The background noise in my head goes quiet. Maybe I didn’t need a meditation retreat but a beautiful apple orchard.
Reed’s a half-step ahead, and his scent keeps drifting back over his shoulder into me, woodsmoke and the heavy bankedmusk under it. Every time it lands, my inner omega goes loose and pleased.
Good,she sighs.
We come up over a low rise, and more orchard just keeps happening. A whole other valley of it, rows and rows of trees dropping away downhill toward a cluster of long brick buildings.
“Okay, how bigisthis place,” I say. “I keep deciding I’ve seen it, and then there’s more of it.”
“Eighty acres.” He says it the way other people say their own name. “And you’ve seen, what, the cottage, the near cabins, the top blocks so... not much.”
“Any idea how many Lakeview public libraries is eighty acres?” I ask.
“Depends,” he says, looking back at me with a smirk. “Are we talking about the actual book space, or does the municipal lawn count? Because if we’re counting lawns, it’s easily fifty.” He points down the slope. “But none of those libraries have the crown jewel of Apple Blossom. Behold: the loading docks.”
We walk down the slope to reach them. It is a lot better looking than I expected from far away, featuring clean timber ramps, forest-green painted steel, and warm lights glowing under a long wooden awning.
“This is us.” Reed plants a boot on the timber and swings himself up onto the dock. “So. What do you think? I renovated it myself.”
“Honestly?” I take it in. “It’s easily the most beautiful loading dock I’ve ever seen.” His grin starts to go. “Now, granted, I’ve seen exactly one loading dock in my life, and I’m standing on it. But I’m impressed.”
“I’ll take it.” He looks unreasonably pleased with himself, and doesn’t bother hiding it.
“Where’s everybody, though?” I ask.
He’s already moving, pulling a clipboard off a crate. “Trucks load out at the end of the day. Crew brings the bins down, stages it all, goes home. Mornings, it’s just whoever’s fool enough to be up.” He glances back at me. “Which, the way we’re short on hands lately, comes out to me. And you.”
He moves through the space, taking a clipboard in one hand, the other trailing along the staged bins as he passes, checking something.
“Hat,” he says, nodding at a stack of hard hats on an upturned barrel.
I take a yellow one and wedge it down over my bun.
“So what does the Chief Inspector actually do?” I ask, zipping my jacket up to my chin. “Am I counting boxes? Double-checking the inventory? I’ll have you know I find checking things off lists captivating.”
He drops the clipboard on a crate and crosses the space between us in two steps.
And then he’s just there. Too close, all at once, the heat coming off him wrapping around me before I think to step back. He dips his head down to my level. Up close his eyes are very green and very awake, and there’s a fleck of pollen caught high on his cheekbone, gold against the stubble, that I am absolutely not going to reach up and brush away.
Hands to yourself,I order myself, though my omega helpfully reminds me that scent-matches are not, historically, known for that.
“I see you being sarcastic and all,” he says, his smirk pulling wider. “You’d actually be surprised how thrilling this stuff can be. There’re always things you’d never expect happening, on a property this big...”
I was, in fact, not being sarcastic. But any plan to correct him vanishes the moment my gaze drops to his mouth. I catch myselfimmediately and force my eyes back up, but he saw. Of course he saw.
The smirk on his face pulls wider.
“Is that right,” I say.
“Trust me.” He straightens, pulls a second pair of gloves from his back pocket, and presses them flat to my chest—his knuckles grazing the curve of my breast on the way, dragging a whimper up my throat that I barely manage to swallow. “You’re gonna love it.”
I already love it a little.
***
“Okay. These—” Reed stops at a tower of crates, flips a page on the clipboard, and angles it toward me. “Honeycrisp. Premium grade. They go out on the noon truck to a distributor in the city. Dock four.” He leans in to run a finger down a column of numbers, and his shoulder presses warm along mine. “See? Logged, staged, ready to load. That’s how it’s supposed to look.”
“Mm.” I am mostly looking at the three inches between his jaw and my temple. “Riveting stuff.”
