Page 22 of Taken By Storm

It wasn’t that he didn’t want to talk to his brothers about Kasi. Truth was, he and his six brothers were best friends, and there was very little he didn’t share with them, including the big old farmhouse on their family farm.

Four generations of the Storm family had called Stormy Weather Farm home, starting with Levi’s great-grandparents, who’d bought the two-hundred-plus acres at the beginning of the twentieth century. They’d built a farmhouse—the one Levi’s parents now lived in and operated as a B&B—and planted an orchard of apple trees. Granddaddy Lloyd, their only son, had built the second farmhouse a little way down the lane from his parents’ place shortly after he and his wife, Grandma Sheila, married.

Upon his parents’ passing, it was Granddaddy who’d had the vision of starting a winery, so he’d chopped down most of the apple trees and planted the vineyard. Grandma and Granddaddy had two sons, Rex and Ronnie, and when Levi’s dad, Rex, married his mom, Claire, they moved into the original farmhouse that had been vacant for several years. When the second son, Ronnie, married Diana, a third farmhouse was built, and that was the one Levi and his brothers shared, each of them moving in after they graduated from high school.

Sadly, Ronnie and Diana had been killed in a car accident eighteen years earlier, after which their four young daughters—Lucy, Mila, Nora, and Remi—had moved in with Grandma and Granddaddy. Lucy, the oldest, had only been ten at the time. After their grandparents had passed, the girls remained in that farmhouse.

Levi’s mom claimed that sometimes it felt like all the Storms did was play musical chairs with the three houses, and Levi had to admit she made a good point. With the exception of his parents, everyone else had house-swapped at some point in their lives.

Remi had taken to calling the home he shared with his brothers the Frat House, and considering there were seven single men living there, it not only fit but stuck.

Once Levi had finished his chores at Stormy Weather Farm, he’d headed inside, fired up his computer, and started fiddling with his personal work schedule, trying to carve in some time each day to help Kasi. He didn’t have a problem working a few extra hours every day if it meant lightening her load. The problem was, harvest time had started. Currently there were only a couple varieties of grapes ready to be picked, but the others weren’t far behind. Which meant he was going to have to put a big dent in Kasi’s honey-do list in the two weeks before September arrived, when it would be all hands on deck in the vineyard.

Once he’d realized how short his time was, his smile was less prevalent as he considered what Kasi’s life had been like since her mother’s passing. He could kick his own ass for not asking sooner if she needed help. He’d seen the dark circles under her eyes, noticed the lost weight, but he’d chalked it up to grief, not exhaustion.

He should have asked.

Not that it would have changed a damn thing. He knew Kasi well enough to realize if hehadasked, she would have put on a fake smile and reassured him everything was fine. He’d never noticed her stubborn streak before yesterday, but that was because he’d been a blind fucking idiot, failing to recognize what was standing right in front of him.

Those days were over.

When Levi stepped into the stand, Kasi had her back to him, combining two baskets of green beans into one. The empty one would be taken back to the farmhouse and filled with today’s yield by the Riley brothers. As he always arrived just before quitting time, he was somewhat familiar with her process for closing.

“Did you save me a pie?” He walked over to take the now-empty basket from her to add to the pile she’d already made.

Kasi grinned, gesturing at the empty pastry table. “Sorry. Sold out.”

Levi reached for her, wrapping his arms around her waist. “What about the one you always hold back for me?”

Kasi’s eyes widened. “You knew about that?”

Levi chuckled. “Not until now. Though I’ll admit, I wondered over the years. More than a few times, one relative or another would try to save me a trip down here, letting me know they’d been by the stand and you were sold out of pies.”

“So why did you still come?”

“A couple times, I didn’t. Then one day, I was running into town anyway and thought I’d take a chance. Sure enough, there was a pie. After that, I came even after the warnings and the funny thing was, every time I showed up, there was always just one pie left, sitting there like it was waiting for me.”

Kasi blushed slightly, her pink cheeks so adorable, he couldn’t resist stroking one with the back of his knuckles. “You’re one of my best customers and I, um…well…” she stammered, clearly embarrassed.

Levi bent down and gave her a kiss on the cheek. “Thank you, little bear,” he murmured, touched by her thinking of him, even though it drove home how little he’d been paying attention to her. “You ’bout ready to go?”

He walked to the counter and caught sight of a spreadsheet with numbers. It looked like a budget. Levi sighed. In addition to doing all the chores, it appeared Kasi had taken on the responsibility of paying the bills. Not that he should be surprised by that. Just bothered that there didn’t seem to be an end to all the things that had fallen to her after her mother’s death.

“Need help crunching numbers? I’ve got mad calculator skills,” he said, joking.

His teasing felt less funny when Kasi quickly grabbed the ledger and closed it. “Nope. All good.”

Two days in, and he was getting pretty good at recognizing when Kasi wasn’t being honest. Her eyes darted to the left, the pitch of her voice rose an octave, and she plastered on a too-bright smile.

“You sure?”

She nodded, turning away to retrieve something from behind the counter. He started to call her on her lie, but then she stood up with a peach pie in her hands. And not just any peach pie. The best one. He knew that because he’d watched her assemble it, fully aware the one with the lattice top had just a little bit more fruit in it than the others.

So she hadn’t just been saving him a pie each day. But the best ones.

Levi slid a twenty into her open cash box, winking at her as he said, “Keep the change.”

Her responding giggle was the sweetest thing he’d ever heard.

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