All I Have
As if farmwork could ever be anything but hard. As if he didn’t work his ass off every day trying to compete with her.
Her very fine ass.
Yeah, he didn’t want to be noticing things like that. So she wasn’t a social mess anymore? It didn’t mean he had any right or reason to be attracted to her. He didn’t have time to be distracted by stuff like that. Not with Dad breathing down his neck for profits. Proof that his ideas could stand the test of time.
Dell looked down at the tarps. It was another expense he didn’t need, but if he started cutting corners it would affect his crops. With both the weekly farmers’ market and five families getting community-supported agriculture portions from him, he didn’t have the option of risking product.
Life sure had been easier when he didn’t care about this stuff. No one and nothing depending on him. Then again, if he hadn’t been quite so laid-back, perhaps he wouldn’t be in this position now.
If he’d been like Mia and gone to a tough school and worked hard and come back with all As, would it have mattered?
There was no answer for that. Nothing he could do to change what had happened. All he could do was focus on the present and the future and doing everything in his power to make Dad sell the farm to him.
Mia Pruitt was a competitor and distraction he would not let get in his way. He started rolling his dolly toward the cash register, realizing belatedly she was doing the same and they were now in line. Mia right in front of him.
So much for not being a distraction. Her baggy sweatshirt was pushed up to her elbows, revealing elegant forearms and delicate wrists. At least they looked that way, until she hefted a sack of sand as if it weighed nothing.
Her gaze landed on him and she rolled her eyes. “Oh, for heaven’s sake,” she said under her breath, tossing her sack of tarps on the conveyor belt.
“You’re telling me.” He crossed his arms, determined not to say anything else to her. Karl rang up her purchases and she stared resolutely at her dolly.
Karl rattled off a price and Mia dug a credit card out of her back pocket, and even while he was expressly ignoring her, it was kind of hard to ignore her ass.
Yes, he was a dick.
She blew out a breath, fidgeted as the ancient machine slowly printed out a receipt. Finally, she spoke. Because as much as she’d changed, there were still pieces of the old Mia in there.
“For what it’s worth, I...” She raised her chin and looked him straight in the eye. Pretty green eyes. “I’m sorry,” she said resolutely.
He was taken completely off guard, so much so he could make only a kind of “Huh?” sound.
“Holy moly, why am I doing this?” she muttered, snatching the receipt from Karl. She glanced at Dell, expression full of self-disgust. “I have my issues with how you sell stuff, and I’m going to use everything in my arsenal to beat you, but...I don’t want to insult you in the process. It doesn’t feel good to me.”
“Are you insinuating it feels good to me?”
Her brows drew together. “No! I’m trying to be nice and apologize. Leave it to you to make that complicated.”
“Leave it to me? Isn’t that an insult?”
She grabbed the handle of her rolling tray. “Dell, you are the most annoying man I have ever met.”
He had to work really hard not to smile. Something about riling her up was way too enjoyable. “Also an insult.”
“Go to hell.” She smiled faux-sweetly. “Please. Now it’s an insult, but at least I’m being polite about it.” Much like at the market last week, she sauntered away.
It made no sense he was smiling after her. Then again, he was beginning to think nothing about Mia Pruitt made any damn sense.
CHAPTER THREE
“HOWBADLYDO you want to beat Dell at the farmers’ market?”
Mia looked up from the row of carrot seeds she was planting. Mia’s youngest sister stood with Kenzie, Dell’s little sister. Anna and Kenzie had been inseparable since kindergarten and Mia had never once felt weird about that.
Until now.
“Um.”
“The jerk told my parents he caught me making out in the barn. I want him to burn,” Kenzie said vehemently, clutching a book to her chest.
“Um.”
“It’s nothing all that bad,” Anna explained, always the cool head wherever she went. “We just have some pictures of him, and we came up with this idea where you could post on the farmers’ market page that you have pictures of the Naked Farmer in his underwear if people came to your booth Saturday morning or whatever. It would get you some extra customers, no doubt.”
“You have pictures of Dell in his underwear?” Mia squeaked. “Not that I...” She closed her eyes against the embarrassed flush spreading up her neck. “I have no idea what you two are trying to accomplish here.”
Kenzie opened up the book, revealing old photos in an album. Mia squinted. “Is that Dell?”
“Yes. In diapers. Underwear. It’s a little harmless embarrassment.”
Mia finally stood, trying to clap some of the dirt off her hands. The same uncomfortable twisting in her gut she’d felt yesterday at the store lodged itself there. “I’m not really into embarrassing anyone. I’ve kind of had my share of that, and it isn’t fun.”
“He walks around that market shirtless. Do you really think a few pictures from when he was a kid are going to embarrass him? I swear, he’s embarrass-proof. And being-a-decent-human-being-proof.”
Anna rolled her eyes. “Kenzie is overreacting.”
“Jacob said we shouldn’t go to prom together anymore!”
“You know he’ll change his mind.”
Mia tried to make sense of two seventeen-year-olds talking about things way beyond any experience she’d had in high school, but it was useless. Boys and prom might as well have been foreign words to her.
“The point is,” Anna said matter-of-factly, “Dell thinks he can beat you with the shirtless stuff. So play a little dirty.”
Mia had no idea why she was blushing again. “I’m sure our normal tactics are fine.”
Kenzie blew out a frustrated breath. “I told you,” she muttered to Anna. “Dell was right. She has no backbone.”
“Hey!”
Anna gave her a sympathetic look. “She’s kind of right. That’s not always a bad thing, but if you want to beat Dell you’re going to have to be a little meaner.”
“I don’t want to be mean. He’s not being mean to me.” Not really. It was nothing like high school, not when she could dish it back out.
Anna shrugged. “If he’s telling Kenzie you have no backbone, he isn’t exactly being nice. Regardless, if you’re not willing to go after him a bit, he’s always going to win.”
“This isn’t win-lose. It’s...sell. Sell enough to be profitable. That has nothing to do with Dell.”
Anna let out a belabored sigh. “Let’s go back to the house, Kenzie. We’ll work up some other revenge.”
The two teens huffed off together, heads huddled, obviously discussing Mia’s failings as a competitor.
Mia frowned and went back to her carrot seeds. The whole thing was stupid. More of the teasing and tricks she’d had to deal with when she’d been in high school. She was far more mature and worldly than Anna and Kenzie now. She did not need to feel peer-pressured into fighting dirty.
There was that annoying blush at the word dirty again. “I do not need to win, or be mean in the process,” she said, combining the seeds with the sand and carefully spreading the mixture into the row she’d already tilled. “This isn’t cutthroat business. It’s just...vegetables.”
She rocked back onto her heels. Cara always got on her when she caught her talking to herself. Or her vegetables. It was a habit. A habit of a lonely girl. She wasn’t that girl anymore.
Dell was right. She has no backbone.
Mia scowled at that. She had a backbone. Being a nice person was not being backboneless. And if he thought her apologizing to him yesterday was lack of backbone...he obviously didn’t know what being a decent human being was all about.
But he was clearly going to beat her in profits again, decency or not.
Mia got to her feet. She needed advice, and she already knew what Anna had to say. Cara would no doubt take the cutthroat side. So her only hope at getting a little reassurance was Dad. If she could get a few words out of him.
She trudged across her fields, making a mental note to stake the east tomatoes a little better. Dad was in his barn, studying one of the cows Mia knew had been sick. Dad had his beat-up spiral notebook in one hand, thoughtfully scribbling a few notes down.
Surely Dad of all people would agree with her. He hated conflict more than he loved his cows.
“Carrots coming along?”
Mia nodded as she took a spot next to him. “Yup. Sassy doing better?”
“Looks like.”
Mia stared at the cow for a bit, trying to work out a way to ask without bringing Dell into the equation. There was no doubt her father would immediately bristle at the mention of a member of the male species, no matter how innocently.
“Do you think I have a backbone?” she asked, deciding the best route with Dad was to go for straightforward.
“Huh?”
“Like, if there’s a problem or a conflict, do I stand up for things?”
Dad continued to frown at her. “This one of those things where you and your sisters ask me a question and there’s no right answer except you all getting mad at me?”
“No, I’m serious. Do you think I have the backbone needed to be a businesswoman? To run my business successfully?”
“You’re an excellent farmer, daughter.”
Which was ignoring the question and made her feel sulky. But she didn’t back down because she wanted to know. She needed to know what to do. “I’m talking about the business side of things.”
Dad scratched a hand over his beard, then looked longingly at his cows outside the barn, but she wanted his opinion. She needed to know if even her father thought she was being the fool here.
“You keep an eye on your finances, and you make smart choices, and...”
“I’m a softie wimp.”
“Aw, now, Mia.” Dad clasped her shoulder, and if Dad was offering physical affection she was a sad case. Which meant she had to work harder to be...ruthless. Even if it felt kind of crappy.
The end justified the means and all that. That was what business—even farming business—was all about, maybe.
“You’ll be fine. You’re a good girl. It’ll all work out.”
But she didn’t want to be fine or good; she wanted to be successful. She wanted a business that could sustain her for the rest of her life. She wanted profits and the confidence she’d built over the past five years.
So with a goodbye to Dad, she headed for the house and Kenzie’s book of pictures.
* * *
“WHAT’SALLTHATABOUT?”
Dell frowned at the group of giggling women in front of Mia’s stand. This was definitely not the norm. Especially for a forty-degree drizzly Saturday morning. But there were at least ten women with umbrellas and rain boots surrounding Pruitt Farms’ stand, and the laughter kept building.
“Sneak over and check it out.”
Charlie rolled his eyes. “Yeah, I’m sure there’s a lot of cutthroat sabotage at the farmers’ market. She stole the secret patent to grow broccoli. Oh. Wait.”
“Bite me.” Dell pushed Charlie away from the truck. “Stop being useless for once and find out what that’s all about.”
“I’m not useless. I only waste my Saturday mornings here to keep Mom off my back about karmic payment and family support and blah, blah, blah.”
“Yeah, well, do some supporting.” Dell shoved Charlie again. With a long, belabored sigh, Charlie walked over to the Pruitt side of the aisle.
A couple stopped by Dell’s booth, obviously new to the market. Dell chatted them up, trying to keep his head in the game instead of across the aisle.
The couple left with some radishes and Charlie meandered back to their stand. He looked as if he fit more in with the customers in his dark jeans, sweater and some kind of loafer shoes. His brother, the yuppie.
Didn’t make an ounce of sense to Dell, and probably never would. When Charlie didn’t offer anything, Dell nudged him. “So?”
Charlie shrugged. “She said check the market’s Facebook page.”
“Facebook page? That’s her grand plan? Give me your phone.”
Charlie rolled his eyes. “You even know how to use my phone?”
No, but did it take a rocket scientist to figure out? When he held out his hand, Charlie slapped the phone into his palm. Dell swiped his thumb across the bottom of the screen then stared. Shit. He didn’t know how to use a damn smartphone. All he saw was a bunch of squares with stock or finance in the title. “How do I get to Facebook?”
“Give it back, moron.”
“Just because I don’t know how to use a smartphone doesn’t mean I’m a moron.” Dell handed the phone back to his brother and shoved his hands into his pockets. He wasn’t some dumb farmer. He had his ag degree from Mizzou.
But it was no MBA from Wash U in big brother’s eyes. Or Dad’s. No one seemed to want to let him live down the fact he’d been wait-listed, either, all because of his crap-ass standardized test scores. Who cared about those stupid tests anyway?
His family, that was who. Oh, and his girlfriend at the time, who’d dumped him for someone who could “intellectually stimulate” her.
He hadn’t had a clue what that meant at eighteen. He had even less of a clue what it meant now.
More giggling echoed across the aisle and Dell hunched his shoulders, glaring at Charlie. “Hurry up.”
Charlie waved him off. “Nothing on Mia’s page.”
“Well, what the hell are they laughing at, man?”
Charlie started laughing. Pretty soon he was laughing so hard he was slapping his knee.
“What the hell?”
Charlie passed the phone to him, and Dell squinted over the Millertown Farmers’ Market page. The last comment was from Mia Pruitt.
“Pruitt Farms has an extraspecial treat this week, ladies. If you want to see pictures of our intrepid Naked Farmer, Dell Wainwright, in his underwear, do I have the goods for you. Stop by from eight to nine Saturday morning for a peek!”
Dell shoved the phone at his brother so fast Charlie nearly dropped it, but Dell barely registered Charlie’s cursing because he’d already hopped the table and stalked over to the crowd of women. “Pruitt, you’re dead.”
The giggling didn’t stop, but it did become more hushed as the sea parted, so he was standing face-to-face with Mia, only her table of goods—many of those goods in the bags of the women who normally bought from him—between them.
“Well, howdy, Dell,” she drawled, flipping closed a family album. Wait a second. His mother’s family album.
“Where the hell’d you get that?”
“You look awfully cute in diapers, honey,” Deirdre, one of his regular customers, said, giving his arm a pat.
It took every ounce of salesman in him not to shrug her off or growl at Mia. “Hand it over.” She held it out and he snatched it from her hands.
“Careful. Your mother will kill you if you tear one of her pictures,” Mia said sweetly. “And Deirdre’s right, you do look awfully cute in nothing but your underwear.”
He forced himself to grin. “Aw, sugar, don’t be upset just because you’ve never seen me in my underwear.”
She tried to grab the album back. But Dell was too quick. He flipped through the thick pages. There were indeed pictures of him in his underwear. Of course, he was under the age of eight in every single one of them.
“I particularly like the bare-butt one in cowboy boots. Adorable.” Val pointed to the picture on the upper-left corner. He resisted the urge to slam it shut on her fingers.
“How did you get this?”
Mia smiled, flashing perfectly straight teeth. “Some secrets are meant to be kept.”
“Trust me when I say I could get any little secret out of you I wanted.”
Mia rolled her eyes. “Just because you’re hot doesn’t mean I’m going to— I mean...” Some of her bravado faded as her cheeks went pink. “You can’t charm me.”
But he kept waiting. Everyone they’d gone to high school with knew the key to unraveling any of Mia’s attempts at social interaction was simply to wait. In silence.
“Oh, screw you. I got it from Kenzie. Have you forgotten our baby sisters are best friends? And she wasn’t too happy with you apparently.”
Damn it, Kenzie. “I’ll kill her.”
“You seem really obsessed with killing women today, Dell.” Old Mia was gone, replaced by this surprisingly quick-on-her-feet, good-with-a-comeback version. Even knowing she’d gotten a little bit better with people hadn’t prepared him for this, or the comment that came next.
“Perhaps you should seek therapy.”
Dell shoved the album under his arm. “Don’t think this is over.” He pointed his finger at her, ignoring that she looked sexy with her hands on her hips. As he stalked away, Mia’s laughter followed him.
She was going to pay. Big-time.
CHAPTER FOUR
THISTIMEWHEN Mia dropped a pallet full of vegetables, it wasn’t Cara’s fault. Instead, it was the sign under Morning Sun’s stand: Morning Sun Farms. Home of the Naked Farmer.
The sound coming out of her mouth was somewhere between a screech and a snarl. Then Cara started giggling.
“Oh, my God. He’s brilliant. Brilliant.”
“Brilliant?” Mia sucked in a breath, tried to find some center of calm. All she found was more anger. “He’s a glorified stripper!”
“A brilliant glorified stripper.”
Mia bent to pick up the scattered radish bunches and cabbage heads. She couldn’t believe he was using the title she’d come up with against her. And he wasn’t even naked! Only half-naked.
Right?
Mia peeked above the table to make sure. Yep. He was still wearing jeans. Although they were loose enough to hang low on his hips and were liberally streaked with dirt and grass stains at the knees. He could be in a hot-farmer calendar with that getup.
All he needed to do was stick his thumbs through his belt loops, pull down the pants a little bit, maybe flex.
The image was not at all appealing.
Not at all.
Mia shook her head and focused on the vegetables. Putting them out in neat rows, hanging the pretty little price tags Anna had made for her in art class. Maybe Dell offered a certain kind of appeal to some women, but families would appreciate Pruitt’s cleanliness, cuteness and overall clothedness.
She told herself that all morning, but woman after woman, regardless of the number of children they were carting around, fled to Dell and his shirtless idiocy. A few families came by her booth and bought some vegetables. A few of the women came over and bought a pan of Mom’s cinnamon rolls, since Dell wasn’t offering any baked goods at his table.
But mainly, Dell was winning. And she didn’t know how to fight back. It was an old, familiar feeling. In the first grade, she’d accidentally tucked her skirt into her underwear and hadn’t noticed for hours. Six years old, and she’d been forever labeled a geek. The teasing had escalated each school year, and her attempts to fit in had only made it worse.
She’d never known how to make herself above the jokes, the snickers. She’d either tried too hard or stayed invisible. There was no in-between for her.
Mia took a deep breath and looked around the market. This space had given her the tools to be confident enough not to care what other people thought. To quiet the incessant voice in her head telling her she was doing everything wrong. She’d mostly found her in-between in adulthood and maturity, and that couldn’t be taken away.
She might not know how to beat Dell yet, but she’d figure it out. Damn right she would.
As the morning wore down, Cara started packing up. “Anna texted me she won her event. She wants us to meet her at Moonrise at twelve thirty.”
Mia muttered her assent, scowling at a grinning Dell as much as she could while they packed up the truck.
He sauntered over and Mia straightened to her full height. She wished for a few more inches so he wouldn’t tower over her like some kind of Paul Bunyan. At least he had managed to put on his shirt before he came over.
He pulled his wallet out of his pocket. “I’ll take one of your mom’s cinnamon rolls.” He grinned when Cara smiled at him, all but fluttering her lashes as she handed over the tin of gooey baked goods. “I sure worked up an appetite selling so much today.”
“Yeah, I’ve heard stripping is really hard work. Maybe next week you can add some glittery tassels.”
His jaw tensed, but then he smiled, his gaze drifting to her chest. “I wouldn’t mind seeing you in some glittery tassels.”
Wait. What?
He cleared his throat, shifting on his feet. “That’s not...what I meant.” He shoved the money at her. Mia grunted in disgust, trying to pretend she wasn’t the darkest shade of red possible. She took his money and opened the change bank.
“Oh, don’t worry about it, hon.” He drawled out the hon until Mia ground her teeth. “Keep the change.”
She needed one snappy comeback and she could forget this bizarre conversation had ever happened. But her mind was blank.
“It looks as if you guys might be needing the extra money after all.” He winked, tipped his baseball cap.
“Of all the arrog—”
“Thanks, Dell,” Cara said, stepping in front of her. “We appreciate it. See you next week.”
“Sure thing, Carrie.”
Dell sauntered off and Mia pushed her sister. “What the hell? He was being totally patronizing.”
Cara shrugged. “So what? He’s cute. He smiled at me. Apparently he wants to see you in tassels, which, oh, my God. And he gave us five bucks. That’s a two-buck tip.”
“He called you Carrie.”
Cara shrugged. “Hey, if he wants me to be a Carrie, I’ll be a Carrie.”
Mia slammed the truck bed shut and hopped into the driver’s seat, fuming. Keep the change. It looks as if you guys might be needing the extra money after all. She’d show him where he could shove his change.
She would not, not, not think about the bizarre tassels comment. Of course he didn’t mean it. No one could even see her breasts under her sweatshirt.
Even more important, she knew how Dell saw her. How everyone still saw her. She might have changed, but everyone from New Benton knew her as the girl who’d written and performed a one-woman play about cow milking at the school talent show in an attempt to get in with the theater kids.
No one wanted to see the girl who’d done that in anything other than a clown outfit.
Cara sang along with Carrie Underwood as Mia drove back to New Benton. The thirty-minute drive didn’t calm her. She was still furious when she slid into a booth at the Moonrise Diner.
Anna was already seated, her hair in a wet ponytail from her swim meet, a New Benton High jacket across her shoulders. She looked over the menu. A menu that hadn’t changed in any of their lifetimes. When she looked up, her head snapped back. “Uh-oh. Who crossed Mia? She’s breathing fire.”
Cara laughed, slinging an arm over Anna’s shoulders. “I’ll give you one guess.”
Across the table, Mia sneered at them.
“Ah. Dell. I take it he got payback for the pictures?”
“Yup. He’s still kicking her ass at the market. He even used the Naked Farmer thing to his advantage. Poor Mia isn’t taking it well.”
Mallory set their usual drinks in front of them. “You girls want the usual?”
“I want a salad instead of fries,” Anna announced, putting the menu back behind the napkin dispenser. Mallory nodded and then disappeared to put in their orders.
“You need to up your game,” Anna instructed, with the kind of surety Mia had never, ever had at seventeen.
She slumped in the booth. She was furious because she thought she’d gained the upper hand and Dell had proved that to be false without even trying. “How am I supposed to compete with beefcake of the month?”