Chapter 26
Luna
“The one and only rule of the Apple Blossom Orchard internship program,” Reed says, leaning in, “is that there is no internship program. So if anyone asks, you are an external consultant doing a high-level inventory inspection. Got it?”
“External consultant,” I say. “Got it.”
I turn as a yawn cracks my jaw wide and I don’t have a free hand to hide it behind.
Six-thirty in the morning. There’s a version of me who is still unconscious right now, face-down, blackout curtains drawn. Boy, would she miss out though.
The orchard at this hour is beautiful, mist sitting low and white between the rows of trees, and the whole place smells like cold earth, bruised apples and the green bite of leaves wet from the morning dew.
Somewhere off to the left a bird is losing its entire mind about something. Nothing else moves.
The background noise in my head goes quiet. Maybe I didn’t need a meditation retreat but a beautiful apple orchard.
Reed’s a half-step ahead, and his scent keeps drifting back over his shoulder into me, woodsmoke and the heavy banked musk under it. Every time it lands, my inner omega goes loose and pleased.
Good, she sighs.
We come up over a low rise, and more orchard just keeps happening. A whole other valley of it, rows and rows of trees dropping away downhill toward a cluster of long brick buildings.
“Okay, how big is this place,” I say. “I keep deciding I’ve seen it, and then there’s more of it.”
“Eighty acres.” He says it the way other people say their own name. “And you’ve seen, what, the cottage, the near cabins, the top blocks so... not much.”
“Any idea how many Lakeview public libraries is eighty acres?” I ask.
“Depends,” he says, looking back at me with a smirk.
“Are we talking about the actual book space, or does the municipal lawn count? Because if we’re counting lawns, it’s easily fifty.
” He points down the slope. “But none of those libraries have the crown jewel of Apple Blossom. Behold: the loading docks.”
We walk down the slope to reach them. It is a lot better looking than I expected from far away, featuring clean timber ramps, forest-green painted steel, and warm lights glowing under a long wooden awning.
“This is us.” Reed plants a boot on the timber and swings himself up onto the dock. “So. What do you think? I renovated it myself.”
“Honestly?” I take it in. “It’s easily the most beautiful loading dock I’ve ever seen.” His grin starts to go. “Now, granted, I’ve seen exactly one loading dock in my life, and I’m standing on it. But I’m impressed.”
“I’ll take it.” He looks unreasonably pleased with himself, and doesn’t bother hiding it.
“Where’s everybody, though?” I ask.
He’s already moving, pulling a clipboard off a crate. “Trucks load out at the end of the day. Crew brings the bins down, stages it all, goes home. Mornings, it’s just whoever’s fool enough to be up.” He glances back at me. “Which, the way we’re short on hands lately, comes out to me. And you.”
He moves through the space, taking a clipboard in one hand, the other trailing along the staged bins as he passes, checking something.
“Hat,” he says, nodding at a stack of hard hats on an upturned barrel.
I take a yellow one and wedge it down over my bun.
“So what does the Chief Inspector actually do?” I ask, zipping my jacket up to my chin. “Am I counting boxes? Double-checking the inventory? I’ll have you know I find checking things off lists captivating.”
He drops the clipboard on a crate and crosses the space between us in two steps.
And then he’s just there. Too close, all at once, the heat coming off him wrapping around me before I think to step back.
He dips his head down to my level. Up close his eyes are very green and very awake, and there’s a fleck of pollen caught high on his cheekbone, gold against the stubble, that I am absolutely not going to reach up and brush away.
Hands to yourself, I order myself, though my omega helpfully reminds me that scent-matches are not, historically, known for that.
“I see you being sarcastic and all,” he says, his smirk pulling wider. “You’d actually be surprised how thrilling this stuff can be. There’re always things you’d never expect happening, on a property this big...”
I was, in fact, not being sarcastic. But any plan to correct him vanishes the moment my gaze drops to his mouth. I catch myself immediately and force my eyes back up, but he saw. Of course he saw.
The smirk on his face pulls wider.
“Is that right,” I say.
“Trust me.” He straightens, pulls a second pair of gloves from his back pocket, and presses them flat to my chest—his knuckles grazing the curve of my breast on the way, dragging a whimper up my throat that I barely manage to swallow. “You’re gonna love it.”
I already love it a little.
***
“Okay. These—” Reed stops at a tower of crates, flips a page on the clipboard, and angles it toward me.
“Honeycrisp. Premium grade. They go out on the noon truck to a distributor in the city. Dock four.” He leans in to run a finger down a column of numbers, and his shoulder presses warm along mine.
“See? Logged, staged, ready to load. That’s how it’s supposed to look. ”
“Mm.” I am mostly looking at the three inches between his jaw and my temple. “Riveting stuff.”
“And wait, there’s more,” he says. “The staging bay. It’s where we group the premium crates before they hit the buyers’ trucks, but it’s all the way at the far end of the property. We’ll take the Gator.”
“You keep reptiles, too?” I ask, keeping pace as he walks.
He chuckles, shaking his head. “You’ll see.”
The Gator turns out to be a green, mud-splattered utility cart that looks like it’s survived several wars. Reed hops into the passenger seat and pats the rubber steering wheel.
“Come on,” he says. “You’re driving.”
I stop at the edge of the cart, crossing my arms. “I have a strict policy against operating anything that doubles as farm equipment.”
“It’s a utility cart, not a tractor,” he says. “You drive a car, don’t you?”
“A car has doors, a roof, and air bags. This has... hold on, is there at least a seatbelt?”
“It’s fine, this practically drives itself.” He pats the seat again. “And if you get yourself into any trouble, don’t worry, I’ll be right here. Hands-on...” He smirks.
He does make a compelling argument. Several of them, actually, if I count each finger on his hands.
I sigh and climb in.
I find the gas pedal, and the cart lurches forward with a loud grind. I lurch with it, letting out a sharp, embarrassing squeak I would deny under oath.
“Practically drives itself, huh?” I say, gripping the wheel so tight my knuckles go white.
Reed laughs, a bright, easy sound, and reaches over.
“Here.” His hand closes over mine on the wheel, warm, rough and enormous, steering us off the curb I was about to introduce us both to. His other arm stretches along the back of my seat. “Feather it. You’re not killing it, you’re asking it nicely.”
His chest is half against my shoulder now. His scent floods everything and my pulse does something stupid and high in my throat.
Are we climbing him now? my omega asks, purring. Tempting honestly, but doing that on a creaky cart sounds like a safety hazard, and somebody here has to be the voice of reason.
But the climbing is definitely coming, I reassure her.
We roll toward the back bay at the breakneck speed of nine miles an hour, his hand over mine the whole way, neither of us saying one word about it. We come around the last row of bins, Reed’s hand goes still over mine and the cart drifts to a stop on its own.
Well, the back bay isn’t what I expected. The bins are a mess. Shoved around at odd angles, a couple stacked higher than the rest, one dragged crooked across the bay door. I climb out. My boots crunch on loose woodchips.
“Huh,” Reed says behind me.
“Huh,” I agree.
He hops down, circles the worst of the pile, and stops with his hands on his hips. Then he turns to me. “Looks like we had our very own apple fae come through in the night. Real little troublemaker, that one.”
“She come around often?” I nudge a crooked bin with my toe. “Because going by the mess, I’d have put my money on a gremlin.”
“Nah. Fae. Definitely fae.” He crouches by the bin dragged across the door and runs his thumb along its base. “Though I will admit she’s never been this mischievous before. Which means you and me, Inspector, we’d better hunt down some clues. Figure out how she did it. And why.”
I crouch beside him and survey the damage.
“Hmm,” He says, tapping the bin. “We don’t stack three high in this bay.
Ceiling’s too low for the forklift to top-load, so anybody who works here knows better.
” He tips his head at the bin blocking the door.
“And nobody on my crew would barricade their own bay door shut. That’s a whole bad day waiting to happen. ”
He flips the lid off the nearest premium bin, then he goes quiet for a second.
The apples inside seem wrong, there’s too much empty space.
“Did someone go through these?” I ask.
“It would seem so,” he replies, drumming his fingers once on the lid. He stands, brushes his hands off, and his eyes go to the forklift by the bay door he pointed at earlier.
“That’s not where that lives,” he says, and walks over.
Up close, the forklift’s mast is stuck halfway raised, the forks hanging at a tilt. Reed climbs into the seat and thumbs the controls. Nothing. He tries again. A grind, a click, and then a flat mechanical refusal.
He drops down, crouches at the base of the mast, and reaches into the machinery to yank something free. When he stands back up, he’s holding a thick steel bolt wrapped in a wire that had been jammed straight down into the hydraulic track.
“Oof,” I say, looking at the metal shard. “That fairy’s been very naughty.”
“Yep.” Reed spins the bolt between his fingers, smiling like it’s just another Tuesday. “Bins shuffled, a jammed forklift, a blocked door...” He points the bolt at me, absolutely delighted. “Inspector, you know what we’ve got here?”
“A felony?”
“A mystery.” He reaches into the Gator, pulling his clipboard off the seat to make a quick note. “Told you. Things you’d never expect.”