Loving Bailey Read Free Page B

getting pretty damn tired of being
rejected. “You could come along if you want.”
    She wove her way between the huge boulders,
blocking the path, but Spencer caught her arm and turned her to
face him before she could duck under the overhang.
    “I’d like that,” he said, sliding his hand
down her arm to catch her fingers. “I’d like that a lot.”
    The simple touch made her heart race and she
had to fight to keep her hand in his. She was long past the age
when just holding hands should have that kind of effect on her. She
was long past the age to have done a lot of things. Maybe she could
finally change that.
     
    Trace ran his scissors over the thick carpet
of lettuce, cutting the baby mesclun just below the place where the
tiny leaves rounded out. As long as he left the growing bud
attached to the plant, it would continue to send out new leaves and
he could harvest the greens several more times from the same
planting. It was late enough in the day to make the sun feel warm
on his back and early enough in the season to keep it from being
too hot. Back bent, hands in the earth. It should be the perfect
day.
    It wasn’t turning out that way.
    Instead of the normal peace which filled him
when he harvested something he’d grown, he kept seeing Bailey
smiling at that guy. Spencer, the writer with the clean work shirt
and even cleaner fingernails. He cut the lettuce and she laughed at
something Spencer said. He dumped the handful of tiny greens in the
tub filled with water and she blushed, her cheeks rosy and eyes
shining, at the stupid writer.
    Instead of peace, Trace wanted to pound
something.
    He’d wanted Bailey since the first time he’s
laid eyes on her. He’d finished making a delivery at the lodge and
stopped to see who had finally bought the Coleman place. She’d been
standing on a ladder working every inch of her five-foot-four frame
to reach the ceiling with her paint roller. There had been a thin
strip of exposed skin above the waistband of her jeans where her
shirt rode up.
    He’d stood in the doorway, hypnotized by the
curve and swell of her breasts under the thin T-shirt and that
strip of skin as she stretched to paint the ceiling. He’d already
started to move towards her to help when three big guys, who he
learned later were her brothers, came in from the other room,
yanked her off the ladder and took over the painting. The men had
scowled, but Bailey hit him with the force of her smile, open and
sweet, and he lost his heart.
    As he’d gotten to know her and by extension
the rest of her family, he’d come to love her. Not that he had any
intention of letting her know that.
    In his world, romantic love didn’t last. It
hadn’t for his parents and it sure as hell hadn’t worked for him
and Anna. When she left, it had ripped his heart out by the roots,
although now that he was older with some perspective, he wondered
if he hadn’t know all along how things were going to turn out.
Building the soil, building his farm, that lasted. It changed
season to season like the name of Bailey’s restaurant, but it
lasted.
    A hand came down on his shoulder and he
jumped like a scalded cat, dropping the handful of greens he was
holding.
    “Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you.” Amanda
looked down at him and smiled, pretty and much too young and
invading his personal space. Crap. It was going to be a
problem.
    He shook off her hand and climbed to his feet
so he wasn’t kneeling in front of her. She licked her lips and
tossed her blonde ponytail. Definitely a problem.
    “What do you need, Amanda? I thought Jake had
you cleaning out the greenhouse.” He pitched his voice in what he
hoped was a firm, business-like tone.
    “I was, but it got so hot.” She lifted her
T-shirt away from the front of her body and fanned herself with it.
“I thought maybe I’d come out, cool off and help you for a while.
You know, take a break and pick up a shovel.”
    She smiled a toothy smile and Trace fought
the urge to