Chapter 12
Chapter Twelve
HATTIE
“Did you just address me as sweet?” I nearly trip over the threshold onto the front porch, but Beck’s firm grip on my hand steadies me.
He arches a sun-bleached brow. “Is that okay? I was hoping it was better than baby.”
I consider for a moment then nod. “It is better than baby.”
Beck glances back at the screen door then leans in closer, his voice low. “It’s not my first choice.”
The puff of his breath tickles my neck and I swallow hard.
“Wh-what is your first choice?”
Beck glances over his shoulder again. I’m crap at lowering my voice. For sure, his dad can hear it all the way in the kitchen.
“Sorry,” I hoarse-whisper.
But I catch Beck’s one parenthesis grin before he leans in even closer. His breath feathers over my ear.
“Honeysuckle.”
I gasp as the word zips straight to my pussy.
When I picture Beck pulling the stamen of a honeysuckle through the flower’s flute and catching the dew drop of nectar on his tongue, a shiver runs over me.
I’m the honeysuckle.
Does that mean he wants my nectar on his tongue?
I shiver again.
Beck chuckles, and I feel it on my neck. “C’mon.”
He tugs my hand and I follow him down the steps.
“Okay if we walk?” he asks, closing my hand snuggly in his. I love the feel of it. Big. Calloused. Tight around mine.
“Walking is good. Running is the devil.”
His grin is a solar flare. “No running. Just wanna show you around.”
The paved semicircle drive in front of the farmhouse gives way to the gravel road I came in on, but Beck leads us in the opposite direction.
Plowed and unplowed fields stretch out to the left of the road.
To the right is a cluster of trees that separates the house from a row of giant shed-looking buildings.
“Are those sweet potato warehouses?”
Beck laughs. “Yeah, pretty much. Cure sheds and store sheds.”
“How do you cure a sweet potato?”
“Pretty simple. You keep it in a warm, humid environment for about a week.” He nods toward the buildings. “Our systems are set to eighty-five degrees and ninety percent relative humidity. It helps the sugars come through and makes the potato sweeter.”
“Eighty-five degrees and ninety percent humidity?” I wrinkle my nose. “That sounds gross.”
He laughs. “It’s not my favorite place to hang out. But it’s also when the sweets heal from cuts and knicks. They look a lot better after curing. More like what you see in the grocery store.”
“And then you sell them?”
Beck shakes his head and his rough thumb strokes over mine, making it really hard to learn about sweet potatoes. “Then we move them to the store house for another ten days to sweeten a little more. The store house is a lot cooler. Sixty degrees, but still humid.”
“And then you sell them?”
His parenthesis smile is back. “And then we sell them.”
We approach the first building. It’s big. I don’t even really grasp how big it is until Beck opens the door and leads me inside. My house isn’t small, but it could fit neatly in here. And it feels like a sauna.
Shelves bearing huge wooden crates full of sweet potatoes line the walls on each side of the building. From the cement floor all the way to the corrugated tin roof.
I sniff. “It smells like… mud and Thanksgiving.”
Beck tips his head back and laughs, the sound of it echoing in this hot house.
And then he’s hugging me again. Tight. Just the way I like it. “I’m so glad you’re here,” he murmurs into my hair.
I want to keep hugging him, but it’s so hot in here. I squeeze him once around the middle before dropping my arms.
“Can we go back out? I’m getting sticky.”
“Of course. Sorry—” He lets me go and turns us back toward the door, but then a thought hits me and I halt.
“Wait a second—” I look back over my shoulder at all the crates. Parked at the other end of the cure house is a forklift—I’m guessing for stacking and unstacking the crates. Because there are so damn many.
I blink at the crates and then look back at Beck. “So… the potatoes stay in here to cure… for a week?”
He nods. “And then we move them to one of the storehouses.”
I look back at the crates that must hold literally thousands of sweet potatoes. Each crate has a small white card with writing on it stapled to the front. I look closer. Harvesting dates. The crates closest to me are marked for yesterday.
“So these are potatoes you’ve harvested just in the last week?”
The corner of his mouth lifts and there’s my favorite punctuation mark. “Yeah.”
“Jesus Christ.”
He’s not a man. He’s not a farmer. He’s a beast.
I stare at him, stand up straighter and clear my throat. “This is a lot. You do a lot.”
Way more than me. Way, way more than I could ever manage.
I make sure not to say this part out loud.
My family wants to put me in a group home because they don’t even think I can manage to take care of myself.
I make damn sure I don’t say this part out loud either.
But if Merrick hadn’t intervened—hadn’t proposed the idea of me at least trying to live on my own, I’d have to tell him. And he might never look at me the way he’s looking at me now again.
Beck leads me outside, and I don’t think he says a word. At least I hope he doesn’t because nothing penetrates as I take in the farmland again.
It’s fucking huge.
He runs a farm for Pete’s sake.
“H-how many acres is it again?” My voice comes out squeaky.
“Three hundred and twenty.”
And maybe I’ve fallen too deep into my own thoughts because Beck’s voice suddenly sounds far away.
When I look up at him, his gaze is on the fields, his brow knitted.
Then he does this thing that seems pretty un-Beck like. He shakes his head like a dog shedding water and picks up his stride.
“C’mon.”
Like the cure shed, the store shed he shows me has a big garage door, but we enter through the regular door on the side.
Cool air hits my skin as Beck shuts the door behind us. “Oh, I like this a lot better.” It’s damp and chilly. “It feels like… like the boat rides at Disney. It’s a Small World… Pirates of the Caribbean… Frozen Ever After. I mean, if Elsa’s ice palace smelled like Thanksgiving.”
Beck cracks up again beside me, and even though I shouldn’t waste such a beautiful sight, I can’t take my eyes off the towers of crates. It’s just like the cure shed, stacked shelves line both sides. So many, it’s hard to wrap my head around all the work that goes into this operation.
At the far end of the warehouse is a sort of station with a conveyor counter—kind of like a grocery store checkout—with empty crates and sacks stored nearby.
I point to it. “Is that where you, like, package your deliveries?”
Beck nods. “Yeah, we can measure out fifteen-pound sacks or fifty-pound crates.”
In here, a second garage door is cut into the back wall.
My mind plays a little time-lapse video of the forklift transferring crates from the cure shed to the storehouse, nightfall leading to daybreak into nightfall again and again, and then yams tumbling down the conveyor belt into burlap sacks, onto a truck and then out the back.
“Headed to a grocery store near you,” I murmur.
“Or the cannery in Opelousas and then—” Beck shrugs. “All over the country.”
I choke. “You feed the goddamn country?!”
It’s an outburst. I’ve pretty much shouted in Beck’s face.
He blinks, startled. Then he narrows his eyes. “Not quite.”
But my heart is already racing.
"You grow like a million sweet potatoes. You could keep a whole—I don't know—village alive—" Pretty sure I'm shouting now. "Did you know humans can live on nothing but sweet potatoes? I looked it up. That's how healthy they are."
Beck's eyes are wide. "I did, but—"
"And, so, you could just… do it—" I tug out of his grasp and throw my hands up because he doesn't seem to get what this means. "You. You could keep thousands of people alive in a global crisis."
Beck's brows pinch, and I can't tell if he looks confused or concerned. Maybe both. "And that's... bad?"
"Gah!" I throw my head back. "No! It's amazing!"
Still wearing that look of worried overwhelm, Beck opens his mouth. Then closes it. Then opens it again. "Then why are you shouting?"
And the way he asks is so gentle it almost wrecks me.
I exhale through my nose in defeat. Maybe it's just surrender. But either way, I'm doomed.
"You can feed a small town." I shrug, that defeated doom weighing down my shoulders. "I can't even go to the grocery store."
Then Beck is right in front of me, hands gripping my upper arms tight. "Hattie."
He says my name like it's an answer.
Not a question.
Not a command.
"What did you say to me on Saturday?” he asks gently. “About feeling inferior?"
I press my lips together, remembering. "I was cute and naive back then." I shake my head and try to step out of Beck's grip, but he holds on.
"Nothing about you is inferior." Smiling an almost painful smile, Beck shakes his head. "Not to me. Not to anyone."
I should let him know what he’s up against. The man runs an entire farm. He takes care of his dad. He’s starting a micro distillery. He’s got the world on his shoulders.
This may just be our second date, but I like him so much already. And he likes me too. I can feel it. He needs to know that… that…
I shake my head hard and do what I do best: blurt it out. “I’ve got nothing to offer you.”
Beck screws up his face. “What?”
“You—” I hold out my hands like I’m about to demonstrate a karate chop. “Are wasting your time with me. I—can’t—do anything for you.”
Beck ticks his head back and then narrows his eyes. “You can’t do anything for me?” He repeats, but there’s an edge to his voice. An edge I’ve heard just one other time.
When he was talking to Alicia Milton.
I nod, squirming a little. Because Beck doesn’t look very happy. Not very happy at all. And even though I know I’d waste less of his time if he ended this date sooner rather than later, I still don’t want him to.