Stay A Little Longer

Chapter 1-2

“He’s gorgeous! Those big brown eyes and all that glossy red hair.” Ari Reynolds-Bohannon pressed both hands to her heart and fell back against the front seat of the truck with a gusty and dramatic sigh. “I’m in love.”

Logan Maxwell suppressed a sigh of his own, grateful the girl was talking about the latest gelding to be added to his stable instead of Sebastian, his new stable master. At fourteen, that could go either way. Better he encourage the horse crazy over the boy crazy. “Chestnut. That coat color is called chestnut.”

“Chestnut,” Ari repeated.

Logan’s muscles ached, reminding him he’d been in the fields since dawn and awake with livestock an hour before that. Spring planting was in full swing around the farm, and his days were filling up. But he’d been carving out time to teach Ari to ride in exchange for her help around the barn with the horses. She had the makings of a good little equestrian, and he got a kick out of her enthusiasm. So he dug up a grin as she continued to chatter on about the horse’s many virtues.

“He’s gonna need a barn name, you know. Think you can come up with one?”

“Me? Really?”

“Sure.” If the animal worked out like he hoped, he’d be Ari’s new mount. Not that he was telling her that yet.

“That’d be awesome! I’ll make a list.”

Of course she would. He chuckled. “You do that.”

“Can I come out again tomorrow?”

“That’s something I wanted to talk to you about. You know we’re about to be hitting the real busy season around the farm. I’m gonna be tied up a lot more as we get closer to harvest.”

Ari’s face fell. “Oh. Well, I understand. Maybe we can pick back up in the fall?”

That instant acceptance of disappointment just killed him. A former foster kid, Ari had been adopted just before Christmas by his friend Pru and her husband, Flynn. They were a devoted, stable family, who’d gone through hell to make sure the girl didn’t get sent back into the system after the death of her foster mother—Pru’s own mom, Joan, who’d been taking in foster kids for twenty-five years. Not for the first time, Logan wondered what Ari’s life had been like before she came into the Reynolds family.

“No, that’s not what I meant. I was thinking, if it’s okay with your parents, you could maybe spend a little more time at the farm this summer. Take a bit more responsibility with the horses.”

The teenager’s eyes went round. “Really? What about Sebastian?”

The ex-Army ranger was technically the one in charge of the horses. Which was to say, he lived in a little cabin on the farm and managed the daily feeding, care, and training of the half-dozen rescue animals Logan had somehow acquired simply because there’d been a need and he had an empty barn. But that number would probably be rising soon, and they’d need more able bodies to do all the work.

“He could use a hand, and mine will be full. You’ve proved yourself capable and a quick learner.”

Ari clasped her hands and widened those big brown eyes in an expression that reminded Logan of his baby sister, Laurel. “Will you come in and talk to Mom and Dad about it? Please?”

He really hadn’t had the time to drive all the way into Eden’s Ridge to drop her off. The tractor had crapped out again, and if he didn’t get the damned thing running for tomorrow, he wouldn’t get the north field plowed and the broccoli seedlings in the ground before the rain hit this weekend. He’d had enough trouble working around the extra wet spring to get seedlings planted. But Pru had texted that something had come up and begged. Since riding lessons for Ari had been his idea in the first place, here they were, piled in his truck and nearly to her house. If he went in, he’d get drawn into a visit because that’s how life went in the south. But hell if he could resist that face. He needed a break anyway. It was getting on toward dinner time, and he was optimistic enough to hope he’d score an invite so he didn’t have to scrounge for his own supper tonight. Cooking took energy he didn’t have.

“Yeah, all right.”

“Yes!” She pumped her fist and he swallowed his chuckle. This kid was a trip.

The late April sun still rode high, slanting through the trees to dapple the big Victorian house that Pru and her sisters had turned into a bed and breakfast last year. The Misfit Inn nestled among the trees, perched on top of a bluff overlooking the Great Smoky Mountains. Off to one side, work trucks surrounded the converted barn that now housed the day spa. He wasn’t sure exactly what they were doing over there, but the Reynolds sisters were nothing if not ambitious.

Parking in the circular drive, Logan climbed out of the truck, trailing Ari up the steps and following her through the front door without preamble. She made a beeline for the kitchen, toward the babble of voices that made it clear the gang was all here. He wondered if he was inadvertently interrupting a family meeting.

“Athena!” Ari’s joyful squeal had Logan’s step faltering.

But it was too late to hide. He’d already made it to the doorway.

The sight of her was a sucker punch, as it always was. Even with lines of fatigue bracketing her eyes—typical after the full day of travel it usually took her to get here from Chicago—she was the female equivalent of a shot of top shelf tequila. Her long brown hair was caught back in a tail that trailed over one shoulder. The mouth he was used to seeing curled in a sardonic smile bowed up as Ari grabbed her in an enthusiastic hug, but she didn’t quite pull it off. There was something, some c***k in her usual armor that had his curiosity piqued. Athena wasn’t one to show weakness of any kind, and it had him wondering what that vulnerability was about.

Athena wrinkled her nose. “You smell like horse.”

“That’s because I’ve been grooming them all afternoon.” Beaming, Ari swung around. “Look who’s here, Logan!”

Athena’s gaze snapped up, catching sight of him in the doorway. In an instant, she pokered up. “Hey Logan.”

“Hey.”

Everybody started greeting him at once, but he was only half paying attention because Athena’s gray eyes were still on him and he couldn’t look away. Unbidden, his mind went to her sister Kennedy’s wedding last summer, when he’d met those eyes across the crowded reception. Her smile then had been flirtatious and playful, and the tension between them had been thick enough to strum, even from twenty feet away. Giving in to that electric need had led to the best night of his life. But that was all it had been. One night. And a handful of phone calls that made them…not quite friends but more than a simple wedding hookup. It had ended there, in that liminal space. Her life was in Chicago and by the time he’d seen her again at Christmas, she’d been attached to someone else, so his longing for a repeat performance had come to nothing. And that was for the best. He didn’t have time for…anything.

But as he stood at the edge of the big kitchen, with several of her family members and the big farmhouse table between them, he realized the electricity was still there, humming between them. He wished he’d taken the time for more than just changing out of his muddy boots before coming over here.

“Didn’t expect to see you here.” Logan Maxwell. Farmer and master of understatement.

If Athena was as affected as he, she didn’t show it. “The restaurant is under renovation, and I’ve got some time off, so I drove home with the idea that I’d help out with the inn. With Pru getting close to her third trimester, I didn’t figure y’all would turn down some extra hands.”

Pru rubbed a hand over her pronounced baby bump. “You are not wrong.”

“How long can you stay?” Ari demanded, draping an arm around her shoulders.

In the beat of hesitation, as she wrapped an arm around her niece’s waist, Logan saw Athena reach for something other than the truth. “Not sure, exactly. At least a couple of weeks. Probably longer. Renovations are so uncertain.”

“You’ve got that right,” Pru agreed. “You probably saw all the trucks. Porter’s been trying to work on the expansion for the spa around appointment times, and it’s driving me absolutely batty.”

As conversation turned to construction issues, Logan wondered about the lengthy stay and whether Athena’s boyfriend had likewise chosen to come to Tennessee during the renovation. He had something to do with Olympus, right? There was no sign of him in the kitchen, no other luggage piled in the corner but her single suitcase. What did that mean? Was he still in the picture? It wasn’t like he could ask in front of this audience.

“—stay for dinner?”

Logan blinked, realizing Pru was talking to him and he hadn’t been paying a damned bit of attention. “Sorry?”

“You should stay for dinner.”

“Xander will be here,” Kennedy added, referring to her husband and Logan’s best friend.

“Do stick around and help me balance out all the estrogen,” Flynn added. Pru shot her husband a mock glare, to which the Irishman responded with a smacking kiss and a spate of Gaelic that had her cheeks going pink.

For a moment, Logan considered it. He’d come hoping for food, and if he stayed, he might actually find out what he wanted to know. But what purpose would that serve? Even if Athena was single again, she’d never give up Olympus and he’d never give up his land. There’d be no picking up where they left off that hot summer night. And that was for the best because he wouldn’t want to stop with just one more taste. So better to let that attraction fade with time and distance.

“I really can’t. I’ve got a date with a recalcitrant tractor.”

Ari’s lip instantly rolled out in a pout.

Logan couldn’t stop himself from glancing at Athena to see her reaction. Not disappointment. Not relief. Maybe the pull was one-sided after all this time.

The weight of Pru’s speculative gaze made him want to twitch. Through circumstances he didn’t quite know the details of, she knew about his night with Athena. She’d kept the secret as a bit of quid pro quo because of the shenanigans she’d gotten up to with Flynn that night and had said no more about it. But he knew she thought of it every time he and Athena were in the same room.

Ignoring the look, Logan focused on the reason he’d come inside in the first place. “I really just stopped in to ask if it’d be okay if Ari did some more work on the farm this summer, with the horses. If you can spare her from the inn, that is.”

“Please, Mom? Please, please, please, please, pleeeeeeease?”

“It’d be minimum wage and more riding lessons for payment.”

“I’d get paid?” Those eyes lit up again. “This just gets better and better.”

“We’ll talk about it,” Pru promised.

Logan just nodded and took a step back. “I’m gonna leave y’all to visit. I need to get on back to work.” He was already turning away, as he looked back at Athena. “Welcome home.”

She inclined her head. “It was good to see you, Logan.”

Was it?

He told himself again that it didn’t matter as he lifted his hand in a wave and walked away. But he knew he’d be puzzling over the mystery of Athena Reynolds the whole time he fought with that damned tractor.