All I Have

“I will.” She nodded. Her feet ignored her.

Cara slammed her door shut. A few seconds later she jerked open the driver’s-side door. “Get out, young lady.”

“I’m older than you.”

“Mia.”

“Just give me a second.”

“Mia, look at me.”

Reluctantly, Mia met her sister’s fierce stare.

“Do you think you’re ugly?”

Mia frowned. “Well, no.” She wasn’t a bombshell, but she certainly wasn’t ugly. Decent haircut, no more acne, body in good shape. She wasn’t ugly. Didn’t mean she was comfortable being seen as anything other than background noise. She’d worked so hard at being background noise since coming home from Truman four years ago. Worked on quietly doing what she needed to do, not babbling, not embarrassing herself.

This step seemed to scream, “Look at me,” and as much as she wouldn’t mind some male attention, she wasn’t ready for the screaming insecurity that went with it. If she was ready for that, she’d probably have had a date by now.

“Then, suck it up, sister. You’re cute. No one’s going to look twice at you except people who know you and wonder how you hid that body for so long. You look like a normal twenty-six-year-old woman. Of course, if a guy comes over to buy something, I’d make sure to bend over.”

“Cara—”

“Just be you. Forget what you look like or what people think. That’s how you’ve gotten this far, isn’t it? You learned to stop worrying what people thought?”

That was true. Not an easy lesson to learn, or even one she’d mastered, but Cara was right. Who cared what people thought? She was wearing tight jeans and a T-shirt, for heaven’s sake. Not a G-string and some tassels.

She certainly wasn’t stripping, unlike some people.

Mia sneaked a glance over her shoulder at Dell. He hadn’t taken off his shirt yet, but it was unbuttoned all the way. Moron.

With a deep breath, Mia hopped out of the truck, earning her a back pat from Cara. “Thanks.”

“Anytime.”

Squaring her shoulders, Mia focused on setting up the booth, including their newest tactic: free coloring pages and crayon packets for kids. Next week Anna was going to do face painting. If Dell was going to go the man-ogling route, she would go the family route.

Pants that fit and a low-cut T-shirt just meant looking less like the crazy, isolated farmer she was. It had nothing to do with sex appeal.

Of course, if a single guy was interested...

Mia shook her head. Idiot fantasies had never gotten her anywhere. Certainly not laid. She might look a little more alluring than she once had, but all her work at invisibility had certainly kept any interested parties away.

Well, maybe with her new look she’d work on that next.

This morning, though, she was concentrating on selling the pants off Dell Wainwright. Not literally or anything. But, well, now that she thought of it...

Nope. Not going there.

Mia smiled brightly at a couple and their twin toddlers. “Good morning. Welcome to Pruitt Farms’ stand. Do you see anything you like?”

She chatted with the mother about what kind of fertilizers they used and if they were certified organic. In the end, the twins each took a coloring sheet and crayons, and Mia sold one of everything.

She also made sure to tell them about the face painting next weekend, and they promised to return.

Take that, Magic Mike.

“Dell keeps looking at you,” Cara stage whispered in her ear as Mia filled a bag with greens.

Mia refused to look over her shoulder. “So?”

“So? I don’t mean he’s looking at you like, oh, he happened to look over here. I mean, he’s jaw-dropped looking at you. Like, ‘damn, that girl is fine’ looking at you.”

She waved Cara off, placed the new bag onto the table. As another family passed their booth, she greeted, chatted and focused on her job. Once they were gone, she couldn’t take the curiosity any longer.

She lifted her eyes over the aisle to Dell’s table. There he was in all his shirtless glory, flirting with an older lady. Totally not looking at her.

Except when he handed the woman a bag of broccoli, his gaze met hers across the aisle. Something in her stomach flipped uncomfortably, and a warm sensation zinged down to her toes. Mia quickly looked down at her table, all too aware she was probably beet red from her shoulders to the roots of her hair.

From that point on, she promised herself not to look at Dell, and not to replay that weird moment his eyes had locked on hers and she’d felt something. Just from a look.

Nope. Not thinking about it.

She made it through the rest of the morning, pleased to see they’d sold more than last week. Some of that might have had to do with more people coming as the season went on, and that it wasn’t raining today as it had been last week, but still, progress was progress.

“Uh-oh, here comes trouble,” Cara said under her breath.

Mia looked up as Dell sauntered to their table.

She focused on packing up the leftovers. When he leaned his arms on her table and ducked under the awning, she was only momentarily mesmerized by the fine blond hair on his tanned, muscular forearms.

So not fair.

“That’s quite a getup,” he said, none too pleasantly.

She would not blush. She would not blush. She would not blush. She stood to her full height, chin up to add a few centimeters. Fisting her hands on her hips, she managed her best intimidating glare, even if her cheeks were probably pink as she looked down at his hunched-over frame. “What getup?”

He stood, motioned a hand up and down her front. “That.”

“What?”

He did the motion again. “That.”

Mia cocked her head, folded her arms under her breasts. When Dell looked at the sky, she nearly giggled. “I never pegged you for the modest type. What with the stripping and all.”

He scowled down at her, and it took a little extra effort to suck in a breath.

“I do not strip,” he said through gritted teeth. He leaned closer and, by God, her heart nearly leaped out of her chest. But she stood her ground. Standing her ground felt really good.