Page 15 of Let It Breathe (The Can’t Have Hearts Club #1)

R eese kept an eye out for Clay the next day, telling herself she just needed to return his jacket and thank him for rescuing her.

She wasn’t going to address the kiss. Maybe if he brought it up first, but it was probably easiest to forget the whole thing. Neither of them needed this sort of complication right now. It was best to pretend it hadn’t happened at all.

Wasn’t it?

But she only spotted Clay from a distance a few times, out there in his hardhat and work boots and a snug black T-shirt as he directed a backhoe and gave orders to well-muscled men with shovels.

They’d been able to start some of the preliminary excavation, even with the rest of the project still in limbo.

Reese and her mother had crunched numbers all morning, trying to find a way to make things work.

“Your father and I will stop by the bank on our way to ballroom dancing class tonight,” June had said as they’d closed the ledgers. “The loan officer wasn’t in earlier, but we’ll make an appointment for you and me to meet with her next week. Is your schedule open?”

“Pretty much,” Reese said. “What about that venture capitalist you and Dad met on the cruise?”

“I’ve got a call in to him.” She patted Reese’s hand. “Try not to worry, baby. We’ll figure something out.”

Reese gave a weak smile. “Okay. Have a good time at dance class.”

Feeling distracted, she trudged up the hill toward the deserted pole barn around four p.m. with Leon on her heels. She had some old wine barrels stored there and was pretty sure they could be cleaned up and used as rustic cocktail tables for the upcoming event.

She yanked open the door and was greeted by a gust of fragrant blue smoke.

Reese coughed and covered her face with her hand. The barn was not on fire—that much she knew.

“Dammit, Grandpa!”

“Don’t Grandpa me, young lady!” came a voice from somewhere in the haze.

Reese waved her hand in front of her face to clear the air. She spotted her grandfather sitting on a wine barrel about ten feet away.

“Dammit, Axl,” she said, coughing. “What are you doing?”

“What does it look like I’m doing?”

Reese squinted through the smoke and funny blue light. “It looks like you’re making a bong out of a Coke can while a bunch of delinquents plant marijuana in the goddamn barn.”

Axl looked at the four tattooed men stringing grow lights over rows of tiny green plants. He shrugged. “Can’t fault your observation skills.”

Reese shook her head, dread making her gut go sour. “I thought we agreed to talk about this. You were going to research what’s legal, and I was going to research what’s really legal before you got started.”

Axl set down his Coke can and sighed. “Time’s a-wastin’, we’ve gotta jump on the medical marijuana market while it’s hot. Besides, I know what I’m doing.”

“You can’t even grow legally while you’re still on probation,” Reese argued. “I checked it out online. And definitely not in the sort of quantities you’ve got here.”

“One of my girlfriends—Dolly, you know, the one with the tongue stud?—she got all the permits and shit. I’m just providing the land. It’s a business partnership.”

“One that’s got to be illegal. Come on, Axl, if anyone finds out this is here?—”

“If anyone finds out this is here, we show them the paperwork and everything’s okay. Hey, boys—don’t forget you’ve still got to plant the ’shrooms over there.”

Reese rolled her eyes. “’Shrooms? I thought those were outside.”

“Working on a few different angles, here. It’s all perfectly legal, Peanut Butter Cup.”

“Why do I doubt that? And why do I think Dick over at Larchwood Vineyards would have a field day with this?”

“Trust me, darlin’—I know what I’m doing.”

“That’s not reassuring.”

“It’s just like the time I told you I’d get you tickets to see the Dave Matthews Band up at the Gorge and I did.”

Reese rolled her eyes. “You got busted selling drug-laced brownies in the parking lot, and we had to bail you out of jail.”

Axl waved a dismissive hand. “They let me go when they realized it was only Metamucil. And you got to see the concert, remember?”

“Hey,” shouted one of the men behind them. “I think the camel just ate a plant.”

The other three men chortled with machine-gun laughter. Reese wheeled around to see Leon standing beside a row of little green leaves, his furry jaws munching rhythmically.

“Leon!”

She stumbled over and tried to pry the alpaca’s mouth open, but Leon clamped his teeth together and swallowed.

“Leon, no!” Reese pried harder at his jaws, yanking them open at last and earning herself a belch in the face.

There was a faint trace of green on his tongue.

“God, can this stuff kill him?” Reese shrieked. “How many plants did he get?”

“Just the one,” volunteered one of Axl’s men. “Maybe two. They’re little bitty.”

“Shit, I need to call the vet,” Reese said, scanning Leon for any signs of duress. Leon twitched his ears and hummed. “Does anyone know if marijuana is toxic to alpacas?”

“Toxic?”

“Yes, toxic!” she snapped. “Tons of things can be toxic to alpacas—acorns, azaleas, carnations, hyacinth?—”

“She said high ,” chortled one of the men as he blew out a fragrant puff of smoke. “ High acinth.”

Reese gritted her teeth. “What the hell do I tell the vet?”

“That your camel likes the wacky weed?” offered one of the men, stepping closer to pet Leon’s neck.

Leon lowered his head and nailed the guy in the groin. The man doubled over and sat down in the dirt.

“He’s not a camel,” Reese snapped. “And that’s not funny.”

Another man snorted and pointed at his fallen comrade. “No, but that was funny. How much does the camel weigh? About one fifty?”

“He’s not a camel! Do you see any humps?”

At that, the men dissolved into stoner laughter.

Axl stood up and ambled over, stopping to nudge the man in the dirt with the toe of his Doc Marten. When he reached Reese’s side, he gave her hand a squeeze before scratching Leon’s neck.

“He’ll be fine,” Axl insisted. “He weighs more like one seventy-five, right? He didn’t eat that much. Come on, I know a vet who’ll check him out under the table—all hush-hush, you know?”

Reese shook her head. “Why am I not surprised you know a shady veterinarian?”

“It pays to know people in high places, Peanut Butter Cup.”

“Right,” Reese muttered, but she raced out the door after her grandfather anyway.

The two of them scurried down the hill side by side, with Leon ambling behind them, tooting a little as they passed another cluster of alpacas in the pasture.

Reese glanced at him, trying to determine whether his eyes were bloodshot or if he was stumbling at all.

She knew how to tend to the basic medical needs of small wildlife, but large mammals weren’t her specialty.

Large stoned mammals were way beyond her training.

“Is that Clay down there?” Axl asked.

Reese looked away from Leon and stared down the hill to where Axl was pointing. “Yes. They’re breaking ground today.”

“Thought the bid came in too high and you’re stalling.”

“We’re stalling the construction. We already have the permits, so they can start the excavation while we figure out where the hell to get the extra money.”

“Hmph,” Axl said. “I know a guy who made good money stealing cars. If you want, I could?—”

“No. We’re not stealing cars to fund the expansion.”

Axl shrugged. “Suit yourself.” He fell quiet a moment, eyes on the construction site as they hustled down the hill. “Seems like he’s done well for himself.”

“Who?”

Axl snorted. “You know exactly who I mean. Don’t play dumb with me. Clay .”

“Mmm,” Reese replied, turning her attention back to Leon. Was he staggering? She couldn’t tell. She picked up the pace, pulling Leon behind her as they approached the winery.

“The boy finally got his shit together,” Axl said.

“Clay? I guess.”

“Always thought you’d end up with him.”

Reese stumbled on a molehill. She caught herself with a hand on Leon’s back, causing the alpaca to chortle softly.

Axl kept moving, not missing a step.

“Me?” Reese stammered. “And Clay? Why would you say that?”

He shrugged. “The yin and the yang. Twin spirits. All that bullshit, plus he used to drive a kick-ass Mustang.”

“Right, a kick-ass car—the basis for all good relationships.”

Axl looked at her. “You know something better?”

“Obviously not. I’m divorced, right? ”

“That’s horseshit,” Axl growled. “You married the wrong guy and you know it.”

“Maybe I was the wrong woman.”

“Of course you were. For Eric . Jesus Christ, girl—you didn’t really think that would work, did you?”

She didn’t answer right away. They were approaching the winery barn, and the sound of heavy equipment rumbling through the dirt was vibrating her brain.

“Eric and I had a great friendship,” Reese said. “Our love life was pretty good, and we got along well. Isn’t that what my parents would say is the basis of a great marriage?”

Axl hooted loudly, prompting Leon to echo the sound with a high-pitched tooting noise of his own. Reese looked at her pet, then at her grandfather, wondering who was more stoned.

“ Friendship and pretty good sex are not enough to make a relationship last,” Axl barked.

“Is this going to be another one of those lectures about how relationships take work?”

Axl rolled his eyes. “Don’t be an idiot, girl. Work isn’t the secret. The key to any good relationship is keeping your expectations low.”

“I think I saw that on a Hallmark card.”

“I’m serious. You think your grandma and I lasted as long as we did because we sat around swapping roses and dining by candlelight every night?”

Reese frowned. “Grandma ran off with a plumber.”

Axl patted her lightly on the shoulder and nodded. “Good talk, girl. Now let’s get the damn camel off the doobie.”

Clay had spent his whole day trying his damnedest to stay focused on the job. He was working with a lot of heavy equipment and shouting orders left and right at the crew. Hardly the time to lose focus.