CHAPTER TWELVE 

PEPPER

I wasn’t entirely surprised to see Reagan pulling up the next morning in a pickup truck. If I knew anything about him at all, he was persistent, even crafty. He tried all kinds of different methods to figure out what worked. 

After he asked me to the party last night, that made me apprehensive. 

To be honest, a part of me did want to go. I did want to dress up, sip champagne and eat tiny portions of things that cost too much money. Sometimes when I got stoned at night, I’d break out my makeup and let loose some artistic creativity on my face. I even had one of my mom’s evening dresses still in my closet, a little Gucci number that fit me perfectly. 

But therein lied my discomfort about the whole thing.

I didn’t want to become my mother. I couldn’t afford to even take a tiny peek into Pandora’s box, because then what if I couldn’t close it?

How could I forgive myself if I threw away all of my dad’s hard work? And my grandfather’s and great-grandfather’s?

Crying about it wouldn’t be so bad if you were crying into a bowl of caviar.

I shook my head as if to release my mother’s hold on my brain. 

“Don’t shake your head no before I even tell you what we’re doing.”

Reagan stepped out of the truck and approached me with an easygoing grin, his eyes hidden behind a pair of mirrored aviator sunglasses. 

He looked so relaxed and summery in khaki shorts, flip-flops, and a hunter green T-shirt that hugged his biceps and matched his hidden eyes. 

Tell me what we're doing? You've got some nerve, boy. 

Still, I couldn't help the smile that played on my lips. After yesterday's surprise target practice fun, the giddiness in my chest bubbled with excitement again. 

"What do you have hidden up your sleeve this time?" I asked playfully. 

"Since you won't go on a fancy dinner date with me, I figured we'd do something more to your liking." 

He reached into the backseat of the truck cab and pulled out a picnic basket. It looked exactly like every basket you saw in movies, a wicker rectangle with handles and a checkered tablecloth peeking out, and I nearly laughed. 

"Picnic, huh?" 

"Yeah, at the lake," he said. "I've got a baguette, cheese, wine, salami, olives. All the fixin's." 

My smile refused to stop growing, but I crossed my arms and swayed my hips a little from side to side, trying to appear indecisive. 

"Like, right now?" I asked. 

"You got anything better to do?" 

I lifted a shoulder in a half-shrug. 

"Can I bring the dog?"

"Definitely. She'll love it."

"Fine," I said with mock defeat. "But not one more word of fancy dinner parties, alright? This isn't a gateway date." 

"Scout's honor," Reagan said, raising a hand. "Not that I was ever in Scouts, but I can't exactly say crack house survivor's honor." 

I put my shoes on, grabbed Bonny's treats and collapsible water bowl, and off we went. 

Bonny laid down in the backseat next to the picnic basket while I sat in the passenger seat next to Reagan. I only had to tell her "No, Bon-bon," once to keep her from investigating the basket. 

As Reagan pulled off of my property and onto the dirt road heading toward Cloverville Lake, I glanced at his handsome, chiseled profile across the console and wondered how the hell we got to this point. 

Not even two weeks ago, he was about to start building illegally on my land and I thought he was the biggest douchebag ever for showing up in a helicopter. The next thing I knew, he started working on the farm with me and now we were going on a date? 

Was this a date-date? Or was this still part of some long con he was pulling to get my land? He hadn't mentioned the development in over a week. I barely thought about it myself recently.  

It felt so surreal. Here I was with a crush on someone who I thought would be my worst enemy. Every night, I gave into my body's desires for him. I hadn't taken an edible ever since that first night because of how intense it was. Even without anything to enhance my moods, every part of my body cried out for him. 

My attention snapped to the present as I felt my cheeks burning, and I realized we had gone off the main road to the lake. The truck rose and fell as Reagan drove over rocks and fallen tree branches.

“Did you get lost?” I asked, reaching for the support handle. 

“Nope,” he smirked. “There’s a private, shaded area right on the bank of the lake. I saw it while flying over in my helicopter.” 

I narrowed my eyes. 

“If that’s true, how have I lived here my whole life and never heard of this secret place?”

“You tell me,” he teased. “Having a bird’s-eye view has its perks, sometimes.” 

We climbed uphill over rocks, tree branches and brush for another five miles or so and I soon realized why I never knew about this hidden area of the lake. Hiking up here would challenge even the most seasoned climber. The incline was steep and there was no clear path, so Reagan just drove straight through the brush. 

Either that or his plan the whole time was to murder me and hide my body, which he could successfully do up here.

No way. Bonny trusts him. If she didn’t, she would have ripped his throat out before he ever got close enough to me.

We finally pulled up to a flat area when Reagan put the truck in park and cut the engine. It was so dense with trees, we barely had room to open the truck doors. 

“Careful, I think we’re close to the edge,” he warned. 

Sure enough, we parked at the edge of a small cliff with the clear, blue water about twenty feet below us. 

“If I remember correctly,” Reagan said, gently guiding me by the shoulders. “There’s a small beach down to the side here.” 

I followed him down a gentle, rocky slope while Bonny loped on ahead of us and could barely believe my eyes when we reached the bottom. 

“Wow,” I gasped. “This is beautiful.” 

It was a tiny, private cove no bigger than my living room, complete with a small, sandy beach, trees from the cliffs above to shade us, and a spectacular view of the lake. 

I moved to sit on a large rock but Reagan took a hold of my arm to stop me. He sure was touching me a lot, and getting physically closer since we went shooting yesterday. But I couldn’t act like I didn’t enjoy it anymore. 

“Hang on. I got you covered,” he said and whisked a large beach towel out of the picnic basket.

“I figured you would know by now that I have no issues with sitting unprotected on a rock,” I teased as I helped him to spread out the towel. 

“Yes, I know,” he replied dryly. “I’m just still trying to trick you into thinking I’m a gentleman.” 

“Oh, I already know you’re not,” I said with a grin. 

We laid down on the towel next to each other, which felt strangely intimate despite keeping about a foot of distance between us. I wondered how much wine it would take before one of us started closing the distance. 

Over the next couple of hours, we took turns throwing sticks into the water for Bonny to fetch. She was happy as could be as she ran, splashed, and even chased birds. She even let us know by shaking water off all over us. Reagan and I just laughed harder with every shake and tried to cover our food as best we could.

In between stick throwing, we munched on cheese, cured meats and took turns swigging red wine straight from the bottle. My body slowly grew warm and relaxed, as did my tongue. 

“This wine is way better than what Solomon gets me,” I said, my words slurring just slightly as I examined the label on the now empty bottle.

Reagan laid quietly next to me with his hands behind his head, his green eyes on the tree canopy above, and the hem of his T-shirt exposing a thin sliver of hard, taut belly. 

"There's nothing going on between you and that guy, is there?" he asked softly.

"What?! No!" I cried out. "He's married with kids! And I know his wife, too." 

I jabbed my finger into his ribs, making him squirm and wrestle my hands away. 

"Are you jealous?" I asked with a triumphant grin. "Is that why you get such bad feelings about that guy, as you put it?" 

"No," Reagan said, although the look in his eyes betrayed his thoughts and I felt my heart swell. "Not jealous. Just protective, maybe. He looked like a rough character, that's all." 

"What, like you were?" I continued to jab at him. "One guy with a rough past meets another?" 

"I dunno, maybe." He propped himself up on his elbows and dropped his gaze in a manner that seemed almost shy. "What was he doing at your house when I pulled up?" 

I sighed. If whatever this was between us kept blossoming into something more, he would have to know eventually. Might as well find out what he felt about it. 

"You promise not to tell anyone in town?" I asked solemnly. "It's nothing... bad but the older folks will clutch their pearls and start rumors like wildfire."

Reagan frowned but nodded. 

I sucked in a deep breath in preparation to say what I never told anyone before.

"He was buying brownies from me." 

Reagan's brow furrowed. 

"Brownies?"

"Yeah, marijuana brownies," I said. "His father-in-law has arthritis. He buys them to help manage his pain." 

A smile of amusement and possibly also relief broke out on Reagan's face. 

"I was expecting much worse than that," he chuckled and looked at me curiously. "Why would anyone in town care? It's legal in California now." 

"I know," I said. "The greenhouse in the orchard, that's where I'm growing the plants. I'm experimenting with different kinds of edibles for a business idea later on down the road. But it'll be a while before most of the townspeople are okay with it." 

"Well look at you," Reagan said, looking at me with enough affection to make my heart skip a beat. "I had a feeling there was an entrepreneurial spirit in there." 

I nodded. "It's to help supplement the farm, really. It’s been in my family for four generations, so I can never sell it but it's a constant money pit. I don't know if we've ever come out in the black." 

“Hmm.” Reagan pursed his lips thoughtfully and every cell in my body ached to kiss him. “Sounds like you might need a business advisor. You’ve got to be able to turn a profit somehow.” 

“I dunno,” I sighed. “Water is expensive, machinery breaks down, being organic means a higher risk of losing crops to pests. There’s always something that eats into profits.” 

His eyes twinkled mischievously. 

“I might know a guy that can help.” 

“And what’s that gonna cost me?” I asked sassily. 

His gaze dropped to my mouth and I suddenly realized how close we were. My whole body flushed with heat. I didn’t even have to touch him to feel the heat radiating from his body as well.

My heart crashed against my ribs. 

Without ever tearing his eyes away from my lips, he leaned in.