What The Heart Wants (3 page)

He had walked up the side yard to enter the house through the kitchen, reaching above the doorway for the spare key that was kept there when he noticed someone standing back by the basil bed. She had her back to him in black yoga pants and an oversized red sweatshirt. Everything about her was slight and fragile. Her bones looked like they belonged to a bird. Her soft-looking straight velvety brown hair just about brushed her shoulder and was whipping around in the morning breeze.

He was about to turn back to go to his own property before he spotted the goat. Pleased for an excuse to get closer and speak to her, Sam started out toward her. She had one of those faces that somehow managed to be both delicate yet dramatic with a small nose, slightly pointed chin, a small cupids-bow mouth and large green eyes framed with thick black lashes. She was wonderfully attractive in a fish utterly out of water kind of way.

It wasn’t often you got to see new faces around Stars Landing. It wasn’t exactly the kind of place people point to on a map and choose to move to or even visit. And after knowing all the available women in town since you were both in diapers, the romantic possibilities were long faded.

Not that he was imagining pretty doe-eyed Annabelle Goode as a romantic interest either. She wasn’t likely to last a week anyway.

When she had introduced herself, she had a slight accent… barely noticeable but definable easily as New Jersian. She had probably grown up with a box of a backyard with a row of tulips being the only thing that grew other than grass. She certainly didn’t have any knowledge of herbs. And didn’t seem all that perturbed that his goat had destroyed a huge portion of her basil crops and that she was probably going to have to replant and start from scratch.

Mam had always been a practical woman. He couldn’t help but wonder what had possessed her to leave her pride and glory to someone who hadn’t a clue how to continue it. Though knowing her as he had, he was sure she had some reasoning for it. Maybe Miss Annabelle Goode would surprise him. Maybe he was just underestimating her.

She had a laugh like a summer breeze, light and sweet. It was contagious and when she fell on top of him and she started giggling uncontrollably, he found himself joining in. And it had been a long time since he had shared a good laugh with someone.

He hoped maybe she had thick skin and would tough it out. He thought he would probably enjoy having her as a neighbor.

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Anna sat in her car at the gas station for an embarrassingly long time before she realized there were no gas station attendants there. She shook her head at her own stupidity and got out of her car. She saw a man standing in the open door of the repair shop in a black t-shirt and grease stained blue jeans. He had short black hair and a face with sharp features. He leaned against a car he must have just finished working on, wiping his hands off on a rag and staring openly at her.

She turned to the machine and typed in her amount and swiped her credit card. That part seemed pretty self-explanatory at least. Pulling out the handle, she tried putting the nozzle into her gas tank and failed.

Looking over her shoulder, she checked to see if random-gorgeous-staring-dude was watching her humiliation. Thankfully he was gone.

Trying again, the nozzle hit something hard. “Damn it,” she cursed under her breath. She pulled it back, preparing to shove the stubborn thing in if she needed to, when a big hand clamped down on top of hers, stopping the motion.

“Easy baby,” a deep, gravely voice said right behind her shoulder. She felt his breath on her ear. “You have to unscrew the gas cap,” he explained, reaching forward and unscrewing it himself. It was only then that she realized how close he was, his chest against her back. She felt the entire hard length of his body as he reached forward. His cheek brushed against the top of her head and she felt her stomach did a little flip-flop and she felt her face growing red.

“Now you can put it in,” he said with what sounded like a chuckle in his voice. He led her hand forward, putting the nozzle into the gas tank and pushing her finger town on the trigger.

The gas started flowing into the tank but his hand stayed on hers on the handle for another moment. “See baby?” he said. “Simple enough.” And he rubbed his thumb across the side of her hand before letting go.

She didn’t realize until he stepped away that she had been holding her breath. “Th… thanks,” she stammered, turning to face him. He was backing up toward the gas station, still facing her. It was the first good look she had really gotten of him. He had one of those long and slim but muscular frames that her mother would have called a swimmer’s body. His jet hair and somewhat pale skin made him look every bit dangerous… and unnervingly sexy.

“My pleasure,” he said, shocking her with his audacity when he winked at her and grinned before turning back into the garage.

The gas pump clicked and Anna put the nozzle back in the cradle and firmly screwed the gas cap back on. She had heard about men like him but had never met one. In all honesty, she had figured they were just figments of women’s imaginations used widely in television, movies, and romance novels but never based on actual real life flesh and blood men.

She felt flushed and overheated. And more than a little irritated at her own reaction. She had never really been one of those man-obsessed women. She didn’t check out men at bars or have silly crushes on unobtainable male celebrities. And she certainly never got aroused by some random strange man assisting her with a daily task.

But, she comforted herself, this was not just any man. He must have been some distant descendant of Cassanova or something. And she was, after all, a woman and not entirely immune to pure, raw animal magnetism. She glanced back at the garage but saw no one and suppressed a twinge of disappointment.

Shaking her head, Annabelle looked across the street. There was a diner with a huge bay window and quaint lace white curtains. She could use a strong cup of coffee. Or ten. She parked her car, gave the garage one last glance, and walked over.

Wind chimes sang happily as the door opened. The sound made her smile. Classic to any diner she was used to back home, there was a counter up front with a cash register, menus, and a long glass dessert case filled with pies, cookies, and danishes. Past the counter, there were about a dozen clean white tables and white chairs with a single yellow daffodil in a vase on the center of each table.

“Girl,” a voice called out. “Eric O’reilly aint no good for a girl like you.”

Anna searched for the speaker and found a woman who sat in front of the bay window. She was well into middle age with a thick build. Her thick black hair was pulled into a single braid down her back and she had flawless skin the color of rich dark chocolate.

“Oh,” Anna shrugged. “I’m… I’m not interested,” she stammered, silently wishing she had the kind of personality that would allow her to pull off the assortment of necklaces of varying lengths and colors and rings on every one of her fingers like this woman wore.

“Aw, honey, judging by that little display out there,” she said, waving a hand toward the window indicating the gas station, “Eric is. And you’re only a woman after all. Trust me when he turns on that charm of his, aint no woman eighteen to eighty who could refuse him. But he is ten gallons of heartbreak in a five gallon bucket. And pardon my intrusion, but,” she said, gesturing for Anna to sit with her. She leaned across the table, blocking the side of her mouth as if telling a secret, “you’re a bit too… inexperienced to put up any kind of fight.”

Anna felt her face get hot and knew her cheeks were probably getting as red as a tomato.

The woman chuckled, though not unkindly. “So my advice to you is to stay more than a stone’s throw away from that man, Miss. Goode,” she said, standing with a huff and walking away without a goodbye.

“That’s Maude Mays,” a pretty little waitress said as she came over in a pale yellow diner dress and a white apron to clear Maude’s dishes off the table. She had a remarkably small frame with wheat colored hair and big blue eyes. She looked about sixteen. “She sees things,” the girl said, emphasizing “sees” in a way that implied Maude was either a psychic or suffered from hallucinations. “My name’s Ashley,” she smiled cheerfully. “You must be Mam’s family.”

“Yeah,” Anna answered, smiling. “she was my great aunt.”  

Ashley nodded, her ponytail swinging with the motion. “But Maude is right you know. My mama calls the O’reilly brothers ‘trouble with a capital T’. My older sister is twenty and my mama said if she ever hears she fancies either of the O’reillys that she’s not paying her car payment or cell phone bill anymore.”

Anna laughed, feeling a little homesick. Though Viv would likely be the kind of mother that told her she should go ahead and fall into bed with either, or both, of the O’reilly brothers. Seperately. Or at the same time. You only live once, after all.

“So what can I get for you?” Ashley asked after handing off the plates to a passing busboy and pulling out her server book.

Anna ordered coffee and three different kinds of danishes. Viv would have had something to say about that as well. Her mother had become a bit of a fitness fanatic after she turned forty and had been nagging Anna for years about her eating habits. She was predisposed to, as her mother put it, ‘become rather hippy’ though otherwise in good shape. She somehow managed to possess the metabolism of a growing teenage boy who could sock away meal after meal without having to worry about putting on much weight to the envy of all her coworkers who swore that if they even looked at a doughnut, they gained five pounds

She cradled her coffee in her hands which she decided to take with milk but without her usual sugar since she was about to binge on desserts. Maybe her mother’s lectures weren’t entirely lost on her.

Taking a sip, she considered how different her life was now. She had hardly been in Stars Landing twenty-four hours and she had already had more excitement than she had had in a full year back home.

She picked at her danishes, feeling much like an outsider in her own life. Because in what universe could tiny little insignificant Annabelle Goode have acquired a farm, a comically overweight cat, and a town full of quirky characters? Then, of course, there was the matter of the two incredibly attractive men that had crossed her path in just a matter of hours. Sam with his rugged next door neighbor charm, kind eyes and random baby goat. And Eric the mechanic who pretty much breathed sex appeal. Though her self-esteem couldn’t quite allow her to believe what Maude had to say. Eric wasn’t attracted to her per say. He was probably one of those guys who couldn’t help but be charming. True flirts cant just turn it off. It didn’t matter if they were talking to a college freshman or her great grandmother- they could probably get their pulses jumping by just being themselves.

Annabelle paid her tab and went in search of the grocery store. She found it a few storefronts down. Another giddy bell greeted her as she entered and she felt her heart sink a little. This wasn’t a grocery store like she was used to back home with aisle after aisle of prepackaged junk food. There was an enormous produce section. Brightly colored fruits and vegetables practically spilled over their display cases. She was more than a little ashamed to admit that she didn’t recognize quite a few of the things she found there.

The Goode women may have been a lot of things, but good cook was not one of them. Viv had pretty much raised her on take-out and quick to throw together stove top meals and occasionally frozen dinners until her fitness phase kicked in and all she ever brought into the house was salad greens and protein bars.

Anna grabbed a few apples, a bag of grapes, and what she was pretty sure was romaine lettuce before stocking up on pasta, rice, and yogurt and prayed it would get her through the week.

The grocer at the checkout was somewhere in his fifties with a head full of gray hair and a thick mustache to match. He had a friendly, ruddy face and a belly that spilled happily over his waistband. His bright yellow name tag said “Hank The Friendly Grocer”.

“Well hello there Miss. Goode,” he greeted her as she loaded her groceries onto the belt. “Glad to see you got here quickly. I was starting to worry we were going to have to import our herbs from out of town this year since no one was around to tend to Mam’s crop. Did she get around to planting the annuals before she passed? God rest her.”

Anna perked up slightly. It hadn’t escaped her thoughts that she only had a certain amount of money to hold her over until she figured out this farming thing or got herself a new job. And there was Hank The Friendly Grocer who obviously wanted business from her.

“I think she got most of them planted. I haven’t really gotten a chance to really look everything over yet,” she said, avoiding mentioning she didn’t know what Mam grew let alone how to do so herself.

“Of course, of course,” Hank said as he bagged her food. “You’ve got a lot on your plate. Keep me posted though so I can get all my hens in a row.”

“Of course,” Anna smiled, handing him her money.

“Good. Good. Oh, actually,” Hank exclaimed, rummaging under the counter for a moment before producing a piece of paper he handed her. “These are some notes I scribbled for Mam before… well… before. There are some estimates for what herbs I am going to want at first harvest and how much.”

Anna took the paper, feeling her heart beat faster with anxiety. When was first harvest? She scanned the notes, the words “dill, rosemary, mint” caught her eye. “That’s a lot of dill,” she observed, wondering what on Earth so much could possibly be used for.

“Oh that,” Hank smiled, his chest puffing up proudly. “that’s for my famous pickles. Between Joe’s cucumbers, Mam’s dill, and my mama’s recipe, I have the best pickles around.”

“Cant wait to try them,” Anna smiled, thanking Hank and making her way back to her car.

She turned it over, thankful that the day had turned out more productive than she had thought it would. If nothing else, she knew she would need massive amounts of dill for Hank’s pickles. Now all she had to figure out where, or if, the dill was already planted as well as how to make it grow and how, exactly, you went about harvesting it. She silently prayed Mam kept a record on that kind of thing. And that she possessed one of those moron books to gardening.