so long as you know what you're getting into. The hours are long.”
I’ve never thought of myself as a wimp. I’ve climbed El Cap. I’ve crossed jungles in Thailand. Not lately, though. A couple of years ago I was injured, and it took a big toll on my body as well as my life.
Still—I hadn’t realized until now how soft I’d become. And it’s taking longer than I’d hoped to adapt to all this farm work.
I plunge the dandelion fork down into the dirt and wiggle it. But when I tug on the weed, it promptly breaks off in my hand. “Fuck.” The weeds know I'm not cut out for this. They can tell I'm the kind of guy who thinks weed is something you put in a bong. It's not a verb, damn it.
Several long minutes of digging and cursing later, I'm finally able to extract the damn root from its hole. I toss it into the ragged pile I’ve made. Then I throw down the hand tools and sink onto the grass like the tired man that I am.
Above me is a sky so blue that it almost hurts to look at it. The yellow sun beats down on my bare chest. Three weeks on this Vermont hillside have already tanned my skin to a burnished glow beneath my tats. My back throbs and my limbs ache against the grass.
And now there’s something crawling on my ankle. I’m too tired to see what it is. Who knew it was so exhausting to be healthy?
Slowly I sit up again and flick a spider off my foot. The view between the blueberry bushes offers me an oblique look at Daphne. She’s hosing down some of the wooden barrels the Shipleys use to age their cider. After berry-picking, she hustled over there to keep her distance from me again.
She’s a tough nut to crack. But I’m a patient man. I’ve had to be. These last couple of years have tested me in every possible way. Daphne thinks I’m cocky, and she used to be right. But these days my cocky routine is more about muscle memory than confidence. It’s hard to be a shell of your former self at twenty-two.
When I flirt with Daphne, though, it’s not an act. She is very interesting to me, and not just because she’s ridiculously pretty. It’s her attitude that really gets me going. She has a brisk efficiency that I find sexy—a no-nonsense way of moving her body. She doesn't have time for your bullshit and she doesn’t suffer fools.
She's not particularly warm or friendly. That doesn’t bother me, because neither am I. She’s the angry Shipley. And it works for me.
I’m dying to know why she avoids me. We met a couple times before I came to stay here, and it's completely possible that I offended her and don't remember.
I sure as hell hope not. I wish she’d soften up toward me, otherwise it's going to be a long summer. We’re sharing a bathroom, for starters. I’m staying on the second floor of the main farmhouse, where she and her mother also live.
Meanwhile, Dylan is living it up with his girlfriend in the bunkhouse, which is a separate building. They need their privacy, I guess, because those two have more sex than soldiers returning from war. Last week I caught them going at it in the middle of the meadow on a blanket. Had to walk an extra quarter mile just to get out of range of all the moaning.
Across the way, Daphne straightens up again. Her tank top is just a little damp from the spray of the hose, and I find myself wondering what she’d look like soaking wet.
I’ve had a strange time of it lately. Hookups haven’t really been very high up on my list of things to do. But I’ll be damned if Daphne Shipley hasn’t shaken the dust off my rusty libido. There’s something about those long limbs that gets me going. Her thick brown hair is always trying to escape a soft-looking knot on top of her head. I’d like to pull the clip off that hair until it tumbles down around her bare shoulders.
In the middle of this evil but entertaining thought, I hear just the slightest rustle from the other direction. The sound is far enough away that I can’t tell if it’s a person or a creepy-eyed chicken.
But I sit up either way. It would be embarrassing to be caught lying down on the