Page 52 of Keepsake
“Okay,” I grunted.
“Quite the kiss she gave you last night.”
My gut tightened. “That was just a joke.”It was supposed to be, anyway.
Griff chuckled. “The best jokes have a basis in the truth. Looked pretty realistic if you ask me.”
I felt my neck begin to heat. “Are we gonna load the truck for Norwich or stand here yapping all morning?”
His smile only grew. “Aw, I think you like her. Make sure you let my sister Daphne down easy.”
“Griff! Jesus.”
My boss’s grin only widened. “You took the lord’s name in vain? Looks like I hit a nerve.”
And now I wasdonewith this confusing conversation. “Gotta load the truck,” I muttered. Then I turned my back and stomped away from Griff Shipley for the first time in my life, my pulse hammering in my throat. As a hurried toward the cider house, I expected him to call out and stop me.
He didn’t, though.
13
Lark
Iwasin the farmhouse kitchen when the flatbed truck pulled up outside the kitchen. In a hurry, I tucked two of Ruth’s pumpkin muffins into a plastic container and slapped the lids onto two travel mugs of coffee.
“Have a good one,” May said from the griddle, where she was scrambling eggs. “Looks like good weather for a change.”
“Thanks, babe! Study hard so we can watch a movie tonight.”
“I will.”
I took the muffins and coffee outside, balancing the cups on the container as I eased the back door shut.
“Let me help you with that,” Zach muttered, whisking the cups away so that I was no longer performing a risky balancing act.
“Thanks,” I said, walking around the truck to get into the passenger’s seat. As I climbed up and slammed the door, I wondered how things would be between us this morning. Awkward, potentially.
I’d woken up this morning remembering our moment in the barn. And at the bar. I didn’t know I was so easy to impress. But two kisses had me walking around trying to keep the dreamy look off my face.
Though it wasn’t clear there’d be more of those kisses in my future. And now we had five hundred pounds of apples to sell in four hours. I was fastening my seatbelt when I spotted Griff waving at us. “Hey, the boss is flagging you down,” I said just as Zach let his foot off the brake.
The truck stopped again and I rolled down my window as Griff jogged up. “Hey, Lark. You feel like selling apples again today? Because if you’d rather kick around here instead, I could send Dylan for a change.”
I looked into Griff’s wide brown eyes and tried to figure out why he was asking me that. “Are you trying to keep me away from the cider donuts in Norwich?”
“Not at all, Wild Child.”
“Good. Because I’ll fight you for ’em.”
Griff chuckled. Then he leaned in to ask Zach a question, too. “You got the sweet cider I put in the lower cooler?”
“Of course,” Zach said stiffly.
Griff’s smile slid off. “Everything okay?”
Zach’s hands tightened on the steering wheel. “Yeah. I’m good.”
“Okay, then.” Griff took off his baseball cap and waved us on. “Go forth and sell the season’s first Honeycrisps.”
