Cream of the Crop by Alice Clayton Page A

boy.”
    â€œBut Leo will be happy to take you; there’s always an orchard tour on the weekends this time of year.” Her voice dipped down low and secretive. “Or I can ask someone else to take you apple picking . . .”
    â€œStop it; I’ll combust if I think about being in the woods with that man! I’d likely climb him instead of the tree!”
    â€œYou’ll have to talk to him if you go into the woods, though,” she reminded me. “Don’t you think we better get you talking first?”
    â€œTalk schmalk, I’m hoping his mouth is otherwise occupied,” I said with a sigh, and could hear her eyes rolling all the way from upstate.
    Since Roxie was essentially going to be my tour guide for everything I was officially working on this weekend, I’d finally told Dan that my best friend lived in Bailey Falls, which kept him from looking for any other reason why I was heading up north on the Hudson River Line.
    Once I’d made the decision to take on this project, I couldn’t get Oscar off my mind. I thought about him while I was making my coffee in the morning and adding a splash of cream. I thought about him at lunch when I was taking my nosh outside and eating his Brie in the park across from the office. And at night . . . my brain was full of thoughts of a decidedly different nature.
    But I was also being a responsible adult about all this. I already had lots of ideas for boosting the tourism in that little town, starting with Roxie’s boyfriend. Leo Maxwell ran one ofthe Northeast’s most innovative organic farms, with teams of apprentices coming from around the country to work and learn. Based on what I’d gleaned from Roxie and the Internet, it could be a wonderful draw for people who were very much into their home gardens and being as sustainable as possible. Sustainable. Local. Homegrown. All current buzzwords that generated Internet clicks and tourism dollars that could potentially be spent in Bailey Falls.
    It also didn’t hurt that Leo came from a very well-known and wealthy New York family, and looked like a Greek god from the island of Hipsteropia. Was I planning to exploit his natural good looks?
    Hey, if his farm was featured in a possible future magazine spread encouraging Connecticut housewives to bring their family to the wholesome town of Bailey Falls for a weekend visit, and his smiling face was dead center? It couldn’t hurt.
    I never turned over a stone that didn’t want to be flipped over, but if I thought it might give, I always started pushing. The stone usually let me know.
    I also packed. As a rule, I didn’t leave Manhattan for any reason unless I was going somewhere fabulous. I’m sure Bailey Falls was charming and all, but it was definitely different from my normal business trip to somewhere with tall buildings and round-the-clock deliveries. How did I pack for the country?
    I headed to REI. I explained to an oddly confused saleswoman that I was headed into the wilderness and needed to make sure I had the necessities. I was going on an adventure, and didn’t want to be caught without something that might come in handy and save my life. She led me to the survival gear, which I was surprised to realize didn’t include anything cashmere. Purification tablets, sure, but no cardigans?
    I always found great sweaters at Barneys, so I’d head therenext, but before leaving REI I did manage to procure a great pair of subzero hiking pants, a puppy tent with an optional starry-night ceiling, and several packages of something called gorp.
    I also visited the salon for my regularly scheduled waxing (everywhere, thank you) and picked up a few last-minute glam packs to make sure that even in the sticks, I was highlighted, primed, and perfectly dewy. Should the need arise.
    I was in the office Thursday morning finishing up some last-minute details when Dan stopped by to check in one last