by C. Morgan
I smiled at the first people to step up to my station and served them their vegetables. A young boy with dirty cheeks gave me a charming, gap-toothed smile, while an older boy, presumably his brother, removed his hat and muttered a shy hello.
I gave them a little extra and ushered them down the line.
Lukas takes what he wants. And he wants everything. I sighed. You’re not special. Not to a man like that.
Chapter 11
Lukas
“It looks like we’ve arrived, Mr. Holt.”
I looked up from my laptop which was balanced on my knees as I rode in the back seat of the Range Rover. My driver, Art, a balding man with a thin frame and respectable posture, palmed the steering wheel and took a gentle right-hand turn. The tires rolled off the paved street onto a dirt road lined in apple trees.
The farm was nowhere in sight. The road stretched on before us until it narrowed to a point and met the blue sky. Kayla had warned me that it was a ways off the main road, about a quarter mile to be precise, which meant this property was of staggering proportions.
“What a beautiful apple orchard,” Art said.
My eyes were back on my computer screen. If I wasn’t so swamped with work, I would have driven myself. But the new software my team and I were working on was in beta testing, which meant I was drowning in extra workload. Beta testing always brought out the issues in code, as it was supposed to do. The last thing I wanted was to release software to the public that wasn’t absolutely perfect. This was our opportunity to weed out bugs, rewrite and fix errors, fine tune and condense the code, and all the while make sure we stayed on schedule for launch.
So I’d opted to have Art drive me out to the farm so I could squeeze in an extra hour and a half of work on the way there and again on the way back into the city.
“Yeah,” I said as my fingers glided over the keyboard. “Really beautiful.”
Art chuckled softly. “Sir, you’ve hardly looked away from your computer.”
“I’m a busy man, Art. I don’t have time to admire apples, leaves, and some grass.”
Art was quiet for a minute. “There is always time to admire such things, Mr. Holt. If you can’t, maybe you’re off course.”
“Uh huh.” I’d barely heard him. I was cutting and pasting, testing and running, publishing and deleting.
Art cracked a window and drove the rest of the way down the dirt road in silence so I could work. I appreciated it and didn’t even notice when the Rover came to a slow stop. The tires crunched on gravel and dirt, and Art put the vehicle in park before announcing that we had arrived at our destination.
I submitted my work and closed my laptop to tuck it back into my work bag, which I slid under the back seat for safe keeping. I opened my door and stepped out onto the dirt. The air smelled sweet out there and I detected notes of hay and honey along with soil, grass, and cider. Perhaps the cider smell was coming from the ruby-red apples hanging from the branches of trees in the fields at our back.
“Is that Ms. Goodfellow, sir?” Art nodded in the opposite direction of the orchard.
I turned as I straightened out my suit jacket.
There she was. Kayla stood in front of a traditional red barn. The doors were wide open, exposing the belly of a modern and well-kept barn. Hay lay strewn about in little piles on a concrete floor, and a woman in overalls was walking to and fro, surrounded by children. She was showing them the pens in the barn. Based on the clucking sounds from the chickens and the other variety of farm noises, I assumed the barn was full of sheep, goats, donkeys, and pigs.
Kayla had her hair pulled up in a ponytail. She was smiling wildly at three children who were crowded around her, trying to get their hands on child-sized ball caps she was handing out. She laughed as one child pulled a hat down over his head all the way past his eyes to the bridge of his nose. Kayla crouched down and lifted the visor for him. She said something to him and he laughed before taking off the other way to run into a crowd of adults. Parents presumably.
Kayla wore a pair of jeans that fit her like a second skin. Her sneakers used to be white but had turned a muddy color around the soles. The staining had touched the ends of her laces, too. She wore a T-shirt that said Good Fellow’s and so did all the kids.
I was suddenly acutely aware of the fact that I’d shown up to a working farm in a three-piece suit, loafers, and a tie.
What were you thinking?
I left Art at the Rover and approached Kayla. She didn’t see me coming until I was practically right on top of her, and when she turned and saw me, her cheeks flushed a magnificent shade of pink.
“I hope I’m not late,” I said.
Kayla shook her head. Her ponytail swung back and forth. “No, not at all. We’re waiting on the hay wagon to come pick us up and take us out to the middle of the orchard.” She looked me up and down. “You look nice.”
“So do you.” I meant it. She looked quite nice indeed. So nice that the sight of her pulled my memories right back to the kiss we’d shared in her office the other afternoon. Her thighs had felt so good beneath my palms. Firm and full. Her lips had felt much the same against mine.
“Come on. There’s someone I want to introduce you to.”
I followed Kayla into the barn where children were giggling while they fed carrots and hay to donkeys with swishing tails. We stopped in front of one of the pens, where a woman in a wide-brimmed black hat and a full black ensemble, including a shawl, was crouched down so she could peer through the lens of an expensive camera as she snapped shots of the kids.
“This is the photographer I hired for the day,” Kayla explained. “Her name is Winifred. She’ll be taking pictures of you today. Mostly candid. She’ll be taking pictures of the children as well. We’re going to send all the parents and guardians prints in the mail as a little added bonus so they can remember the day.”
I wondered how much that was costing Kayla and her organization. Based on the condition of her office, I found it hard to believe she was covering the cost out of her own budget.
Winifred straightened up and tucked her camera strap over her shoulder so she wore it like a bag. She thrust her hand out. Every single finger bore a ring on it. Her nails were painted black. “Nice to meet you, Mr. Holt. Don’t worry. You won’t even notice I’m out there with you.” She leaned in close and whispered. “I’m like a ghost when I work.”
It seemed unlikely that she would blend in amongst the group wearing blue Good Fellow’s T-shirts and matching ball caps, but I nodded anyway. “Sounds good to me.”
Brakes squealed out on the gravel road in front of the barn. Kayla looked up and clapped her hands together. “That’s our ride.” She turned to the kids and their guardians, all of whom were still focused on the animals. “All right, folks! Let’s head outside to the hay wagon and go pick some apples! Make sure you’re with your buddy.”
Chaos erupted around us. Kids scurried to find their buddy. Once they did, they grabbed hands and darted outside, where they formed a less than mediocre line at the back of the hay wagon being towed by a tractor. Several of them bickered about where they wanted to sit, but they all fell quiet when Kayla and I made our way over and Winifred took some not-so-subtle pictures of our backs.
The man driving the tractor nodded at me before looking me up and down. I shouldn’t have worn the damn suit.
Kayla pushed open the latch on the swinging gate on the back of the wagon. There was no dropdown step, so she offered to lift the first child up herself. I watched as the boy, probably six or seven years old, held up his arms and beamed at her as she hoisted him up and set him down on the wagon. His boots, little rubber rain-resistant things with dinosaurs all over them, shuffled through the hay as he made his way right to the opposite end of the wagon to take a seat on one of the benches. There was seating all along the outer edges as well as six rows down the middle. He shimmied back so he could lean against the wooden guard rails of the wagon and his feet dangled off the ground. He s
tarted swinging them back and forth.
A child tugged at the hem of my jacket. I glanced down to meet the gaze of a little girl with brown pigtails and big green eyes. She had freckles across her little nose, and she wore a sweater beneath her rain jacket with a big gray cat on it. Its eyes were made of green sequins.
She lifted her arms expectantly and waited for me to pick her up.
I crouched down, picked her up, and set her in the wagon. Her boots left track marks of dirt along my hip and the thigh of my pants. She thanked me with a quiet voice and a small smile before rushing to meet the boy who was already on the wagon.
Kayla shot me an apologetic glance as she noticed the dirt on my pants. “Sorry.” She giggled. “I hope that’s not one of your favorite suits.”
I laughed and shook my head. “I don’t know what I was thinking when I put it on this morning.”
A lie. I knew where my head was at. It had been bouncing between work and that kiss with Kayla. No wonder I’d dropped the ball and dressed like I was going to the office.
“I hope it wasn’t too expensive,” she said.
I shrugged. “It was.”
Kayla covered her mouth and laughed. I laughed too and was struck with the question, how long had it been since I laughed like this?
We got the last of the small children in the wagon. The older kids, between ten and twelve years old, climbed up themselves and were followed by the guardians. Kayla and I hopped up last and I closed the door behind us. Kayla walked across the wagon to the tractor and gave the driver a thumbs-up.
We lurched forward and she braced herself with one hand on the wooden guard. She turned to the group with a grin. Her eyes were in shadow under the visor of her ball cap. “All right, guys. I hope you’re all as excited about this as I am. I’ve been looking forward to it for weeks. Mr. Doherty here,” she gestured behind her to the driver of the tractor, “is going to take us to his favorite spot in his orchard where he likes to pick apples. We have a whole hour out in the orchard today to pick as many apples as we want. I have a couple of surprises in store for you all this afternoon but you’re going to have to exercise patience. Do you think you can do that?”
Her question was met by a chorus of yeses.
She caught my eye and grinned. In the sunlight, she looked like the angel Seattle said she was. She looked like the angel these kids needed.
As I looked around at the smiling faces, I wondered what lives these children really led. Kayla had said they were with an organization that helped disadvantaged youths and kids. Did this mean they came from poverty? Were their families in turmoil? Did they have safe, happy homes to return to when this afternoon was over?
The little girl beside me tapped my knee. She couldn’t have been more than eight. I turned to her and smiled. “Yes?”
“Do you think they have candy apples out there?”
“In the orchard?”
She nodded.
I paused to look thoughtful. “You know, I don’t think they will. If they come straight from the tree, they don’t need caramel because they’re already sweet. Just like candy.”
“Really?” she asked with wide eyes.
“Really.” I nodded earnestly. “You just wait and see. Take your time, find the perfect, bright red apple, and bite into it. It will be the best apple you’ve ever had.”
For a moment, she looked like she didn’t believe me. Then she sat up straight and proud. “I’m going to find the best apple in the whole orchard.”
I leaned in close and nudged her shoulder with mine. “Not if I find it first.”
Her bright-eyed excitement narrowed. “You can’t have it. I want it.”
“Well,” I said, leaning back against the wood frame, “I’m taller than you. So I’ll be able to pick the ones you can’t reach.”
She frowned. “I hadn’t thought of that.”
I chuckled. “Don’t worry. If I find the perfect apple, I’ll bring it straight to you. Deal?”
She beamed. “Deal.”
I chuckled and draped an arm against the frame of the wagon. As I looked up to peer down the lane of apple trees flanking either side of the wagon, I caught Kayla’s eyes. She was still standing, bracing herself with one hand, and based on the way she was smiling at me, I assumed she’d heard my conversation with the little girl.
She gave me a knowing nod and turned her back to me as she started talking to the kids around her about the nutritional value of apples. She’d make a good mother. I could see her in a soft robe with a cup of coffee in hand in the morning coming down a set of stairs with a sleepy toddler in her free arm. Her hair would be a mess, and she’d be yawning, and I’d meet her in the kitchen with a coffee refill and a piece of toast with peanut butter.
I blinked. Since when had I ever fantasized about being a father? I gave my head a shake.
Since when had I fantasized about being a husband?
Chapter 12
Kayla
The tractor came to a stop. The wagon lurched but only a little, and the kids were on their feet as soon as we were no longer in motion. The parents and legal guardians got out first, followed by the older kids, and Lukas swung down over one of the guard rails. He landed soundlessly in the grass and met me at the back of the wagon to help the little kids get down. The girl he’d been teasing about apple picking refused to leave his side, and they wandered to the nearest apple tree, where Lukas scrutinized the apples diligently and told her they could most certainly be better.
“Never pick the first one you see,” he told the little girl. “That’s a good life lesson right there. Patience. Patience is key.”
“Patience is key,” the little girl repeated verbatim.
Lukas laughed.
I hadn’t heard him laugh this much since he was a kid—and a young one at that. By the time he was eleven or so, maybe even ten, his innocence was long gone. He was painfully aware of how little he and his mother had and how hard he was going to have to work to provide better for them. And he had. Before that time though, Lukas had his carefree moments. Moments of teasing, playing, and goofing around.
Seeing that side of him resurface with the little girl, Angelica, was a sight for sore eyes.
Mr. Doherty climbed down from his tractor and led the group three trees down where there were stacks of silver buckets. He told all the kids to grab one for themselves. For the children that were too small, a parent stepped in to carry the buckets.
The farmer approached the nearest tree and showed the kids how to properly pluck an apple from its branch. “All you do,” he said in a deep, warm voice, “is give it a little twist. You don’t want the stem to come out of the apple if you can help it. Like so.”
He gripped a red apple, twisted his wrist in a quick flourish, and pulled the fruit away from the branch with a soft snap. He held it up for the kids before wiping it on his plaid shirt and taking a bite. Juice sprayed his boots and his bite broke away from the core with a fresh popping sound.
“That’s all there is to it,” he said with a smile full of apple.
In less than ten seconds, the kids were rushing to grab their own buckets. Lukas passed them around and made sure everyone was equipped before Angelica decided to steal him for herself again.
She’d taken a liking to him. I couldn’t blame her. There was a lot to like.
I watched as Lukas moved along the row of trees with Angelica. She hung off his every word as he talked to her about the farm and trees. She asked questions, and he answered, and on the fourth tree, he paused and looked down at her with an arched eyebrow.
I moved closer to hear what they were saying.
“I think I might have found it,” Lukas said softly.
Angelica gazed up at him the way a child might at a mall Santa Claus. “Found what?”
“The perfect apple.”
“The perfect apple?” she gasped.
Lukas nodded earnestly. “Would you like to see?”
“Yes, please.”
He pointed at an apple nestled in the branches. “That one there. Do see you see it?”
Angelica nodded.
“Can you reach it?”
She nodded again.
“Stick your hand in there and twist it off like Mr. Doherty showed you,” Lukas told her. He stepped closer to the tree. The branches nearly swallowed him whole. They tugged at his suit jacket but he didn’t seem to care.
Angelica reached in. The leaves rustled and I giggled softly as she struggled but finally emerged victorious with a bright red apple clutched in her tiny hand. She held it up the way an athlete might hold up a football after the winning touchdown.
Lukas threw his fist in the air to celebrate with her. He took the apple, wiped it clean on his shirt, and passed it back to her. “Take a bite. Tell me if you think it needs caramel.”
Angelica considered the apple before taking a small bite out of it. All she got was skin. Lukas threw his head back and laughed.
I bit my bottom lip and cursed my ovaries for screaming like teenagers in a mosh pit.
Angelica bit again, this time breaking away a decent portion of apple. Her eyes widened with delight and she went in for more.
Lukas was still chuckling. “Is it good?”
She held the apple out to him. He took a bite out of the other side. I loved the way his jaw flexed as he chewed. Angelica watched him with the same awe I felt. He swallowed, his Adam’s apple sliding up and down his throat, taunting me seductively. He licked his lips and nodded appreciatively. “I don’t think that needs caramel at all.”
“Me neither,” Angelica said matter-of-factly.
“Shall we find more for you to bring home?” he asked.
I wanted to linger and watch the pair of them for the whole duration of our hour out in the orchard but I didn’t have that luxury. I was working.