Summer at Orchard House: An utterly compelling and heart-warming summer romance (Blue Hills Book 1)

by Ellyn Oaksmith

  Nineteen

  Where There’s Smoke

  Evan nodded, talking to Hank Freeburg, indicating he’d be there in a minute. It gave Carmen a chance to catch her breath. Evan chatted easily with Hank, who Carmen knew from around town. The older man smoked a cigarette, but rather than wave the smoke away from his face, Evan nodded as Hank politely blew the smoke in the other direction.

  “I couldn’t get some of the crop in. Sold it to Saint Michelle, see? Wasn’t my first choice, but it saved my bacon. Nothing sadder than a load of grapes rotting in your fields.” Hank ground the cigarette under his boot to a fine pulp, placing the remains in a tin that went into his jacket pocket. A typical sight in a land racked by wildfires.

  “Hope they gave you a good price,” Evan said, nodding at Carmen.

  She had to admit that it was nice to see Evan giving Hank his attention. He could have brushed Hank off. Could have truthfully said he had any number of duties to attend to. But he listened.

  “Aye,” Hank said. “Hard to see strangers working in my field and trucking away my crop, but it was a swift deal. They knew they had me, what with the heat and all. Fair enough, given what they could have done.”

  Evan nodded. “Good to know.”

  “Get yours in?” Hank asked.

  “Yes. I was lucky,” Evan said.

  Carmen knew that Evan could have told him more. That he’d had a record harvest. Paolo had told Stella. He could have also said that the grapes were exceptional, too. Maybe from the new irrigation drip system he’d had installed at great cost that infused liquid fertilizer into the soil. But he hadn’t. Carmen begrudgingly admired his sensitivity.

  Hank nodded at Carmen. “I’ll leave you to it. See you during all the hoopla.” He waved his arm around the fairgrounds. “Well done, son.”

  Evan gave him a two-fingered salute. “Thank you, sir.”

  Carmen and Evan watched Hank and his dog make their way slowly across the fairground. “Nice man,” said Evan.

  “You were very decent.”

  Evan did a double-take. “Excuse me, do I know you?”

  Carmen’s lips twisted. “Very funny.”

  Evan tilted his head, studying her evenly. “I am decent, in general, you know.”

  Carmen sighed. “I have evidence to the contrary.”

  Evan put his palms up. “Okay, I’m not getting into this again. I think we already traumatized your father. What can I do for you?”

  Carmen turned to her truck, where her father waited, impatiently grinding the heels of his beloved cowboy boots into the dust. “Turns out, we don’t have help coming.”

  Evan broke into a huge grin. “You need help.” It was a statement.

  “You’re going to make me say it, aren’t you?”

  Evan scratched his chin. “Don’t tempt me.”

  Carmen shrugged, heading back to her truck.

  “Hey, wait. I’ll help you.”

  She kept walking, waving.

  “I said I’d help you!” Evan yelled, attracting unwanted attention.

  She didn’t stop, but she did say, “Thank you.”

  Evan shook his head the entire time it took to walk to the fairground office. She deserved to be stranded with that oversized hot tub wedged like a sausage into the truck’s narrow bed. He would assist Juan, he decided. He liked the man, despite his hot-tempered daughter. Every time he thought he’d found a way to talk to Carmen, it blew up. A relationship with her wouldn’t be work. It would be a full-time job. She was saving him, really. The last thing he needed was a difficult woman. She was the most difficult of them all.

  If someone asked him what he saw in Carmen Alvarez, he’d be stumped.

  She was impossible.

  The sooner Carmen realized that her father would be happy as a wealthy retiree, the better.

  Five men tilted the massive tub off the side of the truck while the waiting crew stopped it from crashing to the ground.

  “Stop! Hold up!” The ground crew hollered, but one of the men in the truck lost his footing. The tub slipped, landing in the dust with a thud, rocking back and forth.

  Carmen’s nerves bunched up her spine. Now what? She circled the tub, locating a crack running down one side. This thing had cost a fortune. But she couldn’t take it out on these men. They’d volunteered to help. A few apologized. Carmen patted their shoulders while her father knelt on the ground, examining the crack, running his fingers down the breech. “No problema. We can fix it. Gracias. It’s going to be fine.”

  She knelt down beside her father. “Can it be fixed?”

  Her father looked up. “Sí.” He sighed. “Carmen…”

  “Yes Papi?”

  He looked up at her, his warm brown eyes concerned. “Did you and that Evan fella work out things? You’re awfully hard on him.”

  Carmen nodded. “Sí, Papi. Es bueno.” He didn’t need to know. Papi would never understand the roller coaster of conflicting feelings that Evan evoked.

  Juan stood up, patting her shoulder, his face relaxed. “Bueno. This is nothing. I’ll come back and work on it. Nothing a trip to the hardware store can’t fix.” He walked to the truck. “Come on. Mami will have lunch ready.”

  Carmen followed him back to the car, wondering what to say to her father. It was so hard. One minute he was fine, and the next he thought Mami was alive. Should she tell him that Mami was dead? That he’d learned to plait hair, dry tears and sometimes call his sisters in Mexico when he didn’t know what to say? Could she bear to tell him that everything had changed forever when cancer had taken away the love of his life? Would it help if he knew that he’d managed beautifully? Raised his daughters and done a fantastic job?

  As they drove off the fairgrounds, Carmen sighed. She needed to go with him to the doctor. There were so many, many things that needed taking care of.

  Her father patted her hand. “Don’t worry, mi amor. I’ll fix it.”

  Carmen wished she lived in a world where her father could still fix everything.

  Carmen joined the picking crew after lunch. Six people had left that morning. The remaining harvesters were quiet, doggedly picking with swollen fingers and aching backs. The only people the pickers wanted to see at the end of the day were the massage therapists. Carmen had called a massage school in Wenatchee. She’d found students willing to work on the harvesters in the evening for the practice, and to help with the harvest. They lined up their tables on the patio. If they had expected Mexican pickers, they didn’t say anything, welcoming the tired people onto their tables. Waiting harvesters sat in the shade, drinking lemonade.

  Carmen had decided to serve dinner by the lake tomorrow night. She’d talked to Lola about making the recreational activities easier. If the harvesters would rather rest in their beds or read, she’d make dinner more interesting.

  In the field, the crew was noticeably quieter. Three days ago, they’d chatted, getting to know their fellow harvesters. Now they bent at their tasks, looking up only to wipe their faces or get drinks of water. When Carmen shared that they’d be eating at the lake the following night, most people just said, “Okay.”

  Carmen felt an obligation to make this experience what she’d advertised. “Tonight, we’re making ice cream.”

  That got a better response. Carmen picked up her phone and called Nathalie. “Can you go into town and get about three gallons of heavy cream?”

  Nathalie laughed. “Right. What’re we doing, bathing in it?”

  “No, I’m serious. We’re making ice cream.”

  “Cool. Okay, I’ll go buy a few gallons of cream.”

  “At Walmart,” Carmen told her.

  “Thank you.”

  “Just leave dinner. I’ll finish it.”

  “Cool,” Nathalie said.

  Poor kid. Grocery shopping was now a huge treat.

  “Okay, fill the inner jar with two cups of cream, some sugar and whatever you want to flavor it. We’ve got blueberries, raspberries and good old vanilla.” Carmen
turned to Nathalie, clapping. “Thank you, Nathalie, for finding all the delicious fixings.”

  The harvesters cheered for Nathalie, who beamed under the attention.

  Harvesters spread out on yoga mats on the patio, gathering around the tables to fill their jars while Carmen continued. The sun hung low on the smoke-blurred horizon, behind the craggy plateau over the fields. Overhead, the sky shifted from pinky orange to purple. The lake reflected the colors over a haze of dark blue.

  Carmen felt relieved seeing everyone so relaxed. Most of the people had gotten a second wind after she’d talked up the ice cream making, saying they could sit on the patio and make the ice cream themselves like she had when she was a Girl Scout. Several of the women had shared their happy memories of doing the same thing. Carmen went over to the tables that Nathalie had organized.

  “Once you get your fillings on the inside, you place the tightly closed jar inside the Yuban can in the middle, and surround it with layers of rock salt and ice. Nathalie, can you bring them out?”

  Nathalie disappeared into the kitchen, returning with large boxes of rock salt. A few moments later she had bowls of ice. The Yuban cans were stacked at one end, a result of Carmen’s father’s coffee drinking and a belief that a Yuban can had multiple purposes in life. The cans had waited decades in the garage for just such a moment. Carmen thought of her mother rolling her eyes at the stacks of rusting cans every time she got into the car. She sent a message to her mother. “Mami, Papi was right on this one.”

  Once they’d finished the layering of the salt and ice, the teams sat on their mats and rolled, as instructed, the Yuban jar between teams, mixing the ice cream and chilling the cream. It was, as Carmen had hoped, a good team-building activity. As the first few little bats flapped overhead, swooping erratically in their hunt for insects, the teams chatted and laughed, jumping up when the Yuban cans went sideways. When the cans bumped, they joked about sabotaging one another.

  “It’s going to take a while!” Carmen said. She couldn’t help but notice Evan on the edge of his property, looking down with a drink in his hand. For once, he didn’t wave. He just turned from her. It was surprising, how much it hurt. Every time she thought she’d shaken him off, something happened to remind her that there was still a vulnerable part of her that craved his attention.

  Whatever.

  “It’s fun!” said Nathalie, who had been paired with a boy her own age. They chatted amiably as they rolled the Yuban can, laughing when it rattled off the yoga mat onto the stone patio. Carmen’s mother’s tropicana roses glowed in the twilight. Their buds started as pink or tangerine before exploding into tropical hues, some tipped with hot pink and some a hot orange, like the lipstick their mother had favored. Mami would take her single glass of wine out onto the patio at night, inhaling the perfume from the roses, comparing their color to a fiesta.

  Laughter floated up into the night as the lights strung over the patio lit the ice cream makers, sitting legs splayed, rolling the cans back and forth.

  This was, Carmen thought, what she’d hoped the harvesters would experience. Not just the sunburns, blistered fingers and aching backs, but the feeling of summer camp. Of getting away from their regular life and making friends. Trying new things.

  She wanted this week to be something they’d remember fondly.

  Tonight felt like a win.

  Tomorrow, they’d drag all the tables down to the beach and have a barbecue. She’d try to forget the last time she’d been at the beach. She had to make new memories. Get over her irrational feelings.

  It was time to move on.

  “Car, get up!”

  There was a gorgeous red pink sunset on the wrong side of the lake. Carmen sat on what they now called “our rock” with Evan, so close she could feel the dampness of his bathing suit. What were they talking about? Everything. Nothing. It didn’t matter. They were getting along. And happy.

  “Car! You’ve got to get up!”

  It was Lola, intruding into Carmen’s dream. She cracked open one eye, studying her sister’s outline in the doorway against the light.

  “Go away.”

  “Get up. I’m going downstairs. It’s an emergency. Please!”

  She was gone before Carmen could ask what kind of emergency. There were people in the hallway, the murmur of voices. What were they all doing up? Her phone said three in the morning.

  Oh no.

  Why wasn’t everyone sleeping?

  She entered the hallway, fiddling with her robe belt.

  “Get out! I need to…” It was Marcus, the math teacher, weaving down the hallway like he was drunk.

  Did they all get drunk?

  Marcus pushed her aside, trying to reach another bathroom. He didn’t make it. Threw up in the linen closet.

  Carmen stopped, trying to get her bearings. Was this what rude awakening meant? One minute with a handsome man watching the sunset, the next watching a stranger upchuck in your linen closet.

  A pack of zombies lurched her way. Zombies in adorable summer PJs. The zombies moaned, pleading to use her bathroom. There wasn’t another option. Carmen pointed into her bedroom. It was the only en suite bedroom, besides the master. She’d pay heavily for this luxury.

  Both ends of the hallway were blocked by sick people. She dashed downstairs, hoping to find Lola, who was in the kitchen hunched desperately over her phone, her eyes huge. “Oh, my goodness, Car. They’ve got food poisoning.”

  Carmen found a barstool before she fell. “You’re kidding me?”

  “No. The raspberries.” Her finger traced a triangle between the three of them. “We ate plain vanilla ice cream. It’s only the people who ate the berries.”

  Nathalie was teary-eyed. “I didn’t know.”

  Lola patted her back. “How were you supposed to know?”

  Carmen glanced between them, perplexed. “Know what?”

  Nathalie shook her head. “Raspberries cause a lot of food poisoning.”

  Lola looked up from her phone. “They can.” She gave Nathalie a pointed glance. “Look, it could have been any one of us who bought those berries. You just did the shopping. Please. Let it go. You did exactly what we asked.”

  Lola faced Carmen, who felt like a bomb had just gone off in her face. “I let you sleep for as long as I could.” Carmen waved her off. “I called the nurse hotline. She said to keep them hydrated and if anyone seems to be dehydrated to bring them in. Or if they have fevers”—she looked at her phone—“or profuse sweating, tremors or delusions.”

  Carmen rubbed her forehead, growing increasingly horrified. “I can’t believe this.”

  “I know. I called Mami’s friends from the prayer group to see if they could help us.”

  Carmen nodded. “That was a great idea.”

  “Thanks.” Lola leaned into her sister. “But what about the grapes?”

  Carmen jumped up. She’d better get dressed. “We can’t worry about that now.”

  But as she dashed up the stairs two at a time, that’s exactly what Carmen worried about.

  What would happen to the harvest?

  More importantly, what would happen to the winery?

  Twenty

  Juan

  By six o’clock, they’d used every towel in Orchard House. The washing machine ran nonstop. Lola, Nathalie, Carmen and a couple of the harvesters who’d forgone the ice cream gathered in the kitchen, drinking strong coffee. After a sip or two, most of the harvesters begged off, heading upstairs to find a clean bed to grab some sleep.

  A young barista from Yakima put her mug in the sink. “We’re not picking today, are we?”

  Carmen shook her head. “No. Thanks for asking.”

  The girl gave her a weak smile before climbing the stairs.

  “I keep waiting for the locusts,” Lola said, staring bleakly into her coffee.

  “Don’t say that,” Carmen countered. It seemed conceivable, after the night they’d had. After two hours, the harvesters had finally stopped run
ning to the bathroom. Carmen, Lola, Nathalie and the healthy harvesters had changed beds as fast as they could, cleaning frantically, wiping every surface with Lysol.

  When the last sick harvester had finally flopped down into bed in an instant sleep, they’d slumped in the hallway, staring at the walls like survivors of an alien attack.

  “I’ve never seen anything like that in my entire life,” Nathalie said.

  “Hopefully you never will again,” Carmen sighed.

  “I’ll never eat another raspberry,” said Lola.

  “Lots of things carry listeria. Grapes, lettuce, meat, shellfish. You can get it from almost anything. Literally,” said a harvester, who wanted to keep talking but noticed the glares coming her way and wisely shut up.

  “Is this it, or could they keep, you know, doing more?” asked Nathalie.

  “When I was a kid at camp these kids got it from some lunch meat. It went on for days. Seriously, it can last a whole week,” said the doom-seeking harvester.

  Lola threw a washcloth at her. “That’s enough out of you.”

  “But probably not,” said the harvester. By this time nobody was listening to her anyway.

  Morning light filtered into the kitchen. Carmen looked out the window over the sink. The morning dew dried on the fields, so fresh and green. Full of life. Ha!

  Lola wrapped an arm around her sister. “Who wants to go swimming?”

  “Seriously?” asked Carmen.

  “Um, yeah. Look, it’s a beautiful day.” She pointed up the stairs. “They’ll be fine for a little while. “Let’s go swimming.”

  Nathalie stared at the sisters, raising her eyebrows. Suddenly, she smiled. “What the heck? I’m in.”

  Lola squeezed her sister. “Vámonos, Carmenita. We’ve got the rest of the day to face this mess. Let’s go to the beach.”

  It sounded like something her sister would have said years ago, when she’d dented her father’s truck or forgotten to water her mother’s garden.