Kissing Her Crush (14 page)

Did that mean they couldn’t even be work friends?

The next two days at the lab, Natalie barely said a word to him and refused to speak to him alone. He wanted to explain, to apologize and make things right between them. He’d grown used to the awesome feeling he got when they’d catch each other’s glances, share a quick look when someone mentioned the
redistributed
chocolate molds, or how she’d roll her eyes when she acted like she was annoyed with him for asking a question.

She was all business now, and he didn’t like that one bit.

Chapter Twelve

“I
vy has kindly volunteered to oversee production of the molds tonight and tomorrow,” Natalie said. “So we won’t meet back here until Tuesday morning. Everyone cool with that?”

She didn’t bother looking at Luke, but she heard him clicking his pen. She hadn’t seen him outside his lab coat in two days, which helped keep her lustful thoughts at a distance. He’d also stopped contributing to the discussions. Sometimes she wouldn’t hear him speak for hours. When he would chime in, the sound of his voice made her heart do that skip thing she liked. And then she’d yell inside her head that her heart had no business skipping over any part of Luke.

He’d obviously never understand her or her position or how important this trial was. So why bother with the façade of friendship?

She was the last to hang up her lab coat and was halfway across the parking lot when Luke stepped into her path.

“Do you have a second?”

Her heart went all skippy-skip. “No. I promised Ivy I’d bring her TexMex.” She gripped her purse strap. “I have to go.”

He stepped in front of her again. “What about later?”

“I’ll be asleep.”

“No, you won’t. You’ll be going over the project in your head. You won’t be able to sleep.”

He was right, but she wouldn’t let him charm her by pretending he knew her so well. “Nevertheless, I don’t have time. I’m very busy.” When she tried to walk around him, he blocked her path. She exhaled. “Fine, you wanna talk, I’ll meet you later.”

“Where?”

“I don’t care.” So long as it was somewhere public—lots of people, please. No dark tunnels.

“Phillip Arthur? I’ll buy you a sundae.”

No, you won’t.

“Fine.”

“In two hours?”

“Two hours.” When she confirmed, he finally stepped out of her way. As she started her car, she felt a little guilty. Luke would be waiting a lot longer than two hours for her to show up.

H
er parents’ outdoor back porch was her favorite place on the property. While she sipped her café mocha, she fixated on the
Holden Apple Farm
sign swaying lazily in the morning breeze. Dad really needed to repaint it or make a larger one, even though he spent less and less time actually running the farm, and more time in Hershey or making deliveries.

Consequently, Natalie was out at the farm a lot more. There was always something her parents needed or had forgotten. Who knew what would happen if she wasn’t around to help all the time. Not that she minded, though, not really. Taking care of others was good for her. Right?

“Morning, honey.”

Natalie’s mom joined her on the porch. If anyone belonged in Lancaster County among the green farmlands and winding country roads, it was her mother.

“Morning.” She took another sip of coffee, heavy on the mocha.

“We were surprised you showed up last night.”

“I needed to decompress.”

“You only decompress here when you want to hide.”

She was kind of hiding, but Mom didn’t need to know why. The farm could be a sanctuary sometimes. True, she resented it when she was a teenager and lived so far away from any kind of regular teenager life, but now, she understood its peaceful beauty.

If only Luke could say the same thing about Hershey. But he couldn’t wait to finish the job and go straight back to Philly where he belonged.

He’d never belong in Hershey, let alone in a place like Intercourse. In her wildest fantasies, Natalie could never picture him chilling out on the porch or strolling through their three acres gathering apples to sell at the farmer’s market. No way.

“Is Muff awake?”

Mom looked over her shoulder into the house. “I heard his TV. I think he’s been up for a while.” She sighed and sat beside her at the table. “He had a few good days this week, but yesterday…”

Natalie didn’t need Mom to finish the sentence. For the millionth time in a week, her heart ached triple time for Brandon. This trial had to work. If it didn’t—

She wouldn’t allow her brain to finish the sentence. There was way too much at stake.

Though she’d never admit this to another human being, she wasn’t in complete denial about what Luke had said about her product. Legitimizing the theory of dark chocolate infused with organic anti-depressants was probably a long shot. Maybe it wouldn’t make it onto this year’s clinical trial list, but maybe it could find a home in specialty stores, organic markets, new-age shops…

She flinched at the last thought.
New-age
. Hadn’t that been what she’d mockingly called Luke that first night at the Lounge? Why couldn’t he have been just plain Luke Elliott? Local dude back in town for a few weeks, the boy who’d kissed her in a boarded-up boathouse once, the guy who’d tiptoed in and out of her fantasies since she was thirteen. The grown-up man who made her feel things with a single look through his fogged-up safety glasses.

“What’s the matter, hun?” Mom asked.

“Nothing. Everything.” She exhaled. “I’ve got a lot on my mind. Meanwhile, I think I’m
losing
my mind.”

Her mother put a hand on her shoulder. “I’m sorry if this is too much for you. We’ve all been relying on you, waiting for your grant to get approved. You’re under too much pressure from us. It’s not fair.”

Natalie blinked back the tears that had been hovering since she’d left the parking lot of the lab last night. “You haven’t been pressuring me. I do that on my own. But every time I think about Muff, I… I have to try, Mom. I have to do everything I can.”

“I know, Nat.” Her mother patted her hand. “Is that everything that’s bothering you?”

“No.” Natalie tugged her bottom lip. “But it’s everything I want to talk about now.”

“Okay.” Never one to pry, Mom smiled and gave her hand a squeeze. “It’s still a little early to eat, but how about I make us an omelet to share. I picked up some bologna from the Bird-in-Hand butcher shop on the way in.”

Natalie’s stomach clenched. Not at the thought of bologna, but from the thought of the last time someone made an omelet for her—or tried. “Sure.” She smiled up at her mother, gratefully. “Thanks.”

As Mom headed to the kitchen, Natalie heard tires crunching over gravel at the front of the house. “Is Dad already out?”

“Don’t think so. He was still sawing logs when I left the bedroom.”

“That’s funny. I hear a car.”

“You sure it’s a car?” Mom said from the kitchen. “Might be that nice Amish boy who your father hired to fix the irrigation pump. Grab the door, will you, hun? Don’t make him come up and knock. He’s so shy.”

Natalie didn’t think it was a buggy. No sound of horse hooves. But she zipped up her hoodie, slid into her flip-flops and opened the door. The front porch faced east, so the bright, early morning sunlight shone right in her eyes. When she heard a car door close, she used her hands as a visor.

Then her heart jumped up her throat. “What are you doing here?”

Luke was marching across the gravel to the porch. “You didn’t show last night.”

Natalie bit the inside of her cheek and crossed her arms. “Sorry.”

“No, you’re not. You stood me up on purpose.”

The nerve of this guy. “You left at seven in the morning and drove forty miles to lecture me some more?”

His forehead crinkled. “I’m not lecturing you. And I left at five. Took me a while to find this place. The sign out front needs to be bigger.”

“I tell my dad that all the time.”

Luke pulled at the top button of his shirt, then rubbed his palms together. He wore faded jeans with a hole ripped in one knee. The way the sunlight made his hair look almost auburn made her want to run her fingers though it to catch the light.

“You still haven’t answered my question,” she said, forcing an edge to her voice. “Why are you here?”

“Can I come in?”

“No.”

“Nat?” Mom was on the porch now. Crap. She should’ve made Luke leave the second he’d arrived.

“Mrs. Holden,” Luke said, trotting up the steps right past Natalie to shake her mother’s hand. “It’s nice to meet you. Sorry for dropping in so early. I’m Luke. We met the other night in the Hershey Lounge parking lot. Well, we didn’t actually meet, but we were both there—”

“Why are you talking?” Natalie said from the corner of her mouth.

Luke turned to smile dotingly at her. “I’m saying hello.”

“Didn’t you see the other sign out front?” She pointed up the gravel driveway. “Trespassers will be shot on sight.”

“Natalie.” Mom cut in. “He’s not a trespasser. Look at his shoes.”

The three of them stared down at Luke’s black sneakers. They might’ve resembled Chuck Taylors, but they were probably a designer label.

“He was just leaving,” Natalie said.

“Oh?” Mom frowned. “You wouldn’t like to come in for a cup of hot cocoa first? I’m heating the milk and about to add the Hershey’s syrup.”

Yeah, right. An offer like that will send Luke running and screaming for the nearest paleo market.

“Sounds delicious,” he said. “I’d love some, thanks.” As he followed Mom into the house, he sent Natalie a smug smile over his shoulder.

She narrowed her eyes at him but didn’t speak, didn’t give him the satisfaction that he’d used his Elliott dreamy good looks and manners to charm Mom into letting him in the house. Maybe if she didn’t speak at all, he’d get the hint and leave. The sooner the better.

L
uke hadn’t been out to Lancaster County in years. But after waiting on Natalie at Phillip Arthur for three hours last night, he’d been so furious that he’d actually cruised the streets of Hershey looking for her. After a fruitless hour of that, and after looking in to see if she was with Ivy at the lab, he’d gone home.

At four in the morning, he’d thrown back the covers and Googled
Holden Apple Farm
. There was no physical address, just one for the Intercourse Farmer’s Market. If a girl like Natalie was royally pissed, she’d want to be surrounded by something calming and familiar. Thanks to the never-ending winding stretches of Intercourse’s back roads, it had taken him a few hours to find it.

“Would you like whipped cream on top?” Mrs. Holden asked, holding out his steaming cup of cocoa. “It’s chocolate flavored. You can never have enough!”

The description made Luke feel like his teeth were about to start rotting. But he smiled and said, “Yes, please.”

Natalie sat in the kitchen chair across from him. After his answer, she released a snarky chuckle under her breath. It was the first almost-word she’d uttered since he stepped foot in the house.

“Cocoa for you, Nat?” her mother asked.

“I’ll just take a big ol’ bowl of the whipped cream,” she replied. “All the vitamins and minerals I need for the day.”

She hadn’t looked his way, but Luke knew the comment was aimed at him. He wouldn’t let her goad him, not today, maybe not ever. Yes, he’d been livid that she hadn’t shown up when he’d clearly only wanted to apologize. When she wouldn’t allow him to do that, he had to track her down.

But he didn’t feel like apologizing now. He felt like giving her another lecture. He wanted to get it into that thick skull of hers that she was speeding toward a dead end. Why wouldn’t she listen or let him help? She was so frustrating, this head of a research team.

Not that she ever really looked like a chemist gunning for a clinical trial, this morning, especially. Her unruly blonde hair was tamed within two loose braids, and she wore a pink zip-up sweatshirt, yoga pants, and flip-flops.

She looked… Well, she looked freaking adorable. Except for the scowls she shot him whenever her mother’s back was turned, she also looked relaxed, comfortable, at home.

Luke hadn’t felt that way for a long time, anywhere.

“Well, your father loaded the truck last night,” Mrs. Holden said, wiping her hands on a dishtowel. “I hear him in the shower now, so I think I’ll drive the apples to the market myself.”

Natalie sprang from her chair. “I’ll do that.”

“No, no, it’ll be faster if I go. I want to pick up some shoo-fly pie on the way back. They make it fresh on Saturdays.” She grabbed a set of keys on a hook by the sliding glass door. “Nat, why don’t you show Luke around? The orchards are finally dry after the rain.”

“He can’t stay,” she said before Luke could open his mouth. “He has to get back to the lab.”

“Oh. Well, it was nice to meet you.”

Luke pushed back his chair and stood. “Very nice to meet you, too, and thanks again for the…the…”

“The hot chocolate with chocolate whipped cream, Luke,” Natalie finished for him. “You can say it aloud. The NIH won’t hear you.”

“Yes, thanks for that.” He smiled at Mrs. Holden, and felt like spanking Natalie. “It was delicious.”

The second the door closed, Natalie rounded on him. “Satisfied?”

“By what?” he asked, walking his mug to the sink.

“By…whatever you came here to see.”

“I didn’t come here to—” Luke broke off when he spotted a tall, thin blond kid hovering by the doorway. “Hi,” he said.

The kid didn’t reply, but Natalie immediately approached him. “Muff,” she said in a quiet voice, like she was trying not to startle him. “Mom just left. Everything okay?”

He didn’t speak but only shrugged his slumped shoulders. He lifted his eyes briefly. They were the same shade of brown as Natalie’s, but they had purple shadows beneath them. He stayed huddled by the door and put up the hood of his sweatshirt, shielding his face.

“Who’s he?” The kid pointed his chin toward Luke.

“He’s a…friend from high school,” Natalie replied, in that same slow and soothing voice. “Luke, this is my little brother, Brandon.”

“Hey,” Luke said, not moving to shake his hand or give a fist bump. Something told him the kid wasn’t cool with strangers.

“Hey,” he mumbled in reply. “That your Jeep out front?”

“Yeah. Are you into cars?”

Brandon shrugged.

Luke sensed something was up, something unspoken and private, almost like he’d shown up on a day meant only for their family. If that was the case, Natalie would’ve said so right away and kicked him to the curb. So what was this vibe?

“Bran, you do like cars,” Natalie said. “Those classic muscle ones, right? Luke’s Jeep is ancient. Still has a tape player, no iPhone jack.”