Page 23 of Pick Yourself Up (Heroes to the Core #3)

Pick It Up

G ray woke to the morning sun streaming through the window. Last he’d checked, the temperatures should be perfect for picking apples. Not hot enough to drain the people, not cool enough to need mittens.

He kissed Amber awake and then made love to her in a shower that saved neither time nor water. But it was a hell of a shower.

Downstairs, they found Knox making pancakes. Amber grinned. “The pancake master in action. Are you making enough for us all?”

Annie grinned at his sister. “I am. Blueberries, apple slices, and all the maple syrup you can eat—payment in advance for your labor today.

Gray laughed. “I hear you’re the king of pancakes, so payment in full is accepted.”

The previous night, the six of them had checked out the machinery in the barn and had watched multiple videos online. They might not have ever picked apples en masse before, but the internet had given them enough knowledge that he figured they’d be at least halfway efficient.

After pancakes that were worthy of Annie’s title, they headed out. Thea decided on the best area to pick, and Knox drove the multi-bin truck out of the garage to lead the way.

Gray had never seen anything like this setup before.

It was a regular truck, but it pulled a few trailers behind it.

Large bins filled the trailer, thus the name.

The bins would be filled with gently picked apples.

When the bins were full, they’d bring them to the harvesting barn, where they’d separate the perfect apples from the rest.

Depending on the level of damage to the fruit, they’d separate the others into groups for cooking, baking, and cider. Still others would head to Thea’s compost, along with the scraps from the ones used for the other tasks.

No waste from this harvest, which was pretty cool.

Knox backed the truck down one of the orchard’s rows until Thea had him stop.

Then he gestured at everyone to climb up the sides of the bin trailers.

Whoever had designed this setup had been brilliant.

Platforms edged the bins, holding the humans at the level to pick the apples and place them in the bins.

He held out his hand to help Amber up. They waited for everyone to find a spot on the platform. The height was perfect. They were eyeballing apples. The platforms could be raised or lowered to reach most of the apples without a lot of effort from the humans.

Beside him, Amber nearly bounced with joy. Below them, Boomer watched with his head tilted to the side, probably wondering what the humans were doing this time.

Gray grinned. “Okay, Annie. This is your gig. Any brilliant words to honor the occasion?”

Knox beamed and squeezed Thea’s hand. “No brilliance, just a lot of gratitude. Thanks to you all for believing in our vision for this farm. For believing we weren’t completely nuts and for joining us in making Jay’s vision a reality.

We’ve got so much to do before it’s a fully functioning farm, but we’ve already come so far. ”

His buddy’s eyes misted, but he didn’t hide the emotion.

“Hopefully, by next harvest, we’ll have a better idea what we’re doing.

We’ll have brought more people to live here with us, and we’ll have more plans in place.

I think Fox and our parents would approve of our plan.

In fact, I can easily imagine them cheering us on. ”

Knox took a deep breath, then grinned. “Remember to be gentle both when you pick the apples and when you put them in the bin. Bruises are our enemy. Everyone, choose your first apple and we’ll pick the first ones in five, four, three, two, one.”

As one, they all plucked their first apples. As one, they lifted them high and cheered.

Eyes shining, Amber’s quiet voice reached them all. “To Fox, to Jay, to everyone who’s come before. And to the future.”

Everyone echoed her words, and then they turned to the task, although Gray squeezed Amber in a hug first.

Finding and reaching all the apples was a bit of a challenge and hard work. The fruit didn’t simply grow at the required height. Some were too close to the trunk to reach for now. They decided to leave those there for later and do the ones within easy reach.

As Thea said, they weren’t planning to harvest the entire orchard, so they might as well do it the easiest way this year.

Whatever apples fell to the ground would be gathered for compost or left to decompose in place. Either way, they’d add their value back to the farm.

The process was more emotional than Gray had expected. He’d always loved working with a team. While he also enjoyed solo ventures, teamwork appealed to him.

Like the teams he’d worked with in the army, this one made him happy. Having the woman he loved working alongside him added to that.

He could feel his mamma’s approval of the task, the people, and the teamwork.

The family.

Amber’s hip bumped him as she reached for an apple in front of him. “Thinking of your mom?”

He nodded, pleased she knew him so well. “I am. She’d love this. And she’d decide that while you should continue to be proud of your Abenaki heritage, she’d want to make you all honorary Italians.”

Amber laughed. “We’d be honored.”

Yeah, he was definitely in love.

T hree days later, Amber figured none of them wanted to see another apple ever again.

Muscles she hadn’t even known existed ached. Her fingers required frequent stretches to function. And her feet yearned to soak in tubs of warm water all the time.

But they were picking more apples, anyway.

One more day for now.

They’d fallen into a routine. Rising early and picking for hours each day. Then they brought the apples to the harvesting barn and sorted them. Cleaned them and stored them in appropriate places.

The question was, how much should they pick? Were they wasting their time if they continued, or could they find a use for the apples somehow?

They were going to hammer out some of those ideas over another breakfast meeting. With Knox’s apple pancakes, of course.

Jolie took a bite and grinned. “At least they’re really good apples.”

They all laughed, and Knox took the lead. “Okay. We’ve got a bunch of apples collected and roughly a billion more we could pick. We need to decide if we need to pick more and what we’re going to do with the ones we’ve already picked.”

When no one chimed in, Amber spoke. “We could set up a stand at the top of the road if we want. Or call Fiona from Phail Foods to see if she would let us sell some from inside her store. But those options take us away from the picking and collecting. How much does the storage room in the back of the barn hold?”

Ford shrugged. “A lot more than what we’ve collected so far. The barn is huge. Even the pressurized storage area could hold triple what we’ve done.”

Silence answered that.

Gray looked at Thea. “Do you know if Jay had any connections with locals? Did he sell any here or in Phail?”

Thea shrugged. “I didn’t go with him, but he did both of those things. He didn’t set up a roadside stand, but I think he sold them out of the barn when people drove in.”

Gray nodded. “There’s not a lot of drive-by traffic, so that makes sense.

We can ask Fiona how he dealt with that.

She probably knows. We could even put out a stand and have people drop cash into a box on the honor system.

If I’m working in the gardens, I can stop and sell people stuff if they drive in.

I don’t imagine there will be droves of them. ”

Amber nodded. “I can help you. I’ll either be in the inn or the garden.”

He squeezed her hand. “Okay, but I don’t want you selling to strangers on your own.”

A shudder ran through her at the thought. Boomer would be a huge help, but the thought made her nervous. “Thanks, I’m not quite ready for that yet.”

As if sensing the conversation, Boomer rose from his bed in the corner and approached to put his head in her lap. His presence settled her enough to shove away the nerves.

She was probably being ridiculous, anyway. It had been months since The Sidderlight incident. No one probably even remembered her. There was no reason to track her down and bother her.

Gray’s arm came around her shoulders, and he rubbed his thumb over her sweatshirt. The action always made her feel safe. Loved.

They hadn’t exchanged the words yet, but Amber knew she was there, fully in love. She’d been savoring the feeling and the joy it brought her, but one day soon she’d tell him. She didn’t think he’d be in the least bit surprised.

A crack of thunder had them all flinching and then laughing. Thea grinned. “Looks like the storm moved in a little earlier than we expected. That’ll give us a day off picking and time to make some decisions.”

Ford turned to Amber. “Why don’t I give you and Gray a hand with some of the bigger projects, seeing as the weather isn’t good for anyone other than the ducks?”

Jolie laughed. “They love the rain, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see Hemsworth return this way soon.”

While Boomer stayed with Amber all the time, the Australian shepherd wandered freely.

He mostly returned to stay with Ford and Jolie at night, but he sometimes stayed outside as well.

Ford had built a couple of doghouses, but Hemsworth didn’t use them often.

She imagined he played in the orchard with his buddy Fox. Or protected the Quack Mobile.

She smiled at Ford. “That would be great, thanks.”

For the next few hours, Amber painted the second-floor hallway ceilings. Gray and Ford brought old bathroom fixtures down and new ones up. Boomer watched them and kept returning to her as if asking if they were doing the right thing.

“It’s okay, Boomer. They might look the same to you, but the new fixtures are much nicer than the old ones.”

Satisfied with her answer, the shepherd kept trotting between the two groups to check on their progress.

When she finished the last of the ceilings, well, the first coat anyway, she realized she wasn’t sure where the two men were working. She hadn’t heard them in a while.

Doing the cutting in from the top of the ladder and then using the longer pole addition to fill in the central areas of the ceiling meant her arms and shoulders were like rubber. “Maybe I should have chosen to do something that didn’t use the same muscles as apple picking.”

She folded the ladder and rested it against a wall, then grabbed her brushes and rollers. “Let’s go clean these up, Boomer.”

She’d been using the mudroom at the back of the kitchen as her cleanup area. The male voices in the area had her freezing in place and looking at her dog.

Boomer tilted his head to the side and looked at her, totally relaxed. Then he woofed softly and bumped her hand with his muzzle, letting her know she was safe. She breathed through the fear and listened. The deep male chuckle had her relaxing. Gray.

What was he doing? They must have finished the bathrooms upstairs and were working in the small bathroom or owner’s suite down here. Those hadn’t been on her schedule, no matter how much she wanted them to be.

With the tall windows on two sides, the room would have a great view of both the forest on one side of the property and Gray’s gardens from the other. Her heart had wanted to finish that space first, but without having a B&B to run, it hadn’t made sense.

In the mudroom, she cleaned her brushes, then looked at her dog. “Okay, Boomer. Let’s see what they’re up to. Find Gray.”

Boomer’s ears straightened, and his tail wagged. He loved following commands, but finding his friends was one of his favorites.

Boomer led the way out of the mudroom and down the little hallway off the kitchen. The voices were coming from the suite.

Boomer bounded forward with a woof, telling her he’d found his prey.

Gray’s laugh reached her. “Looks like we’re busted, Dodge.”

Amber reached the doorway to the suite and couldn’t keep in the gasp. The two men weren’t alone. Jolie, Thea, and Knox were with them, all grinning at her.

They’d painted the living room, and she could see through the open door that the bedroom was also the same cozy green she’d chosen for the entire B&B.

They’d filled the living room with furniture from the other farmhouse. A cozy love seat, chair, coffee table, and a small bistro table and two chairs made the space feel like home.

Blinking away the tears that wanted to form, Amber rolled her lips together. “You’re all amazing. This is wonderful.”

Gray leaned down to kiss her. “Come see the bedroom.”

She followed him to find a fun and cozy quilt on a wonderful cast iron bed that had been in one room on the top floor. Now it had a mattress and bedding.

A dresser sat on one wall and small tables acted like nightstands. In the bathroom, fresh towels sat on the racks and the fixtures gleamed.

Gray swiped at the tears on her cheeks with his thumbs. “I take it you like it?”

She laughed as she blinked away the moisture. “I love it.”

She threw her arms around him to prevent herself from telling him she loved him in front of an audience. The first time had to be with just them. “Thank you.”

Amber turned to find the other four grinning at her, not even pretending to give them a moment of privacy. Exactly as she would have expected. “Thank you all. This is such a wonderful surprise. It’s perfect.”

Jolie clapped her hands and hugged her. “We wanted to do it for you. I had to make sure you saw the B&B as your own. We want to ensure you stick around forever.”

Forever sounded good.

Knox grinned at her. “Which means you need to name the place. We can’t keep calling it the B&B or the inn. What are you thinking?”

That had her pausing. “I have no idea. I haven’t even thought about it.”

Gray laughed. “Well, you’ve got time to think.”

Knox grinned. “How about Amber’s Place?”

“No way.” That made her shudder, and her brother laughed.

She let them throw out terrible name after terrible name. It wouldn’t matter what she called it because she already knew what it would be.

Home. No matter what name she chose, it would be home.