Free Fall Into His Kiss by Jenny Schwartz Page B

pie, too, at the diner. She always liked cherry pie.”
    “Mabel, the man has frozen meals. He can’t go having coffee.” Rachel rolled her eyes, offering Wyatt a means of escape.
    “I’ve got a cooler in my pickup. The food’ll be fine in there…unless you’re busy?”
    And if Rachel said she was, there stood Mabel, ready to pounce and remind everyone that Rachel was out of work, fired from her New York job, slinking home with her tail between her legs. “Coffee sounds good.”
     
     
    “Sorry.” Wyatt nudged Rachel’s knee under the diner’s narrow table, for the third time. “I’ve got long legs.”
    “So have I.”
    “I noticed.” Heck, he hadn’t meant to say that out loud. He hid his red face, or part of it, behind his coffee mug.
    Rachel took pity on him, or else she really wanted to get this done and escape. “Tell me about the photo shoot. When is it and did they give you a brief?”
    “It’s in eight days, next Thursday.”
    She nodded, sipping coffee.
    “I didn’t get a brief or anything, just Mikal saying to cozy up the house and hide Jezebel.”
    “Jezebel?”
    “My donkey. No one wanted her at the auction and I thought she’d be company for my horse, Hercules. She is; company, that is. But she’s also evil-tempered with strangers.”
    “Still, in the distance, donkeys are cute and a bit different.” Clear gray eyes looked straight at him. “Different is good, but not too different. You need to show everyone what they dream country living is like and add a few quirky touches. Quirky because you’re an artist.”
    “I’m not quirky.”
    She grinned at him. “We’ll pretend.”
    Her smile punched him in the solar plexus, knocking the air out of him. It was so unexpected, radiant and hinting at complicity. We’ll pretend. “So, you’ll help me?” he managed.
    “Like Mabel is giving either of us a choice.” But Rachel didn’t sound annoyed. “I’ll come and see your house, tomorrow, if that works for you?”
    He nodded fervently. “Any time.”
    “Nine o’clock. We can walk around, I’ll get a sense of things, and sketch you some ideas. If you like them, we’re in business.”
    “Thank you.”
    “No problem.” She stood, gathering up her shopping bags.
    “Do you need my address?” He patted his pockets, hoping for a magically-appearing pencil.
    “Gramps will know it. I’ll ask him.”
    Wyatt smiled. Alan Cruft was a good man and a good forester. “Yeah. He’ll know it.”
    He was still standing when the door closed behind Rachel. He let out a huge breath and crashed back into his chair. Then his shoulders jerked. “Pie! I forgot to buy her pie.”

Chapter 2
     
    Gramps had known Wyatt’s address, and he’d given his approval of the man and Rachel’s new project, along with directions. So as she slowed for the turn into Atfield Road, she also turned over what she’d learned of her new client.
    Wyatt Allenjo was twenty eight, single, well-respected, good with wood and a hard worker. He’d also stepped up two years ago, coming home from a trip to Los Angeles with a recently discovered teenage half-brother courtesy of their wandering, no-good father. According to Gramps, the kid had graduated from surly and rebellious into a decent enough young man who’d recently entered the marines.
    Rachel thought that said good things about Wyatt.
    And thinking about Wyatt and the photo shoot took her mind off her troubles. She needed to look for work, but she was wary. Once bitten, twice shy. Could she work in an industry where standing your ground got you fired? Should she try for a government job? Where should she work? She had contacts in New York, but looking around the woods, seeing the leaves just beginning to turn color with the cool weather, did she want to return to the Big Apple?
    She’d missed Texas, missed the space and freedom, and her family.
    “Oops.” She almost over-shot Wyatt’s driveway. There was only a faded green mailbox to mark it. “He