Back To Us (Shore Secrets 3) by Christi Barth Page A

Piper stood, came around to pat him on the shoulder. “I’d like you to be able to help too, but there’s nothing you can do.”
    “There is.” Ward took a step closer, getting inside the bounds of polite personal space. Close enough to have crossed into the “I’ve had my hands down your shirt and up your skirt” territory that they hadn’t revisited in oh so long. “I can make it all happen.”
    “Right. Because you have a wish-granting genie at your beck and call?”
    “Better. I have land.”
    Not
at all what she’d expected to hear. Not crazy at all. The pilot light of hope flickered in her chest. “What do you mean? What land?”
    “That field to the east of the barn behind the cherry grove. It had to lie fallow, but now it’s ready to be planted. Kind of surprised you didn’t think of it yourself.”
    This was too good to be true. It was definitely too much to take in while standing up, especially with her pounding headache already giving her a touch of vertigo. The wing chair was too far away for her suddenly weak legs. She toed out the desk chair and collapsed into it, head whirling.
    She indeed probably should’ve thought of it back when she was making lists of every possible rentable acre in the Finger Lakes. But his empty field wasn’t visible from the road, and she didn’t exactly keep track of the details of what was no longer an active farm.
    When his father died, Ward had inherited massive debts. He leased some of the land to vineyards, and a good chunk of it to alpaca farmers who apparently paid in cash above the asking price for their pampered animals. Ward held back a few acres for himself. Piper hadn’t known exactly how many, or what shape they were in...not to mention that she never, in a million years, would’ve asked one of her best friends to get tangled up in a new business venture.
    “I...I can’t believe you’re making such a generous offer.”
    “Why, because I’m usually such a hard-assed skinflint?”
    “No. Not at all. For goodness’ sake, you buy more than your weight in Girl Scout cookies every year, and end up giving them away at the nursing home.”
    “Just because I prefer homemade doesn’t mean I shouldn’t help some little girl learn to...what the hell do Girl Scouts earn patches for now?”
    “I don’t know. Can we please stop talking about the Girl Scouts?”
    “You brought them up.”
    The man drove her nuts. Which was yet another reason to pause and think about all the ramifications. Even though a part of her just wanted to jump up and down in excitement and ask how soon they could sign the papers.
    “Ward, this would be a huge step. It would be waaaay above and beyond one friend helping out another. It would be
business
. Are you sure you want to jumble up our work with our barely stable friendship?”
    “Even more than you know.” His voice had dropped far below his usual baritone. It was down in the rumbly register that either indicated Ward had a cold, or was making a move. The latter couldn’t possibly be true, so Piper made a mental note to take some extra vitamin C when she got home.
    “First of all, thank you. Secondly, I have to come right out and say it—are you sure you can afford to go up against my father? He’s made it quite clear that he won’t stand for anyone helping me on this.”
    “Your dad’s never liked me. That prejudice has only gotten stronger over the years, even as a bunch of other people in town dropped their cold shoulder toward me. And yeah, I’ll admit that when I’ve come up against a rock and a hard place getting the distillery off the ground, I wondered if your dad was the one putting speed bumps in my way. It can’t get any worse.”
    “It might.” It was never wise to underestimate her father. He might be emotionally distant, sometimes even cruel, but no one disputed his business acumen.
    “I don’t care. I want to help you. The cost doesn’t matter.”
    “Ah. The cost.” Finally, Piper could