Page 111 of No More Secrets
A quick scan told her nothing had to be addressed before morning. Except for Niko’s email. Subject line: Farm art.
Summer told herself not to click on it, but her finger didn’t listen.
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Finished editing. Thought you’d like to see some of the art for your story.
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He’d attached a link to an online gallery and Summer was opening it before she could talk herself out of it. She could look at his pictures. She was a professional. It wasn’t too painful for her. Her memories of Carter and the farm and Blue Moon Bend were something to be treasured.
The first shot punched a hole in her heart. Carter was standing knee-deep in a field, his legs braced apart. His arms crossed. His uniform of well-worn jeans and t-shirt clung to all the right places. A warrior in the garden. Behind him, the farm rolled out until it met the blue-skied horizon.
It was perfect. Her editor’s mind immediately labeled it the lead art, while her lover’s heart ached.
One thing was for sure. Once this story came out, Carter wouldn’t be lonely for long. Women would beat a path from Manhattan to the gate of Pierce Acres just to catch a glimpse of this perfection.
He would hate that, she thought with tight smile. He’d probably look at this picture and not see what every woman in the world would.
She sighed and clicked through the rest of the gallery. There were shots of the Pierce brothers together, looking rugged and gorgeous. One of Phoebe at the farmers market. The farmhouse. Clementine and Dixie. Even Joey in the middle of a riding class. The farm was in summer bloom with color and growth everywhere.
It looked like heaven. It looked like home.
She caught her breath. The very last picture would never make the story.
It was her with Carter in the orchard, arms wrapped around each other, dirt everywhere. She was looking up at him, laughing. He was grinning down at her. She was on her tiptoes in the beloved boots she had now buried in the back of her closet.
Summer had no idea Niko had been there to capture the moment. And what a moment it had been.
CHAPTER THIRTY
She almost didn’t look.
That glossy copy ofIndulgencelurked front and center on her desk, with the cover proudly proclaiming an inside feature on organic farming and the “new gentleman farmer.” She had proofed the drafts, hadn’t she? There was no reason to review the final piece.
Except that she was being childish.
And she wasn’t a child. She was a grown woman who would be faced with situations more complicated than looking at an article on an ex-lover.
She would read it after she answered some very important emails, she decided. Summer stowed her bag in a desk drawer and distracted herself by booting up her laptop. She returned a few emails and tweets and listened to her voicemails. She ripped off the bandage from her blood test and tossed it in the trash.
But still the issue lurked.
“Oh for Pete’s sake,” Summer sighed, and yanked the magazine off her desk.
She thumbed through it, past the winter coat guide and the four-page advertorial for a well-known designer’s upcoming holiday collection. And there he was. A two-page spread of Carter Pierce standing arms crossed, knee-deep in soybeans. Niko certainly made the most of what he had to work with.
Carter looked like an earth-bound god.
Summer was sure this picture would be hanging up in cubicles throughout the building, possibly even the city. She skimmed the lead and frowned.
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In an otherwise sterile digital world, hot gentleman farmer Carter Pierce and his bachelor brothers teach us the benefits of getting dirty. Very dirty.
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