AllFreeNovel
Share Us
My mouth goes dry and I drop my hand to my side as I rub my fingertips over the residual heat of his touch. “What a surprise to see you here.”
“Not an unpleasant one, I hope.” He drags a chair out for me, and the gesture is so Logan, so Brodie, I can hear May’s voice telling the boys to treat every woman like a queen because we secretly rule the world.
Then she’d wink in my direction, and I’d shoot May back a smile like we were two ‘grown women’ in cahoots. God, I was still such a kid back then.
The memory is a stab in my already shredded gut. The last thing I need is to burst out crying because I’m tired and Hunter Logan is in San Francisco after all these years.
“No. Just a surprise.” I sink into my chair and gather my hands on the table, watching him as he sits down opposite me. “So, Collingwood Farm?” I start, knowing I need to get this conversation over and done with and get the hell out of this small space. Hunter always filled a room, even as a teenager, but as a man, he’s something else. And my skin still tingles where it connected with his. The idea of more of his touch threatens the feeble balance I’ve maintained since my divorce more than three years ago.
He glances at me and his gaze jumps to my ring finger, where long ago the white line has tanned away. I haven’t had time to change my surname back to Anderson because Mom fell ill and died and then life seemed futile. Changing my surname was the last thing on my mind.
“Yes,” Hunter says as he takes my lead. “Collingwood Farm.” He shifts in his seat as he pins me down with those sky-blue eyes of his. “I was expecting a Collingwood brother. Are you the owner of the farm?”
“With Kyle. We inherited it when our mom passed away in March.”
A moment of quiet follows as I watch him digest this news.
“I’m sorry to hear about your loss.” His voice is sincere and if there is someone on the planet that would understand the agony of losing a loved one, it would be Hunter.
I drop my gaze from his, scared to reveal how fragile I still am under my corporate attire and the cold professionalism that comes with it. “Thank you.” There isn’t much else to say, so I wait for him to tell me why, after all this time, he’s come to San Francisco to mess with my meaningless existence. An existence that suddenly seems like it’s dangling over a very high ledge from a single thread of spider’s web.
“So…” Hunter starts but breaks off in a dry chuckle. “I’m here as a representative of Ashleigh Lake Organic Ice Cream and Dairy to enquire about your intentions with Collingwood Farm.”
“We’re selling it to the highest bidder. It’s as simple as that.”
“Have you had any offers?”
“Confidential.”
“Right.”
A spell of quiet invades the already tense space, and I need to deal with both his sexual aura and the discontent that now radiates off his body. The urge to stand up and flee the room balloons in me, but I stay put.
“You know they’re pushing to sell it as a development property?”
I shrug. Vermont is thousands of miles away, and I don’t care what happens on the other side of the continent. Not anymore. “The highest offer, Hunter. That’s all I care about.”
“Really?”
“Yes.”
He pushes his laptop to the side, removing this barrier between us. “The problem is that Collingwood Farm is our biggest supplier of raw organic milk. If you sell it to developers, we will have to shut down thirty percent of our production. Overnight.”
“As far as I’m aware, we have no legal obligation towards any of our past clients.” I shouldn’t sound so cocky because it was Kyle who dealt with that side of the business since he had the time. But I trust my brother and he wouldn’t mess this up—he wants the money even more than me.
“I hear you, but I would appreciate it if you could reconsider,” Hunter says.
“There’s nothing to reconsider. I’m on the west coast. What would I do with a farm in Vermont?” Funny how years ago I would have given anything to have ownership of that farm, but this inheritance comes a good sixteen years too late.
“Could you at least consider selling it to someone who wants to keep it as an organic dairy farm and not develop it into another luxury ski and golf resort?”
“I thought you liked skiing? This would be a shorter drive.” I’m snapping my teeth at him now, but seeing Hunter sitting here, casually, asking me to reconsider, is slowly riling me up.
“Beth—”
I raise a hand to stop him. Hearing him say my name like that after all these years, the word a soft caress more than anything else, is too much. “The highest offer, Hunter. Make one if you’re that serious.”
He doesn’t take his eyes off me, searching, and the tension between us expands under the heat of his gaze. I need to get out of this room before he asks something random like “how are you” or “how have you been” to show that he cares. Or even worse—admits that he missed me as much as I missed him.
