Bride & Seek (Enchanted Bridal #5) - Samantha Chase Page 0,10

rain, and Cade and his crew were doing their best to get their work done and the equipment put away before it hit.

“Hey, Cade!” someone yelled out. “We’re getting ready to put number five away, but we’ll need to look at it. Something’s clanking!”

Nodding and giving the okay sign, Cade made a mental note to look at the equipment maintenance schedule and get the mower looked at as soon as possible. He had a team of mechanics who handled most of the repairs, but occasionally he did have to take things up to Asheville for work. Either way, it would get done. It always did.

A breeze blew over him, and rather than relaxing him or cooling him off, Cade realized it irritated him. Okay, maybe not the breeze itself. If he were honest, he’d say he’d been relatively irritated for over a week.

Cammie.

He hadn’t seen hide nor hair of her since he’d kissed her in the lobby.

And he was still a little out of sorts over the whole thing. At the time, he simply acted on instinct–hadn’t thought it through at all. But once she started kissing him back? Hell, he could not have cared less about who saw them. As much as he kept reasoning with himself that he was doing it to help Cammie out, the truth was…damn. The truth was it stopped being a distraction tactic the second her lips opened to his.

A rather un-masculine sigh came out before he could stop it.

Now he’d gone and scared her off. He was lucky she didn’t report him to Dixie or the owners for sexual harassment. Looking back, Cade realized he could have just as easily taken her by the hand and walked in another direction and pretended to be doing something else. There were a dozen different places they could have gone in a pinch to get her out of the way of her ex. But no. That would have been too easy. Nope. He had to go and take something simple and complicate the hell out of it.

Which meant if anyone did come after him about it, he’d just have to plead stupidity and hope they all understood. Maybe they’d…

“Hey, Cade! You got a minute?”

Cade didn’t need to turn around to know who was calling out to him.

Dixie Cruz. The Drill Sergeant.

And she didn’t look like she was here to reprimand him over kissing Cammie.

“Oh…hey, Dixie,” he said, doing his best to sound casual. He walked over to where she was standing and smiled. “What brings you by?” Hopefully he was the only one who could hear the nervousness in his voice.

“I was hoping you had a few minutes where I could pick your brain.”

“Oh?”

She nodded. “My husband and I recently bought a house just outside of Asheville. We’re looking to spruce up the property and I wanted to talk to you about it and see if you could give me any advice. I’ve been playing around with some designs and wanted to get some more colors and textures around the place, but I have no idea what I’m doing.”

A wave of relief washed over Cade. Work. She wanted to talk about work! If it wasn’t completely inappropriate, he would have hugged her!

And that would have been beyond awkward.

Focusing on the website Dixie had pulled up on her phone, Cade tuned back into what was being said.

“…so everything’s just more brown than green and it’s all overgrown. I want to get it cleaned up and add some sturdy plants and some flowers to add some color. What do you think?”

“I think it’s totally doable. Do you any plants and flowers that you want to use or do you need me to come up with some? I can give you some suggestions and then you can go to the nursery and custom pick what you’re looking for. That would be my personal choice. This way, you can see them, feel them, and really get a better idea of what you’re going to have and maybe incorporate them into your designs so your husband can see them too. And then…”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Dixie said, chuckling. “Slow down. You’re speed talking. Are you all right?”

“What? Huh? Oh, yeah. I’m good. Really. I’m fine. It’s good.” Smooth, dumbass. Why don’t you say ‘good’ one more time for good measure?

The look on Dixie’s face showed she wasn’t entirely convinced. They’d known each other for a long time–they both started working here at the resort at the same time–and…hell, maybe he really did