Read Promises Under the Peach Tree (Harlequin Superromance) for Free Online

parked behind the movers’ vehicle.
    “Need a hand?” Mack stepped around the bumper of the beat-up delivery truck, his gaze trained on the hodgepodge of furniture and boxes stacked precariously inside. “I hadn’t realized you’d have so much going on today or I would have waited to pick up the hay wagons for the Harvest Fest.”
    His well-washed gray T-shirt had a green clover with Finleys’ written in script on the front. No matter what else had happened between them, she had to admit he wore a T-shirt incredibly well. For the second day in a row, she kept her eyes north of his jeans. Down that path lay madness.
    Mack was very...fit. In school, he’d organized pickup games of basketball or impromptu lacrosse tournaments in the fields behind his house. It seemed he hadn’t lost that love of sports. His body was as toned as an athlete’s.
    “It’s okay. The wagons are in the barn by the orchard.” She’d rather have this errand taken care of today than risk seeing him again another day. She couldn’t guarantee how long her eyes would behave. “I can get the key from the house.”
    Nodding, he stepped back as the delivery guys juggled an industrial-size mixer. When Taz, Nina’s cat, started to dart across their path, Mack scooped the tabby up with one hand.
    “Oh!” Nina reached for the animal, but Taz was already batting at the wristband of Mack’s watch, oblivious to her narrow escape. “Thank you.”
    “No problem. Should I bring him up to the house?” He stared down at Taz, amusement crinkling the corners of his eyes. “I can ask your grandmother for the key and take care of the wagons myself.”
    “Taz is a her, not a him.” Nina plucked the animal from Mack’s arm and the little feline mewed pitifully. “And it’s probably just as well I don’t watch my most prized possessions being stored next to rusty cultivators and plows. I might as well go with you.”
    She was a grown-up. She could handle spending a couple of weeks in the same town as Mack. Besides, she wasn’t proud of her testy words the day before. She shouldn’t have accused him of coming to Heartache to rub her nose in her failures.
    Worse, her harsh words about Jenny had been out of line. And she didn’t want Mack to think he affected her so much that the mention of his ex-wife would rile her up.
    “Fair enough.” He stepped aside, letting her lead the way to a farmhouse even older than the one where he’d been raised.
    Sunflowers and phlox stood next to deep purple asters in the overgrown flowerbeds lining the wide, grassy path to the two-story white clapboard structure. The scent of the nearby orchards and freshly mown grass rode the breeze. It was peaceful here, with a quiet so deep she almost had trouble sleeping. She kind of missed the constant din of city traffic and the comfort of busy, anonymous humanity outside her windows.
    “It’s weird being back here, isn’t it?” She picked a long stem of grass poking through a bed of bushy yellow flowers she couldn’t identify.
    Taz made a swipe for the grass, but Nina tucked the little cat tighter against her chest to be sure she wouldn’t get into any more trouble.
    “I slept in the field manager’s quarters last night. So yeah, it’s definitely a strange homecoming.”
    Their strides matched one another’s.
    “Did you have a falling out with your mom?” Nina tried to keep the question light. She wasn’t sure how much Mrs. Finley had shared with Mack about their final blowout where his mother had accused Nina of ruining Mack’s life. She’d even suggested that he’d change his mind about having kids if she left. It wasn’t that he didn’t want children, she said, he just didn’t want them with Nina.
    She’d been blown away about that one.
    Knowing about Mrs. Finley’s struggles with bipolar disorder hadn’t eased the sting of her words, since her reasons for why Nina and Mack would never work had been accurate. Nina was a wanderer by nature who threw