I put my purse up in one of the volunteer lockers, tucked my phone in the back pocket of my jeans, and found a hairnet and apron. As I was tucking the last loose strands under the net, a pair of big arms encircled me from behind and gave me a big hug.
Rodney smelled like dish soap and onions.
“How’ve you been, Kayla?” he asked cheerfully.
I slipped out from his arms. Rodney had always been a hugger. I turned to him as I fixed the last bits of hair sticking out near my forehead. “I’m good. Busy. You know how it is. How are you?”
Rodney rubbed the back of his neck and gave me an uncommitted shrug. “Same old, same old. Every day blends into the next around here, you know? But it’s good. It’s good.”
I could feel Rodney watching me as I tightened my apron behind my back. I wasn’t sure if he tried to hide the fact that he had a crush on me or not, but if that was the case, he was doing a poor job of it. I’d had a hunch that Rodney had a crush on me since my third or fourth week volunteering at the kitchen. He was a little too comfortable with me. He liked to hug me every chance he got, and on rare occasions, he’d even taken my hand and spun me around like we were a lovesick couple dancing in the middle of a candlelit dance floor.
He was a good guy. A simple guy. The last thing I wanted to do was hurt his feelings or make it weird for us to work together. We made a good team. He was the brawn and I was the brains. We laughed easily when we were together and it was infectious. If someone was having a bad day at the kitchen, we’d sick ourselves on them and our silliness was likely to brighten even the darkest of moods.
“Hey, uh, Kayla?”
I turned to him. “Yes?”
“I was wondering if you had plans after your shift tonight. I think I’ll be able to get out of here a little earlier than usual and there’s this great Vietnamese restaurant that opened around the corner. Well, I don’t know how great it is personally, but I’ve only heard good things, and I’ve been meaning to try it for a while now. I like food. You like food. So it just makes sense, right?”
I laughed. “Are you asking me to dinner, Rodney?”
“Yes, I am,” he said with a lopsided grin.
I chuckled softly as I passed him on my way to the saloon-style doors and put a hand on his arm. “I’m sorry, but I’m so busy with work right now that I need every minute I can get in front of my computer. I appreciate the offer, though. Why don’t you see if someone else wants to go? I bet Carl or Bev would go with you.”
Rodney pouted. “Bev is fifty-two.”
“So?” I played dumb.
Rodney’s disappointment slipped away as he shrugged off my rejection. “You know what? You’re right. I’ll ask Carl and Bev. They’re decent company.”
“That’s the spirit.”
“Not as decent as you, of course.”
I flashed him a smile. “Well, of course not. Nobody is as decent as me.”
I left Rodney chuckling in the kitchen and wondered if I’d let him down too easily. He was only going to keep trying if I left room for him to think there was a chance for us—which there was not.
My tastes leaned more toward unattainable men with bad attitudes and big strong hands. Men like Lukas Holt.
He’d been my wildest fantasy as a teenage girl. If I was being perfectly honest, he’d also been my sexual awakening as a young girl. Some of my friends were crushing on animated characters in some of their favorite films. Others continued to talk about the tall, dark-haired man in all black from the dinosaur movie who draped himself on everyone and everything and looked hot as hell doing it.
But me? I was crushing on the boy next door. And now I was still crushing on him even though he was an asshole.
He never should have walked into my office and put me in a position like that. And yet he had. And he’d left me standing in his wake all hot and bothered and flustered while he’d been able to walk out without the smallest gesture of a farewell.
I moved along the line behind the volunteers to find an open station dishing out assorted steamed vegetables that smelled like garlic and pepper.
Don’t get ahead of yourself, Kayla.
I smiled at the first people to step up to my station and served them their vegetables. A young boy with dirty cheeks gave me a charming, gap-toothed smile, while an older boy, presumably his brother, removed his hat and muttered a shy hello.
I gave them a little extra and ushered them down the line.
Lukas takes what he wants. And he wants everything. I sighed. You’re not special. Not to a man like that.
Chapter 11
Lukas
“It looks like we’ve arrived, Mr. Holt.”
I looked up from my laptop which was balanced on my knees as I rode in the back seat of the Range Rover. My driver, Art, a balding man with a thin frame and respectable posture, palmed the steering wheel and took a gentle right-hand turn. The tires rolled off the paved street onto a dirt road lined in apple trees.
The farm was nowhere in sight. The road stretched on before us until it narrowed to a point and met the blue sky. Kayla had warned me that it was a ways off the main road, about a quarter mile to be precise, which meant this property was of staggering proportions.
“What a beautiful apple orchard,” Art said.
My eyes were back on my
