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Why am I thinking about her again? It shouldn’t matter to me what she’s doing or how she feels. She’s just a neighbor. A temporary person nearby, the same as the two women who stayed there before. The renters don’t bother me, and I don’t bother them. I’m not a social person by nature, but her…I can’t seem to look away.
Focus. Holes don’t dig themselves.
Grabbing my shovel, I get started on the job that was interrupted by my fascination with her yesterday. My wet hair and sweaty skin become a dirt magnet as I dig and shift the heavy soil around. By the time the ground is prepared, I’m coated in grass and dust. The sky has clouded up, blocking the fierce sun but making the air thick enough to scoop with a spoon. The only thing I’m thinking about is a cold drink as I gather my tools and turn to start back toward the barn. My forehead slaps into a low hanging branch, halting me. It wasn’t hard but the sting tells me the rough bark probably took a little skin off. At my height, it’s not an uncommon occurrence. I’ve hit my head on more things than I can list.
As I walk to where my ATV is parked behind the barn, I pull my shirt up by the bottom to drag it across my forehead, not surprised to see it comes away with a little smear of blood. The ATV starts up easily and it only takes a minute to get the steel trailer attached.
My phone buzzes in my pocket while I’m pulling the large burlap wrapped bundles out to the trailer.
“Yeah,” I answer, winded.
My friend, Lee, snorts on the other end of the line. “Don’t answer the phone if you’re beating off.”
“I’m doing yard work, asshole.”
“Yard work not inch work, got it. Lacey is here and I’m grilling steaks if you want to come over for dinner and some beers tonight.”
As he’s talking, I look up to see Calli walking up my driveway. She spots me between the barn and the house, veering in my direction.
“Thanks, but I can’t today,” I reply, my gaze glued to her.
“You have something better to do?” Lee taunts.
I do now.
Calli approaches with a tentative little smile and a cake pan in her hands. Her hair is tied up, displaying her long neck. My fingertips itch to trace down it. To plot out the perfect line of it where it softens and curves into her shoulders.
“I have to go. Next time,” I tell Lee, hanging up.
“Hey, Peach Bandit,” I tease, happy to see her grin in response.
“That’s Ms. Peach Bandit to you. I didn’t mean to interrupt but I brought you a cobbler. It’s half peach and half apple. I bought some apples after I…you know…left the peaches and then once you gave them to me, I had too much fruit so I made both.”
Her nervous babbling is fucking adorable. “Thank you. You’re welcome to help yourself anytime. Most of them went to waste this year.” There have been times I’ve taken them to the farmers market, and once I tried to give them to the food bank, but they wouldn’t take anything fresh, only shelf stable.
I’m not sure if she heard me. Her eyes widen as she looks at me, at the nearby bundles, then back to me again. Thrusting the pan into my hands, she stammers, “I’ll let you…um…get back to…whatever. Thanks again for the peaches.”
It strikes me what she’s seeing. Blood on my forehead and my shirt. A shovel nearby, between two bulky wrapped bundles, both big enough to be a person. And me standing in the middle, covered in dirt, getting ready to load them onto a trailer.
She takes a couple of steps back as I try unsuccessfully to choke back a laugh. “Wait. You don’t—don’t take off. Look.” How many times am I going to terrify her by accident?
Her teeth sink into her lower lip, and she keeps increasing the distance between us while I set the pan on the seat of the ATV, untie the string around the bundle, and jerk back the cloth.
“Trees?” she mumbles, taking a closer look.
“Forsythia bushes. I’m planting them in the graveyard to help with the soil erosion.” Tying it closed, I glance at her and see the indecision in her expression. “Do you want to see the other one?”
She shakes her head, and her shoulders drop a little. “No, I see them.” Eyes the pale blue color of the cloudy sky travel up to my face. “You’re bleeding.”
“Yeah, I scraped my head on a tree branch.”
A slow grin curls her lips. She glances down, running her hand over her forehead before peeking back up at me. “In my defense, you know what this looked like, right?”
“Like I killed someone, wrapped them in burlap, and you caught me mid burial?”
“Two someones.”
“In this heat? That’d be crazy.”
