“I teach five-year-olds. They need everything explained.”
They got to a shed in his backyard, he opened the lock and put his fishing pole and tackle box in there, then shut it and reset the lock.
She wasn’t sure why he felt the need to do that on his property, but who was she to say who came back here?
He said nothing, just pulled his phone out, punched something in and then opened a door that went to the back of his garage.
Once they were in there, he picked a bin up off the floor.
“For apples.”
“You’re seriously going to let me pick them?”
“Yeah,” he said. “Or don’t you want them?”
“I do,” she said. “But won’t it affect your production or something?”
He rolled his eyes. “A few dozen apples off a tree doesn’t make a difference. Let’s go.”
She wanted to ask what his rush was, but the fact they could even do this together was more than she thought would happen today.
“Does it matter what trees I pick them from?”
“No. Walk around and get what you want.” She was pulling them down and walked back to put them in the bin. He was standing there watching her.
“You’re not going to help?”
“I’ve been picking apples my whole life. I don’t need to do it for fun.”
He reached for one and pulled it down, but then bit into it.
“I would have loved growing up here.”
“People say that when they didn’t have to live it.”
“I know,” she said. “Gale hated it.”
“I don’t know that she hated it as much as she didn’t like to do the work on the land. She spent most of her time in the cafe.”
“I shouldn’t have said that. It was wrong of me.”
“I knew what you meant. I might have had those thoughts for years too.”
“You must have liked it enough to come back,” she said. “Or did you only do it because of your father?”
He held her stare. “It’s complicated.”
She wasn’t sure why she thought he’d open up to her.
They’d had two sweltering kisses and he was acting like he wasn’t affected in the least.
As if that hadn’t even happened.
Talk about a bummer.
“Isn’t life,” she said. She saw a big apple on a higher branch and jumped to get it. She missed. Of course she did. Luckily, she didn’t fall landing.
He walked over and grabbed it for her. “What other ones do you want?”
