6. Duke
SIX
DUKE
With the month of August just around the corner, the days of dealing with the U-pick blueberry season were nearly coming to a close.
The influx of tourists traipsing through the northern fields was winding down.
As much as it was a hassle for people to be walking through the bushes, it was undeniable that one of the primary reasons people flocked to Remington County was the opportunity to pick their own berries.
After only a few short weeks, the bushes would be picked clean, and we would shift our focus to preparing the fields for what was predicted to be a grueling Michigan winter.
On the remainder of the farm property, berries were being harvested to sell locally.
Migrant workers picked alongside industrial farm equipment to ensure our customers received the best product possible.
In an ideal world, yields were high and losses low.
As I crossed the path from one field to another, the grim look on Cisco’s face as he approached me said I might not be so lucky. We met between two fields, and he held out his hand with a firm line on his lips.
“Boss.” He nodded once. I had told him repeatedly to just call me Duke, but for whatever reason he still insisted on the formality.
“How are things looking?” I paused to pluck a ripe berry from a nearby bush and popped it into my mouth.
The burst of sweetness washed over my tongue, and I hummed.
This field was perfect and ready for harvest. It didn’t matter that I preferred the slightly underripe tang of a blueberry at the beginning of this season.
The end of July meant the best possible berries we had to offer our customers.
Cisco walked in step beside me. “Everyone’s been working hard. Harvest is going well. No issues that anyone has brought to my attention.”
I nodded, satisfied that the agricultural laborers I employed were not only getting the job done, but they were content. Cisco updated me on the progress of each field, which contained workers handpicking berries as we walked toward my home and the main entrance to the farm.
Cisco took his job seriously. He had a strong work ethic and was a good manager. He took care of his people, and he had high standards. He was also a no-bullshit kind of man.
I liked that too.
As we got closer to the long path that led to the entrance to Sullivan Farms, the squeal of school bus brakes drew our attention. Beyond the small berm that acted as a wind barrier, the top of a yellow school bus stopped at the entryway and held my attention.
As a part of the Michigan Migrant Education Program, any children of migrant workers were entitled to attend school year-round.
The bus, which the farm happily funded, picked the children up every morning and brought them to the local school, where they received an education.
Despite the fact that bare minimum was required by law, I prided myself in our approach. We took care of our own here.
Laughter filled the air as a group of children ran up the drive. Various ages—from kids barely out of kindergarten to those pushing high school—raced up the driveway. The littlest ones had eager waves, and I held my hand up in greeting.
Rather than continuing down the path and turning right toward my home, the group went left toward the area of land where I supplied housing for any family that worked on Sullivan Farms. The rows upon rows of double-wide trailers were nothing fancy, but they were clean and safe homes for the people who dedicated their days to harvesting blueberries for me.
It was a benefit of working at Sullivan Farms that drew many of the same families season after season.
I liked getting to know the families as they lived and grew on my farm.
One little boy, Nicolas, broke from the group and came barreling toward me. His face split into a wide grin, and he waved one arm wildly. Cisco and I laughed as his backpack bounced behind him, nearly half the size of the young boy himself.
His enthusiastic rapid-fire stream of Spanish poked a hole right in my chest. Nico was damn cute.
I crouched to listen as he relayed the events of his day at school.
I nodded and responded in Spanish, telling him how happy I was that he had had a good day.
I wasn’t sure exactly when I had become fluent, but it was important to me to be able to communicate with the people who worked for me.
If they were living and working on my farm, it seemed like the bare minimum for me to be able to speak with them freely and in a way that made them more comfortable.
Over time the giggles and chuckles at my misspeaking became less and less frequent until finally I was fluent.
In school, the kids were also learning English, and Nico was excited to share with me a few new words he had learned. “Blueberry. Character. Setting. Mr. Duke.”
Mr. Duke.
The way my name rolled off his tongue and the evident pride sparkling in his eyes shifted something inside me. I ruffled his hair and squeezed his shoulders with a grin. “Perfecto.”
I stood and pointed in the direction of his waiting mother, then waved to her. She smiled and waved back as Nico bounded off in her direction.
Cisco scrubbed a hand behind his neck.
I sighed, sensing he was dodging an uncomfortable conversation. “Just say it already.”
“There’s another family. Benny’s brother-in-law They’re hoping there might be space to work at Sullivan Farms.”
I listened despite the tension that crept its way into my jaw.
“He and his wife have three children, but their oldest boy is thirteen. Benny said he’s willing to have him work the fields.”
I shook my head. “No. Absolutely not.” Cisco’s expression faltered, and he went to speak before I held up a hand to stop him from interrupting me. “He’s a kid. He needs to be in school.”
I quickly calculated the mounting cost of adding an additional family to the number of people already housed at Sullivan Farms. It would mean adding an additional trailer. Transportation. A discussion with the school for the children.
I looked at Cisco. “When were they hoping to start?”
“As soon as possible, jefe .”
I pressed my lips together and nodded. “We’ll figure it out. It will take some time to get another trailer set up, but if they can stay with another family in the meantime, I’ll work out the details.”
Cisco held out his hand and breathed a sigh of relief. “Thank you, sir.”
I shook my head as I gripped his hand. “Just Duke.”
He laughed and patted my shoulder. We both knew he wouldn’t be calling me Duke anytime soon.
Alone in my living room, I stared down into the deep amber bourbon as I swirled my glass. I pulled my black reading glasses off and pinched the bridge of my nose. Once I realized I had read, and reread, the same page of my book twice, I was giving up.
Ed lifted his head and rested his jowls on my knee, peering up at me with sad hound dog eyes. He let out a small whimper as his butt started to wiggle.
“You want to go check on him, don’t you?”
The butt wiggles got faster as Ed let out a small yip of excitement.
I sighed, gripping the sides of my armchair and pushing myself to stand. “Let’s get it over with then.”
Ed danced in happy circles as I made my way to the front door and out into the open evening air.
To the west the sun was setting over the blueberry fields, silhouetting them with a riot of oranges, hot pinks, and streaks of white. If old farmers’ superstitions were to be believed, the colors alone told me tomorrow would be another scorcher.
With Ed at my side, I walked down the steps of my porch, across the wide drive, and toward the red barn in the distance.
As I pushed through the door, two rogue barn cats scattered as I flipped on the light.
Happy little quacks greeted me as I approached the makeshift pen.
I peered down at the little duckling as Ed sniffed cautiously at the side of the enclosure.
The duck was still scrawny, his downy feathers slowly being replaced with coarser adult ones.
He looked like a gangly teen deep into the stages of puberty.
I hadn’t known what to do with the thing, and it didn’t feel right to leave it to fend for itself, so I created a makeshift pen that opened on one side to an enclosed area next to the barn.
He wasn’t very brave so he rarely ventured more than a few feet past the opening.
Every night as I made my final rounds around the farm, the little duck quacked happily at my feet and followed me into the barn, where I closed him in for the night.
Ed had formed some kind of maternal bond with the duck and was constantly checking up on him during the day. It was a cute kind of friendship—one you might see on the farm calendars people loved to buy in the shops downtown.
“Hey, Duck.”
He quacked back at my voice. I looked down at Ed, who continued to sniff at the enclosure and whine.
“I told you, he’s fine.”
I reached toward a shelf to grab a handful of blueberries and plunked them into Duck’s water dish. The berries floated on top of the water, and Duck greedily gobbled them up as he flapped his wings in delight.
A smirk pulled at my lips. I slipped my phone from my pocket and impulsively snapped a picture. He was kind of ugly, but pretty damn cute.
With my phone in my hand, I opened the text messages from Sylvie.
It had been two weeks since I saw her at the farmers’ market.
She had been so stunning it was like a punch to the gut.
The way her caramel eyes played off the bright blues of the July sky was intoxicating.
It had taken every ounce of willpower I had not to get lost in them in the middle of the crowded market.
It also didn’t help that she was there with him .
Sylvie hadn’t made it seem like she was very interested in Charles, but the harsh reality of seeing her hand tucked into the nook of his elbow didn’t sit right with me.
It was a harsh reality that I had watched each of my siblings find their soulmate, and I was left with nothing.
Well, not nothing—an overwhelming knowing that my someone was an impossibility.
I could only watch from a distance as another man walked with her hand on his arm.
Charles didn’t see that Sylvie was more than the woman who tried to hide in the background.
She was funny and kind and incredible. He had no fucking clue—of that I was confident.
Eventually our conversations went back to the easy camaraderie they had been before, but something inside of me had shifted.
My feelings had gone from affection and secret longing to something deeper.
Hungrier.
Possessive.
I had imagined pulling her body to mine in the middle of the goddamn day at the farmers’ market and setting the record straight. Though I had no claim over Sylvie, it didn’t make seeing her with another man any easier. She was the worst person I could ever want, but I was consumed by her.
I wasn’t mad at her. My feelings were mine alone, and it wasn’t her fault that I was having trouble controlling them.
To cope with my torturous, frustrated emotions, I threw myself even deeper into work, micromanaging every aspect of the July U-pick berry season until I thought Cisco was going to lose his mind.
As if merely thinking of her conjured her into existence, a new text from Sylvie lit up my screen.
Daryl Hall
Do you think drinking on the job is a fireable offense?
I would think so.
Damn.
Rough day?
Kind of. Just a thousand tiny annoyances, I guess.
Want to talk about it?
Not really. I’d rather hear about your day. What’s going on around the farm?
It had become easy to shoulder the weight of being the sole decision-maker at Sullivan Farms. But there was something about Sylvie that changed me. I wanted to let her in. My fingers twitched with hesitation, but I finally decided to share a piece of myself with her I had been holding back.
Things should be slowing down in the next few weeks, but I also got word that a new family will be working with us.
Daryl Hall
I’m not really sure how all of that works. Is that a good thing?
I considered.
I think so. It’s good for them. Good for the kids. I should be able to help them get enrolled and started in a few of the Head Start classes before the school year officially begins.
Sounds like you like having them around. Who knew that grouchy old Duke Sullivan was really a softie? Don’t worry, your secret is safe with me.
I smiled down at my phone, something I caught myself doing more and more and usually only when I was texting her or thinking about her, or getting a glimpse of her walking down the street.
I scrubbed a hand over my face. Jesus. Wyatt was right. I am so fucked.
I’m not a softie. I just think some of our kids are pretty cute.
Our kids?
Shit.
I mean the kids that live here on the farm. Not like *our* kids.
Immediately an image of a gaggle of children with my mother’s smile and Sylvie’s honey-flecked eyes and blonde hair flooded my brain.
Maybe they’d love life like my brother Lee or be determined and headstrong like Kate, or have natural leadership ability like Wyatt.
Maybe one would even want to follow in my footsteps one day, and I could teach our son or daughter all about what it means to be a responsible farmer and to take care of the people who worked for you.
The sound of an incoming text pulled me from my irrational spiraling thoughts.
Daryl Hall
Have you ever thought about having your own kids?
I stared down at her question before typing back the most honest answer I could muster.
Kids aren’t in the cards for me.
I let out a frustrated breath. I didn’t want to think about that and put myself in a shittier mood. Texting with Sylvie always felt good. It was the best part of my day, and I didn’t want to ruin that by killing the mood and being mopey on her.
I pulled up the picture of Duck and sent it to her.
But it looks like I am the proud father of a new duckling.
Oh my god, he is the cutest. What’s his name?
Duck.
You named the duck Duck?
Yeah. At first I didn’t want to give him a name because I didn’t want to get too attached. In case he was sick or something happened to him. He is a wild duck after all. I fully expect him to fly away when he’s strong enough.
I hate to break it to you, but I think you might already be attached.
I smirked again.
Yeah, I think you’re right.
Trouble was, I didn’t know if I was talking about the fuzzy duck in the barn or her. I shook my head. It was finally time I admitted to myself I might be harboring a crush on Sylvie King.
And she was the one woman I could never have.