Total pages in book: 127
Estimated words: 122219 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 611(@200wpm)___ 489(@250wpm)___ 407(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 122219 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 611(@200wpm)___ 489(@250wpm)___ 407(@300wpm)
“I’m not answering your stupid questions.”
“Because the answer is yes?”
“No. Because the question is stupid.”
“Stupid questions can still be answered, and your avoidance of answering shows that the answer is yes. I wouldn’t blame you, Nate. Avery is beautiful. Come to think of it… If you aren’t sleeping with her and she’s now on the free market—”
“Don’t you fucking dare go near her,” I growled, shooting him a look packed with daggers.
He laughed and pointed at me. “There it is. The answer you didn’t want to give. Don’t worry, brother. I get it. Avery Kingsley is off-limits. I’ll make sure the other guys know, too. She’s all yours.”
I grumbled and rolled my eyes. What a dumbass. “Finish up in here, will you? I’m gonna go check on accounting for a few hours,” I said, shoving my basket into River’s grip.
He still had that stupid smirk on his face as he nodded. “For a long time, I thought you were a loner like Evan. I didn’t worry about Evan like I did you, though, seeing how he has Priya, but you don’t have anyone. So I think this is good for you, Nathan.”
“What’s good for me?”
“You having a crush.”
I didn’t say anything back to him because he was right, and that sort of pissed me off a good amount. I did have a crush on Avery. How could I not? She was everything I loved about her when we were kids, but only now she have more fire. More passion. More bite.
There was no getting around the fact that my heart felt indescribable happiness whenever she came near me. But the messed-up thing about said crush was the fact that nothing would ever come from it. There was no way in hell she would ever crush on me back.
And that realization?
Crushing.
21
AVERY
For the next few days, I woke up in Nathan Pierce’s home, dazed and confused at how my life turned out the way it’d been. Luckily, Nathan wasn’t turning out to be the worst roommate in the world, and being on Honey Farms was a unique situation.
As a kid, I sneak over to the farm to visit Nathan. I was pretty sure I fell in love with him right outside the horse stables when he told me he wanted to marry me someday.
It was the same day he fake proposed to me with a RingPop candy, and we licked the thing as we lay in a pile of hay, staring up at the star-drunk sky and making up silly stories about the lives we’d live with one another.
Honey Farms was on over three hundred acres of land. They had a massive number of livestock, apple and pear orchards, a big barn house for celebrations, over fifty employees, and seven homes on the property. Nathan’s mom, Laurelin, told me once that her only goal for the land was to make it a community for her loved ones to live on. So they’d all have a place to call home.
Each Pierce brother built his own house on the land. You could tell a lot about the brothers’ personalities based on the type of home they’d built. Easton’s was a huge mansion-style home with a wraparound porch and a gigantic swimming pool. It looked like a remake of the home Noah built for Allie in The Notebook. Perfectly suitable for a lover boy like Easton. Evan had a rustic log cabin, big enough for him and his daughter, Priya. River and Grant had two houses, side by side, that had a Mediterranean feel to them. The homes were just like the twins—identical.
Even though the brothers all lived on the property, you couldn’t even see their houses from the outskirts based on how they were situated. The family used golf carts to get to each other’s homestead. Laurelin’s farmhouse was at the center of the whole land. Nathan called it the heartbeat of their little community. That was where everyone went when their hearts needed a recharge of love.
My favorite aspect of the land, though?
The baseball diamond that had the best sunsets.
“Welcome back to Honey Farms, Ms. Avery,” Laurelin said as she met me at Nathan’s place a few days after I settled in. Nathan left me a note that morning stating that he was getting up early to get to work, but I was free to explore the farm if I so pleased and that his mom would probably stop by to see me since word got around that I was on the farm.
The air was humid from the rainstorms that passed through, and Laurelin showed up at Nathan’s with a pair of rain boots for me to slip into. I couldn’t help but smile when I saw her. I was always happy to see Laurelin.
Laurelin Pierce was one of the sweetest humans on the planet, and when I was younger, working at the farm, I always remembered her warmth more than anything else. I had a distinct memory of her as a little girl, too. It was right after Mama passed away. Laurelin showed up to our house with a care basket and a few cooked meals for Daddy. She stayed for a few hours, helping out with Willow. She cleaned up the house, too, and trimmed the flowers that people in town sent to our house. Then she came into my room and sat with me for a while.