Nuts (Hudson Valley, #1)(86)

She looked up to find Clara and me staring at her. She’d said all of this in one breath, by the way. “What?”

Silence. Then, “Do their ears pop?” Clara repeated.

“Oh please, like you’ve never wondered that!”

“Nat, I can honestly tell you, I have never in my life wondered about that,” I said, hand on my chest.

“Oh, so Leo never made you nearly pass out? No wonder you hightailed it out of there,” Natalie said in sympathy.

“No, no, that’s not at all what I said. Leo is—”

“Is Leo the farmer she told me about?” Clara asked Natalie, who nodded.

“—amazing in bed. Incredibly amazing. No complaints there. But—”

“Yep, Farmer Leo Maxwell, who apparently paid more attention to his ee-eye-ee-eye instead of making her scream the more important oh!” Natalie replied, looking at Clara in a conspiratorial way.

“That’s not true! Leo made me very oh, all the time with the oh, nonstop ohs, and—”

“Wait wait wait, did you say Leo Maxwell? The farmer is Leo Maxwell? Blond guy? Early thirties? Drop-dead sex on a silo?” Clara asked, fumbling for her phone.

“Yes, he’s blond, and we didn’t have sex on a silo, we didn’t even have sex in the silo, but we were in a silo when he licked my spine and—”

Natalie interjected, “Atta boy, Leo! Did he keep going and lick your—”

“Okay, shut up. Is this your Leo?” Clara asked, shoving her phone in my face.

Oh yeah. That was my Leo. The picture showed a more City Leo than I was used to seeing, but even in this grainy picture you could see the gorgeous. Climbing out of a limo, wearing a black suit tailored perfectly to his strong, lean frame. Striking green eyes that were sharp, calculating, assessing. A little hard? I swiped to the next image. Another City Leo pic, this one in front of a publicity backdrop on some red carpet. Maybe some fund-raiser? This time he was dressed in a gray suit, looking all Billionaire Boys Club and Your Penthouse or Mine?

But while I could appreciate these pictures, in my mind’s eye he’d always be dressed in well-worn jeans, a vintage concert tee, two weeks’ worth of scruffy beard that felt incredible on the soft skin between my thighs, and kind green eyes. An easy grin. Peaceful and happy and so content in his world. City Leo was obviously good-looking, but I preferred Country Leo.

I came back to the conversation, where Natalie and Clara were talking animatedly.

“So wait, he left New York when—”

“Exactly, after the baby was born. She disappeared, and then he all but disappeared. He was gone, no parties, no trips—he sank everything he had into making that farm his life,” Clara said.

I blinked. “Okay, wait. So you guys both knew Leo?” I asked, confused.

“Knew him, no. Knew of him, of course. I just never put two and two together that Leo Maxwell was your Farmer Leo,” Natalie said, lying back on the floor and kicking her legs up in the air. “There was no one in this town who didn’t know Leo Maxwell. Everyone was trying to land that guy—what a f*cking catch!”

“Seriously, Roxie, he was a young Mr. Big. Until he met Melissa. And once she sank her claws into him, that was it. No one ever really knew what happened; just that they were together, she was pregnant, there was a rumor they were getting married, then they weren’t together, and then once the baby was born he took his daughter and headed upstate. She bounced around town for a while, but eventually took off for Europe. I think she married some Russian guy. No idea what happened between her and Leo, though. It was just . . . over.”

I knew what had happened. Leo had told me the story. And I think some of the people in Bailey Falls knew what happened, or had guessed. Because no one really ever talked about Polly. Not that she was a secret, but they were . . .

Protective? Of both of them?

Yeah. Maybe. Small town, taking care of their own.

No wonder Leo wanted his daughter to be a country mouse.

“Please tell me you and Leo never dated,” I said, looking at Natalie.

“No, I never met him. Though I probably would have hit that, if I had. Hey, how weird would that be?” She laughed, rolling onto her side and looking at me carefully. “If I’d banged the guy you were in love with.”

“Hey, how weird would that be if I killed you until you were dead?” I replied.

Natalie and Clara dissolved into giggles, but all I could think about was Leo.

And the fact that when she called him the man I was in love with, I hadn’t corrected her.

Shit.



That night something specific kept me awake instead of the usual insomnia. I Googled Leo after the conversation with the girls, and I was swiping away at two in the morning, looking at a slice of his life that’d been captured by publicity photos.

This was a Leo I didn’t know. He seemed cool, more detached, very blue blood. I saw nothing of the Leo I knew.

Who would rather be riding in an open Jeep than in a town car. Who would rather have his hands full of sweet-smelling earth than martinis. Who was made happy by wet-with-morning-dew sugar snap peas. Who was caring sweet kind loving tender gasping panting moaning groaning rocking thrusting slipping sliding living life to the fullest, because it was a life he’d created exactly the way he wanted, and he wouldn’t live for anyone other than his daughter.