Page 6

ANTON

Mondays start too early.

Doesn’t matter what time it starts—it’s too early.

Especially on a mostly empty stomach. This morning’s overnight oats ain’t cutting it.

“Dr. Brown here yet?” I ask, walking into the ag lab and crashing into a chair in front of a microscope.

The chair rotates partially from the force of my landing, and I don’t fight it, letting it take me for a ride.

A last-minute addition to the greenhouse, the lab was built as a space for Cary and me to work on our own personal projects, separate from the big lab where most of the research and cultivars are done.

It’s big enough for the two of us, and maybe a third person when required, stuffed to the gills with equipment, notebooks, and who knows what else.

It also includes a Rube Goldberg I’ve been slowly adding to for years now.

If it wasn’t for an exterior wall made from solar reflective glass, it would probably resemble a dungeon.

“I didn’t expect you until after Munch,” Cary responds, not only not answering my question, but not looking up from whatever it is he’s staring at on his laptop.

He clicks away, hyperfocused on a set of results that will probably depress me when he shares them.

With a flip of a switch, he sits bolt upright, twisting to face me, expression as still as a stone.

“Did something happen? Are the trees okay?”

The most serious person I know, Cary Grant Adler is also the best damn horticulturist there is—flat out, no questions asked.

The guy has a gift. The Adlers have worked alongside the Hayeses for years helping us with the precious three Ps, but Cary is by far the best of them.

He’s also been by my side since we were toddlers, putting all that uptight energy to good use being the voice of reason every time I came up with a new way to poke at one of my siblings.

“Trees are fine,” I tell him, watching his body ease with that knowledge.

It’s been a rough year thanks to that freeze, and we’ve lost more trees than we should have already this season.

We know that even more are going to have to come out after the harvest is done too.

“And I came over early, since you said your soil regeneration specialist would be here this morning. I’m surprised you’re not popping out of your girdle with excitement. ”

The stone-still expression remains, my best friend unaffected by my teasing. “This is my excited face.”

Fair…

“Seriously, Anton, how are you not excited that a researcher from the state department specializing in soil regeneration wants to come use our fields to test out a theory and formula that has the potential to increase the life of a peach tree?”

Okay, there was a tinge of giddiness in his voice there. It’s subtle, the kind of thing only a best friend can hear, but it’s there.

“I’m so excited, and I just can’t hide it,” I exclaim, throwing my hands up. Impishness rises in me, and I know there is no holding it back. I morph my face into a worried look, sticking out my bottom lip and letting it quiver. “I’m excited…I’m so…so…”

“No Jessie Spano impression needed,” Cary cuts me off.

Damn it…

“You don’t want to be my Zack Morris?”

“You are Zack Morris.”

I tilt my head, unsure if that’s one that I’m willing to embrace. “I’d rather be Shawn Spencer from Psych . Charming, good-looking, and the brains of the operations.”

“That would make me Gus.” Cary pauses, as if he’s muddling over the possibility. “I’ll allow it. Because he’s the real brain behind the operation.”

Also fair.

I chuckle, glancing down at my phone, a hunger pang poking at me. Munch—my regularly scheduled Monday lunch meeting—is still hours away. I’m not sure I’m going to make it.

“What time were you expecting him? We don’t have a no-show on our hands, do we?”

Cary shakes his head. “No. Got an email this morning, something about car trouble and having to stop by Ken Noble’s before heading this way. Let me see…” He scrolls through what I presume is his email, muttering to himself. “Sawyer Brown…Sawyer Brown…”

“You got that many emails this morning?” I laugh.

“I deleted it, so now it’s mixed in with all the junk you signed me up for to increase the size of my peach.”

His deadpan side-eye cuts deep and I can’t hold back my laugh. Because that was one of my better moves. Right up there with the bright pink Speedo that is now framed on the wall.

“Don’t forget about the size of your zucchini.”

“That one wasn’t as good. It was very clearly spam.”

I lift a shoulder, agreeing. The peach was perfect— especially since Willa had tricked him into attending the Peach on the Beach festival in Candy Cane Key a couple of months before that. Then again, attending that event is how he met his now fiancée, Tizzy, so that worked out in the end.

“Here we are, Sawyer Brown. Running a little late, have to pick up my car from mechanic in town. Be there ASAP.”

My stomach grumbles in response, wanting to get in on the conversation. I look away, trying to pretend like my internal organs aren’t talking on their own, but my best friend gives me a look that lets me know I’m busted. Big time.

“Think we got time to hit up Dolly’s then?” I try, owning up to it.

Cary doesn’t have time to answer, because the lab door opens, a soft knock accompanying it.

We don’t get a lot of company out in this lab.

Every now and again a member of our field crew, my production manager, Alex Hernandez, or his wife, Marisela, who is our temporary employee coordinator, if they really need something. None of them would knock, however.

“Dr. Adler?” a polite female voice calls, making us both turn toward the door.

And my heart stops.

Walking toward me, as if in slow motion, is an angel, with chestnut hair pulled back into a twist, a single wild piece next to her temple trying to escape, darkly rimmed deep brown eyes you want to get lost in, and a perfectly pink set of lips.

The woman from the fruit stand.

Her black dress pants look like they were tailor-made for her, and her blouse is the color of a perfect Georgia summer sky.

My mind erases itself, the string of ones and zeros abruptly ending as my system short-circuits.

Like someone knocked over a can of soda onto a keyboard, sparks shooting out of it as it ignites.

If I thought she was adorable in a Roll Tide T-shirt, then this look is more than enough to push me over an edge.

An edge I very much want to take her over with me.

Once I find out exactly what I did to deserve her walking into my lab.

“That’s me,” Cary greets, squeezing past me. I’m glad he’s fully functioning, because I’m not. Not even close. “How can I help?”

“I’m Sawyer Brown. It’s great to finally meet you.”

“Hello!” He sticks out his hand, shaking hers. “Welcome to Hayes!”

Dr. Sawyer Brown is a woman.

Holy shit…

“This is Anton.”

I jerk back to life at the sound of my name, my heart still pounding like I just finished running a marathon. A woman. Sawyer Brown is a woman. Was I supposed to know that?

“It’s nice to meet you, Dr. Brown.”

“Sawyer, please,” she says, still as straight-faced as when she walked in, taking my hand. She stops mid-shake, her eyes going wide, the same realization hitting her.

“Thank God for good directions, huh?”

I chuckle lightly, waiting for her to laugh back, but she doesn’t. Her deadpan look remains plastered in place, unamused clearly the name of the game.

Right…

“So, you’re the soil expert?” I start again, hoping to find a different footing.

“I am. And with my help we’ll be able to figure out exactly where you’ve gone wrong.”

“I think my first mistake was standing Mother Nature up on prom night. She just hasn’t been able to forgive ever since. ”

“What?”

She spits out the single-word question like it tastes bad. As if it’s going to taint every other word she may utter today. The same way my oldest brother, Gus, does right before he’s launching into telling us all how to live our lives.

“That’s why Mother Nature froze us out? Because I stood her up…” I try, hoping that she’ll catch on. But her expression doesn’t change. “It was a joke, about where we went wrong…and…well, it’s not really funny if I have to explain it.”

“Not sure it was funny regardless.”

Shifting awkwardly, Sawyer moves her large tote from one shoulder to the other, knocking over some dominos on the filing cabinet behind her. I lunge in her direction, trying to stop her not only before she sets the whole thing off, but before she topples over with it.

“Careful!” I say with a laugh, wanting to make sure it doesn’t come off like a scolding.

She glares at me, glancing over her shoulder briefly at the fallen soldiers, who thankfully toppled in the wrong direction before they could initiate a chain reaction.

“Didn’t mean to disrupt your… toys …” she remarks, nose scrunched in judgment.

Holy cow, she’s a female Gus…

“It’s a Rube Goldberg.”

I drag my hand along the series of complex gravitational stunts lined along the lab, some of which have taken me hours to set up. Sawyer, however, continues to look unimpressed.

“So, soil regeneration,” she continues, turning back to Cary.

“Thank you again for inviting me to come down and spend some time working with y’all.

I’ll need to see numbers, but I’m pretty confident using my formula we can reduce the replant cycle time.

Right now, the models are estimating by about ten years.

So, it’ll be exciting to get some live, real-time data in there to see if that changes things. ”

Ten years? Well, I’ll be damned. Dr. Sawyer Brown has my interest piqued now, that’s for sure.

Although how we’re going to prove in one summer that her formula will be able to reduce the cycle time will be an interesting challenge, since it takes on average fifty years for the soil to be ready again after being “peached out.”

“Great!” Cary says. “Come on in and get settled. I’ll get you whatever you need.”

Sawyer pushes past me, trying her hardest to avoid touching me, but our shoulders brush against each other as she passes.

My insides sizzle, my mind flashing back to Saturday when her hair was falling on her shoulders, all frizzy and wild from the open window.

A side of her I’m sure she would rather no one have ever seen.

I turn to the dominos, pretending to right them, while pulling out my phone.

Sawyer’s a girl?

Cary

Apparently

I thought it was a dude

Poor assumption on our part?

You never asked?

Does it matter?

No, I suppose it doesn’t. Other than the last thing I was expecting this morning was a beautiful woman walking into my lab. One who seems determined to give me the cold shoulder.

Maybe if I try the business route that will help .

“You’re the expert, Sawyer, but Cary and I were thinking we could focus on the saplings that were damaged,” I say, injecting myself into the conversation that I’m clearly a third wheel on.

“You lost saplings?” Sawyer asks. I have her attention now.

“We did. They were planted two years ago, so still some years away from being fruit bearing, but that’s still two years’ worth of growth down the drain.

Cary and Hux, who is in charge of the lumber division, have done what they could to save every tree possible, but we still lost some in the freeze.

Our hope is that we can replant in the spots where we lost the saplings. ”

She nods, her eyes sparking, and I can almost see the gears grinding in her head. I’ve given her something to latch on to—an actual problem to solve.

“That’s a great place to start. Good thinking.” She praises me as if I’m a kindergartner who asked a sixth-grade math question. Wow, she’s got a chip on her shoulder. “How many acres is that?”

“About five hundred?” Cary asks to confirm.

“Give or take.” I shrug. “Hayes has five thousand acres of noncontiguous plots that we’ve dedicated to trees.

Roughly a thousand of that is dedicated to pecans full-time.

In the other four, we have about 138 peach trees per acre, alternating pecan in where the topography will let us.

Now, you wanna talk peanuts? That’s a whole different process, and another seven hundred and fifty acres. ”

Turning to Cary, she smiles politely. “Impressive.”

“There’s a reason Hayes is number one.”

“Damn right there is!” I nod solemnly but hold my arm up, giving him a high five. He hits my palm squarely with his, the loud clapping sound filling the lab .

“And what’s your role at Hayes?” she asks, looking me up and down.

The weight of her gaze on me feels good, so I stand still for a moment, enjoying the sweep of it along my frame.

I probably should have put more of an effort into my appearance this morning, especially knowing we were expecting a guest, but the additional knowledge of an afternoon spent over in the packing plant influenced me to dress for comfort.

Still, my jeans are clean, and my John Deere T-shirt doesn’t have any holes.

So it’s not like I look completely unpresentable.

“I’m Anton,” I tell her, trying to keep it simple. Cary would have given her the rundown of Hayes, right? He must have if he told her to come to the greenhouse lab on her first day.

“Yes, I caught that part.”

“Hayes,” Cary adds on.

“Pardon?”

She looks to him, and then whips back around to look at me. I smile, trying to hold in my awkward laughter. Apparently I need to reintroduce myself. Or, well, truly introduce myself, as the case may be.

“I guess maybe third time is the charm?” I step into her, taking her hand, while fighting the urge to kiss her knuckles like some trusty knight. Instead, I give it a single shake. “I’m Dr. Anton Hayes, Vice President of Agriculture and Produce for Hayes Industries.”

Sawyer bristles, but I can’t tell if it’s because of my title, the fact that I’m a Hayes, or the bomb I dropped in that I also have a PhD.

That last bit is something I tend to leave out of most conversations.

It makes me sound pretentious. Which is a word only associated with my name when you search antonyms.

Squaring her shoulders, Sawyer shakes off whatever caught her by surprise. She still doesn’t smile as she squeezes my hand, but her eyes darken, meeting mine with an intensity that sends my brain reeling.

“Well then, Anton, it’s nice to meet you as well. I’ll look forward to being the one to solve your problems.”

Solving or causing?