Page 13 of Falling for Mr. October

I point to it. “Is that so everyone knows you’re from Maine?”

He glances at it, his expression thoughtful. “Maybe it’s so I remember where I’m from.”

“Is memory something you struggle with? Because I am trained to detect the signs of dementia.”

His lips flatten. “No, Doctor Death. My memory’s not going just yet.”

I roll my eyes, hoping he’ll leave. Also hoping he won’t. There’s no denying the sight of him stretched out in my doorway is pleasant.

“You don’t have to flash your muscles at me,” I say after a few seconds, even though my eyes are lingering on them.

One side of his mouth lifts into a crooked grin. “Yes, because I’m not your type. But I can’t help flashing them. They’re all over my body.”

I make myself look away. “You can leave, Giovanni. We don’t have to become friends just because you’re staying here. Or did Theo convince you to go back to Maine?”

“He said he’d accept my help,” he says, surprisingly formal. “I know the farm’s been⁠—”

“Miles had no right to tell you any of that,” I say hotly. “Except for Uncle Ted’s funeral, he hasn’t even been back for a visit for five years. He barely knows what’s going on here.”

He nods. “But I have some relevant experience that might be helpful. I want to help.”

A laugh trips out of me. “You don’t need sales expertise to run a pumpkin patch. Ours isn’t even very big. If it were rocket science, the potheads wouldn’t be managing it.”

He shifts, my gaze tracking the movement and how it translates across his tall, well-built body. “I’m not doing the pumpkin patch. I’m more interested in helping behind the scenes. Learning about running the farm.”

Disbelief no doubt radiates from my face as I say, “You’re not a behind-the-scenes kind of guy.”

Giovanni has always been a daredevil, a lover of attention, a showman. What’s he playing at?

I might resent his presence, especially since Miles apparently sent him as his stand-in, but there’s no denying Giovanni is a born salesman. He’d run the hell out of that pumpkin patch. People would line up to buy pumpkins from us. They’d probably stick around the apple barn, too.

It would be helpful, since we’re hurting financially. The strain is visible everywhere on the farm, from the faded wallpaper to that sign hanging over the entrance, so worn with age it can barely be read.

Giovanni lifts his eyebrows. “Maybe I’m shy.”

I put a hand on my hip. “You love attention. You’ve always loved attention, ever since the first time you visited. Five minutes after you got here, you climbed the maple next to the house and hollered for everyone to watch you jump. You were a tiny bean of a thing back then.”

The memory dances on his face, and for a moment it’s as if we’re both transported back there. It felt like a simpler time, although maybe that’s because I saw life through a child’s eyes—a drawing in crayon without any shading.

“You remember that?” he asks, angling his head for a better look at me.

“Of course, I do. You landed on the business end of a rake, and the pole snapped up and slapped you in the face.”

The regret on his face surprises me, but it’s gone before I can be sure it was real. “Well, I’m not like that anymore. But I feel bad for fucking up your night. I’m not here to get in your way or cause trouble. I genuinely want to help. And I think it’s good for our grandmothers to be together. They’re down there reminiscing.”

A loud snatch of Italian conversation travels up from below. “You sure they’re not fighting?”

“This is what they sound like when they’re having fun.”

He grins, and I smile back. I remember the way they were together too. The rapid-fire Italian. The brighter light in my grandmother’s eyes whenever her friend was with us, as if a piece of herself had been temporarily restored.

He leans into my room a little, and I can feel a shift in the air between us. “We could have fun too,” he says in a quieter voice. “Let me cheer you up.”

“Are you trying to seduce me?” I ask, mostly to see how he’ll react.

He laughs and lowers his head a little, his hair rustling from the movement. “Bianca, when I try to seduce you, you’ll know.”

“Good, so I’ll have plenty of time to grab a baseball bat.”