Picture Perfect Wedding (2 page)

“And?”

“He promised Mom he’d give Arizona a trial run. His emails make
it sound like he loves it down there. I expected him to be on the phone ten
times a day giving me instructions and asking about the cows, but when he does
call he can only talk about his golf game. I think he’s officially retired.”

Axel pushed his aviator glasses onto the top of his head and
gave him a long look. “So you’re really going to take it on? Be a dairyman like
your father?”

Luke took a long pull on his beer. The answer to the question
should have been an instant and emphatic “Yes.” “It’s what I always said I
wanted. An Anderson has owned this land for six generations.”

“Land can be sold. It’s how I make my living.” Axel had leaned
back and taken in the view. “People want simpler times and they don’t mind
paying for them. Lake frontage like this would give you a pocket full of
Benjamins and then you’d have the cash to do whatever you want, wherever you
want it.”

And that was part of the problem. He didn’t know what the hell
he wanted. “It’s not just mine to sell, Ax. A family farm is exactly that, and
Keri and Wade have a stake in this too.”

“So talk to them about it.”

Those six simple words had been spoken a month ago and the
conversation still remained buried in his to-do list, under the heading of
way too hard.
Now, with the email from Axel, it had
suddenly become more real. He ran his hand across the back of his neck, his skin
hot from the sun, and he tried to shrug off the unsettled feelings that had
arrived with the spring and had been making the long and busy summer days a
chore rather than a pleasure.

Mac lifted his head and a moment later Luke heard the low,
mellow bellow of “the girls.” He glanced at his watch. Usually at this point in
the afternoon the heifers were so busy eating their way through the pasture that
they didn’t have time for mooing.

Mac was already standing, his ears cocked and tilted in the
direction of the sound. Luke sighed, feeling weary after spending a large chunk
of the previous night bringing in hay. The farm was calling again, as it always
did, breaking in on his brief respite. Unlike Mac, he wasn’t feeling the thrill
of discovering what was probably another problem he had to solve.

Mac barked accusingly.

Luke reluctantly pushed to his feet. “Guess we better go see
what’s up.” He followed his trotting dog away from the lake and back through the
thick grove of birches and as he broke clear of the foliage, he blinked. Twice.
An old station wagon was parked in the middle of his field and ringed by
confused Holsteins. No wonder the girls were making so much noise. To them, a
vehicle meant food but somehow he didn’t think this car was going to start
heaving silage out of its tailgate any time soon.

Mac gave a low growl.

“Steady.”

Mac stayed put but the hairs on his back rose and he quivered
all over, every muscle desperate to be unleashed so he could race to the car. He
was a friendly dog so this reaction was unexpected but then Luke heard a
high-pitched yapping. Now he understood Mac’s imploring brown-eyed gaze. There
was more than one imposter in their midst.

An automatic groan crossed his lips. It might be a lost tourist
looking for Wade’s cottages and B and B, although it was probably the new but
unreliable cleaner who’d promised to arrive yesterday but hadn’t turned up.
Either way, with Wade in Chicago for the night, it was a mess he’d have to fix.
Hell, he hoped the car didn’t sink after yesterday’s rain.

As if exactly on cue, the car engine roared, the wheels spun
and mud flew everywhere. Thirty seconds later, it sank.

No such luck.

A bangle-adorned, slender arm extended out through the sunroof,
frantically waving back and forth.

“Walk up,” he instructed Mac who made a beeline for the cows
and started moving them away from the car. “Come on,” he called out to the
girls, backing up Mac, and he cut straight through the newly created gap, put
his hand on the car door and yanked it open.

A pair of tanned, shapely legs swung out, followed by a flash
of white denim shorts and a watermelon-pink sun top. “Thank you! I thought I was
going to be stuck here forever. Oh...” The young woman gazed down at her
sandal-clad feet as mud oozed into them and through her toes.

Her head jerked up and chestnut hair—which Luke assumed under
normal circumstances probably fell in a smooth, sleek bob—flew everywhere. “Tell
me it’s just mud?” Wide, green eyes the same vivid green of his freshly mowed
meadow implored him to tell her what she wanted to hear. “Please.”

He shrugged and a perverse part of him took delight in telling
this clothes horse with a lousy sense of direction the truth. “It’s a mud and
manure combo.”

Horror streaked across her cheeks and she wrinkled her nose in
disgust, making her diamond nose-stud glint in the sunshine. Her license plates,
her clothes and her hairstyle all strongly hinted that she came from the city,
but it was the scrunching up of her nose which confirmed it. On someone with a
cute, button nose, the action might have been forgiven, but on her honker, the
wrinkle screamed pure disgust.

“This is a farm. What do you expect
?
” A spurt of irritation fizzed through him, gaining hold only to
stall abruptly the moment he caught her horror hitting her mouth. It pulled
plump lips into a perfect red and glossy O. It was a mouth at complete odds with
the rest of her put-together look of Miss-perfectly-matched-and-accessorized. It
was a mouth that promised pure, adult pleasure.

“Of course it had to be manure,” she wailed. “I’m wearing
brand-new suede sandals.”

It took Luke a moment to realize he was staring at her lush
mouth and he hauled his gaze up to her eyes. “Rubber boots are the footwear of
choice around here.”

She grimaced as if the thought would summon the fashion police.
“I’ll be sure to remember that for next time and pack a pair in my trunk.”

“Sounds like a plan although I don’t recommend you make a habit
of driving through pastureland.”

Her shoulders rose and fell. “Sorry about that. My GPS let me
down. I’m looking for Lakeview Farm.”

“You’ve found it.” She must be Wade’s missing cleaner although
her French nails were at complete odds with that notion. She didn’t look like
the sort of woman who’d clean for a living but then again, women frequently told
him that he didn’t look like a farmer, so who was he to judge.

“You should have turned left at the fork in the road to get to
the cottages and the B and B.” He fished the key Wade had left him out of his
pocket. “Seeing as you’re late arriving, Wade’s not here to greet you but he’s
left a list of cleaning jobs and he’ll be back tomorrow. If you turn around and
go the way you came you can’t miss the sign.”

“I’m not looking for a B and B. I’m looking for...” She turned
and opened the car door before bending over and reaching across the driver’s
seat.

Luke’s eyes automatically followed the curve of her ass which
was unexpectedly sweet, and without being aware of moving he found he’d taken
two steps forward. It was like being pulled by an invisible force and he didn’t
like it one bit but before he had time to step back, she straightened up and
turned to face him. The scent of crushed mint and lemon rushed his nostrils. It
instantly reminded him of the delicious and refreshing sensations of drinking
summer lemonade under the cool of a tree on a hot day.

She stopped abruptly as she realized he was standing quite
close to her and he felt the breeze against his face created by the piece of
paper she was waving at him. “Luke Anderson. I’m looking for Luke Anderson.”

Surprise rocked through him and he opened his mouth to reply
when a yapping streak of white flew out the open car door.

Mac barked furiously, his hackles rising fast in defense of his
master and his property.

“Steady, Mac,” Luke growled, not wanting Mac to eat the
terrier.

A second later, Luke yelped as the needle-sharp jab of teeth
tore through his jeans and clamped around his calf. The damn thing was biting
him. He thrust out his right leg, shaking it hard, trying to dislodge the
mutt.

Mac leaped.

The woman yelled, “Maggie-May,” and threw herself between Mac
and her dog. Her chest knocked into Luke’s hip and with one of his legs already
in the air, the momentum overbalanced him. He fell to the ground taking her with
him.

The wind left his lungs, stunning him for a moment but as cold
mud lined his back and oozed through his shirt before trickling down into the
gap at the top of his jeans, he slowly became aware of hands gripping his upper
arms and a delicious heat seeping into him from chest to toe. Her breasts
pressed hard against his chest. Her legs tangled with his, and one knee was
pushed up against his crotch.

Air whooshed back into his lungs as his entire body tensed and
his testicles tightened protectively against the possibility of being firmly
kneed. Then he went hard.

Shit.

Her eyes did that startled wide-eyed thing again, only this
time it wasn’t caused by mud and he knew she’d just felt his hard-on against her
belly.
Double shit.
He’d always prided himself on
his control with women and this reaction to her made no sense because apart from
that hooker mouth and a sweet behind, she looked exactly like the sort of
high-maintenance woman he deliberately gave a wide berth. He dated women who
were relaxed, uncomplicated and out for a good time.

Correction
,
used to date.

Since coming home to the farm a year ago, he hadn’t dated
anyone because casual was too hard in a town the size of Whitetail. No guy
wanted to meet their fling at the grocery store or the bar every day for the
next decade. So he’d hardly dated much lately but even so, he had more restraint
than this. It was time to take charge and wrench back control.

To the high-pitched yapping of the terrier and the full-fledged
barks of Mac, Luke gripped her arms and rolled her off him. Wiping mud out of
his eyes, he managed to grind out, “I’m Luke Anderson.”

Amidst the noise from the dogs and the cows, he thought he
heard her groan.

Chapter Two

Utterly stunned, Erin stared at the mud-soaked man in front of her and died a thousand deaths. She’d just knocked the one man she needed to make a favorable impression on into a pile of mud and manure. Then she’d lain on top of him like a dog in heat. Her cheeks burned hot and her breasts tingled at the memory of being pressed against his rock-solid chest and caressed by the faint but firm beat of his heart.

God, he’d felt good. Amazing. Solid. She’d clutched his arms but her fingers had barely dented the firm muscles that lay under all that golden skin. Still, no matter how gorgeous, he was a stranger and she didn’t make a habit of lying on top of men she didn’t know. She couldn’t quite work out why she hadn’t scrambled off him the moment they’d hit the ground.

Because this is as close as you’ve been to a real
,
live man in far too long.

Well, yes, there was that. To her acute embarrassment, a moment before he’d summarily rolled her off him, he’d given her a look that said, totally
inappropriate behavior.
He knew she’d lingered. Why, oh why, was this man Connie’s obstreperous farmer? It wasn’t fair that he hadn’t given her a single clue to his occupation. After all, where was the flannel shirt? The farm supplies baseball cap? A man in his fifties?

Nothing about Luke Anderson said farmer or even hinted at the profession. In fact, everything said,
cover model for Calvin Klein.
Messy-cut, sun-kissed blond hair glinted in the sunshine and his cheeks had matching dark gold stubble. His square, broad shoulders supported a royal-blue cutoff shirt which did nothing to hide solid and tantalizingly rounded biceps, and butt-hugging straight-leg jeans lay against narrow hips and a washboard-flat stomach. He was, without a doubt, one of the most handsome men she’d ever seen.

Piercing blue eyes now tinged with shards of ice burned her. ��Get that
thing
of yours under control.”

Maggie-May had released his leg but she was now hunkered down facing off the much bigger border collie. Even though Erin knew it was her dog who had caused this mess, she took umbrage at Mr. Luke Anderson calling her precious a
thing.
“That thing is a dog, thank you very much.”

He scowled at her and his skin tightened over prominent cheekbones, making his previously handsome face suddenly stark and hard. “No.” He pointed to the dog he’d called Mac. “That’s a dog. Yours is just a damn nuisance.”

“Look, I’m really sorry she tried to bite you but she was just protecting me.”

In one fluid movement he rose to his feet and well over six feet of pure, unadulterated maleness stared down at her. A sweep of heat rushed through her, darting directly to the apex of her thighs, making it glow deliciously hot. It hadn’t done that in a very long time and she fought hard not to press her legs together and gulp at all that gorgeousness.

Incredulity crawled across chiseled cheeks. “Protecting you from what exactly?”

This time she swallowed and said quietly, “You.”

“Me?” His arms flew out in front of him. “What the hell did I do?”

Maggie-May growled and moved toward him. Erin grabbed her diamante-studded collar and tucked the wriggling and barking dog firmly under her arm. “You got a bit close to me at the car.”

His jaw tightened and then indecently long eyelashes—the length and thickness women paid a lot of money to have created for them—brushed against his cheeks for an instant before he hooked his gaze to hers and seemed to take in a deep breath. “I apologize for invading your personal space.”

Anytime
, the frustrated woman inside her called out loudly. Erin instantly stomped on her inner slut and nodded her acceptance of his terse apology, which really didn’t sound much like one at all. Taciturn and brusque. Hmm, he was a farmer after all.

“Shh, Maggie-May.” She stroked her dog, who gave her a confused look and finally stopped barking, but kept her eyes fixed firmly on Farmer Anderson. Meanwhile, Erin struggled against the morass of mud that slurped around her, feeling her feet slipping inside her completely inappropriate and now ruined footwear. Her wickedly expensive sandals, whose purchase she’d justified as an investment in her business because they gave her the air of a successful photographer, which impressed potential clients.

As much as she wanted to get up out of the mud on her own, the fact she was holding Maggie-May meant she couldn’t get her balance. Meanwhile, Luke Anderson hadn’t moved a muscle and she was starting to wonder if Connie had been right about him deliberately ignoring her calls. Cross with herself for having to ask for help, cross with him for not offering any, she blurted out, “Would it be asking too much for you to give me a hand?”

Blue eyes narrowed. “Is that useless fluff ball of yours going to bite me?”

She wanted to growl at him just like Maggie-May. “Put it this way. If I let her go so I can get up on my own, she just might. If you help me up while I hold her, she won’t.”

Without a word, he extended his hand. She slid her palm against his and as she gripped his hand, he wrapped long, work-hardened fingers firmly around her wrist. A vortex of tingling shimmers spun up her arm and then exploded like fireworks in her chest before raining down and spreading through her like the warmth of mulled wine, and stripping her limbs of their strength.

Damn it.
As lovely as it was to have a man make her feel like this, Luke Anderson wasn’t the guy of choice. She locked her knees against the boneless feeling. It wouldn’t be a good look to rise to her feet only to fall. The feminist in her definitely didn’t want that to happen.

“Brace yourself against me,” he said.

Yes
,
please.
She shook her head against the wanton hoe the mud seemed to have released.

Luke sighed and frustration played over his lips. “Just do as I say or we’ll both end up back in the mud.”

She quickly preempted and stomped on any outrageous comments her girly parts might make on that visual and said, “Ready when you are.”

He pulled and with a departing slurping sound from the bog, she found herself nose to shoulder with him. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” The perfunctory words sounded weary and lacked the backup of their true meaning. It was more along the lines of,
You’re a complete pain in the ass.

She gazed down at her new-season but now mud-stained silk top, horrified to see it was not only see-through but clung to her like a second skin. She hastily brought Maggie-May up against her chest to cover her black lace demi-bra which this morning had seemed the perfect choice but was now hiding absolutely nothing. She bit her lip, hating what she knew she had to ask. “Is it at all possible for me to use your shower?”

Luke Anderson seemed to be staring so intently at her shoulder that she glanced to her left but all she could see was more mud.

“It’s possible, Miss...?”

Oh, God, she hadn’t even introduced herself. “Erin. Erin Davis.” She wasn’t prepared to volunteer anything more until she was clean and wearing clothes that didn’t expose her breasts to the world.

“Well, Erin Davis, it doesn’t look like your car is going anywhere without the help of my tractor.” Resignation clung to his words. “I suppose you can take a shower at the house while I pull it out.”

An image of him naked with water sluicing down his body slammed into her so hard she swayed. Oh man, who knew falling in mud messed with hormones.

This guy is business not recreation
, she told herself firmly. Besides, the hostile way he was looking at her—as if she was one giant problem that had to be solved—left her in no doubt that even if they’d met under better circumstances, he wouldn’t be interested in her at all.

“Thank you, Mr. Anderson.”

He quirked a brow but it wasn’t accompanied by even the hint of a smile hovering on his wide mouth. “My father’s Mr. Anderson.”

She waited for the
call me Luke
, which would be the logical progression of his sentence, but it didn’t come. It left her unable to read him and that in itself was unsettling because she normally had no problem doing that with people. Using her “keep everyone happy” voice, she said, “A shower sounds wonderful,” and she grabbed her overnight bag from the backseat and locked the car.

“Seriously? You think someone’s going to go to the effort of pulling your aging vehicle out of the quagmire and stealing it?” Luke’s face wore the bemused expression of someone who thought he was dealing with a fool.

“I’ve got a lot of valuable—” She stopped herself milliseconds before mentioning her cameras. “My laptop’s in there.” She adjusted the overnight bag in her hand so it didn’t rub up against her muddy legs. “Ready to go?”

He didn’t offer to carry her bag. “Almost. Leave your dog in the car.”

She hugged her precious close. “I’m not leaving Maggie-May here all on her own surrounded by scary cows.”

He folded his arms across his sizeable chest and they rested there, implacable and fixed. “I think she’s proven that she’s more than capable of looking after herself. Besides, she can guard your laptop.”

She ignored his sarcasm and played it straight. “Surely out in the country, locking the car is enough?”

“You’re missing the point. I’m not having that
thing
anywhere near my house or what’s left of my mother’s garden.”

“But she needs a bath too and—”

He shook his head, his firm and square jaw slicing through the air. “You can leave the dog and have a shower or you can stay here with the dog and I’ll return with the tractor after I’ve cleaned up. It’s your choice.”

She stared at his resolute stance but he didn’t budge an inch. It was Hobson’s choice—no choice at all. She loved her dog but she desperately needed a shower and without it she’d contaminate her car with manure and mud. Given the conversation she was yet to have with him about the sunflower field, she couldn’t afford to alienate Luke Anderson, who was now looking and sounding exactly like a farmer—grouchy, pessimistic and intransigent. She was tempted to make a comment about the weather just to test her theory.

Accepting the inevitable, she quickly wiped the mud off her dog’s feet before dropping a kiss on her muddy head and placing her on her blanket in the car. “You stay, Maggie-May. Sit. We won’t let that mean old farmer be our buzz-kill,” she muttered into soft doggy hair. “I won’t be long.”

“Can you hurry it up?” Irritation flattened all the melodic qualities of Luke’s deep voice. “I’ve got cows to milk tonight as well as rescuing
your
car.”

Maggie-May put her paws endearingly on her arms as if to say,
He’s a butt-head.

Erin agreed.

* * *

Luke and his relief milker, Brett, had finished the milking and the cleaning of the milking parlor in just under two hours. The Erin Davis fiasco—she’d finally left just before five—had meant he’d started late so to be done by seven had him feeling pretty pleased. It was proof that the alterations he’d made to the parlor last winter—alterations his father had refused to make—were paying off and saving him valuable time each day. It wasn’t so vital in winter but in summer when he was cropping as well, he needed to maximize every precious minute. He found himself whistling the last tune he’d heard on the parlor radio as he rode the four-wheeler with Mac sitting behind him, back to the house. The tune died on his lips when he came through the home gate and saw a familiar and now-clean station wagon parked next to his truck.

Erin Davis
,
chaos personified.
He killed the engine and jumped down. He’d said goodbye to her in the top pasture three hours ago. Before she’d left, he’d finally asked her why she’d been looking for him because after the debacle of the mud and the bogged car, she’d never actually said. Her response to his question had been unexpected. She’d looked a little leery, smiled apologetically, mumbled something about a miscommunication and had then started up the car.

Despite the fact her reaction seemed very strange—especially as she’d told him when they’d first met she was specifically looking for him—he hadn’t pursued it further. He really didn’t want to know. Hell, he was still smarting from overhearing her telling her dog he was mean and old. Just lately he might have been dragging himself through the day, but damn it, he was only thirty. And where did she get off calling him mean? Damn it, he’d been the one inconvenienced. He’d been the one who’d gone out of his way to help her by hauling out the car she’d put into the bog. As far as he was concerned, the sooner a woman like her, with her clichéd views of farms and farmers and her ridiculous excuse of a dog, left the property, the better.

So why the hell was she back now?

Not that she’d left his head in the past three hours. He’d tried hard to shift the image out of his head that her wet and translucent top had branded on his brain, but attaching milking cups to cows’ udders for two hours had made it impossible
not
to think about breasts. The visual of her cold nipples standing to attention behind seductive black lace and saying
look at me
, refused to be banished. As did the fact that, of course, he’d looked. Hell, he was male and what guy wasn’t going to sneak a peek at the gift of virtually naked breasts?

Still, breasts or no breasts, Erin Davis and her mutt were a royal pain in the ass and he’d been pleased to see the back of them. Mac growled and then Luke heard the yapping of her dog. He instantly spun around, planning to protect his ankles. To his surprise, the thing was inside the car, alone, and clawing at the partially open windows.
Interesting.
So where was its owner?

He strode up onto the porch, telling Mac to lie down on the dog bed that now lived there, having been moved into its current position when his parents had left. Using the old “hands-free” boot remover his great-grandfather had fashioned from an old piece of wood by whittling out a deep V, he tugged off his mucky boots. As he pulled open the screen door and stepped into the wet area, the aroma of onions and garlic drifted out from the kitchen, hitting his nostrils. What the—?