Summer on Honeysuckle Ridge (Highland Falls Book 1) Read online

  “I don’t know,” her mother said. “It makes you look a little peaked, don’t you think?”

  “Mom, stop. She looks fantastic.”

  And that’s what made the calls difficult. Her stepsisters were sweet and kind, and Abby always came away feeling like a horrible person because she resented them for being perfect.

  “Of course she does.” Her mother smiled at the twins. “Who wants to tell Abby your news?”

  “Mom.” They both groaned, sending apologetic glances at Abby.

  “What? You should be proud of yourselves and shouting your accomplishments to the world. Abby’s as proud of you as I am.”

  She was, because she adored Haven and Haley as much as they adored her.

  Ignoring the twins’ second groaned Mom, their mother shouted their latest accomplishment to Abby. “The mayor is hosting a dinner in your sisters’ honor before they leave for college. They’re being given the key to the town for all they’ve done to make Shady Mills a wonderful place to live. Can you imagine? They’re only eighteen and being given such an honor. I swear, they’re setting the bar too low for themselves. They should set their sights on the White House.”

  Right, because a supreme court judge and neurosurgeon were setting the bar too low. Abby could only dream of being as smart as her sisters. They’d graduated high school a year early with scores of 4.0, and were given full rides to Stanford. But first they’d taken a gap year to travel and volunteer with non-profits.

  Abby had been lucky to have graduated high school at nineteen with a 2.5, and the only college to offer her a scholarship was the University of Hard Knocks. She’d headed for Hollywood the day after graduation. And while she didn’t have the looks or the talent to make it as an actress, she did have an eye for the next big thing, whether it be in makeup, hair, fashion, or the Hollywood social scene. More important, she had passion and drive.

  “If it wasn’t for Abby, the mayor wouldn’t be honoring us,” Haven said.

  “It’s totes true, Abs,” Haley said, no doubt responding to Abby’s pained smile. “When you gave up your YouTube channel to focus on philanthropy and giving back, you inspired us.”

  It took everything Abby had to keep the smile on her face. She was a fraud. She didn’t deserve the twins’ love and admiration. She hadn’t given up her YouTube channel to focus on philanthropy. She’d given it up because Chandler and his attorneys (i.e., Juliette) had wanted her wiped off social media.

  And that was a truth she couldn’t bear her family to hear. She couldn’t stand the idea of Haley and Haven looking at her like her Hollywood friends now did.

  “I’m sure Chandler is as proud of you as we are,” Haley continued. “Did he spoil you like he always does on your birthday?”

  He hadn’t spoiled her for the past two years. She’d just pretended that he had for all their sakes. Just like she’d pretended he still loved her, ignoring the signs that he was having an affair.

  “Yes, darling. Tell us what he bought you.” Her mother craned her neck as though looking for another five-carat pink diamond ring, which was the last birthday present Abby had received from Chandler. He’d demanded it back as part of the settlement. “You look like you’re at a resort. It’s not a spa-slash-rehab resort, is it?”

  “Mom! Of course it isn’t. Why would you even think something like that?”

  “You do hang around with all those Hollywood types, darling. And you are a little gaunt.” She leaned into the screen. “You don’t look like you’ve been sleeping either. You’ve got black circles under your eyes.”

  Abby leaned in to peer at herself. “It’s mascara.” She licked the tip of her forefinger and ran it under her bottom lashes.

  Haven’s and Haley’s eyes rounded.

  Thinking they were shocked that she no longer wore lash extensions, Abby swallowed a sigh to say, “I’ve heard that lash—”

  “No! Look, Abby! It’s Bella.”

  She frowned and looked down. Bella wasn’t there. Following her stepsisters’ pointed fingers and their squeaks of terror, she turned, emitting a terrified squeak of her own. Her teeny-tiny dog was racing across the field toward a huge white…wolf! In her panic, she dropped her phone and ran.

  “I’m coming, Boo! Mommy will save you!” She raced across the meadow.

  Bella stopped about fifteen feet from the wolf to snarl and bark at the animal. The wolf tilted its head to the side, appearing confused. Maybe because most animals were smart and ran at the sight of it. Or maybe it found the bow and dress her dog wore confusing.

  “Bella, do not annoy the big, bad wolf. Come here, baby. Come to Mommy.” Abby’s heart hammered as she closed the distance between her and Bella. The wolf did the same. Slowly, lethally, he padded across the grass. “Shoo! Go away! Argh.” Abby growled in hopes of scaring him off, waving her arms over her head to make herself appear bigger than five-foot-four.

  The wolf stopped, and she thought her attempt to scare him away had worked. But then, over the frantic pounding of her heart in her ears, she heard a deep voice shout, “Wolf!”

  A huge man with longish hair and a short beard walked out of the woods carrying a tree stump on one broad shoulder and an ax over the other. Abby prayed he was a lumberjack and not an ax murderer because he looked a little scary.

  “I know it’s a wolf!” Abby cried out as she bent over on the run to scoop Bella into her arms. “Do not fall. Do not fall,” she told herself as she veered to the left at an all-out sprint, praying the lumberjack took care of the wolf.

  “Stop running!” the man yelled.

  She glanced over her shoulder to see the wolf loping after them and screamed.

  “Wolf!” the man shouted again, but this time, Abby noted that he’d put down his huge log and his big ax and was jogging toward them. Jogging!

  “I know it’s a wolf!” she shouted at the lumberjack. “Do something! Go back and get your ax!”

  “Watch where you’re going!”

  “Watch where I’m going?” she yelled back at him, furious and terrified at the same time, afraid her legs would give out at any minute. “That’s as helpful as you shouting—Argh!” she cried as she fell face-first into a weed-filled pond.

  Chapter Two

  Hunter reached the pond just as the woman rose from under the murky water like a creature from the Black Lagoon. Big green eyes peered at him from under a hat of slimy weeds. A toad jumped off her head and into the cattails behind her. Focused on holding her pocket-sized dog over her head, she didn’t notice.

  He figured it was a good thing that she hadn’t—she had big city written all over her. No doubt she was staying at Three Wild Women Winery. The resort was not far from here and attracted women like her. He assumed she’d gotten lost on one of their organized hikes.

  She spat out water and then said to the dog, which looked like a drowned rat, “Are you all right, baby?”

  Okay, so that explained why the rat was wearing a bow and a dress.

  “Give me your hand.” He leaned forward, extending his own.

  Her lips flattened as she eyed him from under the weeds. “Maybe if you’d yelled Watch out for the pond instead of Watch where you’re going, I wouldn’t be drowning in…” She scrunched her small, upturned nose and shuddered.

  “You’re not drowning. At most, the pond is four feet deep in the middle.” He didn’t know why he felt the need to stand on the edge of the pond arguing with this woman. He’d probably said more to her in the last few minutes than he’d said to anyone in months.

  “Really? Have you spent much time in here, Mr.…” she began as she waded toward him and reached for his hand.

  He noticed the leech on her arm and drew an irritated breath through his nostrils as he wrapped his hand around hers. No matter how much he wanted her gone, he couldn’t just haul her out and send her on her way with a bloodsucker attached to her smooth skin.

  Those moss-green eyes of hers went wide, and he opened his mouth to tell her to relax—th
ere was no need to get worked up over a leech—but he didn’t get a chance. She screamed, knifed out of the water, and yanked on his hand, putting the weight of her curvy body behind the hard tug. He slipped on the mud-slicked grass and, with a shout of surprise, fell face-first into the pond, swallowing a mouthful of swampy water.

  As he got to his feet, he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand while looking around to give the woman hell. She wasn’t there. He must’ve fallen on top of her. Searching the murky water with his hands, he came into contact with something full and soft…He swore under his breath, moving his hand to grab an arm instead of a breast. She burst to the surface sputtering and panicked.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to grab your…I couldn’t see. The mud and the weeds…” But his muttered apology and halting explanation for the inappropriate contact was lost in her splashing and thrashing as she turned in frantic circles.

  “Bella! Boo, where are you?” She froze. Then, with her mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water, she stabbed her finger at the other side of the pond, where her dog hung by its white dress from Wolf’s mouth.

  Hunter placed a firm hand on the woman’s shoulder when she snapped out of her shock and made a move toward her dog. “Wolf, drop it.” His dog lifted his pale-blue gaze. “Now.”

  Only when Wolf stretched out in a submissive position on the grass did Hunter relax his grip on the redhead’s shoulder. His dog was part wolf. The instincts to hunt and kill for survival were deeply ingrained. Every animal was the same, even the rat in the dress. Wolf nudged the dog with his nose as though trying to figure out what the hell it was.

  “Do something! He’s going to eat her!” the redhead cried as she waded through the water, apparently willing to take on Wolf despite her fear.

  He felt a reluctant admiration for her, which might explain why his warning came out on a growl. “Don’t move.” These days the only things Hunter allowed himself to feel anything for were his dog and his woodcarving. “If he was going to eat your dog, he would’ve eaten her five minutes ago.”

  Hunter nudged the woman out of the way and hauled himself out of the pond, moving to sit close enough to grab the rat if Wolf changed his mind. It’s not like they got a lot of visitors around here—domesticated animals or humans. Hunter was good at keeping them away.

  He felt the redhead’s stare as he pulled off his steel-toe boots and his socks. Even though he wanted to ignore her, he looked up. Somewhere inside him was a remnant of the man he’d been raised to be.

  She pushed the weeds off her head. “That’s your dog, isn’t it?”

  He nodded as he glanced at Wolf to see whether the rat, who was shaking the water from her dress, was amusing or annoying his dog. Still confused, he thought at the sight of Wolf’s cocked head. Hunter took the opportunity to pull off his T-shirt, looking up at the woman’s gasp. Her eyes were riveted on his bare chest. “Don’t worry, lady. I’m leaving my shorts on.”

  “Oh.” She clutched the corner of her bottom lip between her perfect white teeth, then gave her head a slight shake. “I mean, I should hope so. Now, are you going to help me out of here or not?”

  “Not.” He lifted a shoulder at her shocked expression. “What do you expect? You tried to drown me.”

  “I was trying to save you! I thought you’d scared off the wolf but then I saw him sneaking up behind you.” She crossed her arms as though realizing her white shirt was molded to her chest and didn’t leave much to the imagination.

  He was right there with her. He’d been trying to ignore her chest since she’d stood up in the pond.

  “And you know what,” she continued. “You calling your dog Wolf when you knew I was terrified wasn’t the least bit funny. If you ask me, it was really immature of you.”

  “That’s his name.”

  “Your dog’s name is Wolf?” Not waiting for an answer and obviously taking him at his word that he wouldn’t help her out, she waded to the edge of the pond. It took a couple tries for her to get a grip on the muddy grass and pull herself out of the water.

  “Yeah.” He averted his gaze. He might’ve been celibate for the past couple years and this woman wasn’t even close to his type, but that didn’t mean he was immune to a body that would have a priest rethinking his vows.

  With his eyes on his dog, Hunter came to his feet. “Okay, Wolf, the rat’s entertained you enough for one day.” An outraged gasp came from behind him, and he pinched the bridge of his nose. He should’ve known better than to offend her baby.

  “That’s a horrible thing to say. You’ve hurt her feelings. Don’t listen to him, Bella Boo. You’re Mommy’s beautiful girl.” She talked to her dog in one of those high-pitched, annoying voices that women reserved for babies. Real babies.

  “Lady, she’s not a kid. She’s a dog. She doesn’t know what a rat is.”

  “You have no idea what you’re talking about. No idea what she’s been through. She…Argh. “Get it off! Please, please, get it off me!”

  She’d seen the leech. “Calm down, and I’ll—” He glanced over to see her doing a panicked dance on the side of the pond while pulling up her shirt. At the sight of her bare stomach and a glimpse of a lacy white bra, it took a minute to regain his power of speech. Long enough that the woman was seconds from ripping off her shirt.

  “Stop! You’re not covered in leeches. You have one on your—” Okay, so they’d multiplied in the last few minutes. “If you stop stripping and stop moving, I’ll get rid of them.”

  He wished Liz were here so he could foist the crazy redhead on her. No doubt his old friend was up there having a good laugh at his expense. Liz and Honeysuckle Farm had saved him. They’d given him a reason to live after his last tour of duty had taken him to hell and beyond.

  In the beginning, Liz probably would’ve agreed that she and the farm had saved him. But a few months before she’d died, she’d told him she hadn’t done him any favors giving him a place to hide. He’d been worried she’d ask him to leave. Maybe she would have if she hadn’t gotten sick. Then she’d needed him as much as he’d needed his reclusive life on the ridge.

  He pulled a pack of waterproof matches from his cargo shorts pocket and took a step toward the woman flapping her arms and running on the spot while making small bleating noises. A couple yards away, Wolf and the rat sat side by side watching her with their heads cocked. If not for the task that awaited him, Hunter might’ve been amused by the sight. But all he could think about was having to deal with a hysterical female when he’d rather be carving the eagle he’d seen in his dream.

  “Keep your eyes on the prize,” he murmured as he closed the distance between them. The sooner the leeches fell off her pretty, soft skin, the sooner she and the rat were gone.

  With that in mind, he gentled his voice, talking to her like he would a frightened animal caught in a trap. He relaxed a bit. He might not be good with people, women like her in particular, but he was good with wounded animals.

  Except a wounded animal wouldn’t look at him with pleading moss-green eyes when he crouched at its feet, and it wouldn’t have kissable pink lips that trembled when it tried not to cry.

  She sniffed. “The Universe hates me. My life is a disaster. I’m a disaster.”

  He couldn’t speak to her and her life being a disaster, but he was pretty sure, in this instance, it was him the Universe hated.

  Seeing her mistress’s distress, the rat raced to her side, barking and snarling at Hunter. From behind him came his dog’s warning growl. Hunter held up a hand. “Wolf, stay.” Then he looked at the rat. “Bella, sit.” And to her mistress. “Lady, close your eyes and stay still. I don’t want to burn you.”

  “Burn me?” she squeaked, moving her leg out of reach.

  He held up the match. “Faster than salt.” Then he wrapped his hand around her slender ankle, drawing her leg between his thighs. He stroked the skin just above her calf with his thumb, and she settled a bit. He struck the wooden match along the side of the
box. It flared to life, the smell of sulfur filling the air. He held the burning ember to the leech attached to the back of her knee. All the while ignoring the thought that her skin was as soft and as silky as he’d imagined.

  She shuddered when the leech shriveled up and fell at her feet. “Please hurry up and get the rest off me.”

  “They’re harmless.” It was true, but she had more than one attached to her delicate skin, and they’d been living in the pond, which was no doubt a cesspool of bacteria. Since he didn’t want a crying female on his hands, he highlighted the positive. “They’ve been using leeches in medical therapy since medieval times. They improve blood flow and keep tissue from dying. They’re good for fishing too.”

  The leech Hunter had first noticed on her arm plopped off, and her eyes went wide. “Does he not like my blood?”

  He held back a smile at her question. She sounded offended. “Pretty sure he does. He just got all he could handle.”

  “How much blood are they taking from me?”

  She’d gone pale so he lied. “Barely a gram.” More like fifteen.

  “Oh, okay. I can’t donate blood anymore. I get woozy and faint. Even when they give me double my allotted cookies and juice. It’s a shame because I’m a universal donor and have really rich blood.” She looked down as a leech fell off her inner thigh. She sighed, sounding relieved.

  So was he, until he looked up and spotted one attached to the top of her left breast.

  She followed his gaze. “He’s probably almost done.” Her voice rose with what he assumed was hope.

  He struck another match and handed it to her. “I don’t think so.”

  She handed the match back. “You do it. I need to hold my top closed so he doesn’t fall inside.”

  “Right.” Hunter came to his feet, keeping his eyes focused on the leech in a valiant attempt to ignore the valley between her breasts. It wasn’t easy, nor was this leech easy to detach. It finally succumbed to his second attempt, and she bent at the waist as it fell from her chest. Then she straightened and shook out her hands, turning in circles while asking, “Are they all gone?”