coffee at those houses.”

“Oh, that. Yeah, I’m wired on caffeine, but I don’t want to hurt their feelings by saying no.”

“I don’t mean that.” She flipped hair out of her face with an impatient hand. “Coffee and tea are expensive. If they can’t afford vegetables, they certainly can’t afford to replace whatever meager supplies of coffee they might have. We’re robbing them of a treat for themselves.”

He hadn’t thought of that. She was right. Both were expensive commodities. Suddenly he got a terrible feeling maybe they kept them on hand just for his visits.

“Also...”

“There’s more I’m doing wrong?” He didn’t bother to quell the sarcasm in his voice. He didn’t believe in sarcasm, liked to deal with people honestly, but she’d just blown his decency out of the water. Doing it all wrong, my ass.

“You shouldn’t deliver the groceries to them—”

“Some families are too embarrassed to drive into Denver to the food bank, not to mention using gas.”

“I can imagine. I would be, too. What I meant to say, before you interrupted me so rudely, was that you shouldn’t deliver the groceries when they’re home. Deliver them when they’re sleeping or when they’re at work or church or something.”

She’d snagged his curiosity. “Why?”

“Those visits were brutally difficult. All of that awkward small talk. We’re not meeting them as equals. It’s not a social visit. They were chagrined that we were there delivering charity to them.”

“So?”

“So-o-o...” She exaggerated the word, as though speaking to a child. The woman knew how to get his dander up. “If the visits are hard for us, imagine how hard they are for them. If you’re delivering food once every week or two, then you’re drinking their coffee and embarrassing them on a regular basis.”

Even though it hurt his pride, he admitted she was making sense.

“Plus,” she said with such emphasis he grew wary, “you’re not doing enough.”

“What?” She’d poleaxed him again. Swear words bounced around inside his head like pinballs. “Are you kidding me? How can you say that? I work from dawn ’til midnight every day. I’m doing all I can.”

“I know you work hard.” She patted his arm.

“Don’t condescend to me.” He sounded fierce.

“Sorry. I hate when people do that to me. I won’t do it again.” She removed her hand. “You do great work, Noah, but you could do more.”

“More?” Heat blazing through him like a bonfire, his tone could char toast. Her criticism was so damned unfair. “I work my butt off fourteen hours a day. I do the work that everyone should be doing, but hardly anyone does—caring for my fellow man and the environment. This stuff should be universal. It should come naturally to everyone. But I’m the only one in this community out here doing it day in and day out.” He poked himself in the chest so hard it hurt.

She opened her mouth to speak, but he ran roughshod over her. Not doing enough, my patootie.

“If that sounds arrogant or self-righteous, too bad. I have more passion about these issues in my baby finger than you do in your whole body. I believe in peace and love and communal property and service for the greater good. You believe in clothes, fancy cars, Calvin Klein—”

She gasped. “I never wear Calvin Klein—”

“—and rampant consumerism. You’re the most shallow person I know.”

Only when silence filled the quiet cab did Noah realize he’d been shouting, his last sentence ringing like the bong of a brass bell, its echo still reverberating like a heartbeat.

Oh, geez, that was bad. He shouldn’t have been so harsh. Honesty was a good thing, but not when it devastated another soul...

Tentatively, he glanced at Monica.

She stared out the passenger window, her blond hair falling forward and hiding her face.

Oh, sweet freaking crap. He’d hurt her. He didn’t do that to people.

Noah struggled to calm his thundering pulse. Sure, he had no patience for excess and waste and hunger and poverty, but he never lashed out at individuals unless they were doing truly egregious things. He never spoke this harshly. He never insulted people or called them names.

She’d been getting under his skin since she’d stepped onto his farm and started ripping out tender plants instead of weeds.

He’d learned, as Audrey had said, that it was easy to underestimate Monica. While she might have an uncomplicated soul, she wasn’t stupid. On the other hand, she had no right to criticize him. He did a world of good for those in need while she sat at home and painted her fingernails pink or, worse, paid someone else to do it.

While Kayla struggled to feed her family, Monica probably had weekly manis, pedis and whatever else people did at spas.

Breathing deeply of the warm air flowing through his open window, he pulled himself under control. His anger was doing neither of them any good.

He heard her sniff and a surge of remorse flooded him.

He placed his fingers on the cool skin of her arm, but she jerked it away from him and shrank against the car door.

“I’m sorry. Really. Don’t cry.”

She rounded on him, red spots on her high cheekbones. “I’m not crying. I’m angry.” She leaned toward him, straining against her seat belt. “I do a lot more than you give me credit for. You’ve always thought you were better than me.”

“What? It’s the other way around,” he yelled. He jabbed a finger her way. “You think you’re better than me. You’ve got it backward.”

“I do not,” she responded hotly. “I think you’re hardworking and smart. You think I’m lazy and stupid. So who thinks he’s better than whom?”

Okay, so maybe he did think she was lazy and did nothing much outside of shopping and pampering her body. He knew she and his mom liked to go to spas together. It was like Mom had adopted her as another child. And yeah, he might think Monica was lazy. How hard could working in a gallery be?

He mimicked her in his mind. Who thinks he’s better than whom? It was petty, but it felt good. As quickly as his indignation flared, it abated. Her shot had been a bull’s-eye. He did think himself superior to her, and to all of her kind.

And that was wrong. He needed to see her as an individual, and he needed to remember that he trusted Audrey’s opinion. If she saw more in Monica than what was on the surface, he should, too. Besides, he had seen glimmers of depth in her today.

His righteousness deflated.

“Tell me,” he said quietly.

“Tell you what?” Her body language still screamed that she was a prickly, angry woman.

Other than eating crow, which he wouldn’t do, the only way to appease her was to listen. “What else could I be doing?”

For a long time she sat without speaking and he feared he’d hurt her so much she wouldn’t respond. Now that the heat of his anger was spent, he wanted to know what she thought.

“Tell me,” he urged, touching her arm again, and this time she didn’t pull away. Her soft skin warmed his fingertips. “I want to know.”

“Fund-raise,” she said. “Raise money so you can deliver meat and diapers and lots of other stuff with the vegetables and eggs, including a few luxuries like coffee and tea. Maybe even deliver seeds in the spring so they can grow their own stuff.”

She was right, damn her.

“I don’t think I’m qualified to fund-raise,” he responded.

“I am,” she said and he heard in her a confidence that was missing on the farm.

“How so?”

“I was tutored by the best fund-raiser around.”

When he looked at her questioningly, she said, “Believe it or not, my dad. He might look like he does nothing but sit around all day and have lunch at the country club, but boy, does that guy know how to network.” She lifted the hair from the back of her neck where a sheen of sweat glistened, her arms strong and firm, and her breasts high. Noah glanced away before he started some pretty hot daydreaming. “When I was little, he took me with him everywhere. I watched and listened and learned. I could set up a charity event in Denver that would bring in big bucks.”

Noah snorted.

Monica shot him a look. “Really, Noah, that’s uncouth. If you don’t believe me, just say so.”

“I don’t believe you can do it.”

“I can.” She sounded huffy, indignant, and he found it far too cute, so cute he wanted to provoke her further.

“How do I know it wouldn’t be a waste of time?”

“You’d have to trust me.”

Ah, there was the rub. He’d trusted before and where had it gotten him? Screwed, royally, by a woman just like Monica, a woman who walked, talked and spoke like Monica...and who schemed like the devil.

“Wouldn’t it be a lot of work?”

“Yes. Dad worked his tail off when he raised funds, but he also had a host of women organizing the events, women with wealthy husbands, who donated their days to running charities. Lucky for you, I still know all of them.”

The desire to do more and feed more people threaded tentacles of temptation through him. “You would do all of that work for my charity?”

She looked surprised. “Of course. Why wouldn’t I? I like this helping-people business, Noah.”

A gentle, satisfied smile spread across Noah’s face. “So do I.” And it felt fabulous to share that with someone. So good, in fact, he was willing to eat crow after all and admit he had a thing or two to learn about charity from Monica. In his hubris, he’d thought the learning would go only one way.

* * *

ON MAIN STREET, Monica headed for the organic market, Tonio’s, hoping to figure out what she’d have for dinner.

Until a year ago, it had been called the Organic Bud, but the Colantonios had since bought it. Now, along with local organic produce, they had introduced a lot of international products.

Monica loved shopping here.

As an Accord living in the town named for the founding father, her ancestor, she had always felt apart from most people. She had never had Billy’s easygoing personality that drew people to him.

Her natural reserve had gotten in the way of her being a real part of this town. She could never figure out whether people liked her, or were awed by her background, or wanted to cozy up to her father’s wealth.

But the owner of Tonio’s was a friend, Maria Colantonio, a woman not much older than her with whom Monica had formed a bond over a love of good food. With Maria, she felt at ease. Maria liked her for herself, no doubt about it. For that, Maria had Monica’s undying affection.

“Hey, Maria,” she called to the open indoor window of the office through which Maria watched the store. “What’s good today? I have fresh asparagus and garlic scapes.”

Short, round Maria ran down the four steps out of the office, clapping her hands. An attractive woman, her deep-set brown bedroom eyes lit up. “You have scapes already? Where did you get them?”

“Noah Cameron’s farm.”

“Oh, that guy.” Maria flipped her hand in a disparaging gesture.

“He’s a good guy.” After watching what Noah did for local families, and seeing how much they appreciated him, Monica felt compelled to defend him. Lord knew why, except that maybe she was developing an appreciation for his charity, even if he was doing it all wrong. “He does good work.”

“Oh, I know. He’s wonderful.”

“Then why do you seem disgusted by him?”

“Because he won’t sell me his lovely vegetables! He’s the only one around here growing organic. He could make a fortune selling to me, but he gives it all away.”

“For the needy.” A swell of warm, fuzzy pride arose in Monica that she was helping him. But she was also proud of Noah, that he had the guts to buck financial common sense and everyone who screamed at him that he could be making money, so he could feed people in need. She smiled. “He’s a decent guy.”

Maria sighed. “Oh, I know, I know, but you have garlic scapes and I don’t and I’m jealous.” She laughed and directed Monica toward the meat counter.

“Joseph,” she called to her husband. He came out from the back, where he butchered meat. Big and handsome, he carried his dark Italian good looks humbly.

Maria surveyed the meat on display and ordered, “Give Monica a couple of those nice thick center-cut pork chops.”

“I live to serve.” Despite the sarcasm, Joseph’s tone was also filled with amused affection. Monica had seen him give his wife a pat on her butt or place an arm around her waist when he thought no one was looking.

When Joseph handed Monica the wrapped meat, she blew him a kiss. He slammed his hands against his large chest, over his heart. “My day is complete.”

Maria laughed. “You two are shameless. Monica, stop flirting with my husband. Joseph, stop playing to the balcony.”

“Me and Monica, we’re running away together.”

Maria drew Monica toward the front of the store, stating loudly enough over her shoulder for her husband to hear, “You can have him, Monica. He’s more trouble than he’s worth.”

“Ha! I’m the guy who puts up with a wife with a sharp tongue.”

Monica giggled. “If anyone tried to come between you and Joseph, you would fight her tooth and nail.”

Maria grinned. “True, but don’t tell my Joseph that. It’s good to keep him on his toes.”

Monica became serious. “Maria, is there any way you would be able to hire a friend of mine?”

“To do what?”

“Anything. Working on cash, or filling produce bins, or stocking shelves.” She explained about Kayla Keil’s situation.

Maria tsked. “The poor woman. Every day I thank my lucky stars that I have a good life. Problem is, I can only hire part-time right now.”

“Maria, trust me, Kayla will take anything.”

“Okay, send her to me then.”

Monica paid for her items then walked down to her lawyer’s office. Maybe having two part-time jobs would work for Kayla.

Just inside the lawyer’s doorway, she stared at the empty receptionist’s desk. She glanced at her watch. Of course. It was after hours. But the office should have been closed and the front door locked. She called, “Hello?”

John Spade stepped out of his office, brows raised. A warm smile blossomed when he saw her. He took both of her hands in his and kissed her cheeks, cloaking her with a sophisticated aftershave he had applied with a light hand. Nice.

She liked the scent. Maybe she should try to develop men’s colognes.

A handsome man, polished and well-dressed, John had asked Monica out in the past. She had gone out with him on several dates, but there had never been enough chemistry between them. There was, however, plenty of respect and affection.

Many in town thought him cold. She hadn’t had that experience with him. She’d bet the man could be as cutthroat as he needed to be in business, though.

“Working so late in the evening, John?”

“Of course. The clock never stops.”

And didn’t that sum up John Spade in a nutshell?

She explained about Kayla needing part-time work, but having few skills. “Unless you can give her full-time hours?”

“No. My receptionist, Linda, is more than capable.” He tapped her empty desk. “Though she has been missing work lately because her grandmother is sick. She’s running behind on a few things. I’m sure she could use support with filing, answering the phone, or filling in when she has to take her grandmother for appointments. We can start Kayla on simple stuff, a few hours a week, and train her to do more.”

“John, thank you. I mean it. Kayla needs this badly.”

He delivered one caveat. “She will have to dress well. I have an image to maintain.”

“She will. Not to worry. May I bring her in tomorrow morning for an interview?” She crossed her fingers that Kayla would be available. She wanted to get her out and earning a paycheck as quickly as possible.

“Yes. I’ll be here.”

Before she left, Monica said, “John, she’ll be nervous in her interview, especially with you.”

“Me? Why?”

“You’re polished, attractive and rich. She’s a farm girl. She will be intimidated, guaranteed. Go easy on her.”

“I’ll be gentle,” he promised.

Satisfied, Monica stepped out of his office and took her groceries home. Once there, she got on the phone to a delivery company and arranged for them to not only pick up the bike and parts, but to also bring a box large enough for her to package it in.

By dinnertime, it was on its way to California. Monica crossed her fingers that the repairman would be able to fix it. It was the least she could do for Noah.

After dinner, she got Kayla’s number through directory assistance and phoned her.

During their conversation, she made the determination that Kayla would love two part-time jobs as long as she could work the hours out with both employers.

As far as clothing went, Kayla thought she might have something nice enough to work in a grocery store, but not a law office.

When the young woman started to fret, Monica assured her, “No problem, Kayla. Let me handle that part. I have to be at work by ten tomorrow. Can I come out to your place before eight?”

After she hung up, she searched her closet for something that didn’t look too expensive. She chose one simple gray dress, sleeveless with classic lines, which she’d always worn with a pair of stunning Stuart Weitzmans shoes, but the shoes would look too dressy for a job interview.

She spotted a navy blue wrap dress that would look good with Kayla’s dark hair. Both dresses would be about an inch too long for Kayla, but that was no big deal.

A plain white blouse and black pencil skirt rounded out the wardrobe. She tucked them all into a suit bag then loaded a cosmetic bag with shades of makeup she thought might suit Kayla, along with other items she suspected the woman would need. In her jewelry box, she found a simple gold chain and a bangle bracelet.

She had one pair of black ballet flats that Kayla could wear with all three outfits. They would have to do for now. Once Kayla made some money, she could fill out her wardrobe herself.

CHAPTER FOUR

THE FOLLOWING MORNING, Monica showered, put everything into the car and drove out to the Keil farm. She carried her goodies to the door.

When Kayla answered her knock, her flat expression quickly turned into a smile. “I didn’t think you would really come.”

“Of course I came,” Monica replied. “I said I would, didn’t I?”

“This is so kind of you.”

Monica waved away that comment. “You need a little help. I can give it.” She stepped into the house while Kayla eyed her packages.

“Can we go to your bedroom so you can try this stuff on?”

“Yes! Follow me.”

Once upstairs in Kayla’s very tidy bedroom, Monica took the clothes out of their plastic sleeve. Kayla gasped.

“Oh, this is beautiful. It’s all so classy.” She touched the linen of one dress reverently. “Too classy for me. This will never work.”

“Strip,” Monica ordered. “Let’s see how it looks on you before we decide whether it works.”

The dress pulled a bit tightly at Kayla’s middle—she’d had three children, after all—but other than that, it fit.

Noah was right. With the cancer, she’d lost the plumpness that had made her so pretty. But all was not lost. Monica knew her way around hair and makeup. She could bring out Kayla’s beauty.

Monica slipped the simple gold chain over Kayla’s neck and then added the bangle to her wrist. “If you have a dressy little watch, wear it. Otherwise, if what you have looks too old, keep it in your purse. Personally, I don’t like watches, but we have to be on time for work, don’t we?”

Shell-shocked, Kayla nodded.

“Try on the shoes. I hope they fit.”

Kayla slipped them on. They were slightly too long. Monica stuffed the toes with tissues. “This will have to do until you can afford to buy a pair.”

Kayla stared at herself in the cheap full-length mirror on the back of the bedroom door.

“Oh,” Kayla breathed. “I look so good. I’ll have to buy pantyhose.”

“No,” Monica ordered after a horrified gasp. “Never, ever, wear pantyhose in the summertime.”

“But my legs are so pale.”

“That’s okay. Use baking soda to exfoliate then moisturize. Cheap skin cream will do for your legs. Just make sure they shine. Got it?”

Kayla smiled. “Got it, boss.”

A small grin tugged at Monica’s mouth. She liked Kayla’s pluckiness.

“How long may I borrow all of this?” Kayla smoothed the dress over her hips. “It will take me a few weeks to be able to purchase an outfit. We have heavy debts.”

“Oh, I’m not lending it to you. It’s yours to keep.” Monica picked up the bag of makeup she’d packed and stepped toward the hallway to find the washroom. When Kayla didn’t follow, she stopped.

“You can’t,” Kayla said.

“I can’t what?”

“You can’t just give all of this to me. It’s too expensive.”

Monica set down the stuff she’d been fiddling with. “Okay, listen, Kayla. Every day I’m aware of how fortunate I am. The worst thing that ever happened to me was Billy’s death.”

She sat down on the bed, because she couldn’t talk about him without getting sad. Kayla sat beside her and tentatively put her arm around Monica’s shoulders. Monica leaned into her for a moment and then rallied. “But I have a roof over my head and enough food to eat. I have nice clothes because my dad used to spoil me. I don’t let him anymore. These days, I’m making my own way in the world.”

She touched Kayla’s knee. “But you...you are dealing with hardships I hope I never have to face. You should be given a helping hand. What Noah is doing for you is wonderful, but it isn’t enough. You need big changes to see you through to a better future and I’m trying to see that you get them.”

Kayla’s eyes were glazed with unshed tears. Monica’s vision blurred. Too much emotion. She stood abruptly.

“Do you wear makeup?”

“Never.”

“I thought so. I brought some. I’ll show you how to apply it so you don’t look overdone. Where’s your bathroom?” Kayla led her down the hallway, where she turned on the lights over the mirror despite sunlight pouring in through the sole window.

“You have good skin,” Monica observed. “Let’s skip foundation. It can look awful if it isn’t applied properly.”

She took a small jar of cream out of the bag. “Even though your skin is good, you need to moisturize like crazy. Use this every night before bed, got it?”

Kayla smiled softly and held the jar with the reverence a cream that expensive deserved. “You are amazing.”

Monica welled up. No one ever said nice things about her. Noah thought the worst of her, Gabe Jordan had chosen another woman over her, and most people thought she wasn’t really that smart, but Kayla was looking at her as though she hung the moon and the stars. This helping-people business was amazing.

“Okay, on to the makeup,” she said briskly, blinking a lot because of moisture in her eyes messing with her eyesight. “Light and natural will suit you best.”

Ten minutes later, she’d taught Kayla everything she needed to know about applying makeup for both interviews and at work.

She studied Kayla’s hair, understanding there was no money for either a haircut or coloring.

“Okay, this is what we’re going to do.” She pulled out her natural bristle brush and brushed Kayla’s short hair until it shone.

“It grew in all right,” Kayla said. “After the cancer, I thought it would never come back, but it eventually did.”

“It looks healthy. See how it shines?”

Kayla’s sad smile was also proud. “When you don’t have money for junk food, when you have to prepare all of your food naturally, it’s good for your skin and hair, I guess. Maybe that’s the only good thing that’s come out of the past few years.”

Kayla’s bittersweet smile hit Monica in the solar plexus. On impulse, she threw her arms around the woman. Monica might not be demonstrative, might not hand out hugs easily, but Kayla deserved one so much.

“The really good thing that happened was that you stayed alive.” When Monica pulled back, they were both teary. “Don’t ruin your makeup. Suck in a big breath.”

They both did and when they exhaled at the same time, they laughed. Monica had made a new friend. All she had done was put herself out a little and she’d won the lottery.

Was this how Noah felt when he did things for people? Was the result always so rewarding? She should ask him.

“Let’s finish your hair.” Monica filled her palm with hair putty and rubbed it between her hands before applying it to Kayla’s hair. She scrunched clumps of it between her fingers and arranged it artfully to frame the woman’s face.

Kayla stared at herself in the mirror, wide-eyed and happy. “I look beautiful. I don’t look like myself at all.”

“Nonsense,” Monica said. “The benefit of makeup when it’s applied well is that you look more like yourself.”

She packed the makeup back into the bag. “Hide this somewhere so your children don’t get into it. Kids love makeup.”

“Kids love everything they shouldn’t.” Something had clicked and come alive in Kayla. She positively glowed.

“Let’s go,” Monica said. “Can you drive yourself into town behind me? I won’t have time to drive you home afterward.”

“Of course.”

They walked downstairs just as Robert entered the house. When he saw his wife, his jaw dropped.

“Robert,” Kayla said, voice full of laughter, “what do you think?”

“You look...amazing. So pretty.”

As Monica passed Robert on her way out, noting the patent desire and admiration for his wife, she said, “Don’t you two go making any more babies tonight. Three are enough!”

Kayla kissed Robert’s cheek and stepped toward the front door. “Wish me luck on my job interviews...and on our old clunker actually getting me into town!”

Robert nodded, his eyes never leaving his wife.

In Accord, they went to Tonio’s first—it had already been open for an hour—where Monica introduced Kayla to Maria. They had a chat that seemed to consist more of talking about children than about job qualifications, then Maria stated, “We can definitely find things for you to do here. When can you start?”

“Right away. Right now.”

“First we have to see John Spade,” Monica interjected. “I’ve set up an interview with him. Kayla will need two part-time jobs. Can you work out her hours around whatever John can give her?”

Maria patted Kayla’s arm. “We’ll make it work.”

Walking along Main to the only legal office in town, Kayla said, “I’ve never been inside Tonio’s before. I used to grow most of our fresh produce and then shopped for everything else at the discount grocery store. I can’t afford Tonio’s, but what an amazing place. They have all kinds of products I’ve never seen before. And Maria is so nice!”

As Monica opened John’s front door, she waggled her eyebrows at Kayla, knowing she looked comical, but she was totally okay with it. She needed to get Kayla loosened up. “Maybe you’ll get a discount as an employee.”

Kayla laughed. Good. She was in great spirits. Maybe she wouldn’t be intimidated by John.

Monica greeted his receptionist, who alerted her boss.

As handsome as ever, even though he’d probably burned the midnight oil last night, John approached, hand outstretched toward Kayla.

“John,” Monica asked, “have you met Kayla before?”

He shook her hand. “I’ve seen you around town.”

John was older than both Kayla and Monica. They hadn’t been in high school at the same time.

“Step into my office and we’ll chat. Monica, can I offer you coffee while you wait?”

“I’m good, thanks, John.” She sat on a small leather love seat. John ushered Kayla ahead of himself. Just before he entered his office, he glanced back at Monica. She mouthed be kind.

He winked.

Ten minutes later, Kayla came out with a wide grin. “I got the job,” she whispered.

Of course she did. Once John had promised Monica he’d give Kayla a job, he would follow through, unless Kayla was thoroughly unsuitable, which she wasn’t. She was eager, willing and intelligent. She could learn whatever needed to be learned.

And apparently, for the next two days she would be learning the ropes at John Spade’s office.

They went back to the market.

“Okay,” Maria said. “We can operate around John’s hours, but if he can let us have you on Saturdays, it would help us a lot.”

“I’ll ask him,” Kayla said, her fingers threaded nervously.

“No, you won’t,” Monica said. “I’ll stop in and ask him on my way to work. Speaking of which, we’d better go.”

They stepped out of the store and nearly collided with Noah.

When he saw her, his expression darkened. Completely ignoring Kayla’s presence—or not even seeing her there—he addressed Monica. “Where were you this morning?” His harsh tone cut through Monica with the heat of an acetylene torch. “Do you think farming is like shopping? You do it only when you feel like it?”

“No, I—”

“It’s a day-in, day-out necessity. Plants need to be watered whether you feel like getting out of bed early or not. The work needs to be done even if you aren’t in the mood.”

Foul man. Monica wanted to bite off his head. “The courts made no mention that I had to be at the farm every day. I guess they assumed you would tell me when you needed me. You told me nothing.”

“I assumed you would be smart enough to know that farming is done every day, rain or shine, whether or not you feel like showing up. I assumed you would be responsible enough to act on it.”

“If you assume, you make an ass out of you and me. Next time, tell me what you want. This was your mistake, Noah, not mine, but from now on I’ll be there every single dam— Every morning, okay?”

Noah seemed taken aback by Monica and her acid tone. Good. He should be afraid. She wouldn’t let him walk all over her, especially not after she’d spent her morning helping someone.

“Listen, I—”

Monica ignored whatever Noah was about to say, hugged Kayla goodbye and walked away. Noah Cameron could rot in hell for all she cared.

The courts had told her to report in on the farm when Noah needed her. He hadn’t shared his schedule with her. Was he hoping she would fail? What did he want? For her to go to jail?

Just inside the gallery door, she drew up short, letting the door nudge her back. Her pulse pounded and her hands shook. The man made her so mad she could spit.

Olivia peeked her head out of her office to see who had entered the gallery.

“You’re five minutes late.” The hard edge in her voice undid Monica.

“Not today, Olivia.” She’d never spoken to her boss harshly. In fact, she had always been unfailingly polite.

Olivia’s mouth fell open.

“I will work my butt off while I’m here today, boss, just as I’ve always done. But how many times over the past year have I been late? Twice! Both times this week. I’m sick to death of you and your son coming down on me. I made a mistake. I apologized. I’m paying my dues.”

She approached the office. Wide-eyed, Olivia stepped out of the way to let her pass inside.

“I thank you heartily, Olivia, for giving me this job, but if you can’t appreciate me as I am then I will leave. Is that clear?”

Olivia nodded.

Monica tossed her purse into the bottom drawer of Olivia’s desk, where they kept their personal belongings. “Good. I’m glad we have that settled.”

She stepped into the back room to finish baling boxes in which artwork had been delivered yesterday, not too careful today about whether she might snag her dress or tear a nail, ripping them apart with her hands rather than using box cutters, happily imagining tearing Noah limb from limb.

* * *

“NOAH?” THROUGH THE red haze of his fury, Noah heard a woman’s voice and tried to focus on her.

For the first time since bumping into Monica, he noticed Kayla standing in the doorway of Tonio’s, smiling hesitantly. She wore a tasteful dress and makeup. She’d done something funky and fun with her hair. “You’re—you’re lovely. You look amazing.”

How long had she been standing there? Had she heard him give Monica hell? He didn’t haul people across the carpet in public, but then, Monica hadn’t shown up this morning when he’d needed her and he’d gone nuclear.

He tried speaking normally, but his hot blood was slow to switch gears. “I’ve never seen you wear makeup before.”

“I know. Monica showed me how to apply it.”

“Monica?” The woman’s name came out on a faint gust of air. Kayla had been with Monica. She’d been standing there all along. Monica had hugged someone before storming off, but Noah had been too intent on her and his own indignation that he hadn’t noticed who the other woman was.

“Uh-huh. She’s amazing, Noah. She got me two jobs.”

“Monica? Two jobs? Where?”

“I’m working for John Spade. Just real basic work, but he said if I’m willing to take a computer course then he’ll give me more hours and responsibility, and pay me more.”

“I’m kind of speechless. I didn’t think Spade had that much heart.”

“I’m not sure he does, but judging by the way he looks at Monica, I think he would do whatever she asks.” He didn’t like the spurt of jealousy at the thought of Monica and Spade together, not that it made any sense.

“Where’s the other job?”

“In here.” She gestured over her shoulder. “At Tonio’s. I’ll be working a lot on weekends, but that doesn’t bother me. I’m so excited, Noah. We’ll actually have money coming in.”

“I hope they’re both paying you an honest wage.”

“I forgot to ask. These are good people, Noah. I’m sure everything will be fine. Besides, I can make a dollar stretch for miles. I’ve been doing it all of my married life.”

Kayla touched Noah’s arm, tentatively. “What’s going on between you and Monica? Why did you yell at her?”

He scrubbed his scalp, working like a demon to bring himself under control. “Monica really got you two jobs?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Since yesterday?”

“Yes. Can you imagine? Plus, she gave me a couple of gorgeous dresses and a blouse and skirt to wear until I can buy more for myself. She gave them to me, Noah. I need to dress professionally in Mr. Spade’s office.”

She leaned close. “Now that he’s my boss, I have to remember to not think of him as just John.”

“Wait. Go back. I’m still processing that Monica Accord got you work and gave you clothes.”

She stuck out her foot and pointed down. “These gorgeous shoes, too.”

“Shoes,” Noah said weakly. “But isn’t all of that out of character?”

“How so?” Clearly puzzled, Kayla asked, “Why would you say that?”

“You know. Self-involved ice queen.” Like the girl who’d made fun of him with her friends, who’d turned her back on him and walked down the hall like a princess with her entourage. She had never given him the time of day in high school, and had ignored him for all of her adult life until she’d gotten drunk and hit him with her car.

“Noah, sometimes you can be so blind and so full of your own worldview.” Kayla put her hands on her hips, obviously ready to defend the woman who had just gotten her two jobs. “That has not been my experience with Monica at all.”

Intrigued, he asked, “What was your experience?”

“In high school, I never thought she would give someone like me attention. You know how beautiful she was. The popular kids liked her. When I tried out for the cheerleading squad and didn’t make it, I was devastated. Of all of the older girls on the squad, Monica was the only one who came over after tryouts and was so nice.” She transferred her big purse from one shoulder to the other. “Here was this gorgeous older girl not only giving me the time of day, but trying to make me feel better. I wasn’t a cool kid, but Monica consoled me and then told me everything she’d liked about my routine. She was kind, classy. That’s when I realized there was more to her than she let on. Also, it’s strange, but I got the strong impression maybe she was more shy than she showed.”

Monica? Shy? Impossible.

“Why were you angry with her just now? I mean really angry, Noah. I’ve never see you like that before.”

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