The light drizzle was unexpected, but the weatherman had said to expect the possibility of rain this week. With rain, Tori would believe it when she saw it. It was time to believe. Typically the clouds blew in, taunted the region, and then continued farther east to dump on the mountains. Today they hung around. Besides, it was a little late in the year to expect a heavy rain. The rain they were getting made for a miserable and chilly day to be working outside.

The crowd at today’s farmer’s market was thin. probably staying indoors out of the wet. Sales were noticeably down. Hopefully it wouldn’t be enough of an impact for Penny to pull the plug on the entire project. They were now vending at two markets and waiting to hear if they’d been accepted into a third one. Penny had yet to let Tori know if this was a success or not.

If not, Tori would be out of a job in a few months, and that meant she needed to start applying now. If Peaz’n’Karrit’s Farm had the numbers to support financial growth through Tori’s employment, then Penny would qualify again for the grant that funded Tori’s salary. But Tori wasn’t even certain if this was all worth it. Maybe she should be looking for another job anyway. After all, this was not what she expected when she’d taken the position. She had been hired to create, grow, and maintain the farm’s social media. She understood why she needed to go on deliveries every few weeks. It was a great way for her to make contact with and show off their clients. But then Penny had tacked “Special Projects” onto her job description, and it felt like nothing had been going right.

Her phone pinged with a notification. PnK had been mentioned in a post from the Napa Grand Hotel.

Les’s gorgeous face smiled up at her, surrounded by bushels and bushels of lavender. Her tummy did a little flip. She needed to get over him. Well, good, his delivery came in, and he was a happy man. That “special project” had been a fiasco. It shouldn’t have taken her three weeks to track down a lavender supplier. She hadn’t even known where to start. It was all good now, but that initial failure was probably in her file: Tori is unable to locate a source of edible lavender while standing in the middle of a lavender field.

Sigh. Les. Double sigh.

She should have been there for that delivery, not sitting in the rain hawking deformed carrots.

“Does this taste any different?” A woman held up a misshapen zucchini.

Tori slid off her perch and stepped closer to her side of the display. “Not at all. They look a little weird, but once chopped up and cooked, they taste the same.”

“But it doesn’t look right. At the grocery store they all look, you know, like zucchini. These are all curly. It looks like it tastes funny.”

Tori smiled. This was the perfect teaching opportunity, the whole theme of the PnK market booth. “True beauty is on the inside, and that goes for veggies, too.” She selected a bifurcated carrot. “Take this little guy, for instance. Your standard grocery store won’t carry it because it won’t sell. But do you have any idea what your carrots originally looked like in a piece of carrot cake? Would you be able to tell the difference between a cake made with this, or, say, a picture-perfect one?”

The lady nodded. “I hadn’t thought of that. Are all the vegetables at the farmer’s market going to be like this?”

Tori pasted on her get-me-through-this smile. “No, you’ll be able to find normal looking produce at other booths.” Another sale lost.

She was going to need booze to survive this day. It was wine country, so it was totally within her rights to start day-drinking. Or maybe she just needed to dress up and get a margarita. She hadn’t done either of those in days.

She picked up her phone and sent a quick text to Ali and Erin. Then she did her Social Media Manager job and shared Les’s tweet about being a happy chef with loads of lavender.

Peaz’n’Karrit’s Farm loves to make you smile. Our pleasure putting in the extra effort. P.S. I’m really looking forward to more of your lavender delights.

She hit send before she thought about it. Was that too flirty? Would Les take it the wrong way?

Argh, she needed to not care if he did. He would just have to get over it if he thought she was flirting with him, and she needed to figure out how to stop. More stupid f-words, flirt, friend, frustrated, faulty, farfetched, fucked up.

Tori picked up one of the odder shaped zucchini. It was particularly phallic—which she did not need a reminder of right now. Powerless to fight it, she started laughing, wishing someone was here to be silly with over the incredible way nature loved to make this very particular shape. Clearly Mother Nature loved the D.

She had an idea.

A few minutes later, Tori had drawn up a sign—“Dirty Veggies, Adults Only”—and taped it over a small display bin.

Of course the first person to look was a man. His roar of laughter made Tori’s day. He purchased a selection of items from the bin. One mother of a particularly inquisitive child was aghast that they would have anything so prominently displayed until Tori showed her that they were actual dirty vegetables, covered with more of the field mud than the rest of their selection. Any other implications were imaginary. Flushed from embarrassment, the mother ushered her child away from the booth.

Her phone pinged. Ali had replied. It had taken her long enough. Good—they would meet her at Carnita Joe’s.

Within an hour Tori had to refill the dirty veggies basket twice. She needed to find another slightly twisted pun to try out on the customers. She found another phallic shaped veggie. No, that would be crude. Or would it?

She wrapped her fingers around the bulbous zucchini and…

Yep, too much, too far, too rude.

***

Les sat on his motorcycle with the engine off in the parking lot of Carnita Joe’s. Tori was in his line of vision, and headed this way. He should get off the bike, say hi, and buy her a beer. The lavender delivery this afternoon had been exceptional.

He hadn’t realized until this second, seeing her hair bounce around her shoulders, that he’d missed her when the flowers had come in. Why wasn’t today’s big delivery a social media moment, one deserving of her attention?

She wore a swishy little skirt tonight. One that emphasized the boom-boom-boom of her backside when she walked. He felt a sinking in his stomach and a tightening in his groin. Looking down at his crotch, he said, “What is it, boy, see something you like?”

He scanned the parking lot and returned his gaze to Tori. His cock throbbed.

“Dude, it’s just Tori,” he chastised his anatomy.As she approached the front of the restaurant, a crowd of men blocked the entrance. They looked like a bunch of preppy fraternity boys and they kept getting in her way. At first he thought it was bad timing, but then he realized they were doing it intentionally.

She tried to walk around the group, but her passage was thwarted. She said something, and one of the larger guys loomed over her. When she backed up a few steps, she bumped into another one of the men, who moved in behind her.

Les saw red when the asshole flipped the hem of her skirt. She smacked his hand hard. It was about to get ugly.

Confront or deflect. Those were his choices.

A confrontation would definitely result in him getting beaten. A punch or two was no big deal, but Tori could get injured. No matter how mixed up his feelings over her were right now, that would never be okay. He needed to get her away from those guys.

He slid over the hood of the car blocking the group, took a long step, ignored the men, and scooped Tori into his arms.

The electric charge that surged through his body left him breathless.

He barely managed to say, “Hello, beautiful,” before his lips were on hers.

His body raged. Every cell screamed, “Finally, you asshole!”

She was soft and warm and pliant, and his arms never wanted to let her go. He crushed her to his chest and his heart pounded with joy. His balls clenched with need; his manhood, erect and ready for action. She fit like his missing half, like no other woman had ever fit before.

Les sank his fingers into her curls, the flat ribbons of hair that he wanted to pull just to watch them spring back. Now he recognized that urge for what it really was, a desire to touch her. Any excuse to be close.

Her hand fisted in his shirt, and she either was holding on from shock or pulling him closer. Les opted for the pulling closer choice and redoubled his embrace. Holding her even tighter. Deepening the kiss.

Her soft lips tasted like peaches. She worked his lower lip and moaned slightly as he slipped his tongue in to dance with hers. His lips were no longer his own. They were forever hers, and he never wanted to stop kissing her.

In the history of first kisses, and Les had more than a few, this was the most perfect. The way she sucked on his tongue, his body felt it in is cock. And that little soft noise she made, again straight to his groin. If she touched any part of his body right now, he might just explode like some pubescent teen groping naked breasts for the first time. Hell, she felt like the first time, the first time he had ever felt so perfectly wrapped around a woman, the first time a woman’s breast crushed ideally against his chest. Tori was his first, the first woman he had fallen completely in love with, and he was only now cluing in that this is what these feelings were. He was an idiot.

His brain shifted and remembered what he was supposed to be doing. He lifted away before he began manhandling her soft breasts in front of these losers.

Tori blinked those large green eyes up at him. Her plump lips were ready for more of his kisses. She was breathless and slightly flushed.

He smiled, knowing that was the expression he would see when he made love to her. His balls proved they could get tighter. His body had been trying to tell him she was the one for weeks, and his brain was too stupid and only catching up now. He had never wanted to make love to a woman so much before. And not only sex, he had a desire to merge with her and worship her, and care for her forever. This hurt beyond a case of blue balls, creating a wrenching pain in his chest.

He closed his eyes and let out a long ragged sigh before he got back to the task at hand—getting Tori to a place of safety.

Les rotated, wrapped an arm over her shoulder and led her into the bar.

“Sorry, fellas, this one is mine. You’ll have to find your own goddess.”

He guided her through the doors, and panic punched him in the gut. Scanning the crowd inside, he found her friends and helped her into their booth.

“Some asshats were harassing her out side.”

“Oh no, not that nice guy Tad and his friends?” Ali asked.

Tori shrugged.

“Yeah, well. He’s not so nice. Don’t let her walk home. I don’t trust guys like that.” Les patted Tori on the shoulder, leaned down, and kissed her on the cheek. “You’ll be okay now. I’ll see you later.”

Like a coward he left her there and made a beeline straight to the first girl who looked like she gave blow jobs for a hobby, without bothering with names.

***

Tori sat, numb, trying to recall exactly what happened. The only thing her mind could grasp was Les had kissed her. And it wasn’t merely a kiss. He’d branded her with his mouth. She placed her fingers over her lips to make sure they still existed and hadn’t been burned off. Yes, he’d kissed her, and not five minutes later, his arm was draped over some other woman. A woman who looked like… it didn’t matter how she looked, did it? The point that was driven home like a hot railroad tie through butter was that she didn’t look like Tori. She was thin and tan and dressed to expose her figure. Which, to be fair, was exceptional. She had everything that Tori did not, and that included Les.

How could he walk away from a kiss like that? How could he return to his normally scheduled programming? A pat on the shoulder and a see ya later? Didn’t he realize how absolutely perfect and earth shattering that had been?

Tori started to shiver.

“Hey.” Ali rubbed her shoulder. “Are you okay? You’re all shaky.”

“I’m not feeling good. I’m going to head home.” Tori slid from the booth and placed her purse on her shoulder. She froze, watching Les and his bar buddies all laughing. His arm was firmly draped over girl du jour.

Tori’s friend said something about dropping her off on their way to the Spigot since this place was dead tonight. They were sick of tourists, anyway. Instead of listening to them, Tori replayed the kiss over and over.

She wasn’t actually scared of the frat-pack, mostly annoyed. And then Les had swooped in like some movie star action hero, all tall and clad in black. He’d looked at her with the most amazingly sexy expression she had ever seen on his face, hooded eyes, half a grin, and then… BAM. Fireworks and sizzle and panty evaporating hotness.

Tori waved absent mindedly as she got out of Ali’s sedan, climbed the stairs, and let herself into her apartment, all in a daze.

She sat in the middle of her couch, purse still slung over her shoulder. Fingers barely touching her lips, lest they somehow erase the memory of his kiss. But not just a kiss, a kiss with a capital K. Every time Tori thought he was done, Les had redoubled his efforts. And he had exceptional efforts. But then he’d patted her on the shoulder and found another girl.

She slumped to the side, letting gravity pull her down.

She woke up with her purse digging uncomfortably into her side, her face smashed against the seat of the couch and her fingers were still on her lips.

She was alone, and would always be alone.

The sob that escaped her throat shook her entire being.

Les could walk away from that kiss because he never had, and would never have, feelings for her. Tori was a grade-A imbecile. She’d let her crush on him get out of hand, because she hoped there might actually be something to his smiles and the way he flirted.

She found it hard to breathe through gasping sobs. There was no one there to ease the pain, to stroke her back and tell her it would be all right. Once she gulped down her tears, she staggered into the kitchen area, opened the freezer, and searched for an emergency carton of double dark chocolate. Nothing, not even booze, since she’d downed that after dance class. And no twenty-four hour stores within a reasonable distance to fill the void.

Sometimes small-town living wasn’t best suited for her needs. She dug through her purse and pulled out her phone. She was out of ice cream, so texting her closest friend was the logical step for dealing with her broken heart. She focused on her thumbs through the watery haze of her vision. Things suck, I really need to talk to you, won’t you please text me back. I’m having a really hard time.

She texted Ali next.

Nothing.

She tried her again.

Tori stared at her phone. How could the woman who was attached by the retinas to her phone not see the message and text her back? Hell, Ali was even guilty of texting mid-sex.

She texted Erin.

Hey I’m having a hard night and could use a friend.

If you need me so much why did you text Ali first? The words stabbed into her chest. She gasped, unable to form thoughts beyond pain. Breathe damn it. The text stung as much as if Erin had actually slapped her.

I thought Ali would have her phone out. It was hard to see through the tears. Tori had to send the message twice, since the first one was incoherent with typos.

Yeah, well she didn’t answer you for a reason.

Tori gaped at the words on her phone. She understood them perfectly. They were in English, the only language she spoke. But they didn’t make any sense.

Her phone chimed and a new text message scrolled up. WTF we have other friends you know, stop being so needy.

If Erin’s text had been a slap, Ali’s text was a full-blow knock out. Tori’s head reeled.

She stared at the message, too numb to reply, to react. The phone fell from her fingers.

Tori slogged down the hall and into her bathroom. She turned on the shower to full blast, full hot, and stepped in. She toed the dial down a step below scalding before crumpling to the floor of the tub. Her body quaked under the torrent of hot water. Tears and misery mixed with the shower, all washing down the drain together.

Tori was cold and stiff, and the ache in her heart barely outdoing the ache in her body. She had turned the water off at some point, but she had spent the rest of the night in a crumpled heap in the tub. She crawled out of the bathroom, not even trying to stand. Light from her windows told her it was morning. She found her phone on the floor, glanced at the screen that showed Erin and Ali had messaged her repeatedly.

She didn’t care. She didn’t even care that it was nine-fifteen and she was late for work.

She called her boss.

“I’m not coming in.”

“Aw, Tori, you feeling okay?”

“I just woke up, and…” Her voice croaked, her throat raw from all the crying.

“You do sound rough. Go back to bed and feel better. Check in with me later about tomorrow?”

“Yeah.”

Tori left the phone on the floor and crawled to her bedroom. She stripped out of the wet clothes and slid under her thick comforter. Blessed, dreamless sleep claimed her once more.