Chapter 23 Ryder
RYDER
Day two brought the temperature drop. Day three brings the wind.
While any sane person would call it and get ready to hunker down inside, Eve continues to bluster through the fields, collecting chopped sunflowers and dropping them into the buckets.
In the morning, she sends Abby out with deliveries, loading the truck up once an hour with all the flowers she can possibly fit inside and sending her out to nearby flower shops.
And Abby, like some mythical saint of flower delivery, doesn’t skip a beat.
She’s small, with long blonde hair that she ties up on top of her head every day, but her size is no indication of her attitude.
I quickly learned, after suggesting that perhaps we should chill with the deliveries for the sake of not losing a truck—or worse, an employee—that Abby does not hesitate to tell you exactly what she thinks.
And she apparently thinks I’m a pansy who can’t deal with a little bit of weather.
Eve only shrugged, her grin poorly hidden as mirth danced in her eyes.
But midway through the day, the wind picks up and I can see the indecision haunting her.
She eyes Vic, who also has not skipped a beat and continues harvesting flowers just like he has been for the past two days—and half a century—even as a particularly large gust of wind forces him to take a step back before continuing toward the truck he’s loading.
Eve hasn’t slept more than a few hours since Aiden stopped by to notify her of the storm. And while he was here the first two days, he opted to stay home with the animals as the storm moved closer.
Rory and Tabby, who also came to help the first two days, decided to stay home as well.
Izzy, however, had a similar reaction to Eve. To power through until she can’t anymore.
But I’m starting to wonder if Eve can see reality dawning in front of us through the haze of sleep deprivation.
I’m certainly struggling.
Sunflowers in good condition are harder and harder to find, the wind blowing petals everywhere and causing rapid death for the few that are still blooming.
And Eve is stomping around like a zombie, mud coating the overalls she’s been wearing for the past three days. She wipes her nose on the back of her hand and continues on, and I catch yet another cut on her hand borne from numb fingers and desperate hacking at sunflower stems.
I don’t want to be That Guy, but I’m starting to wonder if Eve is so blinded by this storm that she can’t see what she’s doing.
As she dumps another armful of sunflowers into a bucket, she gets a call that she pushes to her headphones because her fingers are stuck in the shape of her shears and she can’t actually hold the phone anymore.
“What’s up?” she barks, immediately turning back to the field to gather more sunflowers.
I flank her, as I have been, because my concern is growing by the minute.
And she stops in her tracks. “What?”
I pause when she does, taking a step around her so I can gauge her expression.
And she looks furious.
“ABBY! You turn around and come back here right now!”
She listens for a second, then shakes her head. “I don’t give a fuck about the truck. If you’re not back here in fifteen minutes, you’re fired!”
She hangs up the phone and her eyes find mine, bewildered. “She wanted to drive the truck through a flooded street for the sake of making a goddamn sale! One sale!” She shakes her head. “I can't believe her, putting her life at risk for this!”
I blink, taking in the bags underneath Eve’s eyes and the hopefully not permanent disfigurement of her clipping hand.
I bite my lip before I speak. “Maybe it’s time to call it.”
And to my surprise, she nods.
“It’s time,” she agrees, then turns around and starts screaming. “VIC!” she bellows, spotting him emerging from the field. “Go home!”
He nods. “You sure?”
“Go! And drive safe!”
He nods again, resting the last bunch of sunflowers in the bucket before giving her a mild wave and heading to the parking lot.
“You need a ride?” she asks.
He shakes his head. “My good old truck has never let me down.”
“You’ll call when you get home?”
He nods noncommittally. “I’m actually, uh, just heading across the street.”
We both pause, and Eve glances at me with a small smile on her face. “Oh okay. Well, you text me when you’re inside somewhere warm then?”
“You got it,” he says, before turning and heading off toward his truck.
“That’s cute,” Eve comments, before turning back to the sunflowers and screaming, “IZZY!”
“What?” she shouts, appearing from the sunflowers a moment later, her hair plastered to her face just like Eve’s and her clothes soaked through.
“Go home! We’re calling it! The roads are getting too dangerous. Do you need a ride home?”
She shakes her head. “I’ve got the Jeep. You sure you don’t want more help? The Jeep can take a little flooding.”
I swear Eve’s neck snaps with how quickly she turns on her best friend.
“You are not putting your life at risk for the sake of selling some sunflowers. Go home now or I’ll physically remove you.”
Izzy rolls her eyes. “Dramatic, much?” She pulls Eve in for a quick hug and gives her a kiss on the head. “You’re going to head inside, right? I’m not worried about driving through a little water, but I am worried about you going hypothermic.”
Eve brushes her off. “I’m fine. Text me when you’re home, okay?”
Izzy nods, then turns to me. “You make sure she stops, okay?”
I nod, having already accepted this will be my duty for the day.
She grabs Eve’s hand. “Take care of yourself.”
“I will, Izzy. Don’t worry about me.”
And with that, Izzy darts along the dirt road to her Jeep, parked right in front of the bungalow like that’s her reserved parking spot as the wind pushes her to either side.
Eve deposits the flowers she was holding into the bucket, then turns back to the field.
“Eve,” I say, grabbing her arm to stop her. She swipes at her nose again, and I notice just how pink her face is gone, the mud coating her forehead and tangled in her hair. “Maybe it’s time to head inside.”
And then a truck bounces entirely too fast along the dirt road, coming to a screeching stop just as Izzy’s Jeep passes in the opposite direction.
“Eve! I definitely could have made it! I just wanted you to call the vendor to tell them we’d be late—I wouldn’t have called if I had known you were going to threaten to fire me!” Abby shouts over the whistling wind, dropping down from the driver’s side and stalking toward us.
“You are stupid if you are trying to drive through a flood on these roads! It’ll wash you out to the river and kill you, Abby!
” she spits, brushing her hood out of her face when the wind throws it around.
“I don’t care about the truck, but you realize I can’t send you out if you’re proving to me your judgment is shit, right? ”
Abby rears back, apparently not expecting this level of vitriol from Eve.
I didn’t either, to be fair.
“Harsh, Eve. I’m trying to help you!”
Eve shrugs. “I love you, Abby. You’re my favorite employee for any number of reasons. But you’re doing it wrong if you’re going to take risks like that and I’m mad at you for even considering it!”
“I wasn’t going to drive through the flood, I was going to drive around it!”
“Go home, Abby!” Eve yells, her fists bunching—as much as they can—and then slightly softer, continues, “Do you need a ride? Ryder can take you in my car if you do.”
Abby shakes her head, rolling her eyes as she turns toward the parking lot. “No, I have my brother’s truck. I’ll be fine,” she mumbles.
Eve grimaces. “Fuck,” she mutters. “I’m sorry, Abby!”
Abby only waves at her over her shoulder, stomping her way along the dirt road.
Eve’s shoulders slump as she runs her hands over her face. “It’s okay,” she says, her voice low. “It’s okay. We’ll be okay.”
“Eve,” I say, reaching out for her hand. Her eyes jump to mine, her brow furrowed as the wind pushes her jacket around. “Let’s go inside.”
She shakes her head. “No, I should get the flowers from the truck inside so I can dry them. And there are a bunch of seeds I can still collect.”
I keep hold of her hand even as she turns back to the field, her eyes searching, searching, searching for the next sunflower. “I can’t stop until—”
“Until what? You’re lying facedown in the mud because the wind is so strong?
Until you fall and hit your head and drown because your mouth fills up with rainwater?
Eve, this weather isn’t just dangerous for driving.
You need to get inside.” I take her face in my hands and it’s warm.
“And you know what? I promised Izzy I’d make you stop.
I can’t just stand around and let you do this to yourself. ”
She scoffs. “‘Let me.’ Ryder, I’ve been doing this a lot longer than you. I think I know when I’ve hit my limit.”
“Says the girl who told me the other day she suffers from serious burnout every year because she doesn’t know her limit.”
“This is different. It’s a storm. This is the end of the season. I don’t get to just stop.”
“You have to.”
She glares at me like she’s daring me to make her.
And I wonder if that’s exactly what she’s doing. If maybe she’s asking me to make her stop because she can’t do it for herself. Like maybe this insane drive to make this farm work needs a limit that she can’t find for herself.
So I take a deep breath, lean forward, and hoist her over my shoulder.
“Ryder!”
I march over to the bungalow, tear the back door open—and promptly grab it when the wind tries to take it—and set her down in the kitchen.
Water drips off of her, landing in a puddle at her feet.
She stares down at it, and a second later, goes to remove her shoes with fingers that can’t seem to keep hold of the laces.
When my hands wrap around hers, I realize just how cold she is.
Like ice fresh from the freezer.
I push her hands away so I can get her shoes, untying them and taking her hand so she doesn’t collapse as she pulls her foot out.