Chapter 4
June Bridegroom
Mateo
Chris LeDoux’s country song about a county fair blasts in my ears and my head bobs as I sift through the leaves of the tree before me.
I grip a handful of dark red cherries, pulling the stems off the branches, then dropping the fruit into the bucket strapped to my chest. Cherry picking season in Bolt has always been my favorite.
I pick our few Bing cherry trees by hand so they're not bruised by the machines that harvest our tart cherries. The fruit tastes better when hand-picked and there’s something about climbing a ladder, being in a tree, the sweet scent of cherry juice, and the relief the shade brings from the sun that fills my heart with joy.
The afternoon sun is brutal this time of year.
I’m grateful I’m in the orchard today instead of with our small herd of cattle this afternoon.
The oval cherry tree leaves shade me from the heat, although they sometimes make it harder to find the fruit.
But I’d rather have to search for cherries than have the sun beating on me.
Unlike my Mami and sisters, whose salvadoreno blood showed up in their skin tones, I inherited my dad’s coloring.
Though my skin has a slight olive tint to it, I still burn if I’m in the sun for too long.
I never tan like my sisters. My sun-sensitive skin means sunscreen is my best friend and worst enemy.
Any chance I have to avoid putting it on makes me happy.
Call me crazy, but I’ve never been a fan of the smell.
Fresh cherries, on the other hand, I could eat and smell all day.
As my hand wraps around a small bunch, my music stops and my generic ringtone pierces my eardrum.
I really need to set up personalized ringtones for my friends and family because if this is Hudson calling me to try to set me up with another woman in town, I might just ignore his call.
I’d definitely let the call go to voicemail if it’s my mom calling about another granddaughter of someone in town who wants to date me. Her meddling is driving me insane.
I drop the cherries in the bucket, slip my hand out of my gloves, and hit the answer button on the side of my Bluetooth earbuds. “Hello?”
“Hi, Mateo.” The sound of Holly’s voice soothes my worry over it being another matchmaking call but fills me with another sense of concern. Holly has never called me before. We’ve talked maybe five or six times. I didn’t even know she had my phone number.
“Hey, Holly. What’s up?”
She pauses, and I hear her let out a deep breath on the other side of the line. “I have a situation. I need help, but I can’t ask Alex. So, I thought I’d call you.”
I am all ears and insanely curious. “Always happy to help you, Holly. Anything for my best friend’s sister.” My hands wrap around another handful of cherries, hoping the normalcy of the movement helps keep my intense interest under wraps.
Her laugh is stilted. I’m not sure if it’s because we’re on the phone or if something is really wrong. “Well, you haven’t heard what I need help with yet. So, just… hear me out, okay?”
“I’m pretty sure whatever you’ll ask me, I can help with Holly. I know some great places to bury a body, too.”
Holly chuckles and this time it sounds real.
The happy noise sends a swarm of bees into my chest. I smile, picturing Holly as we talk.
I think about her smile, and how she looked the last time I saw her on that almost-a-date red carpet experience.
“Don’t tempt me. I don’t want to kill the man. I just want him to stay away from me.”
Cherries slip through my fingers. “I’m getting my shovel.
” Joking is my fail-safe for when I feel things.
In reality, which I’m glad she can’t see, I’m white-knuckling this ladder.
My knees have failed me at the thought of a man bothering Holly.
I desperately want to run and defend her from the creep.
She laughs again, the sound only slightly easing the tension in my chest. “You don’t even know what he’s done, Mateo. You can’t just threaten people like that.”
I scoff. “You just said you want him to stay away from you. That means he’s doing something he shouldn’t. That means I can threaten the man.”
“Jorge isn’t worth you going to jail.”
I squeeze the cherries in my hand too tight and crush them. Juice seeps into my fingers. “Jorge, as in the Jorge from the red carpet? Who was getting way too handsy?”
“One and the same.” Her voice is bitter, and my heart aches with a need to hold her in my arms.
I drop the cherries and wipe the juice off on my jeans as I attempt to keep a level voice and compose a calm question. “Holly, what happened?”
She groans. “Promise you won’t tell Alex? I don’t want him to get involved.”
“I promise I won’t tell him without your permission. I hope you’ll tell him eventually though, because he loves you and he’ll probably want to know about this.”
“I know. I just put my foot in my mouth and need to fix this on my own. Alex has been protecting me his whole life. Now he’s married to Reina, and I need to stand up for myself without his help.
I need to learn to be strong and not let people walk all over me.
When it comes to my job, I’m confident. But relationships and men are an enigma to me. I don’t know what to do.”
My lips twitch, and I don’t withhold my smile at Holly’s logic. She can’t see me smiling like a goon over the fact she called me to help her be self-reliant. “So you’re calling me for help, even though you’re trying to be independent?”
“I’m a work in progress, okay? Will you just listen?”
“Yes.” My muscles tighten as I finish climbing off the ladder and sit in the grass, leaning back against the metal steps. “I’m all ears.”
“Jorge is trying to blackmail me into dating him. He’s threatened to spread rumors about Alex from his "experience" working with him if I don’t go on a date with him. He first threatened me after we ditched the red carpet. Then I went on a date with him the next day, after Rodney, my mentor, pressured me to give him another chance. Things did not go nicely, and I left when he touched me in the wrong places and implied I owed him certain favors. Since then, he hasn’t stopped messaging me, and sending me letters.
I swear he’s stalking me, and I don’t know what to do.
I’ve never filed a restraining order, and I don’t know if I have enough evidence, and it seems complicated.
I don’t know if I’m just crazy or blowing this out of proportion or what.
” She’s breathing fast by the time she stops talking.
My blood boils, my teeth hurt from clenching them, and I force my jaw to loosen so I can say words to comfort this woman instead of reacting like a caveman.
“Holly. You’re not overreacting. That man is stalking and threatening you.
That is not okay. He touched you inappropriately.
That is not okay. You one hundred percent should get a restraining order.
” I take a deep breath when I hear her trying to hide sniffling noises.
“Holly, how can I help? I’ll do anything. ”
“Anything?” she whispers.
“Within reason. I don’t know if prison at my age would agree with me, but we’ll see.”
She laughs, and the sound relaxes my tightened shoulders. “I don’t think it’d be something you’d go to prison for. People might just think we’re crazy.”
“I like crazy.”
“Well, remember how I said I put my foot in my mouth? I saw Jorge earlier today. He said he wanted to make sure I made the right choice when it came to a future spouse. I may have lied and said I’m already engaged.”
My heart plummets at the thought of Holly being engaged. But I tell myself to calm down because I don’t have all the details yet. “Well, who’s the lucky man?”
There’s a pause on the other line. “That’s what I’m calling about. I kind of said I was engaged to… you.”
Now I’m the one pausing as I process what she just said. “Come again?”
Holly groans, and if she’s anything like her brother, I can imagine her gripping her hair in frustration right now like he does.
“Mateo, I told him we’re engaged and we’ll pick a date to get married after your harvest season is up or something.
I can’t even remember what I said because I was panicking. ”
I’m frozen in shock but a glimmer of hope rises in my chest.
“I was just going to let it die down and let him forget I ever said it. But all afternoon I’ve been thinking about how maybe we could pretend to be engaged for a while and then get married.
But it wouldn’t be a real marriage, just a name-only one.
If we got married, it would make this Jorge mess go away. ”
My heart races while my stomach plummets.
Get married to Holly?
I mean, I absolutely have a crush on her, but marriage? “How would a marriage between us work, exactly?”
“It’d be a marriage of convenience, of course.
I wouldn’t expect anything from you besides being legally married for a year or two.
We don’t even need to live in the same place.
I’d take care of myself financially, and we’d have to go to some events together, but it’d basically be like we weren’t even married except for when I need to show off my ring and my husband. ”
My mouth is dry. I clear my throat. “A fake marriage?” I say the words slowly, still trying to wrap my brain around it.
Except the longer I think about it, the more it sounds appealing.
I could be married, get my parents off my back and avoid more date setups, and I’d have a chance to occasionally escape the farm.
This is starting to sound appealing in more ways than one.
“Well, the marriage documents would be real," Holly says, "but none of those other marriage-y things would happen between us.”
I’m suddenly grateful for my teenage sisters who have trained me for this exact moment. “Got it. We’d be pulling a The Proposal on people?”
She laughs. “Yes! Exactly. I’m going to guess Cruz had you watch that one. She mentioned how much she loves that movie at Alex’s wedding.”
“It makes sense. A wedding ring gives you more leverage and legitimacy for saying no and avoiding him, and for filing a restraining order.”
She goes quiet before she whispers, “So, you’ll do it?”
“Marry you?”
“Yes.” Her voice gets stronger. “Will you be my fake husband, Mateo?”
I’ve had a crush on this woman for two years.
I’ve been praying about how to get space from my family and get them to back off about me dating.
It’s like everything has aligned in this moment, and I don’t even hesitate.
“Yes. You’re in charge of telling your brother, though.
He’ll take it better from you. Meanwhile, I’ll tell my mami.
Let me know what your timeline is so I can get some things sorted around the farm. ”
“Oh, I forgot to mention we don’t have to live together, but sometimes I’ll need you to come to California for a weekend or a specific event.
For example, I have to attend a series of galas this summer and I’d love to have you here for those.
You can stay in one of the guest bedrooms. I also was thinking you could hire another worker for your farm who could step in during those times and I could pay their salary. Would that be okay?”
I don’t know how my parents would feel about it, but my heart has already committed to this crazy adventure. We’ll figure it out and if she helps us hire another worker, then we should be fine. I can do paperwork and administrative things remotely when I occasionally go to California.
This crazy scheme is growing on me by the second.
“That’s very generous of you, Holly. But you don’t have to pay me to marry you.”
She huffs. “I’m not paying you to marry me, silly man.
I’m just saying we’d be married, so I should probably make sure it’s feasible for you to act like my husband and so you can come to California when I need you.
Especially because you run a farm in Oregon that you’ll still need to take care of while you’re with me. ”
“Well, we can figure out something.”
She pauses for a moment. “So… you’ll do it?”
I huff a laugh. “Yes. I’ll marry you.”
Her squeals pierce my eardrums, but it’s a happy pain I’ll suffer any day. “You’re amazing, Mateo!”
I chuckle and wink before remembering we’re on the phone and she can’t see it. “Don’t you forget it. Now I’ve got to go finish harvesting cherries and think about how this is going to work. Text me details, okay?”
“Will do. Thanks for being my knight in shining armor again.”
I smile, and the happiness in her voice warms my heart. “Of course, Holly.”
The phone goes silent and my music restarts as I stare at the sky.
This is not how I imagined getting engaged.