Pick Me (15 page)

Thea forced a smile as she sucked on her straw, but inside she felt a keen sense of doubt. Yes, she’d listened to her heart and told Dennis she couldn’t accept his proposal—yes, she’d listened to her heart and branched out in her work and her interests—but what about with Calder? Why hadn’t she listened to her heart before he’d left, when she’d had a chance?

Willa smiled tenderly. “You still think about him, don’t you?”

Thea pointed a fry at her. “You really need to quit doing that. Find someone else’s mind to read, for once. Or better yet, be a phone operator for one of those Psychic Hotlines.”

“I would but I don’t think they’re still around—and anyway,” added Willa, reaching for her drink, “I think my powers only work on my sisters.”

“Lucky us—Oh, crap.” Thea looked down to see she’d spilled a streak of ketchup across her front.

She glanced around the table, seeing they’d neglected to get napkins. She rose. “Be right back.”

At the counter, she reached for a stack of napkins and banged hands with a neighboring customer. “Oh, I’m sorry—”

“Thea?”

Looking over, Thea met the surprised eyes of Marie Frye. Calder’s sister-in-law smiled. “I thought that was you sitting over there.”

“How’s everything at the farm?” Thea asked.

Marie’s smile remained fixed but Thea could see it took effort to keep it high. “Things are…Well, they’ve been better, let’s just say that.”

Thea leaned closer. “What is it? Did something happen?”

“I don’t want to trouble you.”

“You’re not troubling me. I asked. I want to know.”

Marie set down her bag and sighed. “The truth is we’re in trouble. George had another outburst yesterday and proceeded to fire all the pickers. Who knows why, but by the time Pete got wind of it and tried to stop them from leaving, it was too late. Now we’ve got all these fields ready to pick in the next few days and no one to pick them except me and Pete. It’s too much for two people. We’ll lose a ton of berries.”

“Surely you can hire other pickers?”

Marie shook her head. “I’ve been up and down the farms, and everyone’s slammed right now—there’s no one available. Pete’s a wreck over it. He got up at two in the morning to start picking today because he wanted as much time as possible before the sun turned the berries to mush.”

“Does Calder know?”

“No, Pete would never tell him. He’s still so mad that Call left. He’s completely shut him out.”

“But he should know,” Thea said. “He’d
want
to know.”

“I agree, believe me. But Pete won’t call.”

But I could
. The thought sprang into Thea’s head so fast she wondered if it were written suddenly across her face.

“If you speak with Calder, please don’t mention anything,” Marie said, then tilted her head, the worry in her eyes softening for a moment. “Have you spoken with Calder since he left?”

Thea suspected her own smile looked as strained as Marie’s. “No,” she said.

“Calder mentioned something about you getting engaged. That’s wonderful news.”

“Well, actually, it’s not—“

“Gosh, I hate to run off like this,” Marie interrupted, pointing to the door, “but I’ve got George in the car so I really have to get going, but it was great seeing you, Thea.”

“You too, Marie. Give my best to everyone.”

“Who was that?” Willa asked when Thea returned to their booth.

“Marie Frye. She was in my class in high school. She’s Calder’s sister-in-law now. She and Calder’s brother run the farm.”

“Did she say anything about Calder?”

“No,” said Thea, turning to the window and seeing Marie’s car pull out onto the street. “But she did say the farm is in trouble. Big trouble.”

“Then Calder must have come back to help?”

“That’s just it,” said Thea. “He doesn’t know. His older brother, Pete, is angry and refuses to call him. But God…” Thea sighed. “Someone really needs to, Will. The look on Marie’s face—it broke my heart. She was on the verge of tears the whole time she was telling me.”

“Then I think
you
should call Calder.”

“I promised I wouldn’t.”

Willa leaned in, her mouth set in a determined line. “What did Daddy and Mom always say about promises?”

Thea sighed. “That the only good excuse for breaking a promise was if it kept someone from being hurt.”

“Exactly. Or is it just that you don’t want to hear the sound of his voice?”

Thea stared at her phone where it sat on their table. She didn’t dare admit how badly she wanted to hear Calder’s voice.

But of course, she didn’t have to.

Willa nodded. “That’s what I thought.” She handed Thea her phone. “You’re calling him this minute.”

* * *

Calder moved to the window in the Doctors’ Lounge and smiled. Man, a person sure couldn’t beat the view. San Francisco spread out before him, the water and the Golden Gate Bridge.

They’d put the sales pitch on him hard these past few weeks. Wining and dining him when he wasn’t working the ER, taking him to black tie hospital fundraisers and a charity ball at the Presidio. They’d put him up at a loft in Pacific Heights. They’d made him feel like a king in their city by the bay.

So why did he still miss
his
Bay?

He felt the vibration of his cell phone and pulled it out of his pocket. 843? It took him a minute to connect the area code, but when he did, he clicked on, hope knotting in his throat.

“Dr. Frye.”

“Calder, it’s Thea.”

“Thea, hey.” He moved to the couch and sat down, excitement swirling. “How are you?”

“I’m fine, I’m good.” She didn’t really sound either, he thought, having spent enough time talking to her when she
was
in a good place. “How are you?” she asked. “How’s San Francisco?”

He leaned forward, his elbows resting on his knees. “It’s amazing. The people here have been great. It’s an incredible city.”

“So I’ve heard. I’ve always wanted to visit.”

“You should.” Jesus, was that an invitation? What was he doing? She was engaged. But for that matter, if she was engaged, why was she calling him?

Hope tore through him—maybe she was calling to tell him she’d called it off, or told the guy no in the first place. Then why did she sound so strained, so nervous?

This wasn’t about her and him, he thought.

Then what?

He blinked hard at the floor. “Thea, is everything okay?”

She released a sigh before answering. “Marie would kill me if she knew I called you.”

“Marie?” Dread clenched in his stomach, tight enough that he straightened up.

“It’s your dad, Calder. It’s the whole farm. Apparently your father fired all the pickers and now Pete can’t find enough people to pick the fields. They’re going to lose a huge crop in the next few days.”

Calder bolted to his feet and marched to the window, trying to take it all in. Anger surged, frustration followed. Why the hell hadn’t Pete called him, dammit?

“I’m coming home,” he said. “I’ll get a flight tonight.”

“If there’s anything I can do…” Her voice was softening, he could hear it. Relief. Maybe something else? “I know people, friends who’d be more than happy to help.”

“It’s okay. Really. Just letting me know has been more help than you can know.”

The phone fell quiet but the line crackled with a mutual need to say more—neither knowing what, though.

“I should get off the phone so I can make my reservation,” Calder said.

“Of course,” she said. “I’ll let you go. If you need someone to pick you up at the airport—“

“The shuttle’s quick. I don’t need to trouble you to deal with all that.”

“I don’t mind. Really.”

He knew he had to cut the call off—otherwise he’d lose his self-control and accept her offer. God knew there was no one he wanted to see more when he got off an airplane in Magnolia Bay than her. But there was another guy who got to see her when he got off a plane, she was someone else’s pick-up surprise now.

The reminder sobered him. He had one hell of a night ahead.

“Thanks again for calling me, Thea. I mean it. You have no idea how grateful I am that you did.”

* * *

Thea hung up and dropped her head on her folded arms. She wasn’t sure if it was the guilt over calling—or the pathetic way she’d practically begged Calder to let her pick him up from the airport—that had her feeling more undone.

Still, she knew it had been the right thing to do. Family was everything—and when people were too stubborn to reach out for help when they needed it, they deserved intervention. After all, hadn’t she, Thea, done something similar when Willa had refused to see Knox’s love for her—and hers for him!—hours before Peach’s wedding last year?

She should have felt relieved, complete—her work done. But it wasn’t enough. Her heart ached to know of their plight, memories of her dinner at the farm, images of Calder and Pete and their strained faces, the baldness of their frustration and their worries. Then came memories of her last conversation with Calder, how unfair she’d been. Shame and regret flooded her. She’d blamed Calder because she was too weak to stand up for what she wanted, what she knew in her heart she deserved.

She wanted to call him back, to tell him she was sorry, to ask him what she could do to rescue
him
for once, instead of always needing his rescue.

But when she reached for her phone, she stilled.

No, there was another way.

Chapter Fourteen

Barely
twenty-four hours later, Calder stood at the edge of their strawberry fields and squinted out at the red-speckled rows of green.

“We’re screwed.” Pete came beside him, wearing the same frown he’d worn since Calder had arrived early that morning, not believing that Calder had come without a request from Marie.

“Where’s Pop?”

“Passed out in his room.” Pete nodded toward the house. “Marie says he staggered up there a few minutes ago. When it’s this bad, he could be out for the rest of the day.”

If we’re lucky
, Calder thought to himself.

They both heard the rumble of approaching trucks at the same time and tented their hands against the glare of the sun to see their approach. There were two pick-ups; one navy blue, one white.

When they swung into the lot, Calder read their sides: Loveless Brothers Construction Company.

Pete frowned. “What the hell do they want?”

“Beats me.” It was then that Calder saw Thea emerge from the white truck. She wore a pair of Daisy Dukes and a USC t-shirt nearly long enough to cover her cut-offs, her hair held up in a high ponytail.

Two other women who looked familiar to him, one blond, one brunette with glasses, slid out after her.

Calder moved to meet them. “What are you doing here?” he asked.

Thea pushed up her sunglasses, her eyes pooling with warmth, and a smile that nearly killed him. “I heard you needed some help.” She gestured to her left. “You remember my sister,
Connie?”

Calder reached out a hand. “Of course. Nice to see you again.”

“You too,” Connie said.

“And this is my sister, Willa,” Thea went on, pointing to the smiling blond on her other side, “and that wild-haired guy over there in the other truck is her boyfriend, Knox Loveless and his brothers, Brady and Justin—but you probably already know them.”

“God, she wasn’t kidding,” Willa breathed, taking Calder’s hand. “You
are
a hottie.”

Calder laughed, too smitten with the whole scene to know what else to do, frankly. He knew all about the Loveless family, their money and their legacy in Magnolia Bay. He’d been in school with Brady Loveless and ridden the bus with Knox. But never in a million years would he have imagined three of Magnolia Bay’s golden boys would be here, sleeves rolled up, ready to sink their hands into a row of strawberry plants.

“So, Doctor…” Thea came up to him, her eyes bright, her lips looking criminally full as she smiled up at him. It was all he could do not to grab her and kiss the hell out of that gorgeous mouth. “Tell your eager patients where to start picking.”

* * *

The couples paired up quickly. Pete pointed to the ripest rows, while Calder handed out empty flats to fill, along with some tips. “Only pick the reddest ones, because unripe ones won’t ripen once they’re picked. Also, if you see any rotten ones, or bug-eaten ones, take them off and set them in between the rows so they don’t infect the other berries—that’s a huge help to us.”

Thea stared at him admiringly as he spoke to their small crowd, thinking how comfortable he seemed in charge, how calm, how confident. She could just imagine him in the middle of a disaster, how capable he must have been, how it took that kind of personality to do what he did, the split-second decision-making skills you needed to be an ER doctor. Dressed down in jeans, a thread-bare t-shirt, and a faded baseball cap, he’d never looked sexier.