Bittersweet (True North #1) by Sarina Bowen
“It’s just eggs,” I said. I’d never been able to take a compliment, probably because I never got very many. I grew up in a compliment-free environment. My mom wanted an achiever, which I failed to become. Seducing football players was my kind of fun, and I started young. She bought me sweater sets, and I bought black lingerie to wear under them. My teen years were a series of screaming matches over my hair, my makeup, the length of my skirts.
Good times.
From my pocket, my phone bleated. Loudly. “Sorry,” I said quickly, pulling it out to silence it. I didn’t recognize the number. Whoever it was, he could wait.
I drank my juice and listened to Griffin explain to Jude why he needed to see the newest Star Wars movie.
“The spoilers made it all the way into the prison,” Jude argued. “I already know who dies at the end.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Griff insisted. “See it to witness the franchise’s return to greatness.”
My phone chimed with a text, and then chimed again. “Sorry,” I repeated. “It’s not usually like this.” I dug out my phone and read the text message. Then I read it again. “Whoa.”
“Is everything okay?” Mrs. Shipley asked.
I looked up quickly. “Of course.”
Her face relaxed, and then May spoke up to explain. “It’s been a couple years now. But when my father died so suddenly, we all learned to be a little freaked out by unexpected phone calls.
Ouch. “I’m sorry. When my phone rings it’s usually because I’ve done something wrong again.”
Mrs. Shipley smiled at me. “That can’t always be the case.”
“Pretty often! But not today.” I couldn’t quite wrap my head around this sudden stroke of good fortune. “I’ve been recalled to Boston to work in one of BPG’s most chic kitchens, starting tonight. It says to show up for kitchen prep at three-thirty. They’ll probably put me on salads or something boring, but still. It’s a cool opportunity. God, I hope the text was really meant for me.”
May laughed. “Why wouldn’t it be?”
“Eh. I’m not their favorite employee. And the chef in charge is a real macho asshole. They all are, but him especially. I wouldn’t be invited into his kitchen unless there was a true crisis. He probably had a temper tantrum and fired his whole kitchen, or something.” I’d bet money on it.
“Wow. What kind of food will you be cooking?”
“This place is all about modernist cuisine. Like a piece of tuna, frozen to negative a million and cut with a band saw into a precise cube, then seared with a polka-dot pattern and plated with a foam around it tasting of mango and pine nuts. It’s really over the top. Not my favorite kind of cooking, but it will look great on my resume.”
They all stared at me as if trying to figure out why anyone would want to cut tuna with a band saw. And, at that moment, I couldn’t understand it myself.
“I hope you enjoy it, honey,” Ruth Shipley said. She set down her coffee cup. “Now, we have to talk about last night.”
Across the room, Griff choked on a bite of omelet while I simultaneously broke out in a sweat.
“Griffin, your brother told me the most outlandish thing before he went to bed. He said that you want to sell some cows.”
It took me a moment, but after I replayed those words in my brain a few times, I was pretty sure “sell some cows” was not a sexual innuendo, and that Ruthie Shipley was not referring to me.
Griff relaxed, too. He took a sip of coffee before answering. “It’s something we need to consider. We could reinvest the proceeds in the cider operation. There’s a higher margin to be made in alcoholic beverages than in milk.”
“But, Griffin.” Mrs. Shipley touched her throat in shock. “Your father worked his whole life to build up…” She swallowed hard. “I can’t understand why you’d do that.”
Griff set down his mug. “It was a great business for a while,” he said carefully. “But the price of milk is down, and the rent’s going up.”
His mother’s eyes widened. “But…Smitty won’t turn us out. We could speak to him about the rent.”
Slowly, Griff shook his big head. “The land is more valuable than it used to be. He’s probably got offers to sell. Good ones. Our lease is up, Mom. If you were him, wouldn’t you consider all your options?”
“I suppose.” She stood quickly and carried her plate into the kitchen.
There was an awkward silence until May asked, “What if we sink money into the cidery and it fails?”
Griff tipped his head back and laughed at the ceiling. “That is the big question, isn’t it? Can I at least finish my eggs before I settle our destiny?”
With a sigh, she gathered her dishes and followed her mother into the kitchen.
Meanwhile, I sat there feeling like an eavesdropper on this family drama. Although I wasn’t the only one. Zach and Jude were studying their empty plates pretty carefully, too.
The silence was broken by the sound of tires on the gravel driveway outside. Zach got up and pushed the lace curtain aside. “Oh, it’s Wilson. He’s got the tire you need.”
Griff’s gaze lifted quickly to mine, as if he’d forgotten I was here. He looked a little sad for some weird reason.
I hopped out of my chair. “He delivered the tire?”
“He owes me a favor,” Zach said.
“Let me find my checkbook.”
Zach shook his head. “He’s gonna bill the rental company.”
“Oh. Thanks.”
Just like that there was no more reason to stay at the Shipley farm.
Zach and his buddy from the tire place had the new tire on in less than ten minutes. Mrs. Shipley hugged me and thanked me for helping in the kitchen. Then she thanked me for helping with the butchering. “Is there anything you need for the drive back to Boston?” she asked.
“Just my bag. I’ll pop into the bunkhouse and grab it,” I said, doing my level best not to blush to a medium-rare shade of pink. The word “bunkhouse” was probably going to make me all hot and bothered for the rest of my life.
I nipped into Griff’s room to remove my duffel from the bed that I’d made before breakfast. Even now I felt the urge to drop my face onto his pillow one more time and take a final breath of Griff.
Was that creepy?
Probably.
So I gathered up the tattered shreds of my dignity and got the hell out of there.
The car sat in the driveway, ready to go. Griff and his guys had moved on to a discussion about washing out a fermentation tank. When I approached, Zachariah and Jude each gave me a friendly wave and then drifted away, leaving only Griff and I beside the car. I tossed my bag into the trunk thinking, now what? Do we shake hands? Kiss? What is the post-hook-up-I’ll-be-in-touch-about-the-cider protocol?
“So,” I said, closing the trunk.
“So,” he said, cocking his head to the side and smiling down at me.
That smile packed a punch, and it stole my focus. “It’s been…interesting.”
“Aw.” He actually rolled his eyes. “Interesting? That’s the review I get? I’m pretty sure the earth moved.”
“Well…” My cheeks heated. “You’re a farmer. It’s your job to notice the earth. I know I burned off some crucial brain cells last night. I’ll be lucky to find my way back to Boston.”
His smile grew wider. “Come back if you get lost. You know where to find me.”
I did know where to find him, and it was unexpected. For five years I’d forgotten about him, and all the things that went wrong for me at BU. But now I’d be thinking about Griff for quite some time. The man left an impression. Even now I felt the pull.
It was definitely time to hit the road.
“I’ll, uh, make sure your ciders get into a sommelier’s hands.”
Griff’s eyes crinkled at the edges. “Thank you.”
“You never know,” I said, opening the car door. “People all over Boston could be drinking it in the fall. At twenty-four bucks a bottle.”
&nbs
I swallowed hard, because I hate goodbyes. If there was such a thing as goodbye-a-phobia, I definitely had a bad case. Griff’s big body came closer, the warmth of it engulfing me. With two of his thick fingers, he tilted my chin up to meet his gaze.
“Hey,” he whispered. “You okay?” His brown eyes searched my expression.
“Of course,” I bit out.
Then his mouth was on mine, his lips full and warm. I wrapped my arms around him without waiting for an invitation. And he kissed me slowly and deeply, while I clung to him like a well-made mayonnaise on a spoon. His tongue made a hungry pass over mine, and I knew I’d be tasting him all the way home to Boston.
When he pulled back, I wasn’t ready.
“That’s just a little something to remember me by,” he whispered.
As if I could forget. “Later,” I said, trying to keep things light. And why did that seem so hard all of a sudden?
“Goodbye,” he corrected, backing away.
Right.
I got into the car and started the engine while Griff watched, an unreadable expression on his face. He folded his brawny arms across his chest as I turned around.
He gave me a single wave, and then I headed the other way, down the drive and out of his life.
Part Two
August
Cooking is like love. It should be entered into with abandon or not at all. -Harriet van Horne
Chapter Eleven
Griffin
It was Saturday night, and we were all exhausted, as usual. Apple-picking season had begun for the earliest varieties. After we’d consumed about ten thousand calories each of Mom’s cooking, my cousin and Zach and I drove over to The Mountain Goat for beers.
I’d avoided the Goat, as we called the place, since springtime. My ex-fuck-buddy managed the place, and she’d been unhappy when I broke things off with her.
It had only been a week ago that I’d ventured back into the bar. My cousin Kyle liked to go out, and since he was staying in the bunkhouse to help out with the harvest, I manned up and showed my face at the Goat. Zara ignored me, which I expected. She didn’t poison my drinks, so I figured I was doing all right.
Tonight we’d met up with Kyle’s younger brother Kieran. I chose the back corner of a big, U-shaped booth that wasn’t too cramped and gave my cousins a view of every woman who walked in the door.
“Zara just gave you a look,” Kyle announced as soon as we sat down. “Like, a laser death-glare.”
“Uh-huh,” I said. “Be a good little farm boy and buy the first round?” I put a twenty on the table. Kyle was a cheapskate. He never shelled out for beer unless there were women present.
“I’ll get us a pitcher,” Zach said, hopping up, leaving my money on the table.
“Why can’t you be more like him?” I asked Kyle. Of my two cousins, Kyle was the talker, while Kieran was quieter. Truthfully I was a lot closer to these two than my own little brother. Dylan was ten years younger than me, while my cousins were closer to my own age. I was twenty-seven, Kyle was twenty-five and Kieran twenty-three. We’d been picking apples together since we could walk and drinking at the Goat since we were legal.
“So why did you break it off with Zara, anyway?” Kyle asked, jutting his chin toward the bar. “I thought she was cool. And, I mean…” He gave her a long, appraising look. “You could do a lot worse in this town.”
“It was never supposed to be serious,” I said, drumming my fingers on the table top.
“But that’s what she wanted?” Kyle asked.
“She didn’t give me an ultimatum. We always said it was just sex. But I got sick of feeling guilty when I didn’t ask her home for dinner or make more of an effort.” Nothing against Zara—she was a great girl. But there were too many people counting on me already. It stressed me out too much to add another one.
Kyle gave me a skeptical look. “You stopped banging the hottest woman in the county because you felt guilty?”
It wasn’t as simple as he made it sound. “She’d been dropping hints. Said she wanted to spend more time with me. I didn’t want to string her along, is all. Didn’t seem fair.”
“If you say so,” he said in a way that really meant you’re a big fucking idiot.
Maybe I was, because the last month had been a grind and not the good kind.
And it would only get worse. Late summer and early fall were our busy season, when we all worked our asses off. My cousins had spent the day picking Zestars and Yellow Transparents. Zach and the twins took apples and cider to the Norwich farmers’ market, and I’d spent the day with Jude cleaning the tanks and fixing up the cider house. Starting next weekend, the descending hordes would arrive, parking up our meadow, picking apples and buying cider. And somehow—while weaving between the selfie-taking weekenders—I’d have to press as many apples as I could during that busy time to make this year’s vintage of Shipley Cider.
Zach returned to the table with a pitcher and four glasses. I poured him the first one, then handed beers across to my cousins. “Cheers,” I said when my own was ready. “Here’s to good weekend weather for the next two months.”
Kyle grinned. “Here’s to horny tourists showing up at the Goat during leaf season to fuck me.”
I snorted. “They’d better have hotel rooms. Because the bunkhouse is off limits, and keep your tail out of my truck.”
“Man, this is a tough crowd for a Friday night.” He took a deep drink of his beer. “Guess I should have drunk to good weather, because I’m gonna need that, too. For fucking al fresco.”
As usual, Zach blushed deeply at all the sex talk.
Another Friday night at the Goat, ladies and gentlemen.
While we’d been pouring our beer, a pair of perfectly shapely legs had passed through the edge of my sightline. My traitorous brain went immediately to Audrey Kidder, as it so often did these days. Every time I got in bed, I imagined her there beside me. Every time an unfamiliar car pulled up the drive, I watched to see who would get out. But it was never a hot blonde with an attitude. It was always a portly feed salesman or one of the twins’ friends.
Meanwhile, family dinners were tense, because we spent a lot of time discussing the future of our dairy business. Smitty had sent over a new lease with a term of five years and a built-in rent increase for each successive year. We had sixty days to sign, which sounded like plenty until you factored in selling off a dairy herd.
Good times.
I took another gulp of my beer and wondered why I’d come out tonight. There was beer at home, and I seemed to have brought my troubles with me.
“Dibs,” Kyle said suddenly. “I haven’t seen her before. Wow.”
I didn’t swivel my head for a look. The poor girl—whoever she was—didn’t need a whole table of dudes leering at her. Kyle was about to put on the full-court press, anyway.
But Zachariah began to chuckle. “You’re not first in line there, Kyle.”
“Why? I don’t see a ring.”
“She and Griffin…” He cleared his throat.
At that, I gave in and turned my head, and my daily fantasy snapped into place. “No way.” Lo and behold, Audrey Kidder sat on a barstool talking to Zara. If Zach hadn’t said anything, I’d probably have thought my eyes were deceiving me. I’d been spotting Audrey Kidder out of the corner of my eye at farmers’ markets for weeks. But it was never actually her.
Until now.
“What?” Kyle yelped. “Bullshit. I’m gonna go buy her a drink.” He pressed a hand down on the table and made to rise.
I reached across the table and clamped his hand down under mine. “No you’re not.”
“Really,” Kyle drawled. “Look who’s all territorial all of a sudden.” He shook off my hand and leaned back in h
Great. The last thing I needed was an audience when I talked to Audrey. And what the hell was I even going to say to the girl? Hey, since you left I’ve been playing our night together over and over in my mind obsessively. Have a beer with me and my nosy family?
“Annnnd we’ve been spotted,” Zach said cheerfully. He lifted a hand and gave Audrey a wave.
“Move,” I nudged Zach. If she was back in Tuxbury, I was going to talk to her, audience or not.
Zach got out of the way, and when I stood up I saw Audrey whip back around toward Zara, who had leaned over the bar and, with narrowed eyes, whispered something to Audrey.
Fuck.
Chapter Twelve
Audrey
Of course I’d expected to see Griff Shipley again in Vermont. It’s just that I thought it might take longer than an hour to run into him. I wasn’t ready for that mountain of a man to turn up in the bar where I’d just ordered a chicken Caesar salad and a beer. I needed to get my bearings before I faced down all that hotness.
The bartender—Zara—was warning me away already. “Watch out for that crew. Bunch of assholes, except for the blond kid. He’s a sweetie. The Shipley boys think they’re God’s gift, though. Griff’s self-centered and Kyle’s a manwhore. Nobody knows what Kieran thinks, because that man doesn’t do a lot of talking.”
When I’d stolen a look at their table, I’d been surprised to see two more Shipleys than I’d met before. There was a clear family resemblance¸ too. They were all big-shouldered, rugged men with strong jaws and thick hair. I wondered which one Zara had run afoul of.
The answer arrived at my shoulder about sixty seconds later.
“Evening, ladies.” Griff’s deep voice seemed to vibrate right through my chest. I wished it wouldn’t. The next few weeks would be a lot easier if I was immune to Griffin Shipley.