Chapter 18
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Daisy
“You again,” Beckett says when I stroll into the kitchen determined to act natural.
Like I didn’t have an erotic dream starring him last night.
Like I didn’t wake up all hot and sweaty with my sheets twisted around my ankles and slide my hand inside my panties only to find that I was already wet.
“A day without me is like a day without sunshine,” I reply cheerfully. “I don’t want you to have a Vitamin D deficiency.”
“Your concern is touching.” He’s shoveling Greek yogurt and granola into his mouth while scrolling on his phone. When he’s not on his laptop, he’s glued to that damn phone.
I add a dash of milk to my coffee and sit across from him with my peanut butter and honey toast and an orange.
I stare at his large hand wrapped around his phone. Vein porn at its finest.
At the navy cotton T-shirt molded to his broad shoulders and chest.
At the flex of his triceps when he shoves his hand through his hair.
When I woke up this morning, I could almost feel the weight of him on top of me, that’s how vivid my dream was.
He looks up from his phone with a sigh of annoyance. “Did you need something?”
“Just can’t stop staring at your pretty face.”
You kissed me in my dream like your life depended on it. Like I was the oxygen you needed to breathe.
He presses his full lips into a flat line and even with the scowl on his face, he’s still pretty. Damn him. Why did I have that dream about him of all people?
He’s not even my type. He’s too big. Too muscular. Too… Beckett.
“I see you’re growing a beard. You’re shooting for that sexy lumberjack look, aren’t you?”
In my dream you were chopping wood down by the stream. Sweaty. Shirtless. A complete beast when you threw me down on the ground. So demanding and unrepentant. And I loved it.
He rubs his hand over the stubble as if he’s forgotten he hasn’t shaved. It sounds rough like sandpaper. I’m imagining how it would feel if his face was between my legs, his scruff rubbing against my skin and my thighs clenched.
It must be Stockholm syndrome. Obsession by forced proximity. A temporary case of insanity.
His eyes narrow. “Why do you keep staring at me?”
I take a sip of my coffee and set down my mug. “I was just trying to get up the nerve to ask my new boss to take me for a spin on his big green tractor.”
He snorts. He knows I’m lying. But it’s better to lie than tell him the truth.
You shared your greatest tragedy with me and only a few nights later I had an erotic dream about you.
I am a deeply troubled individual.
“No one gets to ride the tractor but me.”
“Wow. You’re really letting all this power go to your head, aren’t you?” I say as we walk out the door.
The sun is rising as we walk up the row of grenache grapes that are starting to change from green to red and purple. Pete told me it’s called veraison. When the grapes begin to soften and change color on the vine.
“You have a little more swagger in your step than usual. And what’s that strange thing on your face? Is that—” I rear back, my hand going to my heart, “—a smile?”
“It’s all this power. Makes me giddy.”
I snort a laugh.
The smile wasn’t really a smile. It was just a slight upturn to the corner of his mouth, which is technically a smirk. And I highly doubt that anything would make him giddy .
“I’ve found the perfect job for you,” he says when we reach the shed housing the tractor and forklift and vineyard equipment, and he rips open a box of mesh netting. “How are your sewing skills, Cinderella?”
“Why? Do you need me to whip up a ballgown for you?”
“Close enough.”
It’s not even remotely close.
I spend the day working on the ground with the vineyard crew, sewing and clipping nets together.
Meanwhile, Beckett is driving the tractor, which is rigged with equipment that drops and stretches the netting to form a canopy over four rows of vines at a time to protect them from the birds.
I’m pretty sure we both know who got the better job. The tractor is doing all the work while he sits behind the wheel, barking out orders, mostly aimed at me.
“Chop chop, Miss Larsson. No slacking on the job. Those nets won’t sew themselves.”
From my perch on the ladder, I reach into my shorts pockets and come out with two middle fingers aimed at him. He just laughs, looking downright cheerful. Probably because he loves bossing me around.
“It’s pretty ingenious,” Hunter says just as if Beckett invented this system instead of finding out about it on the internet.
According to his research—which apparently was extensive—Beckett claimed that this is the best practice. And everyone believed him because he’s Beckett Heyward. The rightful heir. The man in charge. A royal pain in the ass.
“That he gets to ride the tractor while we do all the grunt work? Absolutely.”
Hunter laughs good-naturedly and holds the two polyethylene nets together so I can work my magic with a giant sewing needle.
I really am beginning to feel like Cinderella.
“I think I preferred it when you were locked in your cave working on spreadsheets,” I tell Beckett on the way back to the house after a very long day.
“You’re never satisfied, are you?” Beckett says with a tsk. “I seem to remember someone telling me it was their fantasy to see me sweaty and shirtless and driving a tractor. And now I’m fulfilling all your fantasies and you’re still complaining?”
He lets out a long-suffering sigh like I’m a difficult woman to please and he’s been knocking himself out to make all my wishes come true.
“Here’s my new fantasy. You standing over a hot stove in an apron cooking our dinner. Shirt optional.”
“Keep that hot chef fantasy stored in your dream castle. One fantasy per day is more than enough. Let’s not get too greedy.”
He has no idea how right he is.
But by the time I get in the shower, my sexual fantasies starring Beckett Heyward are a forgotten memory.
My arms are so sore I can barely lift them to shampoo my hair.
And by the end of the week, after sewing my way through all the vineyard blocks, I’m ready to kill my new boss.