identify them and would shoot the backs of their heads for privacy.
“That’s great,” Melody had said, then had turned back to helping Henry Cragun, a neighbor and local landscape designer.
He liked seeing his sister working so hard. She seemed to be enjoying her new job. She was obviously in her element, happier than he had seen her since coming back to Cape Sanctuary.
Olivia moved around him, the camera up to her eye.
“I’m not sure what you want me to do,” he finally said, feeling stupid.
She fiddled with some adjustments on her camera. “Exactly what you came to Harper Hill to do. That’s all. Shop for plants. Compare different ones. Maybe discuss with the boys which varieties you ought to select. Really, I want you to simply pretend I’m not even here.”
He couldn’t quite stretch his brain that far. Olivia was unavoidable, the kind of woman who commanded attention, who wormed her way into a guy’s mind and stayed there.
Not his, of course, barring the past few days. That was completely a fluke. He was working on it and expected to have a handle on this sudden fascination any minute now.
“This is so boring. We’re just standing here,” Ryan complained.
Yeah, he needed to focus on the situation here and bring his A game or he was about to have three little boys ready to go on a rampage through the garden center.
“Okay, guys, we have a job to do. We need to find a plant called rosemary.”
“Hey,” Will exclaimed, “our mom has a friend named Rosemary.”
He knew, entirely too well. Mayor Rosemary Duncan was to blame for this whole fiasco. She was the one who set Olivia loose on the city social media properties. “In this case, we are looking for the herb called rosemary. It has pointy little leaves, kind of like a mini Christmas tree. Can you see if you can find that?”
All the time the boys looked, he was aware of Olivia taking pictures, studying them like they were zoo exhibits. Every once in a while, she would have the boys turn a different way, probably so she could avoid taking pictures of their faces.
Fifteen minutes later, their wagon was filled with a couple of tomato plants, some cucumber starts and some four-inch pots containing several different herbs that would likely never be used in the fire station kitchen except by him.
“That was perfect. Better than I ever imagined,” Olivia exclaimed, her eyes bright and happy. “Everyone is going to love these pictures. Cape Sanctuary’s sexy new fire chief picking out plants with his cute nephews. Are you kidding me? It’s pure social media gold.”
He didn’t hear much after the word sexy as heat seemed to crawl up his skin.
“Can we see the pictures?” Will asked.
“Sure. I’ve already picked a couple of my favorites.”
She sank onto one of the benches set out around the garden center and his nephews clustered around her, Charlie on her lap and the other two peering over each shoulder as she showed them pictures on the camera’s screen.
Cooper couldn’t look away from the picture she made, tanned, glowing, happy.
“That’s a good one of Uncle Coop,” Ryan said with a grin. “He looks like Captain America with dark hair in that one. Show him.”
Olivia dutifully held up the camera. Unfortunately, he couldn’t see from his angle, so he had to move until he was standing right behind her, close enough to smell that apple shampoo.
He never should have danced with her, damn it. What had he been thinking? He would have been fine, if he had never made the mistake of holding her in his arms.
Right now, he wanted to reach under that messy bun and kiss the back of her neck.
He stepped away quickly, before he could do something absolutely stupid.
“Looks like a regular guy buying plants to me.”
“I think they’re perfect. I have a feeling Rosemary will love them, too. I’m sending them to my phone now so I can edit and upload them.”
“So we’re done here?”
“I think so.”
“Right on time,” he said as he spotted Melody approaching them.
“Hi, Mom!” Charlie said, beaming at her from Olivia’s lap. And why wouldn’t he be?
“Sorry about that, guys. I was helping Mr. Cragun with his order. His huge, five-figure, more-than-I-make-in-six-months order.” She looked exuberant, as if she wanted to start dancing among the aisles of flowers.
Olivia fist-bumped her, which resulted in all the boys holding up their fists, too. “Good job, Mel! You win the sales associate of the day.”
“Is that really a thing?”