I was friendly—as friendly as I knew how to be—but I kept a respectful distance. She didn’t need me hovering and I didn’t need to allow all of my thoughts to stampede out of my mouth. Gennie, however, was not helping. She always wanted Shay to join us for dinner after tutoring sessions. She begged and pleaded like her life depended on getting just a little more time with Shay.
Unfortunately, I knew how she felt.
Though I didn’t know how she did it, Shay managed to decline all of Gennie’s invitations without sending the girl into a full-blown tantrum. I appreciated that. I was complete shit when it came to winding down Gennie’s tantrums.
But I appreciated Shay maintaining some limits with me too. I didn’t know if it was part of her plan or the result of the most unpleasant marriage proposal in modern history but she saved me from having to spend more than a few passing minutes with her and that was a goddamn gift.
The one thing Shay could not save me from was the local gossip mill.
“It’s her,” Jim Wheaton, my dairy manager, said when I walked into the office that afternoon. “Isn’t it?”
I settled behind my desk and woke up my computer. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.” I tapped a few keys. “How are today’s numbers looking? Is the bottling plant up to capacity yet?”
“The one who got away rolled into town, you spent a morning on her family’s spread last week, and now she’s visiting with Miss Gennie. And you’re pretending those are ordinary events. That’s how the numbers look.”
“There’s nothing to say, Wheatie.”
He leaned back in his chair, his long legs stretched out before him and his dark bronze fingers steepled under his chin. “You’ve spoken to her, I take it. That’s why you needed those trucks moved ASAP.”
I toggled through several screens, seeing status reports on farm stand sales, wholesale orders, and estimated apple yields for the next month. I processed none of it.
“Yes,” I snapped. “You said it yourself, she’s spending time with Gennie. Of course I’vespokento her.”
He inclined his bald head. “And?”
“And I never should’ve told you and Bones a fucking thing about her,” I replied.
Wheatie nodded like he’d expected this response. Then he unclipped the radio from his pocket, saying into the mouthpiece, “Bones, if you’re in the vicinity of the main house, could you come up to the office?”
“Be there in five,” came the orchard manager’s response.
“You have five minutes,” Wheatie said, running a hand over his head. “Seems like long enough to get the story straight, don’t you think?”
“Nothing to get straight,” I muttered. “She’s back. Needed the trucks out of the way. End of story.”
“Sure, sure. And that morning last week? You just happened to spend a few hours at her place?”
I made a serious attempt at reviewing the canning output numbers for the week but it was no use seeing as Wheatie wouldn’t leave me the hell alone and I’d been up since dawn and I’d asked Shay Zucconi to marry me.
No, I’d offered to marry her. I’d never asked the question. There was a difference, and I didn’t know if it made matters better or much worse.
“I’d forgotten about the poison ivy,” I said, still clicking through screens. “And Gennie wanted to visit.”
“Gennie wanted to visit,” he boomed, clapping his hands together. “You know you’re a real parent when you blame the kid. Wise. I like it.”
I grimaced at my email inbox. “Gennie likes her.”
“Understandable,” he said. “Seeing as you also like her.”
Footsteps sounded on the stairs and then Tony Bonavito stepped into the office that had once been my parents’ bedroom. The marketing department worked out of my sister’s old bedroom. Neither space looked anything like bedrooms now but it was still strange if I thought about it for too long.
“What’s up?” Bones asked, checking the settings on his radio before placing it on the edge of my desk. Whereas Wheatie had two decades on me, Bones was a handful of years younger than me and it showed. He looked like a big kid and he got carded every time he ordered a beer.
“He’s seen her,” Wheatie said, staring at me, “and spoken to her. A couple of times, if my math is correct.”
“All right, all right,” he said, slapping his palms on his thighs. “What’s the move? What’s the play? Are we going straight for it, storm-the-beaches style or something low-key?” He peered at me, his eyes bright. “Do you even know how to be low-key?”
“No,” Wheatie said. “He does not.”
