Love You Always (Buttercup Hill #5)

Chapter 6

CHAPTER 6

E lla

Me: It’s Ella Fieldstone. Confirming tomorrow

Archer: Yes

Me: Great! I’m excited!

Archer: Ok

Me: Are you excited? Come on, admit it

Archer: See you tomorrow

Me: Can I bring you coffee as a thank you?

Archer: I’m good

Me: What time is good for you?

Archer: 10

Me: Looking forward to it

Wow, he’s just as grumpy in his texts as he is in person. Nothing I can’t handle. He’s not the first person I’ve had to kill with kindness. Jerky directors, irritable key grips—I’ve given them all the sunshine treatment when necessary, and they’ve all come around.

I know I’m asking a favor that falls outside of normal wedding planning, but with the amount I’m about to pay for this wedding, I don’t feel too bad about him taking an hour out of his day to teach me a few things. He probably thinks I’m a diva. Well, he can get in line.

It’s true that I’ve fired more people than almost anyone in Hollywood, and I always have a rider in my contracts giving me total control over the staffing of whatever movie I’m involved in. That means I can fire the director, the writer, the cinematographer—anyone I see fit, at any time—and the breathless industry media has translated that to mean that I’m difficult to please. But they haven’t had to work with jerks who make life miserable for everyone on set.

I only have one real requirement for people who work on my productions—kindness. Anyone who can’t adhere to that gets fired. I’m not just talking about people being kind to me. We have a “no assholes” policy on the set and in the production offices. Zero tolerance for bullies.

Archer Corbett’s terse texts don’t exactly scream friendliness, but I’m giving him the benefit of the doubt. I’m hoping a teddy bear heart beats underneath the grumpy winemaker exterior. And even if not…I really do want to learn about wine making.

That’s why I follow behind him as he strides down a winding path behind the barn. His legs are long, much longer than mine since I ditched my shoes in my car. The pair I grabbed in a rush this morning had a two-inch heel, and I worried about toppling over again in front of him.

So I’m rushing behind barefoot, my wide-legged pants grazing the ground as I speed walk to stay within a yard of him. The tiny rocks in the path sting the bottoms of my feet, but I ignore them.

Archer doesn’t bother to turn back to see if he’s leaving me in the dust, but that doesn’t offend me. I’m on his turf and he’s doing me a favor, so he can walk as fast as he wants. I’m busy convincing myself of this when he stops suddenly and whips around. My momentum is too much to slow me down, so I slam into his chest. My hands reach out to break my collision with a wall of muscle that I can feel through the soft flannel of the plaid shirt he wears over a tee.

Pushing myself away, my fingers dig into hard abs, and suck in an unintentional breath. From the smirk that forms on his lips, I know he heard me. I clear my throat, hoping to convince him I’m just suffering from indigestion. I fight the urge to trace the contours of a clear six-pack beneath my hands. One of Archer’s palms reaches out to steady me, gripping my shoulder and sending a ripple of heat down my arm. “Sorry,” I mumble, listing to the side. His other hand comes out to hold me up at the hip to keep me from toppling over.

I could explain the reason for my lack of balance, but I don’t know this man at all, and I don’t owe him anything, other than my courtesy as he takes me to wherever he’s going to collect grape samples.

“You okay there?” he asks, tilting his head to the side.

I nod. “Yeah. Didn’t expect you to stop.”

Standing this close to him, I take in his broad shoulders that taper to a slim waist. He’s tall, easily over six feet, and solid as an ox—a hot, sexy ox. He has high cheekbones and deep blue eyes like stormy seas. Light creases across his forehead tell me he’s not just grumpy—he worries. I wonder what about. His lips press together in a line, but they look soft. He seems like a tumble of contrasts .

He tips his head and regards me, rubbing his chin, skeptical. “Second time you lost your balance. Coincidence?”

I sigh in annoyance. “Fine. I have something called persistent postural perceptual dizziness.”

He looks at me blankly. Then shakes his head as though working himself from a trance. “I’m sorry, what?”

“Vertigo, basically. I get dizzy and lose my balance sometimes. And I did not just fall. You stopped and I wasn’t expecting that. Okay, Grumpy Grape?”

He almost… almost smiles. He removes his hands slowly and watches to make sure I don’t tip over. I hold my arms out to the sides as though I’m balancing on a tightrope to prove I’m fine.

“See? Not falling.”

He gives me a once-over to assess the veracity of my words. His eyes roam over the length of me the way men have been doing for as long as I can remember. It used to make me feel like an object, but now I know it’s more of a reflexive response than anything else and I mostly ignore it. But when Archer does it, I feel a twinge of something I haven’t felt in a long time—his gaze feels like a soft caress, and I have the urge for his eyes to linger a bit longer. Each part of my body lights up like a heat-seeking missile as appreciation fills his eyes.

Then he looks down at my feet and his brow furrows.

“Why are you not wearing shoes?”

“I thought I’d be stomping in a vat of grapes like the old I Love Lucy episode.” I grin at my classic TV reference.

“Great, you’re a comedian.” His eyes shoot to mine accusingly.

“Fine. I left them in the car. They were…annoying, and I’m more of a barefoot gal anyway.”

He shakes his head. “I don’t care who you are. You can’t go in the vineyards barefoot. Hang on.”

Breaking into a jog, he sweeps past me, and I watch the layer of dust swirl behind him as he goes back to the barn. Looking down, I lift the hem of my pant legs off the ground and fan them around my ankles to remove some of the same dust, which forms a small cloud around them.

A moment later, Archer comes jogging toward me with the ease of a natural born athlete, carrying a pair of tall brown boots in one hand and a notebook in the other. Bending down, he puts a knee of his suit pants on the dusty ground and helps me into each boot, having me balance a hand on his shoulder. “Can’t have you hurting your feet. Too pretty for that.” The irritable grunt of words almost masks their kindness, but not quite. His stern gaze tells me to do as I’m told. I feel like he wants to cling to his grouchy persona, but he can’t help being kind.

Bending down, I slip a foot into each boot, which has a soft fleece lining that’s so much more comfortable than the ground. Not that I want to give this grump the satisfaction of being right. I nod at him and mutter a quiet “thank you.” He responds with something resembling a grunt and starts walking again, a tad slower this time.

With the pain of going barefoot no longer an issue, all of my sensory attention focuses on our surroundings. The sweet smell of lavender bushes. The soft, easy chirp of birds perching high in the trees. The soft glimmer of the sun kissing vine after vine of grape leaves. A gentle breeze stirring up my insides just as it stirs the air around us. “I could live in a place like this.” The thought surprises me when it hits because it’s the antithesis of my city life, busy with traffic, packed with events and constant peopling.

“It’s not all it’s cracked up to be.” Archer’s grumbled words make me realize I uttered the thought out loud.

“What?”

He shakes his head and grunts out a breath. “Lemme guess, you think farm-to-table is a cool trend. You only cook what grows within sixty miles of your house because some earth-mother podcaster told you to drink organically sourced coconut water made with love?”

The words tumble out in such unstoppable succession that even Archer seems surprised to hear all he has to say. Even though he’s snarling like he eats city girls like me for breakfast on the daily, I know that very little of what he’s just said has anything to do with me personally. How can it? He doesn’t even know me.

This guy has a chip on his shoulder the size of an iceberg. I have no idea where it came from, but despite his jerkiness, I want to know.

“Why are you so cynical?” I strive to keep up with him, but it’s hard. I can’t get a clear view of his face.

“Cynical? Naw, that’s not it.”

“What, then?”

He shrugs dismissively like I couldn’t possibly understand. I think I catch an eye roll but he’s still moving too fast for me to know for sure.

“Go ahead. You ranted at me like I’m the devil, so at least tell me what bug crawled up your pants to make you so crabby.”

“You make me crabby.”

“Interesting.”

“No. Very not interesting.”

Now it’s my turn to shrug. “Seems interesting to me that I can put you in a mood when you barely know me. I don’t think I’ve got a special talent for it. Then again, there are plenty of people who don’t like me.” My hollow laugh is supposed to sound like I don’t care what people think.

“I’m not crying for you, rom-com princess.”

I shoot him a side-eye. “Thought you didn’t know who I was.”

A muscle in his jaw flinches and he blinks. It’s not the first time someone has made an extra effort to play it cool around me, going as far as to talk to everyone else in a group I’m standing in and ignore me. I usually feel bad for people who do this, so worried about gawking at a celebrity that they border on rude.

“I said I didn’t care who you were. But I know a princess when I see one. ”

He couldn’t be farther from the truth, but I’m not sure I care enough to prove him wrong.

We round the side of the kitchen garden, which is a little bit overgrown in that schoolyard garden project way. Kale plants stand waist-high, and their leaves span four feet in all directions. Squash blossoms trail over trellises and give birth to zucchini and yellow squash that are so ripe and perfect that I have to stop myself from snapping one off and taking a bite.

Then there are tomatoes, yellow ones, cherries, larger beefsteak varieties, all growing in raised beds, one after the other as far as I can see in the distance. The entire food garden is surrounded by fruit trees, some of which have still-green oranges and lemons hanging from the branches.

If we weren’t in the middle of such an irritating discussion, I’d ask questions. Beatrix told me that every room at the inn has a bowl of tangerines picked from the orchard on the property, but I don’t see tangerines here. Silently, I take everything in, not even pausing long enough to take out my phone and snap photos. But actually, come to think of it…

Fishing my phone from my purse, I activate video mode and sweep around in a circle, taking in everything around us. Everything except that lumberjack of a man still grumping along in front of me. I allow myself to inhale a deep breath of the orange blossoms that still remain on the trees and the sweet earthy scent of tomato vines. I take a few snaps of some particularly photogenic tomatoes and peppers before daring to pluck a cherry tomato and pop it into my mouth.

Almost like he senses that I’ve just eaten some forbidden fruit, Archer stops walking and stares at me. I take a step closer to him, which also brings me nearer to a vine bursting with tiny yellow tomatoes. I watch him watch me as I slowly reach for a tomato and pluck it from the stem. His eyes stay fixed on my mouth as I open it, drop the tomato onto my tongue, and bite into the sweet, delicious fruit that’s still warm from the sun .

Crossing his arms over his chest, he sizes me up. When his hand reaches abruptly toward me, I flinch, unsure whether he’d actually smack a woman across the face. But his touch is gentle as he removes a stray seed from my chin and flicks it away. “Why don’t people like you?” His voice is quieter now, and the softer tone draws me in, makes me willing to answer his question.

“Because they don’t know me, and they judge me based on things they’ve read in the media or what they’ve seen on screen.”

Slowly, he nods.

“So you’re saying you’re different under the surface?” Now the scrape of skepticism is back, the glimmer of softness gone.

“Aren’t you?” I stare him down, willing him to crack just a little bit and admit that this bad-boy, grumpy asshole routine is just for show. That underneath, he’s a big cinnamon roll softie. Or maybe I’ve read too many rom-com scripts.

“No.”

“I don’t believe you.”

He huffs his frustration and starts walking again.

“Fine, whatever. Think I’m a good guy pretending to be an asshole. Go ahead and love the views and the pretty purple grapes. Buttercup Hill is awesome, couldn’t agree more. Just don’t kid yourself. There’s a difference between dreams and reality. This here, darlin’, this is reality. Just not yours.”

I bristle at the endearment.

Darlin’ …

In the year I’ve been with Callum, he’s never called me anything but Ella. No nicknames, no sweet, cute ways of telling me I’m special to him. And it’s fine. I don’t need to be called sweetheart or dear to know I’m his girlfriend. Or fiancée. But hearing the word drip from Archer’s tongue does something to my insides that it definitely shouldn’t when I’m getting ready to marry another man. I check myself because the feeling, along with all the surprising physical reactions to Archer in the past half hour, is wholly inappropriate. And it needs to be killed and buried right now.

But I’m not letting him off the hook about his cynicism. “Explain, sage winemaker. What’s the difference between dreams and reality?”

One corner of Archer’s mouth turns down, forming a sneer. Good. It makes his face easier to dislike. He shakes his head and sweeps an arm in front of us. My eyes catch on his strong hand as he gestures at the land around us.

It’s just a big hand. Get over it.

“Like I said, people like you who come here and fall all over themselves because it’s pretty, and the reality is that what you’re looking at is generations of physical labor. It’s farming, darlin’, plain and simple.”

The words are less pointed this time. The earlier diatribe seems to have robbed him of part of his bite. And there it is again, that word. Darlin’ . I wish that hearing it come out of his mouth didn’t have the effect that it did. It’s not that I want to be thought of as his darlin’. Or anyone’s.

But dammit, I work myself to the bone and that one sweet term of affection gives me the odd impression that someone out there in the world appreciates it. It’s nonsense, I know that. Archer doesn’t know or appreciate me. If anything, he’s just dismissed me. People like you. I want to slug him, but that’s not how I was raised.

I was raised to answer back.

“It says something about you that you’ve formed an opinion about me without doing any work whatsoever. I’m just some urbanite who wants to pet a baby chick?” I should be used to it by now. For my entire life, people have looked at the outside package, my dating choices, and my career decisions, and formed opinions. I used to fight against them with my agent, begging her to put me up for dramatic roles, but she refused. “You’re America’ s sweetheart. You need to give people what they want.” So I did.

For my entire career, I played to type and had more success than I knew what to do with. But this right here—the idea that a guy who doesn’t know me at all thinks I’m just fawning over grapes because it’s quaint—it really bugs me.

I feel the anger rise in my chest and know what will happen if I let it build unchecked. I’m going to say something to this man that will tank any hope of having my wedding at this magical place. At the same time, I can’t let his incorrect assumption of me go.

“And I didn’t form an opinion out of nowhere. I lived in LA for a while. I know what the people there are like.”

“Yeah?” I ask, jutting my lower lip forward. “It’s a big city. Did you meet every single person there?”

“I met enough.”

I’m dying to know how LA did him wrong, or better yet, what woman put a cramp in his swagger because that has to be it. There’s someone in particular who ruined it for the rest of us.

“Well, you didn’t meet me.”

There’s cynicism in his bark of a laugh. “Sure didn’t.”

“Too bad. If you did, you’d know, I spent my first eight years on a farm. I like it here because it reminds me of that. Not because I’m trying to be someone I’m not.” I look him dead in the eye to make sure he believes me, then I cock my head to the side. “But if you have baby chicks I can pet, I’m not gonna say no.”

He returns my gaze, his eyes just as steely as before. It’s some bizarre standoff, each of us daring the other to flinch. Finally, the ticking muscle in his cheek relaxes and his eyes soften a fraction. He nods. “We don’t have any chicks here. We have grapes.”