Chapter Seven

MY LIMBS COULDN’T MOVE. I WAS THOROUGHLY EXHAUSTED and very worried about my peaches. If they weren’t harvested soon, they’d go bad, but no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t get out of bed. Needless to say, I also missed my online class. So, I stayed there for hours, possibly days (I seemed to have lost all concept of time) until someone knocked on the front door. I forced myself to get up and trudged across the house.

I opened the front door a crack, peeping out. Bauer stood there. “What are you doing here?”

“Came to check on you. Make sure you’re doing all right after our time together.”

“Please tell me you aren’t here for more sex.” My body shivered at the thought. I had enough sex to last a lifetime.

“While I would love that. No,” he said with a finger point.

I gave him the once over. He looked perfectly put together and rested, unlike me. “Okay.”

“You look spent.” He ruffled my hair like I was a little kid.

“I feel it. What did you do to me?” I had some wild times with omegas, but they never left me feeling as drained.

“Can I come in? Got doughnuts.” He held up a white paper bag and a cup of coffee.

“I suppose. I’ll have you know a lot of my peaches are probably going bad because of you. My blackberries too. You’re probably also at fault for the soon-to-be death of my cucumbers.”

His mouth dropped open. He appeared truly shocked. “Oh, no.”

“And the list goes on. I can’t miss a day of work, and now I’ve missed … I don’t even know how many.”

“Hey, man, I will help you out any way I can,” he said, stepping into my living room.

If he was offering, I’d take it. “Will you go pick my peaches for me?”

“Yeah, totally.” He handed me the bag and coffee and slid his hands into the back pockets of his jeans, nodding.

“You don’t have to go to work or something?”

“I don’t have anything today. My next gig is in a couple days.”

“Are you a musician?” I collapsed onto the couch, peeping into the bag of doughnuts.

He sat down next to me. “No, model.”

“Really?” I asked, taking a deep inhale. He smelled of the woods and clean laundry. It was an enticing scent.

He quirked up an eyebrow. “Am I not good enough looking?”

“No, it’s just not your everyday career. I think you’re the first model I’ve met.”

“I’m not a runway model or anything. I do print work, and you can do that kind of modeling anywhere.”

“What’s print work?”

“Magazines, advertisements, things like that.”

“Oh, okay. That’s pretty cool.” It was much more exciting than growing produce.

“Now, explain to me how to pick the peaches, the whatever else, and cucumbers, too.”

I gave him the run down, and he stood.

“Aye, aye, Captain,” he said with a salute.