Page 29 of Cherry Tree Ranch

I throw the blanket over the saddle and smooth it down neatly.

“Coming,” I call, and make my way to the front of the barn, wiping sweat away from my temples.

When I see Cash at the door, I stop in my tracks. He has on a straw sun hat, like mine only bigger, like a sombrero. I can’t help but giggle because he’s a big tough guy from the neck down, and an earth-muffin-granny-gardener on the top.

“That’s the cutest sun hat I’ve ever seen,” I say.

“You think I look cute, huh?” He waggles his brow, arms folded.

“That’s not what I said.” I blush, tipping the front of his hat up.

“Don’t knock the hat. It keeps the sun out of my eyes. Plus, I can’t afford to crisp.”

“Crisp? My grandma used to say that.” I laugh. “But you probably don’t burn too badly with your olive skin, do you?”

“My neck does. What were you up to?” he asks as I point him towards the trail leading to the orchard. “I thought we were meeting by the trees.”

“I… Yeah, we were, but I … uh, heard a sound in the barn.” I look back at the door as we reach the trail. He’ll think I’m nuts if I tell him I thought I felt something from the barn. “I wanted to check it out.”

“Was it a critter or something?” he asks.

“Yeah, it might have been.”

“Where there’s one, there’s more,” Cash says.

“Really?” I ask, running my sweaty palms across my back pockets. It’s surreal seeing Cash again. I feel guilty that he’s here to help, especially after how thoughtful he was yesterday.

His face turns serious. “Well, you’ve got to be careful – pack rats could destroy the place.”

He walks ahead of me, and I check my phone as it buzzes. It’s Lani.

Heard from Wyatt?

Not yet, I reply. I’ll tell her about cherry picking with Cash later.

We reach the cherry trees where a chest pack with shoulder straps sits by the first tree. My eyes widen. “Is that what you’re supposed to use for picking? This thing is great! I mean, I could carry three times as many cherries at once. Where did you get it?”

His face brightens under his silly hat. I laugh to myself but not quietly enough.

“It’s the hat, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, sorry.”

“So … this is a harvesting bag. We use them for our apple trees, but it’ll work for cherries too. I’ve heard you can shake sour cherry trees to get them off. Is that true?”

“I think so, but we’ve never done it that way,” I say, guessing the equipment would cost a fortune. “I wish I’d known about these bags. Grandpa always had these baskets around.”

“They look like a pain to carry,” he says.

“They are.” I pull a crimson cherry off a twig and hand it to Cash. As our hands touch, he finds my eyes and then looks away quickly. “Let’s start with these. They’re Montmorencies.”

He throws it in his mouth. His head tilts sideways and his cheeks pull into a pucker at the flavour. He swallows hard and spits the pit out at me.

“Hey!” I jump to the side, laughing.

He grimaces again and closes his eyes.

“These are the ones I’ve been preserving. When I mix them with honey, they are to die for.”