Total pages in book: 29
Estimated words: 26584 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 133(@200wpm)___ 106(@250wpm)___ 89(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 26584 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 133(@200wpm)___ 106(@250wpm)___ 89(@300wpm)
Considering he owned the best garden center in town, his compliment meant a lot to me. “Especially if I pick horticulture since you’re teaching me way more than I expected when you hired me. With my job description, I didn’t think I would get to do anything with the plants other than maybe watering them.”
“You should've talked up your green thumb when you interviewed. It’s good for business,” he pointed out as he stepped to the side to let me pass by.
I smiled at him over my shoulder. “I’ll remember that the next time around.”
“Just so long as it’s not during an interview with one of my competitors.” His eyes narrowed as he pointed at me. “If you’re working at a garden center in Old Bridge, it’d better be mine.”
“As long as you let me play with the plants, you’ve got a deal,” I called as I headed to the greenhouse.
I was happy to see that the garlic and pickling cucumber starters were doing great and would be ready to sell soon. I spent ten minutes fussing over them before I went to the warehouse in back. Yanking the clipboard off its hook, I glanced down at the delivery log.
Harvey walked up as I scanned the list. A name in the middle jumped out at me. The orders for his business clients were delivered by a couple of my male coworkers, while I normally only handled smaller stuff for retail customers. “Cassidy Design and Landscaping? They’re not usually on my route.”
“Yeah, the owner had a plant emergency with one of his clients and needs those English shrub roses right away. He’s going to plant them in one of the beds before we bring out the rest, just to make sure the guy likes them since he’s gotta pull out a shit ton of tulips that they already planted.”
I caught most of his explanation, but my mind was firmly stuck on the fact that I would have to talk to the man I’d been fantasizing over since I first spotted him in the store a month ago. At six feet two inches of tanned muscle, Viper was hard to miss. Add in his light brown hair, intense brown eyes, and perpetual scruff on his cheeks, and I had no doubt that he caught the attention of most women who crossed his path. Not to mention all the tattoos he had and that he was in a motorcycle club.
I’d never been drawn to bad boys—or any guys really—but that hadn’t stopped me from crushing hard on Viper. And that was only from afar since I hadn’t gotten courageous enough to approach him while he was in the store.
“Are you…um…sure you want me to do his delivery?”
Luckily, Harvey took my question at face value and didn’t notice that I was blushing while he started to load the van. “It’s a little more than I would normally have you do, but Viper will have guys on-site to help you unload. His stop is a little out of the way, but do it first so you can get these out of the way before your other deliveries.”
“Will do.” A tendril of excitement snaked up my spine, but I needed to focus on my job. At least until I was in the van and nobody was around to witness the buzz I was feeling over finally meeting Viper.
I glanced at the pallets of plants that had been delivered this morning before I got here. It reminded me of the mix-up I noticed when I accepted an order a few days ago. “Did you figure out why we got all those purple panolas?”
“No.” Harvey pinched the bridge of his nose. “The supplier just told me to keep ’em since it was too much of a hassle to send them back. I’ll probably need to sell them at a steep discount since they need to be planted soon. But at least today’s order was accurate.”
I wished again that I still had space for a proper garden. Purple was my favorite color, and I would’ve happily taken as many of the panolas as I could fit into the ground if Harvey really wanted to get rid of them. But that wasn’t an option, so I couldn’t offer to take some off his hands. “Even if you sold them for a dollar, you’d still make a profit since you didn’t pay anything for them.”
“That right there is another reason I’m damn glad to have hired you—I can always count on you to look at the bright side of things.”
3
VIPER
It was another damn hot day, and I’d already ditched my shirt by midmorning. I kept a towel hanging from the back pocket of my jeans so I could wipe away the sweat while I was on the ground laying paver stones.
A soft whistle caught my attention, and I glanced to my side to see one of my crew—a young guy around twenty—staring toward the driveway with wide eyes and a slack jaw. I huffed in irritation, figuring that Grant’s daughter had dropped by again. Vivian was a spoiled, seventeen-year-old drama queen who threw tantrums like a little kid when shit didn’t go her way.