Parker grabbed paper towels and wiped his hands and Ava’s cheeks, then disposed of them and the condom in a nearby bucket. He pulled his pants up before going to one knee. He placed kisses up her thigh as he pulled her panties up and then grabbed the T-shirt. He also pulled that over her head and kissed her again, hard on the mouth, before saying, “Now, about lunch.”

They held hands—of all the sappy, weird things she’d never done with a guy before—as they wandered the greenhouse gathering spinach, tomatoes, and peppers.

“Salad?” she asked.

“Frittata.”

He led her out the back of the greenhouse, but she pulled to a stop outside the door. “Frittatas need eggs.”

“Very good, Boss.”

“And you don’t buy eggs from the store.”

“For the diner, I do,” he said. “The girls can’t quite keep up with that demand. But no, not for out here.”

“So we’re going to get the eggs. From your chickens?” This had to be the most bizarre date of her life.

“We are.” He lifted an eyebrow. “You have a chicken phobia?”

“I didn’t think I did,” she muttered.

“I’ll do the hard work,” he said with a wink.

“Which is?”

He thought about it. “There’s not really anything hard about it.”

“Uh-huh.” But she let him tug her across the yard to the wooden structure that she would have identified as the chicken coop even without being told. Since there were actual chickens surrounding it. There was an enclosed box that actually looked like a little house. It was even painted in the same light blue as his house. A wooden ramp led from the front door of the little house to a “yard” in front of it. It was mostly dirt with some sparse grass covering it. There were four chickens pecking at the ground. And one rooster. Ava’s steps stuttered, but the entire thing, yard and house, was surrounded with a high wire fence and topped with a pitched roof.

“My mom built the coop,” Parker said as they neared the door that would lead into the yard. He chuckled. “She thinks it’s cute. I don’t think the chickens care.”

The light blue walls, white trim, and, now that she was close enough to study it and not stare at the rooster, the white shutters on either side of the tiny windows, were all pretty cute.

But it was still a chicken coop.

Parker opened the large door that led into the enclosure, but Ava hung back. He looked at her. “You okay?”

She was frowning at the rooster. Who was now looking directly at her. “You can go in without me, right?”

“I could. But what would be the fun in that?” He tugged on her hand and Ava, never one to back down from a challenge, stepped through the door.

But she kept her eye on the male with feathers.

Parker strode confidently toward the coop. “Let’s see what we’ve got this afternoon.”

She watched him walk through the chickens who just scattered as he passed. She followed carefully. He rounded the one side of the coop and lifted a wooden hatch.

“Come here.” He motioned her forward.

Ava stepped toward him, but a chicken got in her way and she bumped it with her foot. The chicken squawked and flapped her wings and Ava let out a little scream. And the rooster started for her.

Roosters didn’t like it when their hens got riled up.

Ava sucked in a quick breath and lifted her foot, prepared to roll him over. She had no idea how that was actually going to work, but she was grateful for the boots now. But the bit she’d read about showing him who was in charge flashed through her mind. At the last minute she frowned and bent, scooping him up in her arms and tucking him against her side snugly. He squawked and tried to flap his wings, but she just kept him tucked in tight and ignored him as she walked toward where Parker was standing with his eyes wide and his mouth open.

“What did you want to show me?” she asked as she joined Parker at the side of the coop.

His eyes were on the rooster that had settled down surprisingly quickly. Though she wasn’t sure why she was surprised. She had no idea what to think or expect in any rooster situation.

“What the hell are you doing?” he asked.

She noted that he was holding an egg in each hand. She peered into the side of the coop he’d opened. There was a line of boxes, each with what looked like straw at the bottom. Two were empty, one had a chicken sitting in it, and two others had eggs cradled in the straw.

“This is where they lay the eggs?”

“Nesting boxes,” Parker said absently. “What are you doing with my rooster?”

Ava glanced down at the bird under her arm. “Showing him who’s boss.”

Parker looked from the rooster up at her. “How did you know how to do that?”

“I read about it.”

“You read about roosters?” He seemed completely baffled by that. “Why? When?”

“While you napped,” she said. “After I heard him crowing when I went out to get my phone from the truck.”

“You looked up how to boss a rooster around?”

She shrugged. “Pretty much.”

There was a pause, then Parker burst into laughter. Then he reached for her, on the rooster-less side, and pulled her into a half hug.

“What?” she asked against his chest, not really able to hug him back.

“Just…thank you for always being you,” he said. “You are exactly who you seem to be. Even in the middle of a farm for the first time in your life, wearing work boots and very little else.” His hand skimmed down her back to her butt. “You look at a situation and just do what needs to be done.” He kissed the top of her head. “Thank you for kicking ass, all the fucking time.”

She felt her heart expand and had a hard time taking a deep breath for a second. She gave the rooster a little squeeze, suddenly glad that he’d gone on the attack. Crazy as that was.

“Also, thanks for making egg gathering incredibly sexy,” Parker said, letting her go.

She sniffed a little, composing herself as he stepped away. The sniff brought in the smell of the coop even stronger and she grimaced. “Sexy, huh?”

“I’d put you up against this coop and gladly show you, but I do think Ras would have a problem with that.” Parker reached for the other eggs in the nesting boxes, then shut the hatch.

“Ras?” Ava asked.

He pointed at the rooster. “Rasputin.”

Her eyebrows shot up. “This rooster is named Rasputin?”

“My mom named him.”

“So, he’s evil.” She looked down at him. He was, actually, just sitting on her hip as if perfectly fine being there.

“My mom might have had a run-in with him.” Parker seemed to be mulling that over. “I never really asked her why she named him that.”

“She never mentioned that he was an attack rooster?”

Parker chuckled. “She’s kind of like you. She just takes care of stuff. She wouldn’t have mentioned that.” He looked back at the coop. “She built this herself. Just did it. Didn’t ask for input, or permission, just did it. One day I came home and the frame was up.”

Ava liked his mom already. “And that was fine with you?”

He shrugged. “Her taking care of the chickens a lot of the time helps me out. It’s time I don’t have to spend cleaning or repairing the coop. I throw some seed out and gather eggs two or three times a day. It’s pretty low-key.”

“I’m glad someone’s helping you with stuff,” Ava said. “You work hard.” He really did.

“Well, thanks.” Parker seemed pleased with her comment. “But this is my day off. And I don’t want to spend any more of it in a chicken coop. And I don’t want to spend much more of it with you in clothes.”

It was just that easy for him to get her body humming.

She looked down at the rooster. She’d read about how to pick him up, but the article hadn’t talked about putting him back down. She supposed she’d just set him on the ground and hope to get out of the pen before he decided she’d wounded his male ego.

But when she set him down, he just wandered off, pecking randomly at the ground.

“All males are just putty in your hands, huh?” Parker asked, holding the door open for her. He had the five eggs in the pocket he’d created by holding up the bottom of his shirt. That exposed a strip of skin over hard abs, and Ava was shocked to find herself wanting to lick him right there. Right now. In a chicken coop.

Instead, she stepped through the door and started for the house. She really needed to not be smelling barnyard before she licked anything.

Parker showed her how to wash the eggs in the utility sink in the corner of the laundry room, then he stored them in the fridge, threw her over his shoulder, and took her upstairs to the shower. Where they had hot, slippery sex before washing each other from head to toe.

By the time they made it back downstairs to the kitchen, Ava was hungry, but incredibly relaxed and…happy. It was a simple word that people used all the time without thinking, but today it had a new meaning for her. She was as out of her element as she’d ever been, spending time in kitchens, and greenhouses, and chicken coops with a man who rattled her, who didn’t care that she was a CEO worth billions, who liked her in work boots as much or more than he did in heels. And she was happy.

“You want to help me in the kitchen?” Parker asked. He was shirtless but had a clean pair of jeans sitting low on his hips.

Ava took a seat on one of the high stools across the counter that separated his enormous kitchen from the living room that was filled with casual furniture. He had two sofas, a recliner, and a rocking chair in the corner, along with a huge coffee table that she could imagine covered with snacks, mugs and bottles, while a game played on the big screen TV suspended over the stone hearth fireplace.

“I can honestly tell you that I would love to sit right here and just watch you cook for me,” she said.

He gave her a grin. “Good thing cooking is my third favorite thing to do with you.”

“I have a really good idea about number one,” she said. Her body was still tingling from the things he’d done to it in the shower. She never would have guessed a guy like Parker would have a mesh body puff. And she would have never guessed the things he could do with it. She shifted on the stool and cleared her throat, watching Parker bend to retrieve ingredients from the fridge. Hot, naked skin, and hard, bunching muscles, and denim that molded deliciously to his body, and she couldn’t remember what she’d been about to ask him.

“Number one has several subsets,” he said, straightening with his arms full of food and crossing to the center island. “But yeah, it’s probably pretty obvious.”

“So what’s number two?” she asked.

He looked up from positioning the vegetables on the cutting board. “Talking.”

For some reason that made her throat tighten. “Oh.”

He gave her a nod. “Yeah. Oh.” He grabbed a knife and chopped the top of the pepper off. “I’m as surprised as you.”

She laughed. “We probably shouldn’t be. We have a lot in common.”

He smiled, continuing to chop. “Take away your private jet and we’re practically the same person.”

She chuckled. Absently, she picked up the pencil lying by a notebook and stack of junk mail. She knew that he knew they did have a lot in common. They were both hyper-organized, liked to get their way, and ran their businesses with a firm but purposeful plan. They also had a similar sense of humor and just seemed to get one another.

But he also wanted her to be more a part of his world. That still made her heart flip. And it made her think about him in her world too. “You know, speaking of that private jet,” she said, fiddling with the pencil. “I was thinking…what would you think about going to New York with me?”

She heard the chopping stop and she glanced up.

Parker had a hand braced on the island and was studying her.

“Parker?”

“What would we do?”

She couldn’t help it—she blushed. Because she had an amazing, six-nozzle shower in her apartment and she’d already had some thoughts about that shower and this man.

His grin was slow and made deep-down-oh-yeah muscles clench. “Besides that, Boss. Because yeah…we’re going to do that no matter where we are.”

Now he was reading her mind. Or her expressions, at least. She blew out a breath. “Dinner, a show, sightseeing, whatever you want. I just thought—” It had sounded so effortless and sweet from him, but she had never, ever said something romantic or sentimental to a man before.

“You just thought what?” he prompted.

His voice was low and even from across the few feet and two countertops that separated them, she felt like he was touching her.

“You want to see me in blue jeans again. I want to see you in a shirt and tie.”

“Ah,” he said, nodding slowly. “You want to see me in your world.”

She started to answer, then pressed her lips together and thought about her words. She decided to go ahead though. “I want to see how we can maybe…be together…in both worlds.”

He took a long breath and Ava braced for him to say, I want nothing to do with your world or we’re not together. But that wasn’t what he said.

“Dammit, woman, I need food at some point today.”

She frowned. “I don’t mean we should go to New York today. And there’s food there. Lots of it. Great food, as a matter of fact. Some of the best in the world.”

“And I look forward to trying a bunch of it,” he said. “But if you keep saying things like that, I’m never going to get around to eating today. At least not food.”

“I don’t—” But then she did understand. Her wanting him to come to New York, into her world turned him on. She felt her body heat. She loved that she’d had that effect. “Okay, you finish cooking and then we can talk about New York.”

“Naked,” Parker said.

“What?”

“We can talk about New York while we’re naked.” He started cracking eggs and whisking.

“Okay.” She smiled. “We can talk about New York while we’re naked.”

He continued with the meal preparation, and Ava found herself watching his hands and his shoulders and arm muscles bunching as he mixed and diced and sautéed. And thinking that they didn’t really need food that much.

To distract herself, she decided to make a to-do list. One of her favorite things in the world. She borrowed the notebook in Parker’s stack of stuff on the counter and started writing. She should call her assistant so Maggie could get them show tickets and a dinner reservation and get the jet ready. It would be so much fun to take Parker out and spoil him a little. He worked hard with not much time off. He not only cooked for the entire town for more than twelve hours a day, but he also took care of chickens and a whole greenhouse and…goats. She hadn’t even met the goats yet. Ava added “research goats” to her list. Then she turned the page. Maybe Maggie could pull together a quick meeting on the Ashton merger. It would be easier to go over the glitches in person. She’d just finished her notation on some things she wanted to check in the file, when she noticed a list and some notes on the next page. She assumed it was Parker’s list.

Chicken, sweet onions, apples. Try sweet and savory crust. Cinnamon? Thyme? Sugar? Light. More sweet.

She studied it. It was kind of a grocery list. But not really.

Chicken and apples? She flipped the page.

Pork and peaches. Tenderloin? Increase sugar. Less lime. Try lemon.

The next page had a list that included beef and cherries.

“Fruit and meat pies?”

He glanced over from the stove. “What?”

She held up the notebook. “Are these new recipe ideas?”

He opened his mouth, then shook his head and turned to remove the cast-iron skillet from the oven. He set it on top of the stove and then tossed the oven mitt to the side. “That’s nothing,” he finally said.

“Really? Because they look like the starts to recipes,” Ava said.

“Just some things that were going through my mind.” He leaned against the counter, bracing his hands beside his hips.

But Ava focused. “So they are recipes.”

“Kind of.”

“For the pie shop?” she asked. She looked down. “Because this is really amazing.”

He didn’t say anything and when she glanced up again, he was frowning. “I don’t know that they’re amazing.”

“They are,” she said, her enthusiasm growing as she thought about it. “I mean, you’re taking the classic pies that we serve—apple, cherry, and peach—from sweet to savory. This is a really great idea for expanding the menu. Still pie, still our classics, but something new. These could be lunch additions. And they wouldn’t compete with the diner.” Ava was vaguely aware that she was talking faster as she went along, but she felt her excitement building and couldn’t stop. “You can keep the diner menu as is, all the comforting, familiar stuff everyone wants most of the time. But when someone is in an adventurous mood, ready to try something new, they can just come next door.” She set the notebook down and scooted forward on her stool. “It’s a chance for you to keep giving everyone what they need from the diner, but give in to some of that creativity that you can’t show off there. This would be good for you too.” She grinned at him. “This is a great way to start showing them more of what you can do. The diner can be tried and true, the pie shop can be new and creative.”

Parker was just watching her with a mix of wonder and trepidation. “I was just messing around one night,” he said, gesturing toward the notebook. “I don’t have any plans to do elaborate, creative things at the pie shop.”

He might not have plans, but he had thoughts along those lines.

She nodded. “But you could,” she said. “I know you think this is a sandwich and burger town, but you’re not just a sandwich and burger chef. It’s okay for you to have something else besides the diner.”

“I love the diner.”

“I know. Everyone knows,” she assured him. “And making pork and peach pies next door to the diner doesn’t mean that anyone will doubt that.”

He took a deep breath. “I don’t know.”

She gave him a smile. God, the way he treated her was addictive, but the way he treated the town and his father’s legacy was equally so. Even as it was incredibly frustrating. “Okay, so let’s start smaller. You have had thoughts about the food at the pie shop?”

“Of course.”

“I mean beyond how sucky my pie has been.” She grinned. “You’ve thought of adding to the menu?”

“Yes.”

“So how do you think you should start? Cori will be adding the specialty pies—the s’mores and stuff—what do you want to add?”

He shrugged. “Just simple stuff. Blueberry, strawberry.”

She nodded. “Makes sense. Most people would expect a pie shop to have those, so that probably wouldn’t rock Bliss’s foundation too much, right?” She resisted an eye roll. He was so careful with them. And she understood. Mostly. His business model had worked for a long time. Messing with it was risky. And he liked what he was doing too. But she knew he was capable of so much more.

“They might even survive adding chocolate silk,” he said dryly.

Ava gasped and put a hand to her chest. “Are you sure?”

Parker sighed and turned to plate the frittata. “I’m not being ridiculous. People here like the things they like.”

“Of course they do,” Ava agreed. “Because what they have and like is so good.” She meant that. And not just at the diner. “But that doesn’t mean they can’t like other things.” She looked down at the plate he set in front of her. It looked and smelled delicious. “Parker, this is about you too. So you make a new pie that they don’t like. Big deal. You try something else. I get that people come to the diner expecting certain things and you want to give that to them, but they don’t really expect anything specific from the pie shop.” She took a bite of the frittata, briefly registered that it was amazing, and went on. “That’s one bonus of having the pie shop in such a state of change. They don’t have set expectations yet. They know things there are going to be different. And they weren’t that devoted to it in the first place. This is your chance to stretch your chef wings. Let them see what you can do. Maybe pork and peach won’t be a big hit. It may never replace the jalapeno burger, but at least you have a chance to try it.”

Parker took a bite, chewed, and swallowed. “Maybe.”

Maybe. She could totally work with maybe. She took another bite of the frittata, thought about what she wanted to say, swallowed, and took a breath. “You know, I understand wanting to follow in your father’s footsteps.” She looked up when he didn’t respond. He was just chewing and watching her. She laid her fork down. “My whole life, as long as I’ve been old enough to understand even the smallest bit of what he did for a living, I was all about doing what he did. It was the only way to be close to him and to really spend time with him. And he was successful. So I just focused on doing things his way. But…” She pulled in a long breath. “Then I come here, and I find out that he wasn’t truly happy until he left there. He had to leave behind everything we did together, everything he taught me, everything I was working for, to really find what he wanted.” Her throat was tight and she had to work to swallow.

Parker set his plate to the side and braced his hands on the counter again. “Rudy...” He stopped and frowned. “That wasn’t about you, Ava. He didn’t leave you.”

She lifted a shoulder. “Maybe not. Maybe it wasn’t directly about me.” She knew he hadn’t left because of her, but he had still left, and found happiness, away from her. But she was starting to understand that Bliss, and the people here, kind of did that to a person. She didn’t think Rudy was looking for happiness when he’d come here, but it had found him. And she was glad. “But the point is,” she went on with Parker. “I get what it’s like to want to do things his way because of whatever you saw in him, in what he was doing. But maybe that’s not all he wanted for you. Just like the company wasn’t all Rudy wanted for me.”

Parker shook his head. “This is exactly what my dad wanted. It was what he brought us here for. What he built for us.”

“But he didn’t have five years of sitting around in the pie shop with Hank and Walter and Ben and Roger,” she said dryly. “Maybe he would have figured out that this isn’t perfect for you.”

Parker didn’t agree. But he didn’t argue either.

She pushed her plate to the side and grabbed the notebook and pencil again. “So maybe we start with offering one of the savory pies once a week or something.”

“Huge waste of good food if they don’t come in,” he commented, picking his plate up again. Well, that wasn’t a no.

“So you make one. And if it doesn’t sell, we’ll just have it for dinner.” She lifted a shoulder. “It all sounds amazing to me.”

“Yeah?”

She looked up. “Of course.” She frowned. “But you have to give them a chance to come around, you know. You can’t just make it once and decide it’s a failure.”

“If you eat it, I’ll keep making it,” he said.

That made her smile. “You will always have at least one huge fan of your off-the-menu offerings,” she told him.

He gave her a look. “I’ll show you off-the-menu.”

Her pulse stuttered, but she laughed and held up her hand. “Hang on, we’re planning here.”

“We are planning here?” he asked.

“Yes.” She gave him a smile. “You’re about to tell me about all of the other pie ideas you have.” She pointed at the notebook. “I know these aren’t all of them.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I know you.” And it hit her that she really did. At least a lot better than she had a few weeks ago. A lot better than she’d ever expected to know him. “I know that you can’t not think about this stuff.”

He took a long time to answer. Finally, he said, “And since you can’t not plan and scheme, I will tell you that I can make almost anything into a pie.”

She lifted her eyebrows. “Yeah? I mean, I was thinking something like pot pies. And hey, pizza is called pizza pie, right? We could do a whole line of gourmet pizzas.” She bent her head again. “You could turn traditional sandwiches into pies. You could do a Reuben. Oh, maybe a meatball. And that mortadella and cheese thing you made me. They could be just individual pies. Like the size of pot pies. But pot pies seem kind of boring, right? Do you have pot pie on the diner menu? It wouldn’t be direct competition, just another option. I guess we should stay away from the sandwiches that you already do. But we could start just a lunch thing with them. At first.”

“Ava.”

She looked up. “Yeah?”

“Stop.”

“I…” She frowned. “What?”

“Take a deep breath,” he said. “And think about what you’re saying. You’re getting carried away.”

She did as he asked and breathed deeply. Then she said, in her very best negotiator voice, “This is why it’s great you have a few months before the shop is officially yours. We can iron all of this out before I…” She trailed off. Something she’d never done in her negotiator voice before.

“Before you leave,” he filled in after a beat.

Yeah, she was leaving. In eight months. To go back to New York. All of this planning…she wouldn’t see it actually in place and working if they didn’t do it now. And she wouldn’t be here to eat leftover pork and peach pie. Unless he started making it now.

But this is what she did. She put plans into place. She gave people resources to make things happen. And she did it all from afar. Where she only saw the results on the bottom of a spreadsheet. And that was good enough. Carmichael Enterprises would be backing the pie shop. She could still track if things were working or not.

But that felt very empty suddenly.

“I really want to help make this happen,” she told him, meeting his gaze. “I’d love to see all of this in place before…then. And I think it’s very possible.”

He pulled a deep breath in through his nose. A number of emotions crossed his face.

Then he pushed away from the counter and started across the kitchen. He got to the doorway of the laundry room and looked back. “You coming?”

“Where are we going?” But she was already off the stool.

“Outside.”

“Why?” But she rounded the edge of the island.

“Because you’re making me want to throw eggs against the wall. And I’ve got a better idea. The reason I brought you out here in the first place.”

“The sex and the greenhouse wasn’t the reason?” she asked, following him through the laundry room to the back door.

He waited for her to slip the boots on again, then held the door open for her and stepped out after her. “No. The greenhouse was definitely not the reason.”

Right. Because that was very personal for him and he hadn’t intended to share that with her. She felt a rush knowing that he had anyway. “What about the sex?” she asked.

“I knew the sex would happen,” he admitted as he headed across the yard. “But that wasn’t the main reason.”

Huh. The possibility of sex with him had been a huge reason she’d gotten in his truck. She hurried to keep up with his long strides.

He strode past the greenhouse to a cluster of bushes and trees about twenty yards behind it. He stopped next to a tree that now lay on its side. He bent and picked up a pair of plastic goggles and four work gloves from the ground. He handed her the goggles and one pair of gloves. “Here.”

She took them both, with no idea what was going on. “Uh, Parker…”

“Put them on.” He pulled gloves on as well, settled another pair of goggles on his face, and picked up a chainsaw.

A chainsaw.

She’d only seen them in movies. And because of those movies, she was suddenly slightly concerned. “Uh, Parker…” she started again.

“You like to break things? You’re going to love this. You get to destroy an entire log, but in the end, it’s actually productive.”

“Productive?” She was already pulling her gloves on.

“Very. You get the tree out of the way and you get firewood out of the deal too.” He knelt to the ground and started the chainsaw.

As the saw started with a grinding growl, Ava put her goggles on. She couldn’t believe it, but she was excited about this.

Parker showed her how to use the saw and soon she was holding the thing herself, cutting through the log, and feeling like a badass. And he was right, it was better than breaking eggs. It was loud, it took some real muscle, it was dirty, and the wood pieces flying around gave her a rush. Reducing a big tree trunk that was in the way to small logs and scraps that could be tossed aside was highly satisfying. She thought she might even have a blister from it. She got blisters occasionally from new shoes, but this was totally different. Totally better.

She cut through the last of the log and shut off the saw. She pushed her goggles to the top of her head. “What else can I cut up?”

He laughed and shook his head. “You liked it.”

“I did.” She looked around. “Do you ever have to blow stuff up?”

He took his gloves off, holding them in one hand while tucking the other in his back pocket. He looked so sexy out here on the farm, in his blue jeans and work boots, dirt streaked across his cheek, and that look of amused what-am-I-going-to-do-with-you on his face. “I’ve never blown something up and can’t think of a reason I would need to. But maybe you could hammer something sometime.”

No explosives. Well, okay. She set the chainsaw on the ground. “So now what?”

“Now I’m ready to talk about a reasonable starting point.”

“For more sawing?”

“For the pie shop.”

Okay. Reasonable. She could be reasonable. What was a reasonable starting point that would get them to individual mortadella and cheese pot pies for lunch on Tuesdays at the pie shop by the end of the just-under-seven months she had left here?

“How about we start with adding blueberry and strawberry?” She pulled her gloves off. “Made with berries from your strawberry patch. That’s a great advertising angle.”

He frowned. “I don’t want an angle.”

“We have to let them know that we’ve added strawberry pie,” Ava said. “And it’s really great that you can do it with fresh berries even when they’re out of season. Maybe there’s someone who only likes strawberry pie and so has never come into the shop before. We have to tell them about the changes before we can expect them to come give them a try.”

“So we’re going to hang flyers up around town?” he asked, the note of skepticism hard to miss.

She thought about that. Bliss had a small weekly newspaper and a website, but actually, putting signs up might work best of all. That was how people found lost dogs, sold bicycles, and advertised yard sales after all.

“Yes,” she decided. “We put up big red, strawberry shaped signs all over, advertising the strawberry pie.” She glanced toward the greenhouse. Would he let her take pictures of it? It was one of his personal havens but would be such a great advertising tool. “Oh! I know! You add a limited time strawberry salad at the diner. Have you had it before? It’s spinach and candied pecans and feta and strawberries. Balsamic dressing. It’s amazing.” She wished for that notebook on his counter. “You add it for one week, also with spinach and strawberries from your greenhouse. It comes free with every entrée. Then with their bill, we give them a little flyer about the strawberry pie next door.”

Parker sighed. “No.”

She looked at him. “No?”

“No.”

She stood a little straighter. “You give them the salad automatically. For free. Then you don’t have to worry about them ordering it—or not. Everyone will take at least one bite. And then they’ll realize how amazing it is and will keep going.”

“No.”

“Parker—”

“I don’t have time to pick a bunch of spinach and strawberries and make extra salads with everything, even for a week.”

“Oh.” She nodded. “Of course not. I’ll do that part.” Yes, that was good. She could do that part. He didn’t have the time, but she did. And if she could finally get an apple pie to turn out, she could surely put together a salad that didn’t require cooking. She frowned slightly. At least, she didn’t think it would require cooking. She needed to make a note about learning to make candied pecans. Or where to buy them. Parker would probably balk at that, but sometimes it was easier to get forgiveness than permission.

She made a mental note to add research how to know when strawberries are ripe and how to pick strawberries on her list.

“What?” she asked, when she noticed him watching her with a weird expression.

“You’re going to pick spinach and strawberries and make salads at the diner?”

“Yes. If that’s what you need to get this going. I can do that. You’ll have to make the pie though.”

He looked like he wanted to say something, but he just shook his head.

“You’ll consider it if I can get the stuff picked and salads made?” she asked.

“Tell you what,” he said, leaning to take the gloves from her. He tossed them to the ground with his gloves and the goggles. “I will let you give out samples of the strawberries—berries cut up in little plastic cups—in front of the diner and talk about the pie. If,” he added as she opened her mouth, “you wear your short red skirt and red heels with a black blouse and stand right in front of my window where I can see you the entire time.”

He wanted her to dress up like a strawberry? “Should I get a green hat to go with the outfit?” she asked.

“As long as that sweet ass,” he said, pointing at her butt, “is in full view while I work.”

“You want to use my sweet ass to sell your pie, Mr. Blake?” she asked. But she couldn’t deny the little thrill that went through her. He wasn’t doing it exactly as she’d suggested, but he was entertaining thoughts of making changes and doing more at the pie shop. This was awesome.

“No,” he said. “But it will make me less grumpy about the whole thing.”

She smiled up at him. “Well, in that case, I’ll do whatever I can.”

“To sell pie.”

“To make you happy.”

He made a little growling noise at that and muttered something that sounded like “who needs food?”. He scooped her up in his arms and carried her back to the house and up to his bedroom. Where he proceeded to make her forget all about strawberries and chainsaws and to-do lists for the rest of the night.