Chapter 4
The morning starts with the tractor refusing to start. Again. Next season I’ll have to buy another tractor. That’s a next season issue. I beg, plead and pray and finally, Old Bertha sputters to life. I let out a breath of relief. But then, two seconds into starting, it sputters and dies.
Of course it does.
It's like the universe has a personal vendetta against me, timing every mechanical failure for maximum inconvenience. The kind of cosmic joke that would be funny if it weren't happening to me, if I weren't the one standing here in front of a line of eager families while my livelihood sits silent and stubborn. I’ve heard of Murphy’s Law and decided that I must be Murphy’s Mistress for the sheer amount of time he spends on me.
I sit in the driver's seat, key turning uselessly in the ignition while the hayride families form a line behind me. It's a crisp Saturday morning, the orchard buzzing with tourists, and this rusty old beast chooses now to die.
"Problem?" Brett's voice drifts over my shoulder, smooth and irritating.
I grit my teeth. "No problem. Just mechanical betrayal."
The last thing I need right now is Professor Perfect witnessing my equipment failures. Bad enough that he's been shadowing my every move for the last three days. Now he gets to watch me fail at the most basic level, keeping my own machinery running.
He studies the tractor, then climbs up beside me. "May I?"
"No."
He ignores me, leaning closer, and the air shifts. His scent cuts through the engine fumes, his shoulder brushing mine as he peers at the ignition. He’s close.
Too close. Way too close. A man shouldn’t smell this good. A man working in an orchard should definitely not smell this damn good. His arm brushes against mine. He leans forward, his chest pushing into my back.
The contact sends an unwelcome jolt of arousal through me, the kind of awareness I've been fighting since he first walked into my orchard. His presence fills the small cab, making me hyperaware of every breath, every heartbeat. This is what the heroines in our book club selections are always going on about and until now, I figured to be fiction. I’ve only ever read about the magnetic pull toward a man who radiates competence and authority in equal measure, I’d never experienced it firsthand.
And, God, is it magnetic. I want to lean back into his arms, feel his strength around me.
I fight the urge to turn my head, knowing, if I did, his lips would be mere inches from mine.
"You flooded it," he says. The accusation snaps me right out of whatever I was feeling. Indignation replaces lust.
"I did not flood it."
"You did." His voice is maddeningly calm. "You panicked and pumped the pedal."
Gritting my teeth to hide my sheer irritation with this man, I finally cough out, "I don't panic." The lie comes out too quickly, too defensive.
Of course I panicked.
I panic every morning when I wonder if today will be the day something breaks that I can't afford to fix. I panic every night when I calculate and recalculate the numbers, trying to make the math work. But admitting that to Brett Elliot feels like handing him ammunition I can't spare.
He glances at me, eyes sharp behind his glasses. "Everyone panics. The difference is how they handle it."
The words land with an irritating mix of insult and truth. I shove them aside, shoving him aside too. "Fine. If you're so smart, fix it."
I expect him to fumble, to prove that all his academic knowledge means nothing when faced with real machinery.
I expect him to suggest calling a mechanic or buying a new tractor.
What I don’t expect is what he does instead.
He moves with practiced efficiency, hands sure and steady as he adjusts settings I didn't even know existed on a machine I’ve owned for years.
To my horror, he gets it to work. Two turns of the wrench, a sharp pump, and the engine roars back to life.
How? When did he learn? Have I misjudged him?
I thought he was merely an academic who didn’t know how to get his hands dirty.
There is much more to this man than meets the eye.
Not for the first time, I am reminded of Superman.
Nerdy during the day, sexy as hell as he flies through the air.
The hayride crowd cheering pulls me from my thoughts. I’m angry. Why? Why am I irritated that the Perfect Professor man is good at fixing things? Why am I not simply grateful that he fixed the tractor? Is it because I don’t need rescuing? Is it because I don’t want to be rescued?
I scowl. "Congratulations. You're officially smarter than my tractor."
He smiles, small but smug. "I'll add it to my resume."
The satisfaction in his voice makes me want to throw something at him.
Or maybe kiss him. The second impulse is so unexpected and unwelcome that I nearly fall off the tractor seat.
What is wrong with me? This is exactly the kind of thinking that gets romance heroines into trouble.
I can’t go mistaking competence for compatibility, authority for affection.
Come on, girl. Get your head on straight.
The day only gets worse.
A delivery truck drops two pallets of cider jugs in the wrong spot, blocking the barn doors.
The hay bales collapse while children are climbing all over them, sending screaming children tumbling into a pile of straw.
Luckily, there were no injuries, and the children seemed to genuinely enjoy falling into large piles of hay.
And when I try to reset the corn maze signs, I find Brett already there, rearranging the map.
Each crisis feels amplified by his presence, every mistake magnified under his watchful gaze.
It's like being observed by a particularly thorough scientist, which, I suppose, is exactly what's happening. Except, he doesn’t want to study me. I’m not data to be cataloged.
I would have already given him permission to go look at what he wanted, but I need to go with him.
I can’t have him out there by himself. God, no.
He needed an escort, and I don’t have the time right now.
"What are you doing?" I demand.
He doesn't even look up. "Your signs were backwards."
"They were not backwards."
"They were." He points, precise. "East is not west."
The certainty in his voice, the absolute confidence that he's right and I'm wrong, sets my teeth on edge. How dare he waltz into my maze, my orchard, my life, and start rearranging things like he has some divine right to improvement?
I throw my hands up. "It doesn't matter! It's a corn maze, not a geography exam."
"People need clear direction." His tone sharpens, that quiet command slipping through again. "Confusion breeds chaos."
And there it is again, that tone that makes my spine straighten involuntarily, that makes some primitive part of my brain want to pay attention and obey. It's the voice of someone accustomed to being listened to, someone who expects his guidance to be followed without question.
Something in me bristles. "You think I don't know how to run my own orchard?"
His gaze meets mine, steadily. "I think you're stretched too thin."
The words hit like a physical blow, landing in that tender place where my fears live.
Because he's right, and his rightness makes everything worse.
I am stretched too thin. I am drowning in responsibilities and failing to keep up with the demands of harvest season.
But hearing it from him in the calm, composed, completely outside my struggle way, just feels like…
like… judgement. And why do I care? Why do his words hurt the way they do?
It dawns on me. His words hit harder than I want them to. Because they're true. I try to think of a comeback, something witty. Instead, I stand there staring blankly at him. My phone buzzes, saving me.
Christine: Chapter fifteen aftermath. My god. The tenderness.
Elizabeth: But the control. Sex. Spanking. The aftercare…
Janelle: Monica, if you don't read this tonight, we're staging an intervention.
The messages are a lifeline, pulling me back from the edge of an argument I'm not sure I want to have.
The girls have no idea how perfectly timed their interruption is, how desperately I need the reminder that there's a world beyond this orchard, beyond Brett Elliot and his infuriating observations.
As I finish reading through the texts, I choke back a laugh, shoving the phone deep in my pocket before Brett can see.
"Something funny?" he asks.
"Nope."
He studies me too long, like he can see through my skin. Then he simply says, "You're avoiding something. Hiding something."
The accuracy of his observation makes my pulse spike.
How does he do that? How does he see past every defense I've carefully constructed, every deflection I've perfected?
It's like being examined under a microscope, except the microscope has dark brown eyes and speaks in that maddening tone of quiet authority.
My temper snaps. "I'm avoiding you," I snap. "You waltz in here with your clipboard and your smug little smile, telling me how to run everything like you know better—"
His voice cuts through mine, firm and low. "Stop."
I freeze. The single word stops my rant mid-sentence.
It's not loud, not harsh, but it carries an absolute authority that bypasses my conscious mind and speaks directly to something deeper.
My body responds before my brain can protest, going still and attentive in a way that should alarm me. I am not the obedient type.
"Take a breath," he says, softer now. "You're worked up."
The command is gentle but unmistakable, delivered in that same tone that made me obey when he said "don't move" over the cider press. And God help me, my lungs obey him again, drawing in air without my conscious permission.
“Good girl. Now another.”
The gall.
The absolute gall of this man, telling me to breathe like I'm a toddler throwing a tantrum. My pulse spikes, heat flaring in my chest, but the worst part? The absolute worst part is that my lungs obey.
One inhale. One exhale.
He opens his mouth again, but I interrupt him before he has the chance to speak.
"Don't," I whisper, furious at him and at myself.
Don't what? Don't tell me what to do? Don't make me want to listen? Don't look at me like you can see straight through to the exhausted, overwhelmed woman I'm trying so hard to hide? The protest is too weak, too late, and we both know it.
“Don’t tell me what to do.” I protest, the words lacking in strength.
His gaze holds mine, steady and unflinching. "Someone needs to tell you when to pause. You can't carry all of this alone."
The words sink past my armor, landing somewhere raw. I want to argue. To laugh. To tell him he has no right.
Instead, I turn on my heel and storm away.
But even as I flee, I can feel the truth of his words.
Someone needs to tell me when to pause. The thought should terrify me.
The idea of surrendering that much control to another person.
Instead, it sends a dangerous warmth spiraling through my chest. I love the books we read each month.
The ones with Daddy Dominants who take a woman into his arms and over his knee.
The ones who spoil their women but also spank their asses when they are naughty.
The ones who put her first and yet still encourage the woman to have her own mind, her own thoughts…
But those are fictional. Books that allow me to lose myself for a while into a world without bills, without chaos, without chores.
Real life is not a romance novel and this man?
This… stranger? He has no right to tell me what to do.
This is my orchard. This is my world I’ve built. Blood, sweat and tears. No one is going to come in and tell me what to do.
By sunset, the fight is still buzzing under my skin. I should be over it. He's just a man, an outsider, a nuisance with opinions that shouldn't matter.
But the memory of his voice saying "stop" keeps replaying in my head, along with the way my body responded without hesitation.
It's the kind of detail that would make the Naughty Girls Book Club lose their collective minds. I can’t stop thinking about his quiet dominance, the effortless authority, the way he made me want to obey even while I was furious with him.
But when I catch sight of him by the fire pit, helping a little girl toast her marshmallow without letting it catch fire, steady and patient, something twists in my chest. It’s not anger. It’s… something else entirely.
I hate it.
I hate that I notice.
I hate that he looks natural there, crouched down to a child's level, his big hands gentle as he guides her stick over the flames.
This is the man who just commanded me to breathe like he had the right, and now he's being tender with a six-year-old like it's the most natural thing in the world.
The contradiction shouldn't be appealing.
It absolutely shouldn't make my stomach flutter with awareness.
The lanterns glow soft around the barn. Families laugh, sipping cider, sticky with sugar. And there he is, framed in firelight, looking like he belongs. Like he’s a part of my world. Like he’s not a stranger that is only here for a short period.
I take a step closer before I can stop myself.
"Truce?" I say, voice tight.
He looks up, surprised. "Truce."
The word settles between us like a peace offering, fragile and tentative. But there's something in his eyes, relief, maybe, or satisfaction, that suggests this isn't over. That whatever's building between us is just getting started.
We stand in silence, the crackle of fire between us. His face is shadowed, his expression unreadable.
Then he says, almost gently, "You're allowed to lean on someone, you know."
My throat goes dry. Is he offering? Leaning on someone means trusting them, and trust means vulnerability, and vulnerability is a luxury I've never been able to afford.
"Not on you," I whisper.
His eyes glint in the firelight. "We'll see."
The words shouldn't send heat pooling low in my stomach. They shouldn't make me want to step closer, to test the quiet authority threaded through his tone.
But they do.
And that scares me more than anything.