What Might Have Been Read online

  He’d expected a little back-and-forth negotiation with Miyazaki. That was the nature of business. He’d just planned on handling the specifics in person, which would have given him a better power position.

  He probably should have been here two weeks ago, when Ainsley had called his office about his grandfather, but he’d hoped to close this deal—one he’d been working on for a year and a half—before coming here. If he was completely honest with himself, there was also a part of him that hadn’t wanted to face losing yet another person in his life.

  Once the deal with Miyazaki went through his plate would be clear for the foreseeable future and he would be able to focus on his grandmother and dealing with the orchard.

  He’d hoped Pops would hold in there a little longer. Unfortunately, life doesn’t always work out the way we want it to. Luke felt his eyes involuntarily sweep over the spot where Ainsley had stood moments before.

  Shaking his head, he pulled his attention back to where it should be.

  “Give it to me.”

  “Are you sure? I mean—”

  “Quit stalling, Mike. I can tell it isn’t good. Just tell me.”

  “They’re almost five million below where we wanted.”

  “Son of a bitch.” Luke squeezed his eyes shut, rubbing his fingers across the bridge of his nose to combat the headache that had just ratcheted up to skull-splitting.

  He was prepared to negotiate, but this was insulting.

  “Put together a response, drop our price by five percent, email it over and I’ll take a look as soon as I’ve had five consecutive hours of sleep.”

  And some pain meds. “Anything else?”

  “As a matter of fact, someone from Brooks Farms called.”

  Luke waited. “And…”

  “Apparently they want to talk to you about buying the orchard.”

  That hadn’t taken long. Although he wasn’t entirely surprised. News traveled fast in the small network of commercial growers. And Collier Orchards was prime, proven land. It was no secret that he’d never wanted any part of this life and most people probably assumed he’d sell as quickly as possible.

  Those assumptions would be correct. He had a business that needed his undivided attention. Despite growing up here, he knew nothing about running the orchard and had no reason to learn.

  “Great. Have Emily contact them with a request for an offer. And while she’s at it, ask her to contact several of the surrounding farms and see if anyone else would be interested in purchasing.” With any luck he’d start a bidding war over the valuable property. It wasn’t often that thousands of acres of prime peach land went on the market. Apparently, he was going to need the money to make up for the millions he was about to lose to Miyazaki.

  “Done. Oh, and Margaret asked about arrangements. Several of the employees would like to send condolences.”

  “I’ll be in touch as soon as I know something.”

  Which gave him the perfect excuse to find Ainsley again.

  Business handled, he hung up with Mike, but instead of moving continued to lean against the counter, letting his eyes roam around the familiar room. He wasn’t sure what he’d expected to find but the sensation of homecoming was surprising.

  So was his reaction to Ainsley.

  He shouldn’t want her. Not anymore.

  She was Logan’s widow. And while he and his twin brother had shared a lot…somehow the idea of reclaiming his sister-in-law felt wrong.

  Apparently, his body hadn’t gotten that memo. From the moment he’d walked in the door he’d been aware of her. Her scent, her quiet grace, the soft and understated way she seemed to fill the room.

  Every movement of her body, sigh of her breath, quirk of her lips had registered in a way he honestly hadn’t wanted them to.

  Aside from the fact that she was now off-limits, her wholesale betrayal eight years ago should have been enough to keep him away. Sure, he’d broken off their relationship—reluctantly, knowing they could never be happy together, that they wanted different things—but she’d immediately found someone to replace him.

  His twin brother.

  In fact, from the time he’d heard about the wedding—just months after he left—he’d wondered if they’d been sneaking around behind his back the entire time. The thought had been gut-wrenching. The two people he’d trusted most in the world had betrayed him in the worst possible way.

  He wasn’t sure which had hurt worse, Logan or Ainsley.

  And yet, the moment he’d seen her it had been like the first time….

  Her hair, long dark curls flowing past her shoulders, had been blowing in the hot summer breeze as she’d slipped in and out of the line of trees. Moonlight had filtered down, making her seem like an apparition. It had been late, the July heat pressing down on his chest and making sleep almost impossible. He’d gone out looking for what little relief he could find in the wind through the trees. As much as he’d always resented being in this place, the whisper of the leaves on the air had soothed him in a way nothing else could.

  But that night he hadn’t found relief. Instead, he’d found the woman of his dreams laughing as she ran. Little white shorts and a tank top that left her stomach bare enhanced the feeling that she was part of the moon and not part of his world.

  Until she’d stopped suddenly and turned.

  And smiled. The most radiant, bliss-filled expression he’d ever seen.

  She’d been seventeen. He’d been eighteen and getting ready to leave to start the rest of his life.

  Ainsley had changed all that. Instead of cutting his ties with the orchard, for the next several years he’d returned home every chance he could to see her. Those precious stolen moments had been tough to come by.

  Her father, a Baptist minister, worked hard to keep his daughter under his influence and definitely hadn’t approved of him. Her mother, unable to take her father’s strict views and fundamentalist ways, had left the family when Ainsley was five. Both Luke and Ainsley had been upset when her father wouldn’t let her leave to follow him to school, prolonging their separation. Rather, her father had insisted on two years at the community college nearby so he could dictate her classes, her curfew and her friends.

  It was difficult for them to find time to see each other. Their days and weeks together were sporadic and not nearly enough to satisfy him. But finally, the long wait had ended and she’d joined him at college.

  Things were supposed to be perfect. And yet, they weren’t. He’d slowly realized that they wanted different things from life. Ainsley had visions of returning to the small town she’d always known and raising a family.

  The kind of life that made his chest tighten with claustrophobic dread. He’d wanted adventure and risk and reward. She’d wanted safety and comfort and constancy.

  Knowing her the way he did, he understood what drove her to need those things—the instability and harshness of her childhood. She’d dealt with both emotional and physical abuse at her father’s hands—the beatings had stopped when he, Logan and Pops had confronted the man, but there was nothing they could do to protect her from the lash of her father’s tongue. In the end, Luke had known that he couldn’t give Ainsley what she wanted and he couldn’t ask her to give up the security she craved to risk the kind of future he intended to build.

  And he’d been right. The first few years had been rough. He’d poured everything—every cent, every waking hour, and hell, most of the hours he should have been sleeping, too—into the business and the dream he was building. He’d had nothing left over to give to another person.

  In any case, it certainly hadn’t taken Ainsley long to find what she’d really been looking for. In Logan.

  Even as the anger and pain had ripped through him when he heard the news, he’d known that Logan was the better choice for her. He was the one who could offer Ainsley the life she’d wanted. The happiness she’d deserved.

  Knowing that hadn’t erased the feeling of betrayal he’d been unable to i
gnore, though.

  Luke sighed and shook his head. There was no use rehashing the past. Not now. Although, he supposed it was inevitable for his mind to turn there given the current situation.

  For eight years, he’d dreaded this moment when he’d be tied to the one place he’d never wanted to own. From the time he was ten and his grandfather had begun showing him the land and telling him that as the oldest—born minutes before his brother—it would one day be his, he’d known he hadn’t wanted it. But Pops hadn’t listened.

  At first he’d thought breaking ties with the family would force his grandfather to give the land to Logan instead. His brother had wanted the job. And for a while he’d thought he’d succeeded.

  Until Logan had been killed in the car accident. And then it had no longer mattered. Collier Orchards was destined to be his.

  But not for long. He’d make sure of that. His grandfather had to have known precisely what would happen when he left the orchard to him. Luke had made it perfectly clear that he’d never wanted the responsibility of running the place, of upholding the family’s expectations and traditions. He’d wanted something new, something different, something wholly his own. Which was why he felt no remorse for selling.

  He did feel a twinge about moving his grandmother from the home she’d known for most of her life but there was no help for it. Besides, his money would buy her the best care possible. He’d move her closer to Atlanta and be able to spend more time with her. That couldn’t be a bad thing. He was the only family she had left…and she his. They should be close. And he had responsibilities—a business to run and employees who counted on him for their living. He couldn’t simply abandon them all. The needs of the many outweighed the desires of the few.

  Things would work out. Pushing away from the counter, he left the kitchen. In the meantime, he needed to get organized. Switching into business mode was as easy for Luke as breathing. Even as he walked through the quiet house, looking into vacant rooms left and right, he was making a mental list of the tasks he needed to perform.

  Speak to the funeral home and church. Arrange the service and burial. Find a commercial real estate agent. Talk to Ainsley about staying until the sale was final.

  That was the one he dreaded, so the first task he’d tackle.

  He found her at the very back of the house, tucked into a room that was no bigger than the closet in his Atlanta penthouse.

  The space was cluttered. Papers were piled on the desk, and an old computer that made his heart weep a little hummed there, as well. A stack of crates sat in the corner. He wasn’t sure he even wanted to know their purpose. Around the utter chaos that appeared to reign, the walls were a warm oak panel and a stream of sunshine fell through the single window and seemed to light the place from within. The room might be small but somehow it glowed.

  In the middle of it all was Ainsley, her head bent over an open ledger. He could see the neat march of numbers across the columns of the page, not enough to actually read them but enough to realize that she had an efficient and meticulous hand with the books. That they weren’t on the computer in front of her made him cringe. He just couldn’t understand how a business, in this era of technical achievement, could still be operating in the Stone Age.

  She squinted down at the page, a frown marring her forehead and twisting the corners of her lips.

  He leaned against the door frame, not wanting to disturb her. If he was honest, part of him just wanted to watch her without the pressure of knowing his scrutiny was returned.

  “Stop scowling.”

  Or maybe not.

  “I’m not scowling.”

  “Yes, you are. And hovering, too. What do you want?”

  Pushing away from the door, Luke ventured into the room and realized too late there was no place for him to go. No chair—not even buried under the piles of stuff around him. In fact, there was little vacant space on the floor except for the open pathway leading to the desk and the beat-up black chair she sat in. Stopping next to the desk, he felt as if he were towering over her. In business, he’d learned the importance of intimidation tactics, how the appearance of power could be just as beneficial as actually holding that position.

  Somehow it felt wrong to be here now, looking down on her.

  Picking up a pile at the corner of the desk, he glanced at it halfheartedly before putting it on top of another set of folders.

  Her jaw tightened as she said, “I had that there for a reason.”

  Narrowing his eyes, he gave her the smallest grin and shrugged.

  “We need to talk about the arrangements. I assume Pops will be buried in the family cemetery but I don’t know what church the service will be at.”

  Reaching out for the stack of papers he’d just moved, she banged them on the desk to realign them and then set them on top of yet another pile to her right.

  “Everything’s already taken care of. I’ve spoken to Mr. Brown at the funeral home. We were just waiting for your arrival to set the dates. Viewing is tomorrow afternoon with the burial and service on Friday.”

  She finally looked at him. Not the sideways glances she’d been giving him since he’d sat down and invaded her space but a full-on stare that set the acid in his stomach to roiling. He didn’t like the expression in her eyes, yet he couldn’t look away.

  “With any luck you can be home by Friday night.” And out of my life was left unspoken but hung between them anyway.

  “Actually, I expect I’ll be here for a couple weeks, at least. Until I can get everything in order to sell. I might have to come back and forth until it’s all final but—”

  “So you’re selling.” Something about the inevitability in her tone of voice bothered him. It was the logical choice. Of course she’d have expected it. Right?

  “Obviously. I can’t stay here, Ainsley.”

  “Of course not. You’ve moved heaven and earth not to be tied to this place. Why would anything change that now?”

  Ainsley turned to stare once more at the book open in front of her, hiding her face and her eyes from him.

  “I wanted to ask…what are your plans?”

  “Plans?”

  “After I sell the farm. I mean you’ve been here for a long time. I just didn’t know…” His words trailed off. He wasn’t exactly sure how to finish the statement his brain had started without thinking.

  Ainsley laughed, a broken, scraping sound that was so unlike the pleasant tinkle of laughter he remembered that it seemed to burrow beneath his skin and itch. Relentless and uncomfortable, like chiggers.

  “It’s a little late for you to start worrying about me now, Luke. I’ll be fine.”

  “It’s not that…” Again, he let his words trail off, realizing that this time they’d come out completely wrong. He hadn’t meant them the way she was sure to take them. Of course he had worried about her. Not that she’d want to hear that. “I just didn’t know when you were planning on leaving. I was hoping I could convince you to stay on until after the sale.”

  He could see the emotions swirling behind her light blue eyes as she finally turned toward him again, a jumbled mess he couldn’t decipher.

  “I’ll pay you, of course. More than enough to make up for any inconvenience.”

  And then suddenly fury leaped away from the rest, filling her eyes with a glowing blue flame. Scraping back her chair, Ainsley snapped the ledger closed on the desk and walked around him. All the while her eyes burned, eating away at him inch by inch.

  At the doorway she turned, one hand resting on the jamb. His eyes were drawn there by the subtle glitter of a ring in the splash of sunlight. He recognized the ring immediately. His mother’s wedding ring, the family heirloom his father had given her.

  The fact that it was on her right hand instead of her left meant little. He knew where it had come from. Logan. And all over again he was reminded of a past he’d much rather forget.

  And then her voice, low and sad pulled his attention back to her face.


  Gone was the anger from moments before, replaced with a disappointment that was even worse. Anger he could deal with. Anger he could understand and recognize as an emotion he fought off and on himself in her presence. But he couldn’t understand the disappointment, because she was everything he’d always known she would be when they’d been young and in love. Beautiful. Elegant. Confident. Sexy. Perfect.

  Yet somehow, he wasn’t what she’d wanted. Or expected.

  But then, he never had been, had he?

  “When did you become such an asshole?”

  Her question rocked him back on his heels, almost literally. So unlike her. Maybe she wasn’t exactly what he’d imagined, after all.

  Before he could respond she was gone.

  AINSLEY WAS SO MAD. With him and with herself for the awareness she didn’t want and couldn’t seem to shake. Even as the emotion rolled through her body she realized her reaction was off. She was responding to something above and beyond what Luke had said and was about to do.

  But that was only part of it. Some of the anger was real and deserved. How could he uproot his grandmother from the life she’d always known? How could he ignore the memory of his family—his father, mother and brother—who were all buried on the hill overlooking the house? How could he simply walk away from everything?

  How could he not feel a tie to the people who had mattered in his life? It bothered her. And she realized even as the reactions settled in that she was partly projecting her own emotions onto him. She’d have moved heaven and earth to have the kind of family he’d grown up with, people who’d loved him and supported him unconditionally…even as he’d disappointed them.

  She’d never had that and couldn’t understand how he could just throw it all away.

  She wasn’t surprised. Not if she was entirely honest with herself. Hell, he’d done it once before. Twice if she admitted that some small corner of her mind had hoped when he’d returned for his brother’s funeral eight years ago he might have stayed. For her. He hadn’t.

  He hadn’t even come to the hospital to visit her. Weak from her own injuries and the loss of the baby, she hadn’t been allowed to attend Logan’s funeral.