Page 56 of A Bittersweet Summer

I just can’t figure out what it is, but this might be the most he’s said to me all week.

“Yesterday’s rain has a lot of logs down on the trail,” he starts, shoving himself off the wall to walk closer. Instinctively, I take a step back, as if the very real distance can protect me from the sting of emotional distance he’s placed between us.

“It looks like it’s going to rain again,” I observe, the wind catching strands of my hair. The hair tie I brought snapped when I went to fix my ponytail at lunch, leaving me with a truly wild tangle of mane.

“Then we'd best get going,” he says. The golf cart sits parked by the barn, and Wes tosses the saw in the back along with some hedge trimmers and other tools. He plants himself in the driver’s seat, tapping the seat next to him to encourage me to join.

I look away, my brain desperately trying to think up some excuse as to why I can’t be alone with him.

Sorry, I can’t. I’m allergic to forests.

My apologies, but I can’t work back on the trails with you since I once thought about what you’d look like hovering over me and thrusting.

I need to get control of myself.

“Sure,” I say, wrapping my arms around my torso as I trudge to the golf cart.

When I sit down, I keep my eyes on the floor, seemingly fascinated by the mud caked on the bottom of my muck boots.

My cheeks flame when the golf cart jolts forward, and I’m forced to brace myself on the front bar.

“Careful,” Wes warns. “I really don’t want to do the paperwork for workers’ compensation.”

Normally, the joke would pull a laugh from me. Instead, I breathe out one harsh breath—it’s the only sign I thought his words were amusing.

The golf cart jostles side to side as we travel back into the treeline. It’s the same area we were in that night Wes took us out on four-wheelers, and my embarrassment increases with every memory.

I should give up on trying to figure out where I went wrong. It’s useless, and time to accept that my boss is not friendly, nor does he want tobefriendly to me.

The golf cart stops, and Wes jumps out, grabbing the saw from the back. “Get those hedge trimmers. Some of this is thin enough that you could probably snap it with those. I’ll saw the bigger log, and we can drag stuff off to the side.”

I nod, working in silence as we work to clear the fallen tree from the muddy trail. Wes grunts with every thrust of the saw. Back and forth, until the tree splits with a loud crack.

He instructs me to grab one side of the log, and we work to move the smaller trunk off to the side. My hands hurt as I fight to maintain my grip, muscles screaming until I finally drop the thing off to the side.

“Half done with this one.” Wes smiles, but I don’t meet it. I simply walk to the other side and move the other half of the log to the other side of the trail as instructed.

The nagging feeling that I’ve done something extremely offensive returns, and I’m back to replaying every second of the past few months at Miller Run Farm. Maybe it was the geese that first day I worked out here. Wes had watched me out in the field. I can’t imagine that watching a girl chase off a goose only to fall in the mud would be very attractive.

Or maybe he never even found me attractive to begin with.

Or maybe the issue is that hedoesfind me attractive, but I’ve failed when it comes to my work. If he wants to fire me, but he has feelings, it would explain the distance. It’s likely he wants to fire me and just doesn’t know how to.

When we get to an area with fallen sticks, we both work to clear them. Questions sit on the tip of my tongue, but I hold them back.

Once we make it to the large field behind the trails, one stray round bale still sitting closer to the edge, I watch as Wes picks up a few more sticks, muttering under his breath.

The band inside me stretches taut, and I can’t help it when it finally releases, snapping the way my words snap out of me. “Did I do something wrong?” I ask, standing squarely at the edge of the field.

Wes looks up, a number of sticks gripped in his large hand. “Did you?” he questions as the very beginnings of rain start to leak from the sky.

I wipe a stray droplet from my cheek. “Well,” I press, not sure how to continue. “Did I?”

Wes’s brows furrow. “I’m not understanding. Did you leave a gate open or something?”

I throw my hands up, heaving out a sigh of exasperation as I make one circle—an attempt to flee that turns into me spinning right back to face him. “Not that I know of! But you could tell me if I’m not living up to what you need in terms of this position.”

“You’re doing just fine, Cass. We like having you work here.”