Chapter 1

one

WILL

There was a woman in my oak tree.

Well, technically it was the farm's southern live oak, but seeing as we were on my family's one hundred and ten acres and I'd been climbing that particular tree since I was a kid, it might as well be my oak tree.

Squinting beneath the bill of my ball cap, I peered up between the branches and tried to figure out what the woman was doing. She was draped across a thick branch about twenty feet up. All I could really see was her ass in a pair of dark-wash jeans.

With my hands on my hips, I moved around the base of the tree, trying to get a better look at her through the mess of green leaves. Despite the mild September day, this was one of the trees on the property that didn't display the beautiful fall colors which caused tourists to seek our small North Carolina town in droves. This tree stayed green most of the year. Maybe that was why I'd always liked it so much. It didn't try to impress anyone. It was just there, standing tall and out of the way. You could take it or leave it, but it wasn't going to change for you.

Speaking of out of the way, what was this woman even doing back here? We were on the far edge of the cornfield, not even close to the maze we made available to customers every autumn .

I finally found a break in the branches and got a better visual. She lay across the thick limb on her stomach. One hand was braced on the rough bark of another branch out in front of her face while the other hand clutched her phone in a frantic grip, and she muttered under her breath. She was too high up for me to hear what she mumbled, but her lips were moving a mile a minute.

Now that I'd gotten a good look at the woman, I recognized her. She was a tourist . One of the thousands of visitors who made their way through the front gates of Grandpappy's Farm to buy apples and pumpkins and cider doughnuts, to shoot the apple cannon and go on a hayride, or to find their way through the corn maze and pose with the Blue Ridge Mountains in the distance. She was one of the many who ventured south to enjoy our views and fall foliage. She was part of the double-edged spectacle that infected our small town and contributed to our livelihood.

The woman stuck in my tree was a leafer .

She'd hung around the Bake Shop at Grandpappy's for the past few weeks, I recalled. Usually on a laptop working at a picnic table out front with a mug of something warm and a slice of pumpkin bread. My dog, Carl, liked to work his way beneath her table. She was probably sneaking him table food.

I'd seen her when I stopped in for a coffee in the morning or when I was on my way to and from the office located on the back side of the bakery, usually to deal with any number of issues that arose during a day on my family's farm.

Most tourists came and went once or twice in a season. Not frequent enough to be memorable. Unless they were locals, it was rare to have the same visitor stop in every day for weeks. So, to see someone in front of the Orchard Bake Shop typing away like a romance novelist at a Starbucks was a bit more notable.

Now, though, her blond hair was a little disheveled. There was a leaf stuck in one side. And she wasn't focused on whatever work occupied her from midmorning to midafternoon. She clutched her cell phone like it could magically transport her to the ground.

"Are you alright up there?" I called, figuring I should just go ahead and deal with this problem, too.

My rough voice startled her, and she jolted. I stepped closer on instinct as her abrupt movement jostled her positioning .

Shit .

She emitted a panicked squeak as she tried to correct her balance. Her face went forward, and her ass tilted up even higher in the air. Releasing her phone, she clutched at a nearby branch to steady herself. She finally settled as quiet descended, and we both watched as her phone ping-ponged through the branches before landing with a thud on the grass near the trunk of the tree.

"Shoot," she exclaimed, sounding like a kindergarten teacher.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to scare you. You okay?" My voice was still coarse, so I cleared my throat. It was after two o'clock, and I realized I hadn't spoken to anyone yet today.

Finally, her eyes found mine before going wide.

I shifted a little uneasily. "I'm Will. I work here. Do you need help?"

Her cheeks were flushed pink, but she finally found her voice. "Yeah, I recognize you. If you could help me get down from here, I would really appreciate it. Really, really."

"Okay," I said, flipping my hat around to face backward. "Hang on. I'll come up and walk you through getting down."

"Thank you!" Her voice was high and overly bright. I imagined a perky cat getting stuck in a tree while trying to put on a brave face but couldn't get the image to stick.

Moving to the low branches that made this particular tree ideal for climbing, I tried to remember the last time I'd done this. Probably high school.

When my cousins, Bonnie and Mac, and I had been kids, we'd climbed this tree all the time. The branches were wide and sturdy. It had been fun to play out here. Later, in middle school, I'd come out with Jordan. We'd done stupid shit like racing each other up and down the tree, swinging from branch to branch, and one memorable time, trying to tree surf like Tarzan in the animated film and ending up with a wrist sprain for my best friend.

I tried to recall the handholds and foot placements I'd used in my youth as I quickly made my way up to where the woman was stranded. My shoulder was a little tight from my old injury. I felt the strain as I reached over my head for a branch, but I was all right .

"I'm Becca," she called down. "Sorry, I should have said that when you introduced yourself. I remember seeing you around the farm. I've been here for the past couple of weeks. Mostly at the Orchard Bake Shop. Chloe makes the best pumpkin bread, and Ms. Maggie is just the sweetest."

Ms. Maggie was my mom, and Chloe was the Bake Shop's newest hire. Mom decided to bring her on after Chloe left her asshole husband—and my former high school teammate—back in the spring.

The woman—Becca, apparently—kept up a steady stream of chatter as I moved. Maybe it helped her feel less nervous or calmed her worries. Hell, she'd been talking to herself when I first noticed her dangling thirty feet in the air. It could be that talking was her thing.

God, I hoped not.

"You're probably wondering how I ended up stuck here."

Not really.

Okay, a little.

I was curious why she couldn't handle something any eight-year-old could probably manage.

I hoped we weren't doing that thing that cooking blogs did where you had to wade through years of trauma or helpful life lessons to get to the recipe at the bottom. I hated that shit. I was a "jump to recipe" person every time.

Enthusiastic Becca seemed like someone who liked to take the long way around.

"You see, I've never climbed a tree before."

That had me pausing as I reached for the next branch. Who had never climbed a tree before? She looked like she was in her late twenties, or around my age, so thirty at most.

"I'm from Detroit," she offered helpfully.

"They don't have trees in Detroit?" I grumbled as I fit my boot against the bark and pushed myself higher. I was getting closer. Her legs were probably five feet above me .

Becca chuckled. "Well, they do. But not really where I grew up. And the occasion just never really presented itself."

"Until today," I said, moving to circle the trunk.

She laughed again, the sound surprisingly genuine despite her current circumstances. "Until today. I like to take a little break from my work and go for a walk on the property. I caught sight of this amazing tree." I could hear her patting the bark. "And I thought, why the heck not? Then I started climbing, and with all the leaves, I didn't really notice how high I was. Once I realized the ground was really far away, I got scared. And then I got stuck. I tried to turn around to start back down and lost my balance. That's how I ended up like this."

I assumed "like this" meant awkwardly ass up over a tree limb.

Her jean-clad legs dangled off to one side, and I wondered if she'd been here long enough to lose feeling in her feet. I didn't want her tumbling down to the ground, Plinko-style, the way her phone had. Her cell had a brightly colored hard-shell case on it and was probably fine. I didn't think Becca would make it back to the earth similarly unscathed. If we didn't do this right, she probably had a concussion and a couple of broken bones in her future.

I identified a few sturdy branches that curved around closer to her face and climbed out. I felt like a weird creeper talking to her backside.

"Coming around," I called, not wanting to startle her again.

She turned her head to meet my gaze from this new position, and her features lit, instantly warm and welcoming—like she'd known me her whole life, and we hadn't just met as a result of this whole hostage situation. "You made it! Gosh, that was fast. Thanks for helping me. I really appreciate it. I wasn't sure what I was going to do."

"You had your phone. Were you planning on calling for help?"

She grinned, full pink lips framing even white teeth. Her blue eyes crinkled, and I was shocked again at how friendly this girl was. I was a stranger. Why was she acting like we were friends?

True, I was very out of practice. Sociable was not something I'd ever been. But she was something else. Handing smiles out like she had a Santa sack full of them. Like she wasn't trapped in a tree. Her sheer positivity overwhelmed the worry and fear she had to be experiencing.

"Well, it seems silly now that I'm saying it out loud." Her grin turned sheepish, and pink flooded her cheeks again as she regarded me. "I was googling how to get down out of a tree."

I felt my lips twitch beneath my beard, but I figured I shouldn't laugh at her. I still had to get her out of said tree.

She chuckled a little to herself—at herself—before admitting, "And then I figured if worse came to worst, I could call the fire department. But I really didn't want to cause so much trouble. Seemed even more silly than a cat getting stuck in a tree. A full-grown woman with zero rural life skills." Another bright smile like we were in on a joke together.

My eyes narrowed as I took her in. Was she really this person? Here she was, in the middle of a fairly stressful situation, I'd imagine, and she was acting like a guest on a talk show. Could someone be this guileless and unbothered? Friendly and open?

Or was I just a suspicious bastard? Probably that one.

Her smile slowly wilted on her face the longer I watched her, so I should probably stop fucking staring like a weirdo. What was wrong with me?

Was I so unused to interacting with people that I couldn't manage this situation? I had Jordan, my best friend, who was an extrovert and had forcibly adopted me in elementary school. And now Chloe, since she and Jordan had gotten together over the summer. I occasionally went out and grabbed a beer with Jeremiah, our friend from high school, when he wasn't too busy with his baby and fatherhood. My hometown was fairly small and I knew business owners, local farmers, and just about everybody. And then there was my family. I saw them, like, every day at work.

Clearly, that was not enough human interaction to prepare me for Becca's unexpected warmth and smiles.

I cleared my throat. "I'm going to go back around. Just hold tight for a second. Then I'll guide your feet toward the branch below. "

Carefully moving around to the other side of the tree, I positioned myself slightly below her, with an arm braced on each side, so if she fell, she'd fall into me, and I could . . . break her fall, I guess. Shit, I'd never done this treetop-rescue thing before. Maybe I should have called the men and women at the Kirby Falls Fire Department. Honestly, I didn't think they could get a ladder truck this far onto the property. Either way, I felt better about having me between her and the ground. We'd do it this way so I could guide her lower and lower until we made it safely back to the earth.

"Just shift your weight slowly," I said to the back of her denim-covered thighs, trying to ignore her admittedly nice ass that was right there . "Your legs might have lost feeling depending on how long you've been dangling up here."

"About two hours," she called easily.

My eyes widened, but there wasn't time to question how long she would have stayed stuck before calling for help. She was shifting back as I directed her leg down.

Shit, she was definitely going to be numb.

As soon as her feet touched the bark below, her legs buckled, and her ass pressed against the side of my face.

"Oh no! I'm so sorry!"

I could feel her frantic scrambling, clutching the branch she'd been draped across and trying to get her feet under her to remedy this new predicament, but she would only end up throwing herself out of the tree in her hurry.

Shifting my grip, I wrapped one arm around her thighs and held tight. "It's okay. Just rest here a minute until you can feel your feet again."

"But I'm?—"

"You're not hurting me," I interrupted, rolling my eyes. Having a stranger's ass pressed against the side of my face was awkward as hell, but I was trying to be a gentleman here. My momma would kick my ass if she caught me ogling and enjoying this for even a minute.

Her—God help me—bright white sneakers were wiggling on the branch below us. Every shift of her weight had her backside rubbing against the side of my beard, so I closed my eyes and started thinking about baseball batting averages .

"Okay, I think I'm good. My toes are tingling, but they are definitely still there."

Opening my eyes, I tentatively leaned away. She was supporting herself, and now her ass was just directly in front of my face instead of resting on it.

Fantastic .

"I'm going to move down. Just stay put until you feel me reach for you."

I lowered myself, then placed my hand lightly on her calf to guide her to the next closest branch. Once I had her foot in position, I repeated the step.

We worked carefully and steadily over the next twenty minutes while I ignored Becca's repeated sounds—bright "thank-yous," positive affirmations on our progress, and perky "whoopsies" when her ass made contact with some part of my body.

Finally— fucking finally —my boots touched down on North Carolina soil, and I was able to release the rough bark of the tree and guide her by the waist to the ground below.

Becca turned in my arms. I had a moment to register her incandescent smile before she wrapped her arms around my shoulders and hugged me hard.

Alarmed, I left my own arms out like I was getting mugged as her tiny frame clung to me. She mumbled into the pale blue plaid of the flannel covering my chest, "Thank you so much. You saved my life. I don't know how I can ever repay you."

"You would have been fine." I patted her back stiffly to indicate that the hug should end soon.

She finally released me and stepped back. The pink was back in her cheeks, and she hurriedly reached up and tucked her hair behind her ears with nervous, bark-scratched hands. The leaf stuck in her blond waves dislodged and floated to the ground. She watched it and let out a nervous little chuckle. "Sorry. I got overwhelmed."

I watched her warily. "It's okay. I'm glad you're not hurt."

Becca smiled. "Right? That would have been a horrible headline. City Girl Sightseer Plummets to Her Death at Local Apple Farm . Probably be really bad for business." Another awkward chuckle .

God, she was so—and I hated to admit this—cute. She was just so fucking adorable. This girl with her ready smile, her warm demeanor, ridiculous "whoopsies," blushing awkwardness, and that memorable ass.

One corner of my mouth kicked up. "It's September in the mountains. I don't think one untimely death would discourage all those tourists."

Her grin turned triumphant that I'd played along. Something that I kept wound up tight in my chest loosened the smallest fraction at the sight. And I felt all the more uneasy as a result.

"I probably would have taken out every branch on my way down and killed that poor tree," she said, gazing back lovingly at the thing that had held her captive for the past several hours.

I shook my head and allowed my grin to stretch wide while her attention was elsewhere.

Becca turned to face me, and I thought she might have caught the tail end of my amusement because her blue eyes got impossibly brighter.

Reaching up, I spun my hat back around so the bill rested low over my forehead. "That tree has been there for a hundred years. It probably would have survived. You, on the other hand . . . "

Making her pretty eyes go wide, she filled in the blank with a handclap. "Splat."

I could feel my lips twitching at the corners.

"Seriously, thank you for your help, Will."

I nodded and took a step back. I couldn't even remember what I'd been on my way to do. Something up at the barn. Right, getting the forklift to move the pallets of apples tonight after closing.

"I'll let you get back to work," she said. "I know how to get back to the Bake Shop." She threw a thumb over her shoulder in the direction of the Pisgah National Forest and absolutely nothing else.

Squinting, I pointed my finger in the actual direction of the Bake Shop.

"Right." She laughed and repositioned her thumb.

I nodded again, like an idiot. "I'll see you around. "

"Yeah." She grinned, rushing to add, "But not in any trees."

"Good," I said, nodding one more time to ensure I was inducted into the moron bobblehead hall of fame. Then I turned and strode off in the direction of the barn, away from friendly blond women and whatever the hell that had been.