Southern Seducer (North Carolina Highlands 1)

“Wow.” Annabel wraps her fingers around my bicep and squeezes. “This looks amazing.”

Chef Katie looks up from pouring a frosty bottle of white wine into some glasses and smiles. “Thank you. Welcome to Pasta Making 101. We just harvested a gorgeous crop of purple sweet potatoes, so I thought we’d make some gnocchi with a hazelnut-butter sauce this afternoon.”

Annabel squeezes my arm again. She’s glowing. Excited.

It’s infectious. I feel it stirring in my chest, too, that excitement.

I gotta stay cool. But with Bel beside me, it’s like my emotions are on a runaway train. There’s no stopping them.

It’s an incredibly dangerous situation, considering I’m having issues controlling my impulses without her around.

Who the fuck knows what will happen when she’s here?

Chef Katie hands us aprons, each one stamped with the Blue Mountain Farm logo. We put them on, and I attack the charcuterie while Chef talks us through each step of the cooking process.

Annabel tries to join me, nabbing a sausage slice, but I elbow her side.

“Hey,” she says. “I’m hungry.”

“I’m better at charcuterie. Let me do it for you.”

Annabel looks up at Chef Katie. “Is he this cocky with you, too?”

“Oh, you don’t know the half of it,” she replies, laughing.

I slather the raisin-and-rye cracker with cheese—a cow’s milk Brie-style—and a drizzle of honey, then hand it to her.

“That’s downright sinful,” Annabel says, chewing. “Okay, you win charcuterie. Make me another?”

I shouldn’t flirt with her. But I can’t help it. “Ask nicely.”

“Pretty please, you smug bastard?”

Chef Katie erupts with another bark of laughter. “I like her.”

Smiling, I make a second cracker, this time adding a pickle and mustard to the cheese.

Annabel moans as she eats it, this delightfully porny sound. My dick takes note.

Stay. Fucking. Cool.

Easier said than done.

One of the things I always adored about Bel was how much she loved to eat. She’s a total foodie, and over the years she’s turned me into one, too. Especially now that I don’t have to stick to such a strict diet like I did when I was playing pro ball.

Still, my doctors tell me over and over that diet and exercise go a long way in helping my body and my mind stay healthy. Which is why I’ve taken a keen interest in the produce we grow on the farm. It’s important to me that we serve fresh, organic ingredients in all our dishes. Chef Katie has made me a firm believer in the idea that food can be both healthy(ish) and delicious.

We wash down the cheese and crackers with tiny sips of a deliciously thirst-quenching Spring Mountain Riesling. Riesling is usually too sweet for me, but this one is refreshing. Bright without being cloying, as Samuel would say.

Chef gets to work on the sauce, a concoction of butter, sage, and shallots that smells so good it makes my stomach grumble, while Bel and I peel and rice the purple sweet potatoes.

She’s a whiz at this. Annabel wields her chef’s knife like a true pro, making a sizable dent in her pile of potatoes while I’m still trying to work chunks of my first peeled potato through the handheld ricer.

Probably because my focus has started to slip again. It could be the feel of Annabel beside me—her perfume surrounding me and her elbow brushing my arm as she works.

It could be the wine. The sunshine. Or the stress and the shame of wanting someone you can’t have.

But really, it’s my brain, working against me. Breaking my concentration, the way it did this morning.

It’s frustrating as hell.

Trying to stay on task—peel, chop, rice—I tell myself to stay calm and not to compare myself to Annabel’s increasingly large pile of riced sweet potato.

But it’s hard. So is the work. My hands ache from squeezing the arms of the ricer together over and over again.

Why can’t I get this? I shouldn’t have worked out so hard. My arms are toast. Is that why my fingers are shaking? I probably should take it easy on the wine. Speaking of wine, Samuel and Emma are still at each other’s throats. My throat. It kinda hurts. Allergies? I need to send Trent down to Asheville for more allergy medicine…

“Beau. Hello? Earth to Beau.”

Jumping, I look up from my ricer to see Annabel staring at me.

I don’t know what happens. One minute, I’m holding the ricer, and the next, I’m squeezing it so hard it cracks.

Annabel startles, her eyebrows snapping together.

Scared.

She’s scared.

She looks down at the island, which I’ve unknowingly smeared with chunks of riced purple potato. They look like bruises against the white marble.

Anger snakes through my veins. Entwined with frustration, it chokes me. I’m like a fucking toddler, making messes and needing supervision for the simplest of tasks.

It’s embarrassing. And a depressing reminder of exactly why I can’t give Annabel what she wants from me.