Page 3 of Rescued By the Mountain Man’s Pumpkin

A pumpkin shell. Roughly the size of a dinner plate. Curved just enough to cover what the dress no longer does.

"You're kidding me," I say.

"Do I look like I'm kidding?"

He doesn't. He looks like a man who has never kidded in his entire life.

I take the pumpkin piece. Press it against my exposed side. It's cool and damp and smells like raw squash, and this is genuinely the most ridiculous thing that has ever happened to me, and I have been caught in a rainstorm inside a crawfish boil tent in Louisiana.

"Can you stand?" he asks.

"Can I stand holding a vegetable over my body like a shield?"

"It's a fruit."

"Excuse me?"

"Pumpkin's a fruit. Botanically."

I stare at him. He stares back. Zero amusement in his face. Zero warmth. But those eyes are doing something his mouth won't commit to. A brightness, buried deep enough that he probably doesn't know it's there.

"A fruit," I repeat.

"Berry, technically. You were climbing my crates to steal a berry."

"I wasn't stealing. The sign says the patch is open."

"On Saturdays."

Right. Right. Today is Wednesday.

He stands. Offers me a hand. His grip is dry and firm, his palm rough against mine, and when he pulls me up, I come off the ground fast enough that I stumble forward and my shoulder catches his chest.

Solid. Warm through the flannel. My free hand lands on his arm to steady myself, and the muscle underneath shifts as he adjusts his stance to absorb the contact. For a half second, we're close enough that I can see the gold flecks in his hazel eyes and the way his jaw clenches when he realizes how close we are.

He steps back first.

"You got a car?" he asks.

"Down by the gate."

"You got another dress in it?"

"I have a jacket."

"That dress is done." His gaze flicks down my side, the torn edge, the pumpkin pressed against bare skin. He looks away fast. "Jacket won't cover it."

The wind picks up again. My exposed leg pebbles with goosebumps. The pumpkin shell, which is doing its best, is not doing enough.

"I'll figure it out," I say.

"You'll freeze first." He pulls the flannel off. Just strips it, arms out, shrug, done. Underneath, a white thermal fits tight across a chest that has no business being that broad on a farmer.

He holds the flannel out. "Put this on."

"I can't take your shirt."

"It's not a shirt. It's a flannel. And you're not taking it. I'm giving it to you because you're standing in my pumpkin patch wearing a piece of produce, and I'd like that situation to end before anyone drives past."