What The Heart Wants (11 page)

“Alright you minx,” Eric called, grabbing her ankle and pulling her toward shore, making her flail out to try to keep her head above water.

Then she felt the palm of Eric’s work-rough hand land on her breast. She hadn’t stopped to realize that by floating on her back, her entire front was exposed above water. A bolt of shock shot from his touch to between her legs.

Eric’s other hand went underneath her, holding her in a floating position. His palm cupping the outer sides of her breast and his thumb ran once over her nipple. His eyes were looking at her chest as he ran circles around her hardened point. Then his eyes came up and found hers. “Tell me to stop.”

Anna felt tension building between her thighs. She wanted his hands on her breasts, teasing her. She wanted his hand between her legs. She wanted more. She wanted everything.

“Stop,” her voice whispered out of her mouth, surprising her.

Eric nodded, his hand releasing her breast and helping her to stand up. He rose up out of the water and walked onto land. She watched water cascade down his back and his muscular ass. He reached down, grabbing his boxer briefs and pulling them up his wet legs before turning with a smirk. “Like what you see?”

Anna smiled and shrugged. “Eh, maybe.”

Eric laughed loudly. “Now get your plump ass out here.”

“Plump?” she objected, splashing water at him.

“Plump is a good thing,” he qualified. “It gives a man something to hold onto.” He held out a hand to her. When she didn’t take it, he shook his head at her. “Modesty? Really? I still have your taste in my mouth and your nail marks on my back.” He shook his head at her stubborn set to her jaw. “Fine. Have it your way,” he said, grabbing her bra and panties, laying them on the rock and turning his back to her.

She climbed out of the water quietly, slipping into her bra and panties which felt weird and uncomfortable on her wet skin.

Eric turned then, her dress in his hand and keeping eye contact with her. “You want this or do you want to dry off first?”

“Dry,” she said, squeezing the excess water out of her hair, sitting on the cool rock.

Eric dropped down beside her. “So I’m glad you decided to slip into that little dress and ask me out. I had fun.”

“So did I,” Anna nudged his shoulder with hers. “You’re not as bad as everyone seems to think you are.”

“Shh,” he chuckled. “I have a reputation to uphold.”

“Oh right,” Anna grinned. “You got me into the woods under the pretense of looking for your lost puppy. And then when you got me alone, you made me all kinds of promises to get me to sleep with you. Then up and left without so much as a farewell.”

Eric laughed. “That’s more like it. Now we have our cover story.”

“Yes but what exactly are we covering up?” she asked, pulling her knees to her chest, shivering. “that you’re not actually a bad guy?”

“Exactly,” Eric said, handing her her dress and standing up. “cant have that getting out.”

They walked casually back toward town, talking sporadically.

At her car, Eric grabbed her and turned them around so his back was against the car and she was facing him. His hands were on her waist but her held her a foot away from his body for a moment. “You’re a really pleasant surprise Annabelle Goode.”

Anna smiled, feeling her face redden. “Right back at you, Eric O’reilly.”

He pulled her closer, kissed her cheek, and told her he would see her around.

Anna let herself into her quiet house and went straight to her bed, chilled to the bone from the long stint in the water. She cuddled into two comforters, running the night over and over through her head. She felt satisfied. Happy almost. It was a foreign feeling she hadn’t truly felt since childhood. But it was the happiness of a grown woman. A woman who had a really, really sexy man interested in her. And the confidence she drew from that. She fell into a dreamless sleep less than twenty minutes later, listening to the owl hoot somewhere off in the distance. On Sam’s farm, she recalled.

Ten
 

There was no way she could be seeing what she was seeing. Anna had scrambled out of bed later than she would have liked, feeling groggy. She walked outside still wearing the black dress from the night before to look around her plots to see what work she would need to do that day.

She rubbed her sleep-foggy eyes and looked again. The entire garden in front of her had been destroyed, every last plant ripped out of the ground.

Then she realized with an overwhelming sick feeling rise in her belly. The destroyed crop in front of her was the dill she was supposed to sell to Hank in just a few weeks.

And it was all gone. Along with the money she would have gotten for it. Money she was going to desperately need once her account dwindled down to nothing.

What could have happened? Some random pest? A squirrel or rabbit? Then it hit her. The memory flooded back to her second day at the house, coming out to check the land and finding that mischievous little goat making a meal from her seedlings.

She took off to Sam’s property at a dead run, her tight dress inching up on her thighs. The landscape flew past her unnoticed as she realized that without the money from Hank’s sale, she wouldn’t ever be able to keep her head above water through the winter. She would have to sell Mam’s farm. She’d have to move back with Viv.

Sam’s barns came into view as her legs started to hurt and feel wobbly. She had never been much of a runner. She could make out Sam in the distance, carrying a sack of something over his shoulder. A dog started barking manically and Sam looked up.

“Anna,” he called, dropping the sack. “What’s wrong?” he asked as she skidded to a stop in front of him.

She fought for breath for a moment, her chest aching from exertion she was unaccustomed to. The longer she took to answer, the more concern colored Sam’s face.

“You,” she accused, gasping. “My dill.”

“Your dill,” Sam asked, his brows drawn together. “Anna take a deep breath. What is going on?”

Anna obliged. “Your goat must have gotten into my garden again. He destroyed it!” Anger hit her hard and fast, making her face flush and her muscles all over tense up.

“Honey, I don’t think so. I patched up all the fences between our property a few weeks ago. I don’t see how one could have gotten in.”

“Well they did,” she shouted, feeling the frustration make her eyes begin to tear.

“Okay. Okay,” Sam held up his hands, palms out. “show me.”

Anna immediately started to stalk off toward her property line. Sam’s big hand came down on her shoulder. “We’ll take my truck. It will be faster.”

They drove in silence, Anna a seething pile of nerves and Sam sending off concern so thick he could choke on it. What was he going to do if what she said was true? For a farmer, crops are livelihood. And dill was going to be her biggest order. How could he ever make it up to her? Even if he paid her, it wouldn’t be the same. She would never get that feeling of satisfaction of starting something from scratch and making it successful.

She would never forgive him.

Sam knelt down next to the bed, somber and frustratingly calm. “Anna I’m sorry but goats didn’t do this. Actually I don’t think any animal did,” he stood up and turned to face her. “Nothing has been chewed, let alone eaten. Plus animals wouldn’t generally go for dill. It’s pungent. Come here,” he said, kneeling again and grabbing a handful of ruined plants. “It all looks like it has been pulled up. Like weeds.”

“Are you saying a person did this?”

Sam sighed. “I think so.”

“But… but…” Anna sputtered. “Who would do this? Who could possibly hate me this much? I just moved here!” Her anger drained suddenly, leaving only the growing dread she was feeling. “Now I cant sell this to Hank for his pickles. And I wont make any money. And I’ll have to sell this farm just when I was starting to like it here. And…” she broke off on a sob, bowing her head as the tears fell hot and rapid.

“Oh, honey,” Sam said, sitting down on the ground and pulling her into his lap. He tucked her head under his chin and wrapped his arms around her. She sobbed loudly, her body jerking violently as the tears rained down onto Sam’s chest soaking through his t-shirt.

“It’s going to be alright Anna. We’ll figure this out. I promise. You’re not going to lose the farm. I wont let that happen. Shh,” he whispered against her temple. “Shh.”

After a few minutes, her throat sore from sobbing, she continued to cry silently for a long while before she finally ran out of tears and started sniffling pathetically.  

“I’m sorry,” she said, wiping her eyes and feeling embarrassed.

“For what?” Sam asked, a hand rubber her back. “You have nothing to be sorry for.”

Anna pulled away, keeping her head down as she scrubbed her face dry with her palms. “I cried all over you.”

“I’ll dry,” he smiled.

“And I shouldn’t have accused you, or your goats, like that.”

“You were shocked and upset. And I mean it did happen before. It wasn’t a crazy leap to make. Don’t apologize.”

Anna took a few deep breaths. “What am I going to do Sam?” she asked, more to herself than anything.

He was silent for a moment. “Well I’m no expert, but could you possibly use this still? Dry it and sell it as like a container cooking spice?” he asked, sheepishly.

But then she realized… she could do that. She probably wouldn’t make the kind of money she would have gotten from Hank all at once but it wasn’t a total loss. It could still bring in some money.

“You’re a genius,” she said, smiling weakly. She knelt forward, grabbing a few handfuls of dill. “So do you know anything about drying herbs?”

Sam shrugged, reaching for some plants as well. “It’s not complicated.”

He stayed despite her insistence that he should go home and take care of his business. They took all the plants over to the porch, cutting the roots off and collecting them into bunches, and tying strings around the ends.

“So where should I hang these?” she wondered out-loud, but to herself.

Sam glanced up at her. “Somewhere warm and dry.”

Anna shrugged. “Anywhere in the house then. Mam apparently had some kind of aversion to air conditioning.”

Sam enjoyed working next to her. She was fast and efficient and seemed happy to be kept busy.

And she was managing to work in that incredibly tight, low-cut, short dress that could not have been comfortable. She looked breathtaking. Even though he knew she had put that dress on to go out with Eric. You couldn’t spit in Stars Landing without everyone knowing about it and telling your mother.

She had stalked down the main street in stiletto heels and a tight black dress, right into Eric’s shop. From there they had gotten coffee at Liam’s bookstore. Then disappeared. And weren’t seen again until hours later... walking out of the woods.

Sam’s stomach clenched considering what they could have been doing in the woods at night for hours.

But it wasn’t his business, he reminded himself. Even if his own behavior toward her had probably, like Maude warned, sent her right into Eric’s arms.

Anna growled, throwing the bunch of dill she was trying to tie together. “I cant do this. I need coffee,” she said, standing carefully and walking inside.

Sam tied his bunch and then fixed hers before following her in. The coffee pot was dripping and the kitchen smelled strong and rich. Anna was searching the cabinet above her head for mugs, her dress inching up to almost reveal her behind. Sam shook his head, his mind trying to imagine what it would be like to push her up against the cabinet and take her from behind.

He cleared his throat awkwardly. She glanced over her shoulder, expecting him to say something. “Nice dress,” he said and watched as she stepped down off her tippy toes and pulled the hemline down.

“Thanks,” Anna said, feeling strange. Guilty, she realized. She felt guilty. Like she shouldn’t be in front of him wearing the dress she had worn for Eric. Which was ridiculous. Sam didn’t want her. Case closed. She was moving on from that. “I’m… I’m going to go change into something more appropriate,” she said, quickly disappearing down the hall and rummaging around for clothes.

“I like the paint job,” Sam called to her, walking into the living room, scooping fat Sylvester off the floor.

“Yeah I painted that when I was bombed,” she admitted casually.

“Pretty good work for beer goggles,” Sam smiled to himself. He couldn’t picture her drunk.

“Gin,” she clarified, slipping out of the dress and taking her first real breath in almost twenty-four hours. “Hey Sam,” she called as the silence dragged on.

“Yeah?”

“How many men named John do you think there are in Stars Landing?” she asked, looking at the note on Mam’s wall.

Sam looked toward the bedroom door, trying to not think about her naked behind it. “A dozen. More or less. It’s a common name. Why?”

Anna walked down the hall in a pair of tight gray yoga pants and black tank-top. “Apparently Mam had an… admirer at some point named John. I was just seeing if I could piece together who it was and what happened between them. His letters are the only really personal things I found around her so far.”

Sam’s brows drew together. No one had ever known Mam to date. In fact half of the town just thought she was a spinster and the other half thought she was a lesbian. “I never knew her to date. But she was a fiercely private woman. Sociable, but kept her own business to herself mostly.”

Anna nodded, her mother had told her as much. “I don’t know why I want to know so badly,” she admitted, walking toward the kitchen to pour the coffee. “I feel like… she just gave me this really awesome opportunity. Out of nowhere. I really didn’t even know her. I feel like I owe it to her to try to learn about her life. I dunno. It’s stupid.”

“It’s not stupid,” Sam said, taking a sip of his coffee. “I wish I could help more. We talked a lot but about our businesses and the town. Nothing personal. She had this biting tongue, though,” Sam recalled, smiling. “She was really quick-witted and sense of humor ran toward sarcastic. And you didn’t want to get on the opposite side of an argument with that woman. You’d leave feeling bloody and bruised.”