On One Condition Read online

  “People tend to tell me I’m more sexy or brooding over cute so yes, I agree with you on that one. Definitely not cute.” I cross my arms over my chest, look down at the bill on the desk, and then back up at her with a lift of my brows.

  She mirrors my posture, arms crossed over her chest, and just glares at me. She doesn’t know what else to say, does she? She waltzed in here, made her point, and now doesn’t know what to do.

  What’s going on in that head of yours, Ash?

  “I think we should probably talk about things. Us. What happened,” I finally say. “That way we can move on. Forward. Start anew.”

  “I moved on years ago.” She juts her chin out but fuck if her eyes don’t say differently. Good to know. “I don’t want to talk about anything.”

  “We need to.” I take a step toward her and her back stiffens. Hmm. Her indecisiveness and lack of confidence I saw in her the other night is gone. Interesting.

  “No, we don’t.”

  She always was stubborn.

  “Fine,” I say and then take another step, hoping my next words will surprise her just as they did me when they popped into my head. “Then we’ll talk about how all I’ve thought about since seeing you the other night is how much I want to kiss you.”

  Her head jostles, her eyes widen, and her lips fall lax.

  Good. We’re on the same page. She feels whatever this is too.

  “If that doesn’t make you want to talk, I’m not sure what will,” I say. Her eyes flick up and down the length of my body as I take yet another step.

  “No.” A shake of her head. “There’s nothing to talk about.” A shift of her feet. “The past is the past and that’s where it’s going to stay.”

  “All right.” I close the gap between us so that I’m close enough to see the rise of her shoulders, smell the mint on her breath, and feel the heat of her body. She takes in a sharp intake of a breath. “If that’s the case”—I lean in so that her hair tickles my cheek as I whisper in her ear—“I’m Ledger Sharpe. Nice to meet you, Lavender Girl.”

  It takes everything I have not to act on the urge to kiss her. Fucking everything. She was in my dream last night, on my mind in the shower, and who I looked for in the crowd after the town hall meeting.

  I step back and reach my hand out for her to shake as her eyes hold mine, our breathing the only sound accompanying the silence in the room.

  Asher looks me up and down in a slow appraisal, her lips ghosting in a smile and her eyes lighting with humor. “Thanks, but . . . I’m not interested.”

  She hesitates—briefly—as her eyes flick to my lips and back up before she stalks from my office with the same determination she walked in here with.

  But that hesitation gave me all I needed to know.

  Shoving my hands in my pockets, I walk out toward the lobby of the hotel so I can watch Asher’s hips sway as she strides toward the parking lot.

  I don’t want to talk about it.

  Fine.

  Then we won’t.

  But I’m here for two months, Asher Wells. And in that time, we will most definitely cross paths. And hopefully, do a hell of a lot more.

  Asher

  I haven’t even made a dent in them.

  Not at all.

  I scoot the chair back from behind Pop’s desk, look at the stacks of papers that he’d piled on every surface of his desk, and pinch the bridge of my nose.

  I’m sure this whole process would go much faster if I stopped being distracted every couple minutes by thoughts of Ledger.

  But I’ll allow myself the thoughts of him after I walked into his office and successfully did what I set out to do. Make a second first impression. Show him that the scattered, emotionally indecisive woman he met the other night was an anomaly.

  And fortunately, I was able to do just that before I took notice of the way he stood behind his desk, arms crossed and cocky as hell. Yes, his arrogance irritated the shit out of me, but I’d be lying if I didn’t admit to myself that it turned me on too.

  His firm thighs pressed against his slacks. The way his biceps strained the sleeves of his dress shirt. The purse of his lips as he challenged me. The timbre of his voice and the heat of his breath when he leaned in to whisper in my ear.

  How is this possible? How can I want a man who walked away without a word? That goes against all reason and rationale and yet . . . here I am thinking about it, about him, when I have way more important things to deal with.

  “Like these equally enthralling stacks of paper,” I mutter to myself before taking a deep breath, determined to tackle another of them.

  They have no rhyme or reason. I’m sure their composition made sense to Pop, but I’ve yet to figure it out.

  Medical bills and assisted living bills for Gran. A letter from a supplier. Payables stamped past due for equipment. A credit card bill from two months ago. What do all these things have in common that he’d categorize them together? What is the method to his madness?

  Was. What was the method to his madness? I’m still having a hard time thinking of him in past tense. Gran had been on the decline for so long that while putting her in an assisted living facility was the right thing to do for her medical needs, her absence here at the house was deafening. But Pop . . . despite his obvious grief, was joking with me on the front porch one day and then never woke from his nap on his rocker on the porch the next. I swear he died from a broken heart over being apart from Gran.

  If only that kind of love existed for everyone.

  The stacks, Asher. Focus on that. On your goal to at least tackle one stack a day until you clean this mess up.

  Then what? When you can see the top of this desk, will it be real to you that he’s gone?

  I pinch the bridge of my nose and sigh loudly as I fight the tears that threaten. I refuse to cry. Refuse to break down—again. His presence looms so largely over everything and yet this house, this farm, everywhere he touched, feels so empty without him.

  Especially as I sit here, surrounded by everything that represented him, and feel woefully underprepared.

  Sure, I’ve been running The Fields since Pop passed, but if I’m honest with myself, I’ve been doing the bare minimum. This office, his haven, was too hard for me to face.

  But the world moves on even though those of us left behind feel frozen in place.

  I look around me. Little trinkets he’d kept over time clutter the shelf across from me. Some of my old landscape sketches are mounted on the wall to the side of me. A picture of Gran is framed on the desk next to the monitor.

  This office was his haven. His place to hide when he said he needed a break from the estrogen in the house so he’d have an excuse to research whatever was his latest interest on the Internet. Or tiptoe out back and sneak a sip of whiskey that he thought Gran didn’t know about. She did.

  The space is a room toward the back of the main house, a large porch Pop closed in years ago, that has an exterior door facing the fields beyond. It served as the business center for The Fields as well as his solace.

  “Next up, emails,” I say to myself in mock enthusiasm and punch a fist in the air. I’ve been going alphabetically through the folders in his inbox. One by one, I’ve been opening each folder, reading through its contents and, if it’s still relevant, I keep it. If not, I delete it.

  Pop clearly was a pack rat when it came to emails too.

  “Fuckers.” I laugh when I see the inbox name and love how even now, he can make me laugh. I’m not sure what I expect to see in a folder labeled as such, but it’s definitely not marketing emails from S.I.N. about buying the old hotel in town or updates on its status from the Cedar Falls City Council.

  Pop knew who S.I.N. was, didn’t he? Who owned it?

  He was keeping track of their progress, of the company, but why?

  Because once a father, always a father.

  Wasn’t that what he always said to me? That no matter how old I was, he’d always be my father, he’d always tel
l me the truth even when I didn’t want to hear it, and he’d always try to protect me from it.

  Is that what he was doing?

  Making sure the man who damaged me couldn’t hurt me again?

  I scroll through the emails. They’re all blanket newsletters, nothing personally addressed to him, and yet he kept them.

  Sure, he’d grumbled about the resort coming to town, but when I pressed him on why, it was the same reasoning everyone else in town had, so I thought nothing of his displeasure. I simply figured he was old school and feared what the soon-to-be-completed resort would do to the other mom-and-pop businesses like ours.

  It was a logical conclusion to make, but now that I’m staring at this cache of emails, I can’t help but think there were other reasons for his dislike of it.

  Reasons that date back to that night fifteen years ago.

  It’s all conjecture, really. Silly, imaginative conjecture, and yet once again, I’m led right back to Ledger.

  It seems Fate keeps pushing me to interact with him.

  The knock on the exterior door of the office makes me jump.

  “Miss Wells?”

  “George.” I hold a hand to my chest. “You scared the crap out of me.”

  “My apologies, ma’am.”

  “It’s fixed?” I ask about the irrigation line that sprung a leak overnight. We woke up to the south field being flooded, which is never a good thing with a crop like lavender that likes well-drained soil and a dry root base.

  “We’re still working on it. Danny went to the hardware store to grab some couplings and pipe, but . . .”

  “But what?”

  He looks at his ball cap that he’s holding in his hands and then back up. “The card on file was declined.”

  “Crap. Sorry.” I suck in a quick breath. “It’s . . . I’m behind on everything. Pop’s filing system is a little hard to figure out.” I stammer out the excuse, pointing to the stacks I’m going through because I don’t even know if I had the credit card bill that I’d be able to pay it. “I’ll get you some cash.” Within seconds, I’ve rifled through my purse and handed him fifty dollars. “That should cover it.”

  “Thanks,” George says, but he’s still standing there staring at me after I return to my seat.

  “Is there something else?” I ask.

  He twists his lips and shifts on his feet. “There are rumors you’re going to sell The Fields.”

  “Sell?” I ask and he nods. “Who exactly would I sell it to?”

  He shrugs and I can tell he’s more than uncomfortable. “It’s been a rough couple of years. Some of the guys figured with Pop gone that you’d sell off what you could. That way you might break even from . . . everything. Move on.”

  The fire that wiped out our crops and shed full of equipment and tools a few years back. The added land we had to purchase to cultivate to add quantity while the new crops came to fruition. Gran’s care expenses kept adding to it. The barn Pop had built, the one he’d planned to use as a workshop, which now sits empty. The ridiculous expense of his funeral that added to it.

  “This place, this land, has been in my family for generations. It will be passed to me when Gran is no longer here. As much as this life wasn’t my dream for myself, George, it was theirs. I have every intention of keeping it going.”

  He nods. “But it’s yours now and technically that means you can do whatever you want with it, right? I mean, there’s nothing preventing you from selling it. That’s what everyone’s saying, at least.”

  What the actual fuck? That’s the rumor going around? This town thinks so little of me they assume I’d sell out?

  Then again, I shouldn’t be surprised considering this is the same town that has always judged me for my mom’s lack of discretion before I was born.

  “My word is what’s preventing me. I made a promise to my grandparents. To the people who have given me everything. What kind of person am I if I go back on that?” I say the words but wonder how I’m going to manage this. A farm to run. An office to manage. A life I’m not living. And bills that are inches thick.

  The easy way out would be to sell.

  He knows that. I know that. And as tempting as it is, I promised.

  “And what about the resort people? Is it true they wanted to buy it?”

  “What?” I cough the word out.

  “Pop mentioned something about them trying to buy up everything and screw everyone over like usual.” He shakes his head. “It had been a long time since I’d seen him that hot under the collar.”

  “When was this?”

  “It was after he found out who bought the old hotel.” He pushes his hair off his forehead. “He just kept going on about no matter how good their resort might be for this town, he’d never give them business after what they did.”

  I’m right. I know I am.

  Pop still held a grudge over the man who looked down on the Wells family.

  I nod absently because it makes sense. Pop knew who owned S.I.N. and he never forgot the man who insulted him, his pride, and most importantly, me.

  “I’m sure he had his reasons,” I say softly. “But I assure you, I have no intention of selling.”

  “Okay.” Our eyes hold. “I’ll tell the guys. It’s just that we all have families and if we need to look for other jobs, then . . .”

  “I get it.” I nod, hating that my throat feels like it’s closing up. “No one needs to worry. I know Pop considered you guys family, as do I. I don’t want you worrying.” I offer a strained smile and hope it reaches my eyes. Our gazes meet, and I can see he still has doubts. “What else is there? What other rumors are floating out there that I can squash?”

  He looks at me with trepidation, almost as if even if I did disprove them, he wouldn’t quite believe me.

  And it kills me, because they trusted Pop without question. That just means I’ll have to prove my words and my ability to run the business even harder.

  His smile is quick. The dart of his eyes over his shoulder and back even quicker. “Nothing. There’s nothing else.” He takes a step back. “I need to take this to Danny so we can get the irrigation fixed.”

  “Okay. Let me know if you need anything else.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Hey, George,” I call as he takes a few steps down the stairs, and I rise to move to the open door.

  He turns back to look at me. “Yeah?”

  “It’s been a rough few months. I know the guys probably don’t have much faith in me—understandably—but please know I’ll do right by you, by them . . . by Gran and Pop.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he repeats. “I’ll let you know when it’s fixed.”

  I watch him walk away, his words repeating in my head. Nothing. There’s nothing else.

  I lean against the doorframe and stare out at rows of bright purple. Folgate lavender to the left is closing in on time to harvest. Royal Velvet lavender variant lining the slopes near the back of the property is coming along and will be ready in the next few months. And then there is our workhorse variant, the one that blankets most of our fields, Grosso lavender. That’s where the irrigation line burst overnight and luckily George caught it on his early morning rounds.

  We could have lost some healthy crops.

  And that’s something we definitely can’t afford.

  These are the rows I ran between as a child, losing myself in an imaginary fairy world where my mother existed and the men of Cedar Falls didn’t wonder which one of them was my father.

  This is where I wandered with tears streaming down my face after giving up my dream to go to art school so that I could stay here and take care of my grandmother after her stroke. Her medical bills were so overwhelming they ate all that had been saved for my education.

  This is where I sat and stared at the purple until it blurred when my heart was shattered into a million pieces that late summer night.

  “The last thing he needs is someone like her to bring him down. He has a bright
future ahead of him, an empire to run, and I won’t have him sidetracked by a motherless girl with no pedigree and no future.”

  And now, this is where I’m going to pull up my bootstraps and make something of the promises I made, even when I have no idea how I’m going to.

  But I will because there’s no way in hell I’m going to give Maxton Sharpe the satisfaction of being right.

  Asher

  Twelve Years Ago

  “It’s everything I’ve ever dreamed of, Nita.” I spin around my dorm room with an outfit held up to my body before looking at myself in the mirror. My smile is wide and my eyes are wild with excitement. These first two months at the Pratt Institute have been incredible. Everything I ever dreamed of.

  I’m finally chasing my dream.

  “Tell me all about it,” she murmurs in her sleepy voice.

  “It’s the city. It’s like it’s alive with all its lights and high-rises and big classrooms with floor-to-ceiling windows. There’s culture and refinement right beside the gritty and raw reality of life.” Even I’m not immune to the dreamlike quality of my own voice. “I feel like it’s a mixture of every place I’ve never been—”

  “I think anywhere would feel like that compared to Cedar Falls.”

  “It’s more than that.” I sit down on the edge of my bed. I recall what felt like the endless undergrad classes I took at the community college to try and cut down on costs. The promises from Pop that he’d do whatever it took to make my dreams come true and give me the opportunities to be whomever I wanted to be. My chance to be the someone others thought I couldn’t be. All the blood, sweat, and tears, and it’s finally happened. “It’s like I’m meant to be here.”

  “Of course, you are. It’s all you’ve ever wanted. And with your crazy, mad talent, you deserve to be there.”

  I smile. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be going on and on. Especially when I’m here and you’re—”

  “Still in Cedar Falls?” She chuckles. “Don’t you dare hold out on me. I want to hear everything. Let me live vicariously through you. What about the men? Tell me all about them.”