CHAPTER TWO
Cord
I’d been running this operation for years, and I’d never once hired someone on the spot.
The mountain didn’t forgive sloppy decisions, and neither did I.
Usually, I had a process. A checklist. References I actually called, because people lied on paper and they lied to your face even faster.
I’d built the business into a fortress of glass and steel by being the kind of man who didn’t let a single weed take root—literally or metaphorically.
And then Poppy Evans had stepped out of that dusty sedan with her wild dark hair, that pink t-shirt that had clung to her in ways that made me instantly pay attention.
She’d looked me dead in the eye and called me a brooding mountain man, and apparently, my common sense had decided to take the day off.
I told myself hiring Poppy was practical.
She needed work, I needed hands. The season was already pushing the timeline, and my last hire had quit two weeks ago to follow a girl to California.
I didn’t have time to be choosy, even if Poppy didn’t look like she knew a petunia from a pinecone and she looked at the greenhouses as if they were alien spaceships.
Or that was what I told myself.
I didn’t do complicated. I didn’t do people. I liked my seedlings and my solitude.
I’d come to Lone Mountain over ten years ago, newly graduated from college and wanting to make my mark in the world—on the earth. Selling organic seedlings to co-ops, even big business who knew the value of keeping food safe and clean.
I hadn’t come alone though. I’d brought the woman I’d intended to spend the rest of my life with. Fresh out of college, her view of the world hadn’t included the long hours, unpredictable weather and the lean years of sacrifice.
She’d left before the first frost and never looked back. The bitterness had faded, replaced with the knowledge that I was where I was supposed to be. The solitude had stayed because I’d let it.
As usual, I was up at four-thirty, the black coffee burning a hole in my stomach as I headed to a greenhouse. I’d slept like hell. I was blaming the weather. Not a set of pretty brown eyes.
I went through my morning checks—nutrient levels, humidity, soil temp—trying to keep my head in the game. But every time I turned a corner, I expected to see her.
She showed up at five on the dot.
The door to the greenhouse creaked open, and the morning chill followed her in.
I didn’t look up, keeping my focus on a tray of seedlings, but my skin prickled.
I knew exactly where she was. I could smell her—that wildflower-and-honey scent that wafted through the air, fresh enough to cut through the damp smell of the greenhouse.
I’d walked through the greenhouse without thinking about anything but work for years. She’d been here twelve hours and already took up a corner of my attention.
“You’re on time,” I grunted, finally looking at her. I’d expected her to be late. The kind of woman who called her employer a brooding mountain man on the first day didn’t strike me as someone who took early morning report times seriously. Rather more of a suggestion.
She was wearing another pair of black leggings that left absolutely nothing to the imagination and were a direct assault on my self-control.
She looked like a sunrise in a storm.
My first thought was I didn’t believe in love at first sight. All the fairy-tale crap. Relationships were hard. They took time to build.
Or at least that was what I told myself.
Because I had never felt this immediate spike of hunger either. A deep-seated need to see her working in my dirt, her skin flushed from the mountain sun. Hell, I wanted to see what she looked like under the sun with nothing on but one of her smiles.
I didn’t know what she was running from, but she’d run straight into my territory.
I wasn’t a nice man. I was a mountain man—silent possessive and used to getting what I wanted.
And looking at her, I realized I wanted a lot more than a nursery hand.
I wanted to see if she tasted as good as she looked.
“I told you I was reliable,” she said, her voice bright and snappy. She looked around the greenhouse, her eyes wide with that enthusiastic look that screamed she was way out of her depth.
“We’ll see,” I said, walking toward the equipment rack. I grabbed a pair of work gloves and tossed them to her. She caught them, but she looked at the heavy leather like it was a foreign object. “Today, you’re working in here. We’re rotating the propagation trays.”
She bit her lip and looked like she wanted to say something.
I sighed, but asked, “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” She shook her head, and a few strands of hair escaped the messy bun on top of her head. I resisted the urge to smooth them back behind her ears.
“Ask the question, Poppy.”
“What’s a propagation tray? I know what the word means, but not what it has to do growing things.”
When I thought about it, I didn’t make much sense either. “They’re seedling trays.”
“Oh. I get it now.”
“Good. The seedling trays need to move from the east wall to the center tables to catch the filtered light. It’s heavy work, Poppy. Not for the faint of heart.”
“I’ve got plenty of heart, Cord,” she shot back, as if she’d heard that kind of thing before. Doubt about her abilities. “Just point me toward the dirt.”
I led her over, showing her the system. I knew she didn’t have a green thumb. Hell, she probably hadn’t ever owned a houseplant. But something inside me wanted to see her try. I wanted to see her get a little dirty.
I left her there to do her job and went to do mine. I spent the next hour right next door, but I wasn’t working. I was listening. I was aware of every sound coming from her direction. I heard the scrape of the heavy trays, the sound of her humming to herself, and the occasional frustrated huff.
Then, I heard it.
It wasn’t just a sound—it was a symphony of destruction. A metal rack screeching against concrete, the hollow thud of forty plastic trays filled with dirt and plants hitting the floor, and a sharp, startled shriek.
I was through the door before the last tray had finished bouncing.
Poppy was standing in the center of a disaster. Soil was everywhere—sprayed across the floor, the walls, and Poppy herself. The heavy metal rack was lying on its side, and the seedlings were scattered like green confetti.
She was standing perfectly still, her face a mask of pure mortification. There was a smear of dark peat moss across her cheek, and a seedling clutched in her hand.
Two other workers appeared in the doorway behind me doing a very poor job of not laughing. I turned and looked at them once and they found somewhere else to be. I looked back at Poppy.
“The rack,” I said, my voice low.
“Was not bolted to the floor,” she snapped back, though her voice had a slight tremor in it. She was trying for defiant, but I could see the dismay in the way her shoulders were hunched. “That seems like an oversight on someone’s part.”
I looked at the rack, now lying on its side. It had never tipped in eleven years. “It’s never needed to be bolted, Poppy. “
“Well.” She looked down at the seedlings around her feet, and something moved in her face—the defiance dropping just enough to let the genuine dismay through. ‘I’m sorry. I’ll fix it. Them. I’ll fix them.”
I walked toward her, my boots crunching on the spilled soil.
She didn’t move as I stepped into her space.
Up close, I could see the way she was holding herself very still, as if she was working hard to keep it together.
And her eyes. Damn it, her eyes were starting to fill with tears and it made me feel something I hadn’t felt in a very long time.
She looked like a mess, and I’d never wanted to haul a woman against me more than I did in that moment.
I couldn’t resist smoothing the dirt from her cheek. “Are you hurt?” My gaze looked her over, but I didn’t see any obvious injury.
“No,” she shook her head, her bottom lip trembling. Damn, but I wanted to kiss her.
“You’re a klutz,” I said, the word sounding more like a caress than an insult.
“I’m a disaster.” Her eyes finally dropped to the floor. “I’m so sorry, Cord. I’ll fix it. I’ll stay all night if I have to. Please don’t fire me.”
The vulnerability in her voice hit me harder than the crash had. I reached up and plucked the seedling out of her hand.
“I’m not firing you,” I growled. “But you’re a terrible liar. You’ve never worked around plants in your life. Or done this type of manual labor, have you?”
She hesitated. “No. But, I’m a fast learner. I swear.”
I would have left any other employee alone to deal with the mistake they’d made on their own.
I didn’t with Poppy.
I picked up the rack, then started helping her pick up the plants. “If the root ball is intact, we can save them. If not, they’re trash.”
“No. You can’t do that. It’s my fault.”
“Poppy, I can’t sell broken seedlings.”
“Okay, I understand that, but just to discard them is wrong.”
“No, it’s wasted time to true and save them. And time is money.”
She looked at me, her eyes flashing a little. “Then I’ll take them back to my cabin. I’ll help them grow.”
“Help them grow?” One of my eyebrows rose. “What, with that infamous green thumb you have.”
“Okay. I admit. I don’t know how to grow things, but I’ll learn. Please let me take them.”
It didn’t take me long to fold under her gaze. “Fine, you can have them.”
I pulled a tray over to her. “Put them in here. You’ll have to replant them later.”
We spent the next hour on our hands and knees in the dirt.
I worked in silence, watching her out of the corner of my eye.
She was careful now, her hands surprisingly gentle as she tucked the seedlings back into their cells.
She was talking to them under her breath—little apologies, telling them they were brave little plants.
It was the most ridiculous thing I’d ever seen. It was also the most endearing.