Chapter 14 Eva
Eva
I’m elbow-deep in financial paperwork that makes zero sense when someone knocks on my door. It’s not Asher’s grumpy knock. This one is brisk, businesslike, with a little rhythmic flourish at the end. I wipe dust off my hands and open the door to find Ginny Quick on my porch.
The cashier from the Quick Lick is always dressed like she’s about to chair a PTA meeting, even though I’m pretty sure she doesn’t have kids. And she’s on my porch with a pie and a fake smile.
“Eva! Hope I’m not interrupting.” She doesn’t wait for an answer before stepping inside, eyes scanning the kitchen with obvious interest. “I heard you’ve been fixing the place up. It looks amazing.”
“Thanks. It’s a work in progress.”
“Aren’t we all?” She laughs at her own joke, a bright, performative sound. “Listen, I’ll cut right to it. I have a business proposition for you.”
I arch a brow. “I’m not really sure what—”
“Is that coffee? I’d love a cup.” Ginny sashays to the table and sets down the pie, folding her hands expectantly.
I frown and pour some into a mug I don’t fully dust off, and she accepts with that same facial expression in place. “Pierce Acres has always been so beautiful. All that gorgeous land, such great neighbors.”
“Yeah.” I sit across from her and tap the edge of the table. “It’s lovely.”
“It’s also a lot of work. A lot of investment. And from what I hear, you’re not exactly local.” She says it sweetly, but there’s an edge underneath. “You’ve got a life back in Pittsburgh, right? Sisters, a business?”
“I have sisters, yes.”
“Right, right. The Storm girls. I followed Eden’s bee account.
So cute.” Ginny sips her coffee. “The thing is, Eva, I’ve been looking to branch out.
My parents opened the Quick Lick so long ago, and with all the new people moving in, tourism picking up…
I just think this would be a great new venture for me. ”
My stomach cramps. “You want to buy Pierce Acres?”
“I want to make you an offer.” She pulls a folded paper from her purse and slides it across the table. “A good offer. Fair market value, plus a little extra because I know you’ve been putting work into the place.”
I stare at the number on the paper. It’s… a lot. Enough for me to wipe my hands of this detour and get back to my old life. It’s exactly what I originally planned.
So why does looking at this number make me feel like I’m going to throw up?
“That’s very generous,” I manage.
“I know what I want.” Ginny smiles. “And I move fast when I see an opportunity. You don’t have to decide today, of course. But I’d love an answer by the end of the week. Before…” She waves a hand vaguely. “Before you get too attached.”
Too late. “I’ll think about it,” I say.
“That’s all I ask.” She stands, smoothing her skirt. “You know, it’s smart to be practical about these things. Sentiment is lovely, but it doesn’t pay the bills. And running a maple operation is hard work. Do you even know how to tap a tree?”
“I’m learning.” Something tells me Ginny Quick has never tapped anything in her life, including a tree. She and her meddling pie make me want to tap every tree outside until I’m flooded with more artisanal syrup than I could ever sell.
“Mm.” Her tone says she doesn’t think much of that answer. “Well. You have my number. Let me know what you decide.”
She’s heading for the door when another knock comes, and this time I recognize it.
Grumpy knuckles. Ginny opens my door before I can get there, and her whole demeanor transforms. “Asher Thorne! Oh my goodness, look at you. I heard you still can’t drive, you poor thing.
” She reaches out and touches his arm, squeezing his bicep like she’s testing a melon for ripeness.
“You look good, though. Have you been working out?”
Asher looks deeply uncomfortable. “Ginny. Hi.”
“We were just talking about you, weren’t we, Eva?
Well, not you specifically. The area. The community.
” She laughs again, that too-loud, performative sound.
“It’s so nice to see you out and about. You should come by the store again.
We just got in some of that fancy coffee you like from that place in Climax. ”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
“Please do.” She squeezes his arm again. “Don’t be a stranger, Asher. I mean it.”
She finally releases him and brushes past, giving me a little wave. “End of the week, Eva. Think about it!” Then she’s gone, leaving a cloud of perfume and a ringing silence in her wake.
Asher limps inside, looking rattled. “What was that about?”
“She wants to buy the property.”
His face folds inward like a spoon. “She what?”
“She made me an offer to buy Pierce Acres.” I gesture at the paper still sitting on my kitchen table. “More than Lionel suggested I’d get for the place.”
Asher doesn’t move toward the paper. “Are you going to take it?”
“I don’t know. I just found out five minutes ago.”
“But you’re considering it.”
“I’m—” I stop, frustrated. “Why do you care?” The words come out sharper than I intended. I see them land, watch him flinch. Good, some petty part of me thinks. Let him feel it.
But then I think about Ginny’s hand on his arm. The way she looked at him, all bright smiles and strategic touches.
“She was flirting with you,” I blurt.
Asher blinks. “What?”
“Ginny. Just now. She was…” I gesture inarticulately. “Touching your arm. Laughing. Doing the whole…” I make a face that’s supposed to convey flirtatious behavior but probably just makes me look constipated.
“I didn’t notice.”
“How could you not notice? She was practically climbing you like a tree.”
“She’s like that with all men.”
I’m pacing the room, too distracted to really feel the impact of his response. “She made a generous offer. It’s exactly what I was planning to do—sell the place. Move back home. Easy.”
“Is that what you want?”
The question stops me mid-pace. “What?”
“If it’s such a good offer, and selling was always the plan, why are you still thinking about it?” Asher’s voice is quiet, his expression intense. “Why haven’t you already signed?”
I don’t have an answer. Or I do, but I’m not ready to say it out loud. “Why are you here, Asher?”
He seems to remember he’s here for a purpose. He pulls a cardboard coaster from his pocket and sets it on the table next to Ginny’s offer.
“I went out last night, and the guy who owns Tiddy’s bar mentioned needing help with marketing. I told him I knew someone.” Asher scratches at his hairline, causing his T-shirt to ride up, exposing a bit of hairy flat stomach I’m suddenly very interested in petting.
I stare at the faded coaster. “You told him about me?”
“You’re good at this stuff. He needs help. It seemed…” He shrugs awkwardly. “Useful.” Something cracks open in my heart. This grumpy, closed-off man went to a bar—which he apparently never does—and thought of me.
“That’s really thoughtful,” I say softly. We stare at each other. The air feels thick, charged, like the moment before a storm breaks. I step closer to him. “You hobbled all the way over here in a boot to bring me a coaster after you told someone I might help their business?”
His jaw tightens. “Can you? Help him, I mean.”
He looks at me like he wants me to stay, to help Tiddy and renovate this property myself… and perhaps make out with him and rub that hairy body all over mine.
Gah!
“I don’t know,” I blurt. “I don’t know anything.”
Asher is a flurry of tiny movements. I watch his chest rise and fall with his breath, the way his hands adjust on his crutches, a thousand tiny movements in his face while he swallows.
I take a deep breath and catch his eye with my nervous gaze. “I don’t even know if you like me…”
“I like you.” The words hang in the air between us, as if he spit them out by accident.
“What?” I breathe.
“I like you.” He says it like it costs him something.
Like each word is being dragged out by force.
“I like you, Eva. I’ve liked you since you startled at me in the woods, and I definitely liked you when you brought me coffee every morning, and I especially liked you when you held my nephew and he stopped crying and looked at you like you were the secret to everything good in the universe. ”
My heart is pounding so hard I can feel it in my throat. “Then why did you push me away?”
“Because you’re leaving.” His voice cracks on the word. “Because everyone leaves.” He stops, runs a hand through his hair. “You make me want things I trained myself not to want, and I don’t know how to do this.”
“So we both don’t know anything.”
He stares at me. “What?”
“I don’t know if I’m leaving.” The words come out before I’ve fully thought them through, but they feel right. “What if I’m staying? What if I turn this place into a bed-and-breakfast and learn to tap maple trees and build a life here?”
“Eva—”
“I’m serious.” I step closer to him, close enough to see the flecks of gold in his brown eyes.
“I didn’t plan this. I didn’t expect any of it.
But Fork Lick got under my skin. The property, the town, the people—” I swallow hard.
“You. You got under my skin, Asher. And I’m tired of pretending I’m not into you. ”
“You barely know me.”
“Then let me know you. Stop pushing me away. Stop acting like this is already over before it’s even started.”
He’s silent for a long moment. I watch emotions flicker across his face—fear, hope, want, doubt.
“I’m not good at this,” he says. “Relationships. Feelings. Any of it.”
“Neither am I.”
“I’ll probably screw it up.”
“So will I.”
“I’m too old for you.”
This last one has me rolling my eyes. “Oh, please. You’re what, thirty-two? Thirty-three? I’m twenty-three. That’s nothing.”
He spits out a laugh. “I’m thirty-five. And I’m a hermit with no college degree and no prospects if I ever lost this job with Meow Mobile. I haven’t been with a woman in any capacity in…” He stops, calculating. “Christ. Four years.”
“I’m the youngest sibling from a broken home, with codependency issues and a pathological need to make everyone comfortable, and I just decided to turn a maple farm into a B&B despite having no experience whatsoever.” I shrug. “We’re both disasters.”
Something shifts in his expression. “This is why I like you.”
I reach up and touch his face. His beard is softer than I expected. “I like you, too. Mostly.”
The corner of his mouth twitches. Almost a smile. “Good enough.”
And then he kisses me. Or I kiss him. Or we meet somewhere in the middle—I’m honestly not sure, and I don’t care. His mouth is on mine and his hands are in my hair and the crutches clatter to the floor as he backs me against the kitchen counter.
It’s not gentle or tentative. It’s weeks of tension and frustration and wanting finally released, and I grab fistfuls of his flannel shirt and pull him closer, needing to feel him solid and real and here.
He kisses as if he’s been starving for it, like he’s been thinking about this as much as I have, lying awake at night, replaying every almost-moment. His hands slide down my back, pulling me against him, and I gasp against his mouth.
“Eva,” he breathes. My name sounds like a promise.
“Shut up and kiss me again.”
He does. Thoroughly. Devastatingly. Until I can’t think about anything except his hands and his mouth and the way he’s looking at me when we break apart, foreheads pressed together, both of us breathing hard.
We stay like that for a long moment, tangled in my kitchen, the offer from Ginny forgotten on the table, the coaster from Tiddy’s right beside it. Two very different futures, side by side.
I already know which one I’m choosing.
Asher kisses me again, softer this time. “I’m not sharing my Wi-Fi with your B&B guests. You’re going to need your own account.”
I laugh against his mouth. “Fair enough.”