He didn’t realize he was hiking toward the west fence—and the border between the MacDougals and the Campbells—until he saw her. Actually, he couldn’t make out exactly who was standing by that godawful lavender mess on the Campbells’ east twenty acres. But someone was. A waif.
He unlatched the gate, but then just stood there. No one, but no one, had taken his heart like this in years.
Damn woman had lost so much weight that her jeans were hanging on her, the hems dragging in the dirt. She was wearing a rowdy-red shirt with a frayed neck and an old barn jacket that used to be her dad’s favorite. In the sunlight, her cap of hair looked satin-black and shiny, but a shorn sheep had more style—and Pete suspected that’s exactly what she’d done, taken scissors and whacked off all that gorgeous long hair after whozits died. Everything about her appearance told the same story. So much grief and nowhere to go with it.
Camille couldn’t be his problem, he’d already told himself—several times in the past few weeks—and it was true. He had an overfilled plate now. The boys had been a nonstop handful since Debbie deserted them. Their grandfather indulged them right and left. Pete’s translating work for the government had turned into a far more lucrative living than he’d ever dreamed, but come spring, he would have the land and orchards to tend on top of his real work. All in all, most days he was lucky to have a second to himself. He sure didn’t need more stress.
But damn. Those eyes of hers were deep as a river.
She was looking out at those endless acres of untended lavender, her hands on her hips.
Pete could have sworn that he intended to turn around and skedaddle before Camille caught sight of him, but somehow he seemed to have unlatched the gate and hiked toward her instead. She startled in surprise when she suddenly found him standing next to her. He squinted at the fields as if they studied their respective farming problems together every day.
“Don’t even start about my sister.” It was the first thing she said, and in the same ornery tone she’d spoken to him last time.
“I thought we covered this? I always liked your whole family. Violet included. I don’t think less of her because there are some raisins short in her bran. Because apparently she wouldn’t know a weed from a willow. Because she wouldn’t recognize common sense if it bit her in the butt—”
“I’ve leveled guys for less, so you just quit it. There is nothing wrong with my sister.”
“You don’t think some of that blond hair dye seeped into her brain?”
She lifted a booted foot to kick him—then seemed to realize she’d been suckered into his teasing and stiffened up again. She took a breath, then said quietly, “Go away, Pete.”
He didn’t. God knew why. Maybe it was the land. Looking at all those acres of tangled, woody, gnarled growth offended the farmer in him—even if he wasn’t much of a farmer anymore. “I don’t know much about lavender,” he admitted conversationally. “I mean, I’ve seen it in gardens and all, but I’ve no knowledge of it as a commercial crop. But a bird brain could figure out that this thicket has to be damned close to becoming completely unrecoverable—”
“It isn’t your problem,” Camille mentioned.
He ignored that. “The thing is, though, as bad a mess as this is…your sister started this massive planting only a few years ago. So there has to be a chance it’s salvageable. Not a good chance. But at least some chance. The question is how and how fast. I have to believe that if you don’t get control of it this spring, it’ll be gone for good. Which means that about by Monday, there needs to be a crew of guys in here—”
Without turning toward him, she lifted a finger in the air. Thankfully, Pete loved a woman who could communicate without words, so he just grinned. Until he realized that she was still staring at the long stretch of wasted, woebegone fields with a determined squint in her eyes.
“Whoa. Don’t even start thinking it, Cam. You can’t do it. Not alone. No one could.”
Finally she turned, and tipped those river-deep eyes at him. “Were you under the impression I was asking your opinion about anything?”
So sassy. So rude. So much fury.
He was tempted to kiss her. Not a little kiss, and not an old-neighbor friendly peck, either. A kiss that might shake through her anger. A kiss that might touch some of that fierce, sharp loneliness. A kiss that might make him feel better—because right now it ripped raw to watch his beautiful Camille hurting and not have the first clue how to help her.
The impulse to kiss her invaded his mind for several long seconds and stung there like a mosquito bite, itching, swelling, daring him to scratch it. Then, thank God, he came to his senses. Certainly he had his stone-headed moments—didn’t everybody?—but Pete wasn’t usually troubled by lunacy.
He zoned on something concrete and practical as fast as he could get the words out. “So, Cam…exactly what do you know about growing lavender?”
“Well…everyone in the family knows a little, because my mom loved it so much. She always grew enough to make sachets and soap and dried flower arrangements, that kind of thing. And Violet—she knows the recipes, all this unusual stuff about how to use lavender as a spice. And Daisy’s been living in France for several years now—she knows more than both of us, because she’s around Provence and the perfume industry, so she’s learned how lavender’s used as a perfume ingredient and all that.” She added, “But what I personally know about growing lavender would fill a thimble. Assuming the thimble were extra small.”
“So you know not to try and tackle all these acres by yourself.” He just had to be sure she wasn’t going to do anything crazy. Then he could leave. And he badly wanted to leave, before he had another damn-fool impulse to kiss her. God knew what was wrong with him. Maybe he needed an aspirin or some prune juice. For damn sure, he was going to dose himself with something when he got home—but first he needed to be certain she wasn’t determined to dive off the deep end into a brick pool.
“Pete MacDougal. Do you really have nothing better to do than stand around and bug me? Don’t you have a few hundred acres of apples that need pruning or trimming or something?”
“I’ve got the orchards. I’ve also got twins—two teenage sons—that I’m raising without their mother. And even though everyone in White Hills think I’m a farmer, I’ve been doing translating work for Langley for a half-dozen years now, full-time. And then there’s my dad, who’s been as pleasant as a porcupine ever since my mother died.” He didn’t suspect she wanted to hear any of that, but he figured he’d better give her a frame for his life. Otherwise she had an excuse for still treating him like a half stranger. “All of which is to say, don’t waste your breath being crabby with me. I’ve got people who can out-crabby you any day of the week, so let’s get back to our conversation—”
“We’re not having a conversation.”
“Oh, yeah, we are. We’re talking about finding a solution for that twenty acres of lavender out there. One possibility—and the simplest one—is a bulldozer. I don’t know if you knew Hal Wolske—”
“I’m not looking for a bulldozer. Or for help.”
“Okay.” He reminded himself that he came from strong Scots stock. Which meant he had no end of patience. He might have to kick a tree, soon and hard, but he could hold on to his patience until then or die trying. “If you don’t want to get rid of it, then you have to find a way to make it viable. I really don’t think your sister could identify the front end of a tractor from the back—”
“Don’t you start on my sister