The Last One(25)

If that was a dig at me, I chose not to respond. Instead, I began walking across the yard, cutting through Ali’s herb garden and one of the empty fields. Over the last eighty years, my family had worn a path between the house and the main road, where our stand was located. I followed it without thinking, my mind preoccupied with the girl meandering behind me.

We skirted around a field of trees, and I paused to point it out to Meghan. “This is the peach orchard. It’s part of our land, technically, but I leased it out to another farmer. For now, at least. One of these days we’ll be ready to deal with fruit again.”

She stood next to me in silence, close enough I could breathe in her scent. It was musky and warm, making me think of the fields in high summer, when everything smelled alive and vibrant.

“When are the peaches ripe?” She squinted, checking out the trees.

“Ah, about another month or so. Clingstones are already being picked, but these are Semi-Freestones.” I reached for a branch and examined the fruit. “Yeah, maybe three weeks. When they’re ready, go ahead and help yourself to these trees. It’s part of our agreement with the renter.”

“Good to know.” She smiled, and I thought of that night, holding her in my arms, when she’d reached up to touch my face. “I do love peaches.”

Because I got a sudden image of her biting into a peach with juices dripping down her chin, running between her breasts, I only grunted and started walking again.

The Colonel’s Last Stand wasn’t fancy. We still operated out of the original lean-to shed that my grandfather had put up during the Depression. Over the years, each generation had added a little more, though: it was enclosed on three sides now, and we had a fourth wall that we slid across when day was done. The register was against the back, and we had several permanent shelves that held jellies, pickles and local honey.

I pulled keys from the pocket of my jeans and opened the padlock fastened on the front sliding wall. It rolled back easily, revealing the tables of produce and baskets of fruit.

“Wow.” Meghan stood in the doorway, watching as I made sure the register had been shut down and locked. “It smells like heaven in here.”

I breathed deep and nodded. Strangely it mattered to me that this girl who I’d only met three times—and only twice sober—understood at least a little of why this place was special. She wandered among the tables, running her fingers over the tomatoes and picking up a bunch of onions to examine them.

“Do you get a lot of fresh produce where you live?” When I thought of the beach and the food there, I only pictured fish and seafood. But it was Florida, too, so I guessed there was more to it than that.

“Oh, yeah. Depends on the time of year, but we get strawberries in February, corn by early May, and oranges on and off as they get ripe. My mom has contracts with local farmers for other food, too. You know, like lettuces, tomatoes, cucumbers, whatever.”

“Yeah.” I gave the shadowed building a quick scan and assured myself that everything was all right. When I headed back out, Meghan followed me, stepping into the waning sunlight. I rolled the door back over and locked it. “Okay, we’re good to go here.” I turned back to the path.

“The stand looks like it’s been here for a while.” Meghan was walking next to me now instead of a few steps behind. I tried not to care about that.

“My great-grandparents opened it with a few baskets of peaches, tomatoes and onions back in 1936. It’s come a long way.”

“Who’s the colonel?” Curiosity tinged her voice.

“That would be my many-times over great grandfather, Colonel Pierce Reynolds. He fought in the War Between the States.”

“You mean the Civil War?” She grinned, and I was hard-pressed not to return the smile.

“I mean, the War Between the States. Or as some people around here still call it, the War of Northern Aggression.”

Meghan laughed, and the sound made me want to grab her and pull her to me. That reaction in turn made me angry at myself. She was just a girl. Just a college girl, way too young for me. That is, she’d be too young for me if I were looking for that kind of entanglement, which I wasn’t.

“After going to school in Savannah for three years, I’ve come to the conclusion that the war, whatever you want to call it, isn’t really over for some people. And that even though I live geographically farther south, Florida isn’t as much South as Georgia is.”

“You’re probably right. I haven’t spent much time in Florida, but it seems like there’re more Yankees there than Southerners.” I leaned forward to grab the branch of a bush that was about to snap back to hit Meghan. “Did you like it? Growing up there?”