I hated lying. I also hated how not having a piece of paper with our name on it had become a hazard in day-to-day living. But I wanted this job, and Ren needed some cash in his pocket in order to feel as if he was taking adequate care of me, so I fibbed and hoped for the best.
Lo looked us up and down, judging our tale.
I’d never been the best liar and hated to do it to a woman who’d caught us counting our last coins on the dusty highway where she had a small wooden stall selling freshly picked apples and pears. She’d taken pity on us when we’d settled on buying three instead of four, mentioning if things were tight, she had a few fruit-picking jobs open.
We’d only been on the road a couple of days since leaving the manor house, and we’d yet to embrace the thicker forest as we didn’t have the cash to fill up our backpacks with supermarket food. As comforting as it was to know Ren could hunt enough to keep us alive, I wanted more to my diet than just meat and the occasional wild vegetable.
When I’d seen the fruit stand, my mouth had watered, and I couldn’t stop myself tugging Ren across the road and drooling over a gorgeous pear.
“Ah, gotcha. You’re one of those.” Lo finally nodded.
“One of what?” Ren asked, his hackles rising, a slight cough falling from his lips.
My heart instantly froze, and I studied him.
Searching.
Seeking.
Desperate to know why he coughed, so I could stop it once and for all.
Perhaps it was just allergies.
Maybe it was from living in storms and traipsing through snow for so many years.
“Backpackers.” Lo pointed at our well-used bags. “I’ve had a fair few from overseas come through and want to be paid in cash as it violates their visa.”
Sighing, she picked up her baby son from the floor and plonked him on the small desk amongst the boxes of pears, blueberries, and apples. “Okay, I can do cash. And your hourly rate will be a dollar more, seeing as I don’t have to pay tax. I’ll pay you every Sunday, cash in hand. Got it?”
Ren cleared his throat, hiding any remnants of his tension. “Wow, thanks. We appreciate it.”
“Meh, don’t mention it. Government takes too much these days and doesn’t do anything worthwhile with it. Rather help out people who need it.” Taking my unfinished clipboard, she scanned it. “Married, huh? So you want a co-cabin with no one else?”
Ren stiffened. “You mean, you offer accommodation, too?”
Lo smiled. “’Course. We’re expecting dawn wake-ups and out in the orchard plucking by seven a.m., lot of transient folk don’t want to pay for motels seeing as fruit-picking isn’t exactly a long-term thing or pays the big bucks.” Bending down, she rustled below the desk before pulling up a key with a carved apple keychain. “Cabin six. It’s the only double free. Some people don’t like it as it’s the farthest from the communal showers and kind of on the forest edge. Heard it gives some tender-hearted folk the heebie-jeebies, but me? I love wildlife, and there’s nothing to be scared of.” Dangling the key, she raised a dark eyebrow. “So, you want it?”
Ren looked at me, and I looked at him.
This was entirely his choice.
I would happily live in the tent farther in the treeline if that was his preference, so he surprised me when he held out his hand and waited until Lo dropped the key. “We’ll take it. Happen to like wildlife too, so think it’s the perfect fit.”
And it was.
For the final weeks of summer, we tackled yet another kind of job, and Ren—who seemed to glow with the dawn—relaxed back into the wild, serious, incredible man I knew and loved.
Together, we’d pluck ripe, plump produce and sneak one or two on our way to the weighing and packing station. By day, we’d work with other staff—some young, some old—and by night, we’d walk the rows between the orchard trees, inhaling the scent of life, lying on our backs in the grass and watching the stars with the songs of cicadas serenading us.
Occasionally, if we stayed out late and crept back through a sleeping, silent farm, Ren would snag my hand and pull me into the massive greenhouse. There, surrounded by strawberries and raspberries and every other berry imaginable, he would push me into the shadows, press me against a wall, and hoist up my skirt to slip inside me.
For a man who loved waking with the sun, his nocturnal activities never failed to steal my heart and make me melt. His kisses were as hot as the greenhouse, his fingers coarse from picking fruit, his harsh breath as sweet as the sugary berries around us.
Together, we’d rock in the dark in perfect harmony, faster and harder as bodies demanded more, and fingers bruised, and teeth nipped, and hands clamped on mouths to silence our moans.