Chapter 4
Noah
Students will be able to deflect like their life depends on it.
The first time I saw Shay Zucconi, I was driving my mother’s beat-up old SUV on my way to school for the first day of junior year.
I had a daily countdown to graduation going and that day was a turning point.
It was the start of the last half of the horror show that was my high school experience.
I was close enough to the end to see life after this town and I wanted nothing more than to reach out and grab it.
She waited on the corner of Old Windmill Hill Road, long honey-gold hair falling down her back and clothes that looked very, very expensive.
She looked like she damn near owned the world.
She was beautiful in a way that overwhelmed me, though it wasn’t just her face, her body.
She was a sunbeam through a storm cloud.
Even to this day, I couldn’t explain why I pulled over but I knew I had to stop for her. It struck me like a physical necessity.
I rolled down my window and asked if she wanted a ride to school rather than waiting on the bus.
I knew she was Lollie Thomas’s granddaughter because everyone knew everyone’s business in the farm community, and my parents had been loudly curious about the circumstances that brought this girl to our neighbor’s home. I was curious too.
I worshipped her from the minute she slid in beside me, smelling like heaven and looking at me with those cat eyes.
I believed then that she saw me, the real me.
She didn’t do anything miraculous and that was helpful because I didn’t think I could tolerate any miracle beyond being with a beautiful girl who chose to ride with me.
She captivated everyone like that. The first school day was barely through before Shay had been inducted into the popular crowd and the guys who always got the girls had called dibs.
But I picked her up every morning and I drove her home when she wasn’t busy with the cool kids, and she sat with me, gorgeous and made of mysteries and momentarily mine, and I let myself believe that meant something.
I let myself love her, and a significant portion of me died when I was faced with the reality that it was entirely one-sided.
And then, half a lifetime later, I offered to marry her and blamed it on wanting her land, of all the asinine things.
I had too many businesses to run and an endless stream of other people’s problems to handle. Plus a child pirate and all the complications that came baked in with that. I couldn’t rush in and save the day for Shay. Not when Gennie was my primary concern.
So, in that sense, Shay laughing off my offer was for the best. It didn’t bother me. There would be nothing worse than a hollow marriage to Shay. I didn’t care .
But what the hell had happened with her last relationship? What had gone wrong there? And why had it been necessary for her to pick up and move here to recover from it?
Not that I needed to know what that was all about. Not my problem. She wasn’t my problem.
Unless she changed her mind about getting married to inherit Twin Tulip.
The whole thing was absurd. Every farm-related legal document I’d come across since taking over this place had some element of irresponsible absurdity to it, but the alleged terms of that will took top honors. I couldn’t believe Lollie left Shay with so many unnecessary complications.
None of it would hold up in court.
Instead of volunteering to be her husband, I should’ve offered to handle the matter on her behalf.
One memo and she would’ve owned that land free and clear.
I could still do that. I could explain to her how simple it would be to get rid of those terms. I could eliminate the need for a fake marriage altogether.
Instead of hashing out either of those issues, I did the one thing I should’ve from the start: I gave Shay the widest berth I could manage when she came to the house to work with Gennie.
I was friendly—as friendly as I knew how to be—but I kept a respectful distance.
She didn’t need me hovering and I didn’t need to allow all of my thoughts to stampede out of my mouth.
Gennie, however, was not helping. She always wanted Shay to join us for dinner after tutoring sessions.
She begged and pleaded like her life depended on getting just a little more time with Shay.
Unfortunately, I knew how she felt.
Though I didn’t know how she did it, Shay managed to decline all of Gennie’s invitations without sending the girl into a full-blown tantrum. I appreciated that. I was complete shit when it came to winding down Gennie’s tantrums.
But I appreciated Shay maintaining some limits with me too. I didn’t know if it was part of her plan or the result of the most unpleasant marriage proposal in modern history but she saved me from having to spend more than a few passing minutes with her and that was a goddamn gift.
The one thing Shay could not save me from was the local gossip mill.
“It’s her,” Jim Wheaton, my dairy manager, said when I walked into the office that afternoon. “Isn’t it?”
I settled behind my desk and woke up my computer. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.” I tapped a few keys. “How are today’s numbers looking? Is the bottling plant up to capacity yet?”
“The one who got away rolled into town, you spent a morning on her family’s spread last week, and now she’s visiting with Miss Gennie. And you’re pretending those are ordinary events. That’s how the numbers look.”
“There’s nothing to say, Wheatie.”
He leaned back in his chair, his long legs stretched out before him and his dark bronze fingers steepled under his chin. “You’ve spoken to her, I take it. That’s why you needed those trucks moved ASAP.”
I toggled through several screens, seeing status reports on farm stand sales, wholesale orders, and estimated apple yields for the next month. I processed none of it.
“Yes,” I snapped. “You said it yourself, she’s spending time with Gennie. Of course I’ve spoken to her.”
He inclined his bald head. “And?”
“And I never should’ve told you and Bones a fucking thing about her,” I replied.
Wheatie nodded like he’d expected this response. Then he unclipped the radio from his pocket, saying into the mouthpiece, “Bones, if you’re in the vicinity of the main house, could you come up to the office?”
“Be there in five,” came the orchard manager’s response.
“You have five minutes,” Wheatie said, running a hand over his head. “Seems like long enough to get the story straight, don’t you think?”
“Nothing to get straight,” I muttered. “She’s back. Needed the trucks out of the way. End of story.”
“Sure, sure. And that morning last week? You just happened to spend a few hours at her place?”
I made a serious attempt at reviewing the canning output numbers for the week but it was no use seeing as Wheatie wouldn’t leave me the hell alone and I’d been up since dawn and I’d asked Shay Zucconi to marry me.
No, I’d offered to marry her. I’d never asked the question. There was a difference, and I didn’t know if it made matters better or much worse.
“I’d forgotten about the poison ivy,” I said, still clicking through screens. “And Gennie wanted to visit.”
“Gennie wanted to visit,” he boomed, clapping his hands together. “You know you’re a real parent when you blame the kid. Wise. I like it.”
I grimaced at my email inbox. “Gennie likes her.”
“Understandable,” he said. “Seeing as you also like her.”
Footsteps sounded on the stairs and then Tony Bonavito stepped into the office that had once been my parents’ bedroom. The marketing department worked out of my sister’s old bedroom. Neither space looked anything like bedrooms now but it was still strange if I thought about it for too long.
“What’s up?” Bones asked, checking the settings on his radio before placing it on the edge of my desk. Whereas Wheatie had two decades on me, Bones was a handful of years younger than me and it showed. He looked like a big kid and he got carded every time he ordered a beer.
“He’s seen her,” Wheatie said, staring at me, “and spoken to her. A couple of times, if my math is correct.”
“All right, all right,” he said, slapping his palms on his thighs. “What’s the move? What’s the play? Are we going straight for it, storm-the-beaches style or something low-key?” He peered at me, his eyes bright. “Do you even know how to be low-key?”
“No,” Wheatie said. “He does not.”
If that morning at Twin Tulip was proof of anything, it was that.
“Listen, guys,” I said. “It was a high school crush. It’s over. Nothing is going to happen. I have Gennie to worry about now. I don’t have time for anything else. Leave it alone, okay?”
“You need to take her out to dinner. Somewhere nice,” Bones said, ignoring the fuck out of me.
“No,” I replied. Even if I wanted to do that, I was awkward as hell. My blurted-out proposal was fine proof of that. My general inability to form words around her was even more proof. I could not— would not —put any energy into wooing Shay. Not when I knew exactly how that would turn out for me.
“Yeah, one of those fancy places that buys our asparagus and turns it into broth or foam or something weird like that,” Bones continued. “You’ll need to eat in advance but she’ll like it.”
“No,” I repeated. What would we even talk about without Gennie providing interference? Given ten minutes alone with Shay, I’d either offer my hand in marriage again or sit in complete silence while my ears flamed red and my heart beat loud enough for her to hear it across the table.
“You should thank her,” Wheatie said. “For helping Miss Gennie. Thank her with a proper evening out.”
“No,” I said once again. It was a terrible plan.
“You said she was the one who got away,” Wheatie continued. “You said she’d always be the one.”
“Yeah, and now I have a kid who is depending on me to be stable and not hung up on some girl who will leave behind a world of hurt when she goes—which she will.” I shook my head.
I already knew it would hurt to see her leave again but it would kill Gennie, and I couldn’t allow that.
“And if we’re talking about the things we said that night, you said you wanted to explore the possibilities of goat milk, and look where that’s landed us.
I have a herd of hooligan goats and barely enough milk to justify pursuing organic certification. ”
“But the price per ounce is decent,” Wheatie said. “The wholesale cheese alone covers their costs.”
“And the yoga is very popular,” Bones said. “I’m a big supporter of that program.”
“You’re a supporter of the ladies in those tight pants,” Wheatie said to him.
“Also that, yes,” Bones replied.
“Housewives are not for you,” Wheatie said.
“That’s an outdated term, old man,” Bones replied. “Just because they’re here for yoga in the middle of the day doesn’t mean they’re not bossing it up.”
“Remind me to never get drunk with you fools again,” I muttered.
“It’s part of the grieving process,” Wheatie said.
At the same time, Bones asked, “What did I do?”
“Pretty sure you supplied the liquor,” Wheatie said to him.
Bones shrugged, saying, “Your father only dies once if he does it right. Homemade hooch is required.”
I stared at the ceiling. My father’s death had been sudden and shocking, and it had come with the awareness that decisions had to be made about the farm, much sooner than I’d ever anticipated having to make them. In truth, I’d long hoped I wouldn’t have to be the one making them at all.
There’d been a million things on my mind the night Wheatie and Bones had hauled me down to the edge of the cove with a bottle and wood for a bonfire, and somehow, the thing that forced its way to the surface was Shay Zucconi and the chunk of my heart she’d stolen.
We’d never spoken of that night. Not until now.
“It means nothing,” I said. “Nothing has changed. Just because she’s living at the Thomas place—well, it doesn’t matter. Nothing is going on with us.”
“Something should go on with you,” Bones said. “Go for it. What’s the worst that could happen?”
I could ask her to marry me.
“Dinner is the way to go,” Bones added. “You’ll look friendly. Thoughtful.”
“Let’s not be ridiculous,” Wheatie said. “Friendly isn’t one of his settings.”
“Probably true.” Bones stroked the barely-there whiskers of his beard as he peered at me across the desk.
“Look. It’s either ask her to dinner or carry this bullshit around with you for the rest of time, which seems terrible.
I’m just saying. Your choices are take a chance or carry bullshit. I’d take the chance.”
“I don’t usually agree with the youngster,” Wheatie started, “but in this situation, we concur.”
I glanced between them. “Great, great. Thanks for sorting out my life for me. We have a freezer on the fritz at the bakehouse and six hundred pounds of blackberries waiting to be moved to the canning house and a shitshow of a goat milk operation but you two want me to take a page from my yearbook out to dinner so everything’s fine.
Under control. We’ve got it handled. Thanks. ”
After a long pause, Bones said, “Those blackberries went to the cannery first thing this morning. They’re probably jam by now. No worries on that.”
I rubbed my eyes. “At least something is going right around here.”