Page 5 of Pick Your Spot

What would it be like to watch those tiny buds grow into flowers, and then magic themselves into apples? The idea intrigued him like nothing had for years.

And that wasn’t due to the woman standing a few yards away. Well, he was intrigued by her as well, but the entire orchard fascinated him. He’d been strolling for over an hour and hadn’t seen anything to discourage him. In fact, he’d doubled down on his desire to talk his family into this.

He could get Lawson hooked on the required machinery. Jolie would be fascinated by the ecosystem and how to make it better. Burke breathed in numbers and breathed out spreadsheets, but Knox bet he’d love the place too, if they could get him out of the office. And Amber had a thing for old buildings. She’d love the farmhouses. Before Amber had gone into the hospitality field, he’d figured she’d go into renovations or interior design. She’d been full of ideas how to fix up Fox’s house. Despite the tiny space being suddenly full with five kids, it had become a home.

Amber could do that here. The entire family all could.

Knox pulled his attention from his thoughts, and back to Thea who studied him intently. “I can’t make any decisions without my siblings, but I can promise you that I’ll try to talk them into taking over the farm, into making it a profitable business. At the very least, you’ll be paid for the work you’re doing here.”

Her eyes flared with hope and it was all Knox could do to keep his feet planted instead of walking forward and pulling her in for a hug. The woman was magnetic.

He gestured to the mounds of dirt and plant matter. “The more I know, the more info I’ll have to convince my family. Why don’t you tell me what you’re doing here?”

A smile lit up her face, and he felt his insides go a little gooey. Holy hell, this woman could bring him to his knees with nothing more than that smile.

With the hand not holding the giant stick, Thea waved at the dirt with pride. “This is the composting center.”

“Compost?” Why in the hell would compost light up this woman?

Her husky laugh had his body tightening with desire, and he took two seconds to shut it down completely. The discipline he’d learned in the army had honed his ability to control his body. He wasn’t freaking her out with uncontrolled lust when they’d just met.

Thea nodded and waved her stick. “Compost. The most important component of any farm. Without good compost, you can’t have good soil. And good soil is magic.”

He loved her enthusiasm. “Magic?”

“Absolutely. Over the years, the soil has been depleted. We have to bring it back to its full glory. The key to doing that is proper nourishment. We don’t have a good composting facility here yet, so we’ve been doing it by hand while Jay saved up for it. This section is the most recent, so you can’t see much progress.”

She used her stick to point and then led the way. She moved without getting closer to him. “Each section was started in a different month over the last year. You can see how the branches, apples, and other material are breaking down the further we go back. This batch is the first one we created last year when I arrived. See how the material is so much further along in the process than that first pile? It’s not quick, but it’s working. By next year, we’ll have doubled our compost, even without a modern facility.”

She squatted down and ran her bare hand through what Knox would have called a gross, decaying mess. It appeared he’d have to change his perspective if he wanted to be a farm owner.

Thea picked up a handful of dirt and stood to show him. She used words likenitrates,andmicrobial,andmicroorganisms. He hadn’t come across any of those concepts in the research he’d done. But his research had involved running the farm itself. It appeared he had a lot to learn.

And with Thea as a teacher, he might be the most enthusiastic student ever.

About twenty minutes into her talk about the thrilling world of composting, Thea realized she’d barely stopped to breathe. It was her pet topic, and once she got going, it was difficult to reign herself in.

She stood up and brushed her hands on her jeans. “Sorry about that. I’ve been blathering on, and you probably don’t want to hear any of that.”

Knox tilted his head and studied her with amusement lighting his eyes. Not derision. Not even annoyance. At least she hadn’t pissed off her potential employer.

He grinned at her. “I actually found it fascinating. I learned a lot and hope to learn more.”

Well, that was nice to hear. Thea hoped it was true. “What are your immediate plans for the farm?”

He shrugged, and some of the light dimmed from his smile. “Not sure yet. Step one is to get a good overview of exactly what Jay left us. I want details to take back to my siblings so we can make an informed decision about what to do next.”

“I can tell you everything I know, but I’ve only been here for a year. Jay bought the property a year before that. Sadly, it hasn’t been a producing apple farm for more than a decade.”

Disappointment showed on his face. “That’s too bad. It would be easier for me to convince everyone if it was a productive business already.”

Thea needed Knox on board. If he was the most enthusiastic about keeping the property, she had to prove to him the place had enormous potential. “It could be. That was Jay’s plan. He’d hired me as his soil consultant, and that’s the most important step. Without healthy soil, nothing else matters. Not everyone has learned the values of regenerative farming, but it’s the healthiest way to bring soil, and what it produces, back to life.”

Knox studied her compost and looked back at the trees. “Are the trees still producing apples? Is there potential to make at least some money this year?”

Thea nodded. “Definitely. There will be apples in the fall, and they’ll be delicious. It’ll take some work to harvest them, but there will be a crop. The fact that the property has been let go for a decade isn’t a bad thing. A lot of the re-wilding has been happening naturally, and that’s a bonus.”

“How so?”

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