The roses stretched out for what seemed like miles, their glory revealed in the morning light. Row after row of pink, stretching all the way to a village at the end of the valley, a stone church steeple rising past the fields. Morning dew still gleamed over the petals—not the formal, sculpted buds of the cut roses used in bouquets but softer, more open blooms, thickly ruffled with pink petals. The sun lifting past the horizon angled rays the whole length of the valley until the entire vision sparkled in her eyes. Scents wafted over her, and her hand slid away from the grip exerciser in her pocket. For a moment, her mind was blank even of music. All she wanted to do was breathe.
Allegra smiled at her. “Beautiful, isn’t it?”
“It’s incredible.”
“Isn’t it amazing?” Allegra hugged herself with pleasure. “I saw some of the rose harvest last year, when I first got here, but this time I’m part of it.” She spread her arms wide to embrace everything around her, a sparkling, vivacious, happy woman who turned a ready friendliness on Layla. She was exactly that never-met-a-stranger kind of person who, if a music fan, was likely to offer Layla a room for the night while out on the road. “I bet you could stay a little bit and see what the harvest is like, if you want. They won’t mind.” Suppressed amusement. “Matt definitely won’t. Although he was even grumpier than usual this morning, with that hangover.”
“Is Matt the hot one?” A vision flashed through Layla’s mind of the other men who had appeared to try, in their alcohol-fuddled way, to make sure she was fine the night before. Okay, maybe they were all hot, but—
Allegra grinned as she headed through the rows of roses. “Oh, man, can I tell Matt you said he was the hot one like that? Out of all his cousins? Because that would make him so happy.”
“No,” Layla said indignantly. “You cannot! What’s wrong with you?”
“No, seriously, he’ll probably blush. He’d love it.”
“Allegra!”
“Are you going to be staying here long, or are you just on vacation? Because he’s single, I’m just saying.”
Layla’s eyebrows rose. “How did he manage that?” Because, seriously…very hot guy.
“Trust me, if I could figure out how those guys manage to get in such screwed-up relationships with women, I would solve the mystery of the universe. The perfume industry is not the healthiest dating environment, let’s put it that way. Too many models and actors and people obsessed with image and what others think of them, constantly pretending perfection. Always performing who they are instead of being it.”
Performing. Layla rubbed her fingers against her jeans uneasily. The calluses on the fingertips of her left hand scraped gently against the denim.
“So how long are you staying in the area?” Allegra asked.
Layla smiled wryly. “A long time, if I can’t get my car fixed.”
“Oh, don’t worry about that. If Matt said he fixed it, he fixed it. He can fix anything.”
Could he, now. That Birthday Bear got sexier all the time.
“Anyway, I don’t even know where here is,” Layla said. “And I’m still trying to find where I’m going.” And how to get past the incredible mental roadblock she seemed to have set up between her and getting there.
She stroked the petals of the roses as they passed. Softer than silk, their scent rising around her. Could her destination really be somewhere around here?
“Ask the guys. They know everywhere within a three-hundred-kilometer radius, I swear,” Allegra said. Her eyes sparkled. “So you really thought Matt was hot? Even the way he was acting?”
He’d made her feel alive. Not scrambling desperately for more music, not worried about the performance of herself, just full of being herself. Granted, he’d been dead drunk and completely out of line, but still…all that buoyant enthusiasm for her had been pretty darn charming.
Plus—she liked his hair. It was black and glossy, and a little long, with all these half-curls that curved up and ended before they could do a full spiral. A woman wanted to run her hands through that hair and see if those little half-curls tickled her palms. Layla bet they would be smooth, like silk.
But all of that seemed far too intimate to say to a woman she barely knew. Well, unless she had a guitar in her hands, in which case she could get up on a stage and sing about it to ten thousand people…then complain in the post-performance let-down how worn out and over-exposed she felt. She was tired of over-exposing herself. So she stuck with the primitive, the thing they could all agree on without revealing too much of their hearts: “He’s got a really good body.”