Joanne Rock - Promises Under the Peach Tree

“I slept in the field manager’s quarters last night. So yeah, it’s definitely a strange homecoming.”

Their strides matched one another’s.

“Did you have a falling out with your mom?” Nina tried to keep the question light. She wasn’t sure how much Mrs. Finley had shared with Mack about their final blowout where his mother had accused Nina of ruining Mack’s life. She’d even suggested that he’d change his mind about having kids if she left. It wasn’t that he didn’t want children, she said, he just didn’t want them with Nina.

She’d been blown away about that one.

Knowing about Mrs. Finley’s struggles with bipolar disorder hadn’t eased the sting of her words, since her reasons for why Nina and Mack would never work had been accurate. Nina was a wanderer by nature who threw herself into the moment, for example, while Mack was a grounded guy with big ambition and concrete career goals. Bipolar or not, Mrs. Finley was a sharp woman with Mack’s best interests at heart.

“No. But a buffer between me and Mom is usually a good idea. I didn’t want her to be stressed about having company.” He paused at the foot of the stairs to the wide, wraparound porch while Nina jogged up toward the back door. “She asked me to thank you for the pie, by the way.”

Nina seriously doubted that. She opened the door and nudged Taz inside where her pet made a beeline for her water dish. The kitchen was empty again and the table had been cleared. Nina snagged a small red key from a rack of hooks just above the light switch and then closed the door again.

“That was really thoughtful of you to give your mother some space.” She tucked the key to the barn in her pocket as she rejoined him, trying her best to get through this difficult meeting as quickly as possible. “Especially since the field manager’s quarters are awfully cramped, at least they were the last time I saw them—”

Her cheeks flamed hot. Red-sizzle hot. Because the last time she’d been inside that little apartment had been with Mack, and things had gone too far, too fast.

“I remember.” Mack didn’t bother to hide the smile in his voice, damn him.

Her gaze shot his way. A wicked grin stole over his face, an expression she hadn’t seen in a long time. Funny how that warmed her in a different way.

“So. That was awkward.” She resisted the urge to fan her face at the memory of Mack kissing her shoulder and nudging off the strap of her tank top. Undressing her in the daylight had been a novel experience for both of them.

“Not the way I recall it.” His expression grew more serious, making her heart beat faster.

Her eyes stole over him. All of him.

Damn, but he looked better than ever in a pair of jeans.

“What I meant was—”

“I know what you meant.” Mack turned to face her on the path to the barn. “And you’re right. The apartment is cramped.”

Nina folded her arms across a white eyelet tank top. The tank and cutoffs had been comfortable this morning, but suddenly she felt severely underdressed. Then again, she could be wearing riot gear and still feel twitchy and breathless around Mack.

“I just don’t want you to get the impression that I’m flirting with you. Because that comment just leaped out without me even thinking it through.” She wanted to be very clear on that point. She had no intention of getting in the way of Mack’s future.

“Yes, I remember that impulsive streak.” One dark eyebrow arched as he gave her an assessing look. “Remember when you freed the Death Row Chickens on the Johnson farm that first summer you came here?”

“I’m still not sorry about that.” Being a city girl, she’d assumed the chickens were behind bars as a form of punishment, their death imminent. She’d raised a neighborhood campaign to save them, not knowing they were on the farm to give eggs. “Mr. Johnson could have explained about the eggs instead of laughing at me.”

“In all fairness, I don’t think he realized who he was dealing with.” Mack’s eyes met hers. Held.

Her mouth went so dry she had to lick her lips. “Too bad those chickens had no idea what to do with their freedom.”

She forced herself to keep walking. To keep moving. Standing still with Mack this close would be dangerous.

“Mrs. Johnson wasn’t happy to find them roosting in her flower beds after the big jailbreak.” Mack lifted a low-hanging branch on a pine tree, clearing the way for her to walk without ducking.

“You were pretty entertained by the whole thing, though.” Mack had insisted on bringing her back to the Johnson house the next morning where—from the safety of the bushes—she could witness the results of her elaborate plan to set the birds free.

Mack had showed her where to stand so they wouldn’t get caught, keeping an arm around her shoulders to prevent her from running after the chickens and smuggling them off the property.

“Somebody had to keep you safe from trouble.”

“You were always looking out for people.” She’d benefitted from that quality in him for a long time.

Until the day when he’d had others to take care of besides her. His mother. His best friend’s grieving girlfriend. Now, it was his brother. A better woman would have admired him all the more for that. But to Nina, it felt like others had always come first. Maybe she’d been too needy because of the way she’d been brought up. But when she’d fallen for Mack, she’d been all in. He was everything to her. So when she’d learned her spot on his priority list, she’d been deeply hurt.

Mack said nothing while she retrieved the key to the barn and popped the padlock. When she opened the clasp and slid the heavy door aside on the track, she noticed Mack staring back down the hill toward the moving van. The delivery guys dragged a dining room set into the barn.

“You’re moving a lot of things home for someone who is only going to be in town for a few weeks.” He leaned against a pole support in front of the barn. “Are you sure everything is okay?”

Grief and frustration over her career battled with embarrassment at her failure. But the details of the scandal were a Google search away. It’s not as if the locals wouldn’t find out about it. Maybe it would be better if he heard her side first. She couldn’t help feeling defensive about how the whole thing shook down.

“My business partner drained the funds from our bakery’s business account and then eloped with one of our clients the night before a wedding we’d been hired to cater.”

How could she have failed—the business, her clients, herself—so miserably? She’d developed her business because she’d loved seeing other people’s happily-ever-afters take shape. But she’d had to cancel over a dozen orders for other weddings this fall, leaving brides scrambling to find other confections for their special day.

“Have you talked to your partner since she left? Do you know where she is now?” Mack squinted in the bright sun, the day growing hotter by the minute.

“No. She left me a note with her apology and some garbage about true love not always being ‘convenient.’” Nina had discovered the note perched in front of the cupcake tower that would have paid the next month’s rent on their costly storefront on the Upper West Side. But with no wedding and a jilted bride in tears, Nina couldn’t exactly collect on the wedding cake. “Olivia—my partner—was always adventurous, and she loved the romance of our business. Little did I know, she would find romance in our client list with a well-known hotel magnate.”

Mack gave a low whistle and shook his head. “Wow. She sounds...immature.”

“Yes. But she’s also creative and energetic. Her father fronted us the money for the shop to begin with, and her wealthy friends helped to spread the word about us while we grew our reputation. I never could have gone into business without her. I really thought we were going to turn a corner this fall and start operating in the black, but...” Nina’s heart still hurt to think about all the people she’d let down by closing up shop. How could she ever go back now? “Anyway, Gram has been battling some health problems, so this was a good time to come home and check on her. I’ll go to New York and settle things there as soon as I regroup and figure out what to do next.”