Total pages in book: 94
Estimated words: 91461 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 457(@200wpm)___ 366(@250wpm)___ 305(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 91461 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 457(@200wpm)___ 366(@250wpm)___ 305(@300wpm)
“You’re obsessed,” she assured him. “Who are you kidding?”
“Do I know you?”
She shook her head.
He glanced at the others in overalls, jeans, T-shirts, and flannel, and then at the girl in her leggings tucked into Doc Martens, a T-shirt that said Allegedly, and a cropped vest. “Why’re you here?”
Her face scrunched up.
He pointed at the corners of the stall. “There are cameras up there, and you have your phone ready to record. Talk to me.”
She shook her head at the same time he pulled his badge out of the back pocket of his shorts. It was cute how they all exhaled at the same time.
What we got, from the overlapping voices, was that they all went to college together. Tessa, the one in charge, who challenged Sam, was the project leader. They were working together, as a collective, running a farm for their marketing class. One grew fruit, one veggies, one had chickens that provided eggs, and Tessa managed the finances and tracked their profit. Unfortunately, there were some guys who had been picking on them, taking fruit and vegetables from them, who were, Blaine—the boy—thought, friends with others in their class who were not at all working as hard as they were.
“Well, we’ll just see,” Sam said.
He left to return to his monster SUV.
“What’s happening?” Tessa asked me.
“He went to get chairs for him and me. Tell me you all have water and perhaps fruit salads in some kind of refrigerator here.”
“Yes, we do,” she said, beaming at me.
The watermelon that Evie, she was the fruit girl, had tweaked a bit and engineered, was both sweet and juicy. It was excellent. Heather, the vegetable girl, who spoke to the universe, began packing corn for Sam because, as he told her, it was his favorite.
An hour later, here came some guys in a pickup truck, three in all, to take what they wanted from the stand without paying. I asked who they were, once Sam had them all sitting on the grass beside his very fancy fishing chair that Kola had bought him last Christmas. They had been hired by someone named Kent and another guy named Brad, to disrupt the business at the stand. Everyone knew Kent and Brad, whose project was sort of a hostess bar idea that they had, as of yet, not been able to get off the ground. Sam explained that if Tessa, Blaine, Evie, or Heather saw them again, that he would alert the local police department and trespass them and they would be hit with a TRO.
“You don’t want any of that on your records.”
They did not. They did, however, want to buy corn, as the first guy had taken it to his mother and she loved it.
Sam turned to the kids. “I say if they come with cash, then it’s okay. But they have to show you their wallets when they drive up before they get out of the car. They have to hold them out the window.”
Everyone agreed that this was an excellent plan. Sam gave each kid his card, two of the boys bought corn, the third one, watermelon, cantaloupe, and cherries and left. We then shopped, and even though the kids wanted to give it to us for free—Heather really thought the corn wanted to come with us at no charge—we didn’t allow that and paid the excellent prices. We also bought all their eggs, because they were free-range chickens and we went through a lot of eggs in our house. I explained about the katsu and fried rice from a few days before.
“Can you bread portobello mushrooms in panko?” Heather wanted to know.
“Yes,” I assured her. “You just have to watch your cooking time, as mushrooms have liquid in them that’s released as they simmer.”
We had a long chat where I hit the high points for her.
Once Sam and I were back on the road, I couldn’t stop smiling.
“What now?” he groused at me.
“You. You’re a knight in shining armor wherever you go.”
He grunted.
“You are. It’s one of the many reasons I love you.”
“Yeah, but knights need to be taken care of. That’s why a billionaire was never gonna do it for you.”
“Oh?”
“You’re a caretaker at heart. You dote on me and the kids, our friends, just everyone, and what the hell kind of attention does a guy like Aaron Sutter need?”
“A lot. Ask Duncan.”
“Whatever.”
I laughed at him.
“I’m funny?”
“Yes. It was always you, Sam Kage. Don’t be ridiculous.”
We were quiet for a few minutes.
“Those kids back there—they all wanted a love like ours,” he said nonchalantly, paying close attention to the road, not even glancing at me.
“Yes, I heard. I think it was the carrying that did it.”
“Well, you better enjoy it now, because when I’m old and feeble, I won’t be able to––”
“Yes, you will,” I soothed him. It was one of his worries, that as he aged, and through no fault of his own, when his strength waned, that I would, or could, lose interest in him because he would not have the same body. “You’ll always be able to carry me. But if for some reason you could not, you have to know I’m in love with your great heart first and foremost.”