That Holiday Feeling (Virgin River #8)(72)

“You don’t have to entertain me, Nate.”

“Maybe I’m entertaining myself. I don’t have much company out here.”

The moment they had the coffee poured Annie remembered. “Damn,” she said. “Don’t move. I have something for you.” She dashed out the garage door to her car, retrieved the cookies and brought them in. In typical country fashion, they were arranged on a clear, plastic plate with plastic wrap covering them. “For you,” she said. “They should be warm, but now they’re nearly frozen. My mother insisted.”

“She baked them for me?” he asked, surprised, as he peeled off the wrap and helped himself.

“Well, kind of.”

“Kind of?”

“We baked together today. All day. We do that for the holidays. Stuff for the freezer, gifts for neighbors and for my girls at the shop. We bake on my days off for weeks right up to Christmas.”

“You bake?” he asked, looking mesmerized, maybe shocked.

She smirked. “All farm girls bake. I also know how to quilt, garden, put up preserves and chop the head off a chicken. I couldn’t butcher a cow by myself, but I know how it’s done and I’ve helped.”

“Wow.”

She was not flattered by his response. She’d hardly led a glamorous life and she’d much rather have told him she’d gone to boarding school in Switzerland and dressage training in England. “I bet I remind you of your mother, huh?”

He chuckled. “Not exactly. Do you fish? Hunt?”

“I’ve been fishing and hunting, but I prefer the farm. Well, I shot a mountain lion once, but that was a long time ago and I wasn’t hunting. The little bastard was after my mother’s chickens, and the boys had already moved away, so I—”

“How old were you?” he asked.

She shrugged. “I don’t know—thirteen or fourteen. But I’m not crazy about hunting. I like to ride. I miss the cows. I loved the calving. Ice cream made from fresh cream. Warm eggs, right out from under the chicken. I have more 4-H ribbons than anyone in my family. Erasmus, that mean old bull? He’s mine. Blue ribbon—state fair. I was fifteen when he came along—he’s an old guy now, and the father of hundreds. I have a green thumb like my mother—I can stick anything in the ground and it grows. I once grew a rock bush.” He threw her a shocked expression and she rolled her eyes. He recovered. “Just one of those plain old farm girls. Size-ten boot and taller than all the boys till I was a senior in high school. My dad calls me solid. Steady. Not the kind of girl men are drawn to. I attract…puppies. That’s what.”

He smiled hugely, showing her his bright white teeth and that maddening dimple. “Is that a fact?”

“Not your type, certainly. I’ve never had a string bikini. I wouldn’t know what to do with one. Floss your teeth? Is that what you do?”

He laughed. “There are sexier things than string bikinis,” he said.

“Really?” she asked. “The minute I heard you describe being lost in the middle of a hundred string bikinis, I got a picture in my mind that I haven’t been able to get rid of. It’s like having a bad song stuck in your head.”

“Oh, Jesus, don’t you just have a giant bug up your ass,” he said, amused.

“I have no idea what you mean,” she said, though she knew exactly. She was a terrible liar. “I didn’t even know you weren’t your father, you know. I had no idea you were the vet until you showed up at Jack’s. And today while we were baking, my folks told me that when you came up here to take over the practice, they’d talked about nothing else for months. I guess you brought your girlfriend with you. A beautiful, fancy, Hollywood woman.”

Shock widened his mouth and eyes. “Get outta here,” he said. Then he erupted into laughter. “Is that what they’re saying?”

A little embarrassed, she shrugged. “I don’t know that anyone’s saying anything anymore, and I don’t know who besides my folks saw it that way.”

He laughed for a long time, finally getting himself under control. “Okay, look. She was my fiancée, okay? But it was my mistake, bringing her up here, because she was far too young. I must have been out of my mind. She wasn’t ready to get married. Thank God. And she wasn’t a Hollywood woman, although she really wanted to be. Maybe she is by now, for all I know. Susanna was from Van Nuys. The only thing she knew about horses was that they have four legs and big teeth. She was twenty-four to my twenty-nine, had never lived in a small town and really didn’t want to.”

“And thin,” Annie added. “Very thin.”

He put his hands in his pockets, rocked back on his heels, lifted expressive dark brows and with a grin he said, “Well, not all over.”

“Oh, that’s disgusting,” she returned, disapproval sounding loud.

“Well, it’s not nice to talk meanly about past girlfriends.”

“I bet she looked great in a string bikini,” Annie said with a snort.

“Just unbelievable,” he said, clearly taunting her. “Now, why would you be so jealous? You don’t even know poor, thin Susanna. For all you know, she’s a sweet, caring, genuine person and I was horrible to her.” And he said all this with a sly smile.