Page 15 of Love You Always

He almost…almostsmiles. He removes his hands slowly and watches to make sure I don’t tip over. I hold my arms out to the sides as though I’m balancing on a tightrope to prove I’m fine.

“See? Not falling.”

He gives me a once-over to assess the veracity of my words. His eyes roam over the length of me the way men have been doing for as long as I can remember. It used to make me feel like an object, but now I know it’s more of a reflexive response than anything else and I mostly ignore it. But when Archer does it, I feel a twinge of something I haven’t felt in a long time—his gaze feels like a soft caress, and I have the urge for his eyes to linger a bit longer. Each part of my body lights up like a heat-seeking missile as appreciation fills his eyes.

Then he looks down at my feet and his brow furrows.

“Why are you not wearing shoes?”

“I thought I’d be stomping in a vat of grapes like the oldI Love Lucyepisode.” I grin at my classic TV reference.

“Great, you’re a comedian.” His eyes shoot to mine accusingly.

“Fine. I left them in the car. They were…annoying, and I’m more of a barefoot gal anyway.”

He shakes his head. “I don’t care who you are. You can’t go in the vineyards barefoot. Hang on.”

Breaking into a jog, he sweeps past me, and I watch the layer of dust swirl behind him as he goes back to the barn. Looking down, I lift the hem of my pant legs off the ground and fan themaround my ankles to remove some of the same dust, which forms a small cloud around them.

A moment later, Archer comes jogging toward me with the ease of a natural born athlete, carrying a pair of tall brown boots in one hand and a notebook in the other. Bending down, he puts a knee of his suit pants on the dusty ground and helps me into each boot, having me balance a hand on his shoulder. “Can’t have you hurting your feet. Too pretty for that.” The irritable grunt of words almost masks their kindness, but not quite. His stern gaze tells me to do as I’m told. I feel like he wants to cling to his grouchy persona, but he can’t help being kind.

Bending down, I slip a foot into each boot, which has a soft fleece lining that’s so much more comfortable than the ground. Not that I want to give this grump the satisfaction of being right. I nod at him and mutter a quiet “thank you.” He responds with something resembling a grunt and starts walking again, a tad slower this time.

With the pain of going barefoot no longer an issue, all of my sensory attention focuses on our surroundings. The sweet smell of lavender bushes. The soft, easy chirp of birds perching high in the trees. The soft glimmer of the sun kissing vine after vine of grape leaves. A gentle breeze stirring up my insides just as it stirs the air around us. “I could live in a place like this.” The thought surprises me when it hits because it’s the antithesis of my city life, busy with traffic, packed with events and constant peopling.

“It’s not all it’s cracked up to be.” Archer’s grumbled words make me realize I uttered the thought out loud.

“What?”

He shakes his head and grunts out a breath. “Lemme guess, you think farm-to-table is a cool trend. You only cook what grows within sixty miles of your house because some earth-mother podcaster told you to drink organically sourced coconut water made with love?”

The words tumble out in such unstoppable succession thateven Archer seems surprised to hear all he has to say. Even though he’s snarling like he eats city girls like me for breakfast on the daily, I know that very little of what he’s just said has anything to do with me personally. How can it? He doesn’t even know me.

This guy has a chip on his shoulder the size of an iceberg. I have no idea where it came from, but despite his jerkiness, I want to know.

“Why are you so cynical?” I strive to keep up with him, but it’s hard. I can’t get a clear view of his face.

“Cynical? Naw, that’s not it.”

“What, then?”

He shrugs dismissively like I couldn’t possibly understand. I think I catch an eye roll but he’s still moving too fast for me to know for sure.

“Go ahead. You ranted at me like I’m the devil, so at least tell me what bug crawled up your pants to make you so crabby.”

“You make me crabby.”

“Interesting.”

“No. Verynotinteresting.”

Now it’s my turn to shrug. “Seems interesting to me that I can put you in a mood when you barely know me. I don’t think I’ve got a special talent for it. Then again, there are plenty of people who don’t like me.” My hollow laugh is supposed to sound like I don’t care what people think.

“I’m not crying for you, rom-com princess.”

I shoot him a side-eye. “Thought you didn’t know who I was.”

A muscle in his jaw flinches and he blinks. It’s not the first time someone has made an extra effort to play it cool around me, going as far as to talk to everyone else in a group I’m standing in and ignore me. I usually feel bad for people who do this, so worried about gawking at a celebrity that they border on rude.

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