When I turned back to Zach, I found him watching me. His blue eyes regarded me with such quiet intensity that I was a hundred percent certain he could read my fear like a book.
“So tell me about your job,” I said to distract the both of us. “Where did you learn to fix farm machinery?”
“Grew up with it,” he said. “My, uh, stepfather was in charge of the garage on the compound where we lived. When I was twelve I realized it was one of the better jobs there. Learned everything I could.” One of his fingers traced the condensation on his beer glass. He looked lost in a memory.
“How long have you been in Vermont?”
Those blue eyes flew up to mine. “Four years. My easiest path toward finding a higher-paying job is probably by getting a real mechanic’s license, but for now I just work on the Shipleys’ and the Abrahams’ vehicles.”
I relaxed while we talked about work. Our little corner of the Gin Mill began to feel cozy instead of crowded. Drinkers were two deep at the bar, but it was quieter at the tables. And in the back, two pool tables and two dart boards were in play, with plenty of elbow room.
The place had an industrial vibe that I admired. The bricks and old beams overhead gave everything a rosy hue, and votive candles shed a homey light on each table. It was very Vermont—like experiencing life with the volume turned down a couple of notches. And right now, that was exactly what I needed.
Zach’s gaze followed mine around the room, and then he gave me a quick little smile. “You play pool?”
“Sure. But not well.”
“I’m not good, either, but a table’s free. Feel like a game?”
“I do. Let’s find out which of us is the least awful.” I slid out of the booth, bringing my beer along with me.
Zach got busy racking up the balls while I ogled him over the rim of my glass. I’d bet anything that Daphne Shipley sat up nights writing poetry about Zach’s arms. He was all golden skin and shapely muscle, from the biceps visible at the sleeves of his T-shirt to his broad, sturdy hands. He also had an economy of motion that I admired, steering that big body calmly, with no wasted efforts.
I’d always had a thing for men who worked with their hands. It probably began as a rebellion against my ridiculously intellectual parents. But there was something really sexy about tactile abilities… My gaze lingered on Zach’s thick fingers as they positioned the balls in the rack, then lifted it nimbly away.
“Want to break?” he offered, chalking a cue.
I shook my head, still under his spell. His T-shirt stretched against his pecs as he lined up his shot.
A moment later the cue ball made the familiar smacking sound into the balls, sending them in every direction. Zach sank the number two and then followed up with a successful sink of the four, before missing the next one.
When I circled the table to line up a shot, he stepped back gracefully out of my way. This was the most social Friday night I’d had in months, and all because of the easy company. I sank a stripe, and then another one. Then I missed, too.
“So let’s hear about this zebra,” Zach said as he lined up the next shot.
I laughed, surprised that he remembered. “Okay. I was trying to hitch a ride through Kentucky, on my way to the Carolinas. And nobody wanted to pick me up. And it started to rain…”
“And nobody wants your soggy, wet self in their car,” Zach broke in, sinking his shot.
“Exactly. So I’m standing there, and my cardboard sign is starting to get soft, and things are looking pretty grim. Then this horse trailer pulls over on the shoulder. So I put on my happy, harmless girl face. You know the one.”
He lifted his eyes from the table. “Sure. I’d like to think I’ve perfected my happy, harmless guy face.”
“Show me. I want to see it.”
“Right now?” His eyes crinkled in the corners as he smiled.
“Yep. Right now.” Maybe that was flirtatious of me, but it was fun to draw Zach out of what seemed to be a natural reticence.
He laid aside his pool cue and stuck one thumb in the air. Then he smiled a smile so plastic it made me double over with laughter. “Hey,” he complained gently. “I’m out of practice.”
I grabbed my beer off the ledge at the side of the table, took a sip, then offered it to him. He’d already finished his.
“Thank you,” he said, sipping and setting it down.
“Let’s see…” I scanned the table for my next shot, but I didn’t have much to go on. “Back then I had my happy face down to a science. Or so I thought. But for a long time nobody stopped on that rainy roadside. And then this truck stops, and the window opens. The most pinched, grumpy old man I’ve ever seen looks out. And he says, ‘I don’t pick up hitchhikers.’”
“Ouch.”
“Right. And my happy face is starting to sag. And then he says, ‘But I need a little help with my horse. She’s skittish back there.’”
Zach’s eyes grew wide. “Please tell me you did not ride inside the horse trailer.”
“Oh, but I did. I really wanted to get to North Carolina.”
“Why?”
Our conversation paused for a second so that I could try to sink the number eleven. And—goddamn it—I scratched. “Ugh.” I straightened, remembering that rainy day by the side of the road, and the weight of the pack on my back. During college, there was always some adventure waiting just around the corner. And I wanted all of them. Whatever the risks, I went for it. In fact, my fearlessness was a point of pride. Back then I’d thought that bad experiences only made for good stories.
Until Guatemala, where one experience was so bad that I couldn’t even remember the end of it.
“I don’t actually remember where I was headed. It must have been spring break. Nashville for a concert, maybe?”
Zach shrugged.
“Well, getting there seemed important at the time. So I followed this man around to the back of his horse trailer. He says, ‘You gotta stand at her head. Stay away from the back of ’er. And if she’s grumpy, she wants a carrot.’ Then he opens the door and there’s a zebra in there.”
Zach abandoned his pool cue. “Seriously? You rode with that thing?”
I hadn’t told my Funniest Hitchhiking Moment in a while now, and today I wasn’t finding it as amusing as it used to be. While I’d always thought this was a story about a zebra, I was just realizing that it was really the story of a nineteen-year-old idiot.
Lovely.
“I was kind of a wild thing during my teen years. And it was pouring outside by the time I climbed into the trailer. So even though I suspected this man was a little…” I made the universal sign for crazy beside my ear. “I needed a lift.” Or at least I imagined I did. My trust fund would have afforded me a plane ticket any day of the week. But I’d always had this crazy idea that the adventure would be over if I didn’t do everything the hard way. “So I got in and he slammed the door, and then I was eye to eye with a grumpy zebra.”
Zach folded those hunky arms across his impeccable chest. “Were you in there for long?”
“For most of the night,” I admitted. “I just stood there, jammed into the corner, feeding that beast a carrot every half hour when it started making noise. A couple days later, after I’d gotten to wherever I was going, I Googled zebras. Turns out they’re a lot more aggressive than horses, their kicks maim people and their bite is dangerous.”
He gave me a warm smile in spite of the fact that I’d just proven to both of us that I’m a moron. “Guess I’ll cross ‘meet a zebra’ off my list of things to do.”
Kyle wandered over as Zach said this. “Your list of things you need to try is pretty fucking long already,” he said. “Can I play the winner?” He tipped his head back and gulped at his beer.
Shit. It killed me to hear Kyle referencing Zach’s…inexperience. If I’d understood correctly earlier, I would bet that he took lots of flack from the other guys in the bunkhouse for being a virgin. And I expected Zach to look embarrassed.
>
He didn’t, though. Instead, he reached over and relieved Kyle of the fresh pint in his hand and took a deep drink. “Kind of you to share,” he said. “Now rack ’em up if you want in. We’ll play a game of cutthroat. All of us.”
5
Zach
My watch beeped Saturday morning at six. When I shuffled into the bathroom to get ready for the day, Lark’s door was still shut.
Even though we were scheduled to work together at the Norwich market in a couple hours, I let her sleep. She’d worked hard yesterday.
I’d misjudged Lark, assuming that May’s city friend wouldn’t be all that helpful on a farm. But she’d picked apples like a champ all afternoon. It was my performance that suffered, since I kept dropping fruit whenever I’d get distracted by the stretch of her bronze arms into the tree.
Now I was scheduled to spend several hours alone with her. It was too good to be true.
After helping out with the milking, I loaded crates of apples and stacks of paper retail totes onto the back of Griffin’s truck. At eight o’clock I went back to the bunkhouse to check on Lark, but she stepped outside with a smile just as I approached. “Good morning!”
My heart tripped over itself, but outwardly I kept my cool. “Hey there. You sleep okay?”
“As a matter of fact I did. One in a row—the start of a streak.” She jumped off the stoop, and I gave a silent prayer of gratitude for the white denim shorts she was wearing, and for the expanse of smooth, shapely legs in view.
“What do we do first?” she asked.
First, we stop staring. “First we load up the truck.”
But when we reached Griff’s pickup beside the cider house, Lark frowned. “Looks like you did it already.”
“Well…” I hefted one last bushel crate before answering her. “There’s a couple trays of late peaches over there on the table. Can you set them on the back seat?”
Since Lark was a smart girl, she first opened the truck’s cab before looking for the peaches, which were stacked into sturdy cardboard flats.
When she approached the truck, I took the flat out of her hands and slid it onto the rear seat. Lark raised one puzzled eyebrow and fetched another flat, this time stepping around me so that she could slide it into the truck herself.
Whoops. I hadn’t meant to make her feel incompetent, but there was something about Lark that turned me into a caveman. I was going to have to watch myself. We climbed inside without a word, and the cab smelled like peaches in the best possible way.
“Now what?” she asked.
“We’re all done here,” I said, putting Griffin’s truck in reverse. “Now we collect the cash box and the scale and get the heck out of here. Did you eat something?”
She shook her head. “That’s okay, though. You said something about donuts…”
I smiled at her, probably grinning like a fool. “You are a good listener.”
“Do they have coffee, too?” she asked, and I noticed how long her eyelashes were. I don’t think I’d ever sat this close to Lark before.
“Nope,” I said, reversing into the gravel drive. “So I’ll let you stop at the house and grab some.”
“You are the best boss ever, Zachariah,” she said, kicking one of her high-top sneakers onto the dash.
She was just teasing, but I liked hearing it anyway.
After she got her chance to run inside for coffee, I wound the truck down the country road toward the highway, and Lark asked if she could plug her phone into Griff’s stereo. “Unless you want me to plug in yours?”
“Go ahead. I don’t have a phone,” I told her. “Last man in North America without one.”
“Not a fan?”
“Not a fan of paying fifty dollars a month. And the cell service in Vermont is crappy, so…” I shrugged.
“Ah.” She plugged hers into the jack. Audrey had upgraded Griff’s stereo as a birthday present this winter. A moment later the cab hummed with strains of…I had no idea what. It was a lively guitar riff, and it sounded familiar. But a guy can only learn so much popular music in three years’ time. “I like it,” I said. “Who is it?”
“The Chili Peppers!” she gasped. “I know you’re young, but…”
“I’m not that young,” I said quickly. “How old are you, anyway?”
“Twenty-four. You?”
“Twenty-three. But I have the musical knowledge of a kindergartener. Music wasn’t allowed where I grew up. Unless you count hymns.”
“Wow.” She was quiet for a second. “How did they keep it out, though? Didn’t you hear music at the drugstore? Or—no TV, huh?”
I shook my head. “No TV. And I never left the property. We were out in the boonies on a big ranch in Wyoming. The nearest town was fifteen miles away. And I wasn’t permitted to leave, anyway. Only married men had access to vehicles.”
“So you were sort of…a prisoner,” she said slowly. “Until you were nineteen?”
“That’s right. Took me a long time to figure out that the way we lived wasn’t normal. And even when I worked out that people off the compound didn’t dress like us and didn’t live like us, I still couldn’t really picture it.”
“Wow. That’s a pretty crazy childhood you had there, Zach.”
“I know. So tell me about the Chili Peppers.”
“The full name is the Red Hot Chili Peppers. And nothing ever goes wrong when the Chili Peppers are playing.”
She told me a little about the band—grunge with a side of funk. She rolled down the truck’s window, and we left a contrail of grunge rock along the narrow Vermont highway. I’d never felt more sure that I’d left the dusty confines of my childhood behind. There’s nothing more liberating than driving down a road in the summertime with the windows open, singing along to with a pretty girl by your side.
* * *
Ninety minutes later we were almost finished stocking our tables in Norwich, Vermont, where the farmers’ market was already a beehive of farmers hustling to set up their stands.
“Damn,” Lark said, scanning all the activity. “This market is huge.”
“Yep,” I agreed, hefting another crate of apples off the truck. “Griffin calls Norwich the mothership.”
Lark scrambled up onto the tailgate and dragged another crate of apples toward the edge. But when she hopped down to carry it, I swept it away before she got a chance to heft it. “I can do that,” she argued. “Really. I know how to lift with my legs and not with my lower back.”
“I’m sure you do,” I said in a low voice. “But if I’m here, you don’t have to.”
When I turned around, she was chewing her lip, obviously trying to decide whether or not to argue. But she didn’t, and I was glad. It would cause me almost physical pain to watch a woman stagger under a bushel crate when someone nearly twice her size was available to do it instead.
Maybe she knew that, because she jumped up on the pickup again and slid the last two crates toward the edge where I could reach them.
“Thank you kindly,” I said with a smile. “Can you get the peaches?” This time I wouldn’t grab them out of her hands. She hadn’t appreciated that. But I might have to look away and count to ten to avoid helping.
“Now what?” she asked after retrieving the peaches.
“You put on the money apron and fiddle with the signs. I’ll buy the donuts.”
“That’s an arrangement I can agree to.”
There were still ten minutes before the market would open, but I convinced the donut lady to do an illegal transaction. And when I returned to our stand, I handed the bag to Lark.
“Oh, God. They’re still warm!” She peeked in at the four donuts inside. “But where’s yours?” With a gleeful laugh she pulled one out and took a bite. Then her eyes rolled back in her head and she moaned.
And heck, the sound made my groin tighten. This girl made me feel like a guilty teenager again, the one who was always praying that nobody around him could read minds.
Lark handed me t
he bag. “These are exquisite. Have one—quick. It’s almost nine.” Oblivious to my suffering, she raised her arms overhead and stretched. Her top rode up a bit, exposing an inch of sleek skin over her hip. Then she bent over the Ginger Golds and straightened the sign.
It was going to be a long morning.
But then it wasn’t. Market time always flew by, and with the weather so nice we were busy. Since there was only one scale, Lark was our checkout girl, while I ran my ass off restocking the merchandise and selling sweet cider by the half gallon. Norwich was a rich town, and the people who shopped here knew their food. I was continually asked about the flavor differences between varieties, and I answered as well as I could.
Lark was a natural salesperson, though. “The Zestar has more perfume than the Paulas. And Ginger Golds are the sweetest. You don’t want to miss those, either.” She had an easy way about her, and people always listened closely to what she had to say. And when someone asked her whether the apples were organic—this was Vermont, after all, and we got that question all the time—Lark surprised me by launching into an explanation of Integrated Pest Management that was at least as thorough as I could have given.
I wasn’t the only one who noticed she was easy on the eyes, either. A bushel of lingering glances came her way from the men who stopped by our stand. And from women, too.
Lark didn’t seem to notice. She weighed and sold apples and made change without hesitation. And happily, too.
There was only one moment when I thought the crowds were getting to her. I’d stepped out of the booth for a second because the Abrahams’ daughter had run over to see me. Isaac and Leah’s stall was just a few yards away, so Maeve always paid me a visit. I scooped her up and spun her around for a minute until she giggled. Then I returned her to Leah, chatting with her for a minute before I went back to the Shipley stall.