Chapter 14
[Neve]
Ican honestly say I don’t think I’ve ever been apple picking.
The only time I’ve ever come to Over the Hill Farm was for pumpkins, which they have in abundance, even if it seems early for the Halloween staple.
Still, I feel almost giddy thinking about getting the traditional symbol of fall and one day carving it with Little Wrench.
“Don’t you just love fall?” I sigh as we slowly pass through the display of pumpkins. A pile on a trailer hitched to a tractor. Another collection of white, green, and yellow ones creatively stacked in a silo-like caged pen.
“I’ve always been partial to summer,” Tate admits. “It’s when my parents would ship me off to Lovewell.”
“So you are a flatlander,” I tease. A person not born or bred in Maine.
“Guilty, I guess.” He slips his hands into his jean pockets as we make our way toward a barn-shaped shed where tickets are sold for activities on the farm.
“I was born and raised in Connecticut. Went to college in New York City and stayed there.” He squints, gazing ahead of us. “But I loved my summers in Lovewell.”
We pause at the end of the short line, and he continues.
“I always struggled with belonging here. I mean, my family has roots here, and I felt like I was part of that history, making me more than just summer folk. But I’m also not from here, so I’m in this weird limbo when it comes to Lovewell Landing. ”
His brows crease like he’s truly puzzled by this in-between state.
“Those summers were some of the best parts of my life.” He sighs, melancholy filling his tone.
“I’ve lived here my entire life. Never wanted to live anywhere else,” I proudly state as we move forward.
Tate pulls out his wallet, and I let him because this was his idea. But it also strikes me that this suddenly feels like a date. Something I haven’t been on in . . . decades.
I don’t make arrangements to meet someone.
I don’t share dinners or activities. I meet a guy at a party or a bar, maybe through a mutual acquaintance, and we hook up.
Even the short-term relationships I’ve had didn’t involve formality.
It was more like I’ll be at such-and-such, want to meet me there? Then one thing would lead to another.
My shoulders sag. I pride myself on keeping my distance, but the reminder of all those open-ended situations weighs heavier on me than my distended belly.
“Two for apple picking,” Tate says through the window to the woman on the other side. He turns toward me. “Want to walk or take the hayride?”
“Hayride.” My voice lifts, almost too eager for something I haven’t done since I was a child.
Tate is given two medium-sized bags and some tickets. Rolling the bags, he tucks them in his back pocket. Then he holds up the tickets. “Hayride, it is.”
Over the Hill Farm has several acres of apple trees.
They also have a sunflower field, that they made into a maze.
It’s not uncommon to grow pumpkins underneath apple trees, something this farm has mastered, but the you-pick section does not have any pumpkins beneath them.
As we head to the designated hayride entrance, there’s a petting zoo across the barnyard.
Old tractors, painted with vibrant colors, offer photo opportunities. A giant cornfield hosts another maze.
The farm was rejuvenated when two older women took over the place. Because of their age, they renamed the location, Over the Hill Farm, but they’ve proven you’re never too old for a fresh start, or improvement.
As the industrial tractor pulls up with a trailer of hay bales lining the outer edge, Tate sets his hand on my back, leading me forward and then helping me climb the rickety stairs.
“You gonna be okay, little lady?” the female tractor driver asks me, as she glances at my belly. “Don’t know much about delivering humans, but I’ve delivered calves before.”
She laughs, hearty and deep, confident she could deliver a human when I most definitely do not want to find out if she can.
“I think I’ll be okay.” I take a seat on a pale-golden bale.
Tate sits beside me. He stretches his arm casually behind me on the metal safety rail around the trailer.
His fingertips brush over my shoulder, and as I glance at where he just touched me, a small group of children and their parents climb onto the hayride.
The suddenly crowded space causes me to scoot closer to Tate.
His thigh presses against mine. His hand wraps around my shoulder. “You sure this is okay?”
“Why wouldn’t it be?” I sound like a buzzing bee, all hyperaware of his closeness, making my heart flutter.
“This might jostle us a little bit.” He means the trailer without shock absorption and the rugged trail terrain.
“I’ll be fine.” But with the first lurch of the tractor, my hand falls to Tate’s thigh, gripping it to steady myself as I bump into his side. He shifts, like he’ll take more of my weight if needed, and I instinctually set a hand under my belly.
It isn’t until we stop at the official you-pick orchard, and I exit the hayride with the aid of Tate, that the baby goes crazy.
I pause after two steps and rub at my side. “Oof.”
“You okay?” Tate is still holding my hand and rubs his other up my back.
“Think Little Wrench liked that ride. Maybe she’ll be a farmer when she grows up.”
“Honest profession,” Tate says, surprising me.
We move out of the way of others exiting the hayride.
“Did you always want to be in real estate? Stealing businesses from other people?” I tease, but the joke falls flat, and Tate instantly removes his hand from my back and drops my other hand.
“I’m not stealing,” he says, lowering his gaze.
I know all the reasons why he isn’t actually taking Rusty’s from us. The bank, blah-blah. The mortgage, yadda-yadda.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “That wasn’t fair. My dad did what he did, and now we’re left with no choice.” I sigh, stretching my back. “It’s just hard for me. Just like I’ve never left the area, I’ve also only ever worked at Rusty’s Wrecks. The place is important to me. Call me sentimental.”
He glances back at me, arching a brow. “You? Sentimental? I can’t picture it.” Then he winks. “But I get it. Family is important to you. Rusty’s Wrecks holds memories. Good ones, I imagine.”
I nod because the memories are good. The place wasn’t always easy to run, but the times were still fun. Even if they weren’t financially lucrative.
“I just hope Bucky Beaver Body Shop will let me stay on afterward.” I rub my stomach and glance down at it.
“You plan to work after the baby?” He sounds aghast, drawing my attention back to him.
“Of course. I’m not an heiress.” The dig is meant to imply his status as town royalty, but it goes over his head.
Instead, his hand goes into his hair again. “But I thought . . .”
“What?” I counter. “That I’d just be barefoot in my kitchen? Living with ease?”
“No.” He drops his hand, smacking it against his jeans. He stands taller. “No. I just . . . I don’t know what I thought.” His brows press together like he’s puzzled by the thought that he hadn’t really thought about what would happen to me after the sale of Rusty’s and after the baby is born.
“Don’t worry about us.” My voice is tight. “I’ll be fine. We’ll be fine.”
“If I can have your attention, please.” A young man, roughly college-age, with a bushy beard and a beanie on his head, draws our focus to him as he explains which apples are ready for picking and where they are in the lanes of apple trees.
The abrupt stop to the discussion with Tate does nothing to lower my heart rate. The baby kicks like she’s the one about to run between apple trees, when there will be no running involved. My ankles are already swollen in my Birkenstock sandals.
When the man finishes, Tate sets his hand on me, gently leading me forward, and as much as I want to make haste away from him, I just can’t move that fast. He stops to grab a long pole with a little cage on the top that looks similar to a lacrosse stick.
“What’s that for?”
“All the best apples are at the top,” he says, leading us toward a row marked: Honeycrisp.
“And here I thought we’d be picking the low-hanging fruit.”
Tate chuckles. “Just tell me when you see an apple that looks tempting, and I’ll get it for you.”
I can pick my own apples, thank you very much, but I keep that quip to myself until I spot a tree with a ripe-looking collection near the top.
“I spy,” I tease, pointing toward the tree.
Tate lifts the apple-picking pole, but I stop him. “Let me try.”
After he hands over the pole, I lift it as high as I can. The object is to position the apple in the wire basket contraption and twist the pole to pluck the apple. Only as much as I stretch, I’m just not tall enough. I hold the stick at the very bottom, which makes it wave like an unruly flag.
“Here.”
Suddenly, Tate is everywhere. His chest against my back and his hand over mine, steadying the pole.
“If you weren’t pregnant, I’d just lift you up.”
“I’m not a child,” I snap, because he’s made me very aware that I’m a woman. The sunshine heat of Tate behind me. The pressure of his hand over mine.
He slides one hand down to my wrist while his other hand cups my hip.
“Here,” he whispers near my ear. “Gentle.”
He slows the motion of the stick that had been jostling in my lame grasp. With our joint control, the cage is in the correct position to catch the apple. I only need to—
Tate runs his thumb up the inside of my wrist, as if taking my pulse. Can he feel it? How it hammers? How the blood is rushing inside my body?
With a tender hold on my wrist, he twists my arm just the slightest bit, and the apple pops off the tree, dropping into the basket.
“You did it,” he breathes, his breath tickling the side of my cheek.
I stare at that apple as we lower the stick together. Perfection in a fruit, blamed for the fall of humanity.
Tate lowers the stick until the basket is in my line of sight.
“First pick. You should take a bite of sweet victory.”
“I can’t do that.” I glance around like someone might see me take a bite of an apple before we’ve paid for the collection.
He shrugs. “People do it all the time. We’ll pick plenty more.”
Tempted, I reach into the basket and withdraw my first picked apple.
The bite is sweet like he said, and the juice bursts in my mouth, seeping out the corners.
I reach to swipe up the drool, but Tate is so close, and he’s quicker.
He uses his thumb to catch the juice leaking from the corner of my lip.
Our eyes meet, especially as he draws his thumb across my lower lip. I stop chewing, just holding a hunk of apple between my teeth as we stare at one another.
He clears his throat, attempting to break the spell between us, and pulls back his hand. I slowly chew the remainder of the bite.
“Here.” I hold out the apple. “It was more of a team effort. You should take a bite as well.”
Tate stares down at the round fruit with a singular bite in it. I’m about to pull my hand back, suddenly feeling like Eve in that dangerous garden, tempting Adam to savor her pick.
Tate finally takes the apple from me and positions it in his hand so he can take a bite right over mine. His mouth covers where my teeth punctured the skin and scooped out a hunk of juicy goodness. His lips kissed the space mine did.
I watch as his teeth carve an even bigger hole in the fruit. His throat bobs as he chews. He meets my eyes once again.
“Delicious,” he hums around the chunk of apple in his mouth.
Forget the fall of mankind, my knees are suddenly weak from the way he’s looking at me. Chewing that bite that he took over mine, like he’s savoring every crunch and swallow. Like he just kissed me.
And I suddenly want him to do the real thing.