Chapter Eighteen
The purply-red flesh of the Bing cherries reflects the golden-hour light as I bring my handful over to Cash, who is photographing the Montmorencies. The evening air is sweet relief after weeks of hot, sweaty weather.
Cash brought a digital camera over because I’m adding photos to my pamphlets and video to the website I’m building. He angles the camera, taking multiple shots and emphasizing the beautiful light. He scoots his shoulder against me and shows me the camera display.
“They look amazing!” I say. “How about we take a break?” I hold out my hand. “We’ve got plenty of cherries for the market, the producer’s competition and then some. Plus, these taste even better than they look.”
Cash lifts a brow and takes one from my stash. I watch his mouth as he’s about to tug the cherry off its stem with his teeth. His full lips mirror the colour of the cherries. It’s the perfect shot.
“Stop!” I take the camera from him, step back, and adjust the focus. “OK, put it between your teeth and hold the stem.”
“Yeah … I think it would look a lot better if it’s you in the shot.” He snatches the camera back.
“Hey!”
He raises his brow expectantly. “Show me how it’s done.”
I tentatively raise a cherry to my mouth, put it between my teeth and hold the stem out.
“Now smile.” I smile and gaze up at a cherry tree. “Yes! Like that.”
I stay still while the lens shutters open and close, and Cash walks around me. He lowers the camera and toggles through the photos. When he blows a short breath out and tips his head up at me, I bite down on the cherry.
“Any good ones?” I ask, peering over his shoulder.
“They’re all good.”
He turns the camera for me to see. I blush. They are good.
“My turn,” I tell him.
He rests the camera in my palm. We begin picking again and I take photos of the cherries on the trees and in my basket.
I take others of Cash. Lots of others. I set my basket down and zoom in on his tan bicep as he reaches above his head.
The light is perfect, golden and glowing.
He turns when the shutter clicks rapidly. His goofy grin makes me laugh.
“That’s perfect,” I tell him, and step closer. “Don’t move.”
His grin turns to confusion. “What was perfect?” he asks with a pair of cherries dangling from his fingers.
“That face you did. Like this.” I do my best impression of his big smile.
“That’s just how I smile.” He puts a hand on his hip, acting offended.
“Well, do it again! It was really—” I stop myself from saying cute.
“How about this?” He sets the cherries on his palm and straightens his arm out.
I step closer, focusing on the cherries in the forefront and let Cash’s smile blur beautifully in the background.
I look up momentarily from the camera and catch his eyes roaming to mine.
I hide my smile behind the camera. With my eye to the viewfinder, I take picture after picture.
“OK, OK,” Cash says jokingly. “That’s got to be enough.”
My cheeks flush cherry red. “Oh, yeah, of course it is. Sorry.” I grab the cherries from his hand, trying to distract myself from embarrassment. “But it was fun making you stand there. Does your face hurt from smiling for so long?” I eat one of the cherries and side-eye him.
“You thought that was funny, huh?” He nudges my leg with the toe of his boot.
My words are caught in my chest. When I don’t answer, he goes back to picking. I stay and look through the pictures. I’m enamoured by every image of him. I got a little carried away, so I delete a few, especially those where I zoomed in a bit too far on his bicep.
He startles me from my trance. “You going to help pick or anything?” He laughs.
I press my lips together, embarrassed. “Hold your horses. I’m just deleting a few. So…” I let the camera hang from my neck by the strap. “Will your parents be mad about you for staying here after dinnertime?”
Cash looks at me and then away. “They don’t know I’ve been up here.”
“What?” I jerk my head. “At all?”
He moves the cherries around in his hand and shrugs. “I haven’t told them.”
“OK. Why?”
“Remember when I told you about what my parents say about this place?”
“Yeah?”
He sighs and looks up at me. “I don’t think they’d want me to be here.”
“It’s that bad?”
He nods.
“Will you tell me what they said?” I ask.
“The story that stands out the most is that the cliffs here used to be the colour of sandstone. But after that girl rode her horse off the cliffs, they turned red.”
A chill runs up my spine. “What else did they tell you?”
“Uh…” He hesitates. “Mostly that the place is haunted by her now.”
I push away thoughts of the barn door banging open at night, the sad feeling in the barn. “Why do your parents think all this?”
“My dad’s great-great-uncle worked up here once.”
“On the ranch? That’s crazy. Do you know what he did?”
“I think he was a shepherd, but other than that I don’t know.”
The crease between my brows deepens as I process this new information. According to the old letters, Joaquin was the shepherd here. Is it possible they’re the same person?
“Crazy your ancestor was here, and now you and I are here,” I say. “It’s like some weird twist of fate.”
Cash chuckles. “Or it’s just a small town where no one ever leaves.”
I relax. “Yeah, I guess so.” I decide not to say anything about Joaquin yet. It sounds like there’s fragile family history and I need to read more before I tell him about the desk. “Are you ever going to tell them about coming here and helping me?”
He looks away. “Yeah, of course. Just need to find the right time is all.”
I take a cherry and change the subject. “Do you like it?” The skin is crisp as I bite down. Cash purses his lips and spits his pit at me. It whacks me under the neck and falls down my shirt, landing between my breasts.
“Gross!” I look down my shirt, pull the pit out and throw it back. At the same time, I spit the one in my mouth at him.
He laughs. “Missed me.”
“Shut up. It’s hard to see with the low sun shining in my face.
” I take the camera off my neck, pluck another cherry from my pile, and get the pit out faster this time.
Cash edges closer, like a cat about to pounce.
He puts a hand in front of his face in defence, but grabs my free hand, spinning me round and tapping me in the butt with the side of his foot.
I spit the pit out in the opposite direction and twist back round.
I haven’t dropped any of the precious Bings, and I’m not about to.
I place them on a stool and swing my leg to kick him in the butt.
He seizes my calf and holds me up off the ground by my left leg and hand as I laugh. I’ve become a human-sized rag doll in Cash’s arms.
“OK, you win,” I say. He lets me down gracefully, but doesn’t let go of my hand. His silver cuff bracelet is cool against my hot skin.
“I like that,” I say, pointing at it with my free hand.
“Thanks,” he says. “My tia Maria makes jewellery. She has her own shop in New Mexico.”
I stare at it silently. I contemplate asking him the question that’s been nagging at me since we met. It sits heavy on my mind in the silence. His hand loosens round mine, but doesn’t fully let go.
“Cash?”
“What’s up?”
“I was wondering… Well, I was wondering about your girlfriend.” I look away, holding my breath. I’ve said it and there’s no unsaying it.
A shadow is cast over his face. His eyes widen and he looks up, quickly letting go of my hand.
And then a bolt of lightning and a crack of thunder cry out above us.