Her mind refused to remember what she saw Friday night, but echoing sounds gathered, drowning out the nearby bird’s sweet melody. The screech of her tires on wet pavement. The awful thud of Noah hitting her car. The shattering of her windshield and tinkling of glass raining down on her in the driver’s seat.
The silence of Noah’s prone body.
She didn’t want to be here.
* * *
A WILDFIRE RAGED inside of Noah.
His right arm ached from overuse.
His left arm itched inside the cast.
He needed to be able to work whole, unhindered. Almost as badly, he needed to wring that pampered, rich, entitled woman’s neck.
Since last Friday night, he’d cursed Monica Accord from here to the Pacific Ocean, but his anger still hadn’t cooled.
He didn’t want to see her today, didn’t want her on his farm infecting the goodness here with her shallowness, but what choice did he have?
The prosecutor had consulted with him before requesting the sentence for Monica; otherwise, they would have been inflicting the offender on the poor, hapless victim. Which wouldn’t have been right. And he’d agreed with their decision.
He might not want Monica here, but he needed her, and he found the sentence fitting, forcing her to learn exactly how hard this job was, and how much her selfish act of drinking and then getting behind the wheel of her car had set him back.
He had told the courts that, yes, he would have her here to serve her community service.
Let her get her precious hands dirty for a change. Daddy couldn’t buy her way out of this fix.
He knew he was being hard on her, but he had a right to be.
He tore out a couple of weeds and tossed them into the pail by his side, seething with an anger that hadn’t abated even a fraction since the accident.
He hated this. He wasn’t an angry man. Passionate? Oh, yeah. Angry? Nah. He left that for other people. He was a lover, not a fighter, but man, he wished he had a heavy bag to punch for an hour or two. He needed to vent, badly.
Trouble was, it would amplify that he had only one useful arm.
He flexed his neck to ease the tension that had lodged there like a recalcitrant tree stump, going nowhere no matter how hard he tried to yank it out.
Stop. This doesn’t do you any good.
Filling his lungs with the fresh scent of morning dew, he tried to clear his mind. Usually, not much got him down at this glorious time of day—not worries, not memories.
He’d already been out here weeding for two hours, the drill usually as calming as yoga or meditation. Even so, rage flexed its fists in his chest, pummeling his ribs, beating up on him from the inside out.
He didn’t need this.
An engine sounded in the distance, then in his driveway. He heard it because he’d been waiting for it.
She was here.
He dropped his spade and stood—it was a real struggle to rein in his emotions. Useless exercise. Fury flooded his veins. Every last item of produce he grew was destined for a food kitchen in Denver, or for families living miles around who had fallen on hard times.
Now this—a broken left arm and too much work to do alone in his current state. Whatever didn’t get grown and harvested couldn’t be eaten by those in need.
Why couldn’t it be anyone but Monica here to help him? At the moment, he’d take aid from a goat if it was a viable option to get more accomplished. He really didn’t want to deal with that woman.
Court-appointed or not, help was help. He glanced toward the driveway and his breath backed up in his throat.
Monica Accord stepped out of her baby blue BMW convertible, cool and composed, pale blond hair in place, long legs encased in designer jeans, a Victoria’s Secret model and Sports Illustrated swimsuit-issue model rolled into one. A classy one.
Monica Accord could no more do trashy than the Pope could break-dance.
She walked toward one of his fields, stepping close to his rows of new radish plants, a puzzled frown furrowing her otherwise perfect brow. He tracked her progress, ’cause the thing with Monica was that walk was too normal a verb to describe her movement. Monica did nothing so mundane as walk. She glided, floating with a lithe elegance that mere mortals couldn’t imitate.
God, she was gorgeous with the sun running warm rays over her skin as though infatuated with her.
Who wasn’t?
His heart boomeranged inside his chest, beating hard enough to hurt. Twenty years after leaving high school, she was still the golden girl, and he was still the guy who had an unrequited crush on her— disgusting in a rational thirty-seven-year-old man.
He tossed his spade into the pail with the weeds.
Still a fool.
He needed his wits about him. Sure, he was a smart guy, but Monica Accord could scramble his brain in creative ways.
She bent over and touched a plant. Her lips moved. She was talking to it? Wasn’t that a little New Agey for Monica?
Wrapping his anger around himself like a protective shield, he approached. She noticed him. He glared and watched guilt heat a path up her neck and into her cheeks. Good. She was the reason he was in this hellish predicament.
A swift glance at the cast on his arm had color infusing her face. When she noticed the healing scabs on his forehead, she winced.
When he reached her, she said, “I’m truly sorry.” No “hi” or “how’s it going?” She sounded abject and looked miserable. Good. She had screwed him royally.
There wasn’t one ounce of compassion or forgiveness in him for her.
“Y-y-y-ou have any id-d-d—” He hissed in a breath, furious. Not this again! Stuttering, for God’s sake. He’d worked his butt off to overcome his affliction, but a split second in Monica’s rarefied company and a bad case of stupefying adoration threatened to lock his tongue.
Steeling his nerves, he pulled himself together and started again.
“You have any idea what you’ve done to me?” He hated the victim-like sound of that “to me,” but said it anyway, skipping the niceties and gesturing with the cast. “You have any idea how much trouble you’ve caused me?”
“I can only imagine, Noah.”
“No, you can’t,” he snapped and was gratified when she flinched. He’d pierced her cool elegance. Since early adolescence, her effortless physical grace had mocked his gangly limbs, old clothes and wild hair. He’d grown up since then, had added muscle in all the right places, courtesy of hard work. His thin face had matured; his jaw had hardened. He refused to cater to fashion or vanity and yet, women found him attractive. Except for Monica, of course. He had the worst desire to crash through her facade and break down her boundaries, to make her as human as the rest of the world.
As human as me.
“I can’t get my work done.” Bitterness churned up from his belly like acid reflux. “You’ve screwed me at my busiest time of year.”
Had she ever once in her life thought of anyone other than herself?
“You’ve got big amends to make. Huge.”
Hurt lingered in her eyes and he fought the urge to soften his words because he wasn’t mad at just her. He was furious with himself because even after the nightmare of her hitting him with her car and breaking part of his body, his knee-jerk, teenaged reaction