Page 32 of Where It All Began
“If we’re attracted to each other I don’t see the harm in exploring—”
“You also didn’t see the harm in moving in with a stranger you’d never met for the summer. You lucked out with me. I could have been some kind of homicidal maniac farmer looking to add another pretty corpse to my cornfield cemetery.”
Phoebe blinked those jade green eyes at him. “I don’t know what to say to that.”
“Good because I’m not finished. I’m responsible for you while you’re here, and being responsible for you doesn’t mean stripping off your clothes and… and…” He tripped himself up with a blood-pumping vision of taking off her clothes until there was nothing left between them.
“Having sex?” she finished for him.
“You didn’t come here for sex,” he pointed out. “You came here to write your thesis. And I didn’t agree to let you stay in hopes that we’d end up in bed.”
“Technically you agreed to let a guy stay here,” Phoebe reminded him.
“Look. We both made a commitment. You work here for the summer, and I put up with your interrogation. What would happen to that commitment if we did pursue a physical relationship, and it didn’t work out?”
“We’re adults, John—”
“Think about it. One false move, and I’m out the help I need around here for the season, and you’re back to square one with your school work. That’s not fair to either one of us. Just like with the farm, every decision we make has consequences, and I’m not willing to pay them. And having someone come in and ask me a million questions about why I did this or why I won’t do that puts me on the defensive.”
She nodded. “Okay, I can get that. But what makes you so sure it would end badly?”
“We can barely get through a conversation without arguing.”
“We don’t argue,” she argued. “We have spirited discussions, and I think there’s another reason besides the whole honorable host deal. What is it?”
She was a canny little witch. John shoved a hand through his half-trimmed hair. “It’s stupid.”
“Well, now I have to know.” She crossed her legs and propped her chin on her hand. “Spill it.”
John leaned against the railing and screwed up his courage. “I bought this place to start my future. It’s important to know what you want. I wanted land and crops and work that I look forward to. But more, I wanted a place to raise a family. That’s my plan, and I don’t want to detour from that. When I bring whoever the future Mrs. Pierce is here, I don’t want her facing any shadows from the past. I bought this place for her.”
“Well, hell,” she breathed. “How am I supposed to make fun of that? That’s the most romantic thing I’ve ever heard,” Phoebe pouted.
“So, you’ll give me some breathing room and maybe wear some looser, longer clothes?” John was anxious to extract a promise from her. If she wasn’t coming on to him, he could battle his attraction easier.
Phoebe laughed. She rose and pushed John back down onto the stool. “I’m not done yet.” When she lifted the scissors, John wasn’t sure if she was talking about his hair or her pursuit of him.
--------
John’s wish for rain on Sunday was in vain.The day was sunny and warm just to spite him, Phoebe thought smugly. It was a beautiful damn day. A sentiment repeated over and over again by the good-natured farming families that descended on Pierce Acres like hungry hippies to a picnic.
The front yard looked as though Woodstock and a Duran Duran concert had gone to war. There were hand crocheted vests, decades-old denim, fanny packs, and mile-high hair cut in gravity-defying layers.
Murdock had barked at the first twelve cars to arrive before giving up and hiding in Melanie’s stall in the barn. Phoebe had wiped her damp palms on her shorts and slapped on a welcoming smile. John was determined to pretend this party thing wasn’t happening and that their almost-kiss hadn’t happened. He had entered a hibernation from reality.
Thankfully, Elvira’s prediction had proved correct. Throwing a party in Blue Moon required very little preparation. Parties tended to evolve naturally as long as there was enough food and beer to outlast the crowd.
The empty tables they’d set up on the lawn an hour earlier were now buckling under the weight of side dishes, salads, and desserts.
It seemed like a lot more than forty people had shown up, and none of them looked like they were in a hurry to get down to farm business.
John manned the grill like a captain through a hurricane, grimly and with stalwart determination. No one would accuse him of being a social butterfly, Phoebe thought with a grin as she shoved Mrs. Murkle’s dish of potato salad in between the other two potato salads on the picnic table. Since confessing that he had no intention of acting on his attraction, he seemed to have doubled down on his commitment to remain a hermit, avoiding her like a former one-night stand he ran into in church.
She would have thought John’s commitment admirable if she hadn’t been too busy plotting ways to destroy it. She’d carefully chosen her outfit with that exact purpose in mind. Phoebe’s denim shorts showed plenty of leg, and the scoop neck of her impossible-to-miss red tank top highlighted all the right curves. She wore her hair long and loose and was regretting it in this heat until she’d caught John’s slow, head-to-toe scan of her.
She’d lowered her Wayfarers, winked, and strutted away as he swore ripely under his breath.
Torturing the man was as satisfying as surprising him, Phoebe decided as he fumbled a plate of hot dogs.
