CHAPTER ONE
Elaine stood an arm’s length from the shade-giving hemlock tree. Her fingertips traced the vertical grooves in its multi-hued bark. High winds the night before had brought down the top quarter and cracked the next lowest section of trunk.
She loved this tree and its twin. The sentimental part of her heart said it would be fine to leave it standing. The loud-mouthed business side overrode her attachment, cited public safety, and called a local tree-removal service. The man who took her call assured her he’d be at the food truck’s parking lot within thirty minutes.
Over an hour later, Elaine raised her face skyward and made a silent plea for patience. She needed a professional to remove the fractured hemlock. What she wasn’t expecting was a guy who spoke to her like she was a contemporary of his grandmother. At forty-seven years old—not eighty-seven—she knew her curves looked good coming and going, and yes, she knew he thought he was being polite, but certain phrases rubbed her the wrong way.
“Excuse me, ma’am?” The man with the deep voice moved closer as he spoke again, the ma’am another nail in his coffin.
“My name is Elaine.” Keeping her back to the unwitting irritant, she stepped onto one of her many soapboxes and continued. “Elaine Atkins. Not ‘ma’am,’ not ‘honey.’ E-laine.” She planted her fists on her hips and pivoted on the ball of her foot. “And you are?”
The twinkle in the tree man’s eyes threw off enough sparks to jump start the industrial cook stove inside her locked truck.
Oh. Maybe she’d been a little quick out of the gate.
“Richie Havens, ma—Elaine. Not the Richie Havens, of course.” He opened his arms wide to the sides, cocked his head, and gave her a hopeful look.
“Obviously.” She crossed her arms under her breasts, aware the move accentuated one of her mightiest assets. Richie had gorgeous, tea-with-cream-colored skin and wavy, dark brown hair, but he was no famous musician by way of Brooklyn. Right now, she needed the most highly recommended tree guy on the island to fix the situation. Or she’d be calling the second most highly recommended tree guy.
She pointed to the taller of the two hemlocks. “This one cracked last night when we had those high winds.”
Richie tilted his head and moved his gaze up. Elaine pulled oversized sunglasses over her eyes to hide her gawking and affected an I’m-waiting stance. Damn, this Richie Havens might not possess any musical skill, but he had that sex-on-a-stick, wide-legged stance down to a one-two beat. She practically swooned when he crossed his arms over his chest and cocked one hip to the side then the other and back again, all the while appearing to assess the condition of her two trees.
Summer Rules are in effect, Elaine. July first through Labor Day. And rule number one states, “There shall be no distractions of the sexual kind.” Because distractions of the sexual kind during the height of tourist season meant her attention wasn’t where it needed to be: on her business.
He finally spoke. “Shouldn’t take long to bring this down. You want me to haul it off or cut it into firewood?”
She waved away his question. “I have no use for soft wood. You’re welcome to it.”
“I prefer hard woods myself. They burn longer and hotter. But I’m not going to turn down free firewood.”
“I have a whole stack of well-seasoned wood waiting for me at home.” Elaine removed her sunglasses, hooked them over the neckline of her T-shirt, and ignored the way one side of his mouth twitched. “Burns slow and steady and heats the whole house.”
Richie scratched at his head and smiled more fully. Light bounced off the sun-bleached tips of his waves as he dipped his chin, cocked an eyebrow, and shoved his hands in his pockets. “Now that we’ve established you like older wood, should I remove the hemlock, or would you prefer I get my dad or my uncle out here? They’ve both got at least two decades on me.”
Elaine had stumbled into his double entendre like she was playing a blindfolded game of Marco Polo. In the woods. Drunk. But she stood her ground. “I would appreciate it if you could get that tree down and out of here as soon as possible. The one beside it can stay, if you think that’s okay.”
“I’ll check it for damage and let you know. Elaine.”
“Cash okay?” She inserted her key into the handle on the back door to the food truck.
“Cash is fine,” he answered.
She nodded and, when she stepped up into the truck, promptly forgot about flirting further with the not-legendary Richie Havens. A branch had punctured a hole in the skylight, and the pesky raccoon family that visited her on rotation had helped themselves to the packages of flour tortillas she’d forgotten to put away.
“Dammit, Rocky!”
The truck shifted with the weight of another body entering through the back door. Elaine grabbed the edge of the counter to steady herself and bent over to pick up a ripped plastic bag.
“It’s Richie, not Rocky.”
She straightened quickly, pulled fistfuls of her curly hair away from her face, twisted them into a topknot, and secured them with an elastic. “I know who you are. I was yelling at the raccoons. They’re all named Rocky, and right now, they’re all on my shit list.”
Richie chuckled as he surveyed the mess. “I can help you with this. Got some of those heavy black trash bags in my truck. I can toss whatever’s spoiled onto my compost, if that would ease your mind about the waste.”
Knowing a day’s worth of ruined, organic whole-grain tortillas would end up eventually doing some good for the environment and not waste away in the trash pile was a small bit of solace. She offered a tight-lipped smile. “That’d be really helpful. The farm that takes my compostables wouldn’t appreciate an excess of commercially prepared bread on their pile.”
“Well, my stack gets pretty hot, and the turnover’s
