"I don't know about being an expert," Mary says, "but if you have any questions, I'll be the person to ask. I can always find the answers to anything that's got to do with cider."
By the time Mary leaves, Autumn is back to being all business, asking me if I have any questions, then thanking me for my observations about planting the orchard. That's how she says it too: “Thank you for your observations.” She's formal again, as if she didn't just tell me to stop looking at her tits in the cidery.
At the front porch, she pauses and asks if I have any questions.
"Just one," I say. "Want to finish what we started?"
Shit, I just can't help myself.
Autumn's face colors and she clears her throat. "Nothing was started," she insists. "So there's nothing to finish. I'll get your paperwork together so I can pay you. There are a few forms you need to fill out."
And just like that, she shuts down whatever the hell happened between us back in the cidery.
8
Autumn
Things are back to normal at the orchard. Olivia and I are back to our regular routine – the routine we had last week before Luke Saint blew into this place, a perfect storm of arrogance and sex appeal and boyish charm.
Heavy emphasis on boyish, I remind myself. He's only twenty-six, ten years my junior. And that's a lifetime of difference, when you add a divorce and a toddler to the mix.
I mentally chastise myself for even thinking about him the way I did, there in the cidery, when he just barely, for a moment, touched his lips to mine. But for an entire week, he's been extremely professional. And so have I. There have been no more situations like the ones that happened in the cidery – or in the kitchen, when Luke put his fingers to my wrist, traced his finger along my palm.
Even now, the thought of his touch sends a shiver up my spine. Damn it.
Okay, so I haven't exactly been back to my regular routine. But fantasizing about Luke at night with my vibrator doesn't mean I'm interested in him – or that anything is going to happen between us.
Luke has actually been really helpful over the past week, more so than I anticipated. It's harvest time – my second harvest here – and that means it's chaos. But he's stepped in to manage with a surprising amount of skill and has come to me with suggestions for changes in day-to-day operations in the orchard that have been insightful. He's not just a pretty face – which is all the more reason I should stop thinking about him like that.
"Are you heading into town?" Greta's voice jolts me out of my thoughts, and I glance at the payroll file on the computer that I've been staring at for the last twenty minutes. Olivia is with her, and I hold open my arms so she can come crashing into them.
"Oh, Liv-bug, I missed you so much," I tell her, even though I've only been working in the office for a few hours. I bury my nose in her and breathe in her baby scent. "Did you have a fun morning with Greta? Is it time for lunch with June and Stan and the baby?"
"Are you all set, Autumn?" Greta asks. "Do you need anything before I take off?"
On Wednesdays and Fridays, Greta takes classes down at the state college – she's working her way through school, part-time. On Wednesdays, Olivia and I visit my neighbor June, and her kids. June runs a bed and breakfast just down the road. Her oldest child, Stan, is a year older than Olivia, and June just had a second child. June and her husband Cade basically adopted Olivia and I when we moved to West Bend. Now, they're closer to me than my own family is.
This is my routine. This is what I do. I don't kiss twenty-six-year-old boys in my cidery.
"We're good," I tell her. "How's that Economics class you're taking?"
Greta rolls her eyes and sighs loudly. "Ugh. Rough. It's so lame."
"Economics can be really interesting," I start, but laugh when she looks at me slack-jawed, her expression exaggerated.
"Seriously? Boooring. It's totally useless. At least my history class is more interesting. Oh, I'm going to be late. I've got to run. See you tomorrow, Autumn. Bye-bye, little Liv-Liv! Have fun!"
"Bye-bye, Gigi," Olivia says, waving to her as she disappears. She can’t pronounce “Greta” yet, so “Gigi” it is.
I talk to Olivia as we grab all of the approximately one million supplies we need for a simple trip down the road to June's house and then into town for groceries. Olivia babbles to me, nonstop chatter as I get ready and load her into the car.
We're down the driveway when I see them a hundred yards away on the edge of the property repairing a fence post.
As if I see any of the rest of them.
I see him. Luke.
He's shirtless, his back glistening with sweat, his muscles rippling in the sunlight, visible even from this far away.
"Aw, crap." I groan the words aloud, pausing for all of a second before I turn down the access road that runs along the fence, silently cursing my own foolishness. I shouldn't be doing this, turning the car along the access road right now. I should have pretended I didn't see him and kept driving, gone to see June, kept my routine the way it's been.