Chapter 4
four
. . .
JEREMY
I shouldn’t have been surprised by Harrison’s kitchen—a man who wore thousand-dollar cashmere sweaters to frolic with goats would, of course, have a space worthy of a design magazine.
The last time I’d been in this room, I was eight years old, and Mrs. Abernathy was sliding a plate of chocolate chip cookies across the old red Formica countertop that had scorch marks on it.
Now, my fingertips coasted over soapstone that felt like black velvet beneath my calluses.
Quarter-sawn oak cabinets gleamed beneath a span of three leaded glass windows that looked out over our eastern field of trees.
A massive black La Cornue range that probably cost more than my truck dominated the opposite wall, its brass fixtures catching the light from a set of glass pendants.
The space was somehow both grand and welcoming at the same time, the type of understated elegance someone who’d walked away from a lucrative career in finance could afford to create.
It was the exact opposite of my own kitchen, a cramped galley-style space where a person could touch both walls at the same time if they stretched, and I couldn’t open the fridge and the oven at the same time, or else the doors would bang together.
A few of his cheeses—including my favorite, a tangy, creamy chèvre rolled in lavender—were arranged on a slate platter, alongside a handful of shortbread cookies, a few sprigs of rosemary, some candied pecans, sugar-dusted cranberries, and a decorative jar filled with what I assumed was jam from the apricot trees that lined his driveway based on its color.
“For the photos, is this arrangement okay?” Harrison asked from the far side of the island, his fingers twisting together as he spoke. “I can rearrange things if you want. Jemma wasn’t exactly specific about what she needed.”
“It’s fine,” I said. “But get in the frame.”
Harrison blinked. “What?”
“You heard me. Eli told me people don’t just want to see the cheese. They’ll want to see the man behind it. Or maybe that’s just him. He thinks you’re hot.” My nephew wasn’t the only one, but Harrison didn’t need to know that. “Make it look like you’re about to cut a piece or something."
He moved into position, and I immediately knew this was the right call. With him in the shot, the whole vignette came alive.
“Okay, now actually cut a piece,” I directed.
He picked up the knife, and I started shooting. Click. The blade pressing into the soft cheese. Click. His strong, capable hands guiding the cut. Click. The slight furrow of concentration between his brows.
“So.” Harrison pressed the knife through another section of cheese. “When did you get into photography?”
The question caught me off guard. We’d spent six months avoiding any real conversation, so the fact that we were making small talk now felt odd. Foreign. Once, I’d known everything about Harrison Prescott, and he’d known everything about me. Now we were strangers.
“After I left hockey and moved to California,” I told him, lowering the camera for a moment. “I needed … something. A way to see things differently, I guess.”
Curiosity sparked in his expression as he raised his eyes to mine. “What were you doing in California?”
“Working at a vineyard in Napa.” I raised the camera again, needing the barrier of the lens between us. “My buddy’s brother needed help with the planting, and it turns out I’m decent at growing things. Who knew?”
“I knew.” The words were soft, but they landed heavy. “Your mom used to make me take zucchini home because you grew so much of it.”
I paused, my finger hovering over the shutter button.
I’d forgotten—or maybe I just didn’t want to remember—about the summer I turned thirteen and decided I wanted to grow my own food.
How I’d tended those plants like they were precious treasures.
Harrison used to help me weed, complaining the whole time about the dirt under his fingernails.
It was stupid, but that memory lodged under my ribs and stayed there.
“Yeah, well.” I cleared my throat. “Apparently, that translates to grapes.”
“Why’d you come back?”
“Jemma needed help,” I said finally, recalling how, two days after our dad’s funeral, we’d sat down with a lawyer and found out he’d left a mountain of debt behind. “After my dad died, she couldn’t run the farm alone. So I moved home.”
It was the truth, but not the whole story.
I could have been happy in California. Maybe.
Or if not happy, then at least settled. The kind of satisfaction that came from honest work and a simple life free of complications.
But coming home had stripped that possibility away.
Not just because of the debt or the farm or the weight of family obligation—though all of that was real enough.
It was learning that Harrison had bought the property next door.
I’d spent every day since looking out my window and seeing the life he’d built for himself.
A life without me.
That had made any hope of peace impossible.
“What about you?” I asked, needing to shift the focus away from myself. “Why goats and cheese? That’s a far cry from Wall Street.”
Harrison set down the knife, his expression thoughtful.
“Yeah, well. What they don’t tell you in business school is how much that lifestyle actually sucks.
Sure, the money’s good, but … I don’t know.
I wasn’t really happy. I was doing what everyone expected me to do, and I just felt …
” He trailed off, his eyes squinting as if he was searching for the word.
“Empty,” I finished for him.
I knew the feeling.
His eyes met mine, surprised. “Yeah. Empty.”
I lowered the camera completely now, letting it hang from the strap around my neck. “So you bought a farm.”
“So I bought a farm.” A small smile tugged at his lips. “My parents thought I’d lost my mind. My dad still sends me articles from Forbes and Fortune, trying to convince me to work for him if I won’t go back to New York. My mother is worried their neighbors will think I’ve had a mental breakdown.”
“Have you?”
He shook his head. “No, I finally feel like me. The real me.”
His smile widened as we stood in the warm glow of his kitchen, and for the first time in seventeen years, it didn’t hurt quite so much to look at him.
“These are good,” I said, clicking through the photos to see if any of them would be worth using. “Very rustic farmhouse chic or whatever the hell people call it these days.”
I looked up in time to see one corner of his mouth quirk upward, creating a dimple I’d tried my best to forget over the years. “Rustic? Stefan would have an aneurysm if he heard you describe his masterpiece that way.”
“Stefon?” I asked, immediately picturing Bill Hader’s over-the-top Saturday Night Live character.
“My architect,” Harrison clarified with a tiny smile.
“We spent weeks looking for the perfect slab for this counter. The color had to complement all the copper but not overwhelm the oak.” His fingers trailed over the countertop with obvious affection.
“We looked at twenty-three samples in four states.”
I shook my head, aiming for teasing but landing somewhere closer to incredulousness. The snort didn’t help. “Twenty-three samples of black rock in four states. Christ, Harrison. Do you know what that makes you sound like?”
“A gay stereotype?” He crossed his arms over his chest, his expression hardening.
“Shit. No. That wasn’t—I—I was going to call you a diva.” I winced, hearing it even as I said the words.
“So a gay stereotype,” he pointed out.
My stomach sank. “Yeah. Fuck. I’m sorry. That was out of line.”
For a long moment, he just looked at me, and I braced myself for him to tell me to get the hell out of his house. Instead, his shoulders relaxed, and amusement flickered across his face.
“You know what? Ten years ago, that would have bothered me.” He picked up one of the shortbread cookies, turning it over in his fingers.
“My dad used to say shit like that all the time. How I was ‘too particular’ about things.” He looked up, meeting my eyes.
“But I like having a nice kitchen. I like that Stefan and I found the perfect soapstone. And yeah, maybe that makes me a diva or whatever, but I don’t really care anymore. ”
His expression softened, and he let out a quiet breath that almost sounded like a small huff of laughter.
“Besides, I literally bought a farm where I raise goats and make artisanal cheese that I sell at a farmer’s market where I wear expensive flannel shirts that I bought because they photograph well on Instagram.
” He arched his right eyebrow. “I’m not exactly fighting the stereotype here. ”
Despite the awkwardness still churning in my gut, my mouth twitched. “You bought flannel shirts for Instagram?”
“They’re really good shirts, Jeremy.”
A surprised laugh escaped me. Harrison’s answering smile transformed his whole face in a way that made my pulse kick.
“Once a pretty boy, always a pretty boy,” I said, shaking my head with a mix of exasperation and something dangerously close to fondness.
Harrison’s smile shifted into something different. Something that made my stomach swoop as he looked at me through lowered lashes, his voice dropping low. “You think I’m pretty?”
His question slid over my skin like a caress, and I had to clear my throat, my jeans becoming tight. “Stop fishing for compliments.”
His eyes held mine for a beat too long before he looked away. “Hmm,” he hummed.
I had no idea what that sound meant, and not knowing made my skin prickle.
We stood there another moment, the air between us charged with something I wasn’t ready to name.
The absurdity of it hit me then—standing in his designer kitchen, bantering back and forth instead of arguing about nonsense like we’d been doing made me realize I was done fighting with this man.
I’d said as much back in the barn, but now I actually meant it.