Gone Country (Rough Riders 14)

Stop. Time for a cold shower.

Then maybe he’d wander down to the Garden of Ree and see what chores his too-tempting roomie had assigned herself today.

“Rielle?”

She pivoted in the dirt and faced Gavin. “Are you lost?”

“No. Just exploring.” He sighed dramatically. “I’m lonely.”

“Right. You’re bored.”

His low, throaty laugh was seductive. “That too. I followed the road that winds around the gardens and it ended abruptly.”

“It ends to deter explorers.”

“You are hilarious. So what are you ripping out, plowing up, or chopping down today?”

Rielle peeled off her gloves and set them on top of the fence before she left the fenced garden. “I’m about to check my fruit trees to see how close I am to harvest.”

“Then you what? Pick them, load them and haul them to a farmer’s market?”

“Some gets sold locally, but the bulk goes to restaurants across the country.”

“There’s a market for it outside of Wyoming?”

“A much bigger market.”

Gavin fell in step with her as she headed toward the grove of trees at the bottom of a small hill.

Rielle gestured to the orchard. “These are considered old fruit trees. They’d been here thirty years when my parents bought the place thirty years ago. So they’re sixty-year-old trees that’ve never been treated with pesticide. That’s incredibly rare.”

“So you just leave them be and let nature take her course?”

“I prune and water and use natural pest repellents. It usually works. But one year the trees were infested with some weird bug and had zero yield. I figured all the trees were done for because…”

“You couldn’t spray them.”

“Exactly. The next year, the trees came back stronger than ever, no bugs. I chalked it up to nature knowing what the trees needed better than I did.”

He walked alongside her. “I am a clueless urbanite when it comes to trees—with the exception of recognizing orange and grapefruit trees.”

“I think it would be cool to walk into your backyard and pick a grapefruit for breakfast.” She touched a branch of the closest tree. “This is a pine sweet apple.”

“Never heard of that variety.” His eyes lit up. “Ah, this is the tree that lays the golden apples.”

She laughed. “Yep. I have two of these. Next in line are mountain pear trees, again a rarity. These two are the fussiest of all the trees; I never count on any kind of yield.”

“But when it does bear fruit?”

“I get five bucks apiece for them. They’re so tiny, yet have such robust flavor. One chef in Chicago has a standing order to buy the entire crop. He’s anxiously awaiting shipment because it’s been two years since these suckers have bloomed.”

Gavin whistled.

“The next two trees are golden apricot. I sell the fruit to locals or find some use for it in my own cooking and canning. After those are the plum trees. The variety is sweet water pink, another rarity. The skin is such a deep purple it’s almost black, but the flesh is a very pale pink. The fruit doesn’t get big, and it tastes like a cross between a blueberry and a strawberry.”

“What’s the going rate for a sweet water pink plum?”

“Six bucks apiece.”

“Do you sell them around here?”

She shook her head. “Wyomingites won’t spend that on a beer, let alone on a tiny piece of fruit. There’s a Japanese fusion restaurant in San Francisco that takes the whole lot every year. My understanding is the chef slices a single fruit and plates it with single curls of white, dark and milk chocolate and charges twenty-five bucks for it.”

They kept walking and she began to feel self-conscious, blathering on about trees. “You sure you’re interested in this? Or are you just being polite?”

He stopped and grabbed her hand. “I’m very interested.”

“Why?”

“Because I’ve never known anyone who makes a living off the land the way you do. I mean, yes, the McKays do, but in a different way. I’ve watched you nurturing your garden, slaving to harvest, exhausted but exhilarated. It’s something to behold. I don’t think I could do it year in, year out, being at the whim of nature and the weather.”

Rielle stood close enough to him to let his eyes draw her in. That vivid blue, the same blue all the McKays had, but his eyes seemed…brighter somehow. Truer. Something about Gavin said trust me. This was the first time she’d ever had that gut reaction. Because she didn’t trust easily, that made her attraction to him all the more acute.

“I like seeing you this way,” he said in his rough and compelling voice.

“How’s that?”

“In your element.”

“Meaning covered in dirt?”

“You being dirty suits me just fine, Rielle.”

Oh. My. God. Had he really meant it that way? Yes, if the heat in his eyes was a sign.

“I don’t even know what to say to that, Gavin.”

He just smiled. He dropped her hand and pointed to the last two trees. “What about those? Magic Mediterranean figs that taste like ambrosia and earn you a hundred bucks a pop?”

In that moment the sexual tension vanished and everything went back to normal between them. She was glad for it, even when she had a pang of regret for being tongue-tied when he always came up with such sexy off-the-cuff comments. “Those are just plain old red delicious apples.”

“But from sixty-year-old trees.”

“Yep. I don’t sell many of those. I sacrifice them to the deer, hoping they’ll gorge themselves on these first two trees and leave my other trees the hell alone.”

“Logical. But I see you’ve erected some netting as extra insurance.”

“That’s mostly to keep the birds away. That’s also why I’ve let the chokecherry bushes get overgrown. It’s a natural deterrent and a critter barrier.” She ducked under the netting and beckoned to him. “Come into my secret garden, tycoon.”

A smiling Gavin followed her without question.

At the base of the plum tree, she pointed to a branch directly above his head. “I can’t reach that high, so I want you to pick that plum closest to the trunk.”

“Seriously? You’re letting me try a six dollar piece of fruit?” His eyes took on a strange twinkle. “I’ll warn you, I don’t have any bills smaller than a twenty on me.”