Read Online Loving The Country Boy (Barrett's Mill Book 4) by Mia Ross - Free Book Online Page B

way to make her feel like one of the crew.
    “So, Tess,” Jenna said while spooning potato salad onto her plate. “How’s the scarecrow display coming?”
    “What scarecrow display?”
    “Oh, man,” Heath groaned. “Chelsea forgot to tell you about it?”
    “Things have been insane since I got here,” Tess reminded him curtly. “It’s not like I sit in the office buffing my nails all day, you know.”
    She added a cool stare for good measure, but it didn’t make much impact on the easygoing mechanic. Totally unfazed, he grinned back. “The Harvest Festival is the first weekend in November. All the businesses in town put up scarecrows in the square, and folks vote on which one’s the prettiest, the scariest, stuff like that.”
    Waiting for the punch line, she simply blinked at him. When he didn’t laugh, she sighed in resignation. “You’re serious, aren’t you?”
    “Yeah. But with everything your family has going on, I’m sure the committee will understand if the mill skips it this year.”
    Her family
. The people she’d met for the first time only a month ago, who’d taken her in like a long-lost child and made a place for someone who’d never felt at home anywhere. If her father hadn’t been so determined to leave his humble roots behind, she thought bitterly, she would have become acquainted with her raucous Southern cousins long ago, maybe even spent part of her summer vacations here. Riding around in pickup trucks, hanging out at the watering hole they all spoke of so fondly, enjoying impromptu picnics like this.
    Through no fault of her own, she’d missed out on all of that. Hokey as the decorating contest sounded to her, if she backed out of it she knew she’d be letting her relatives down. She wasn’t about to compound Dad’s selfish mistakes with a completely avoidable one of her own. “Well, I still have a few weeks left to get something together. I’m sure I can figure out a way to make it work.”
    “We’ll all help,” Heath assured her with his you-can-count-on-me grin. In the short time she’d known him, it had become a familiar sight. She wasn’t sure if he was like that with everyone, or if he sensed that she needed an extra dose of encouragement. Whatever the reason, she was glad he’d stepped up yet again. And this time she didn’t even need to ask.
    “Whattya mean
we
?” Scott growled, although a glimmer in his dark eyes gave him away. “I got more than enough to do as it is.”
    Taking up the challenge, Tess fired back. “Fine. Heath and I will do it ourselves. Too many hands just make a mess of things, anyway.”
    “Meaning she wants to be in charge.” Jason chuckled, angling a look at Heath. “Think you can handle taking orders from surfer girl over there?”
    Gazing across the table at her, Heath seemed to consider the question carefully before nodding. “I think I can manage.”
    As the discussion swung around to other less controversial topics, Tess puzzled over Heath’s reaction to her cousin’s teasing. Even though he was clearly the kind of man who didn’t shirk from taking the reins, he hadn’t bothered to debate who’d be heading up the scarecrow project. He seemed comfortable with her taking the lead role, which was a new experience for her. More than once, her father had referred to her as his little orchid, lovely to look at but best suited to a sheltered greenhouse.
    Until now, she amended firmly. If she’d learned anything in the past few months, it was that relying on others to care for her was risky, at best. At worst, it led to the kind of disaster that had driven her across the country, hoping to stumble across the mysterious something that she needed to fill the hole in her life.
    She hadn’t even realized she was missing anything until Scott and Jenna’s wedding. But now that she recognized the gap for what it was, it wasn’t the kind of thing she could ignore. Once she identified the root cause of her problem, she was confident