Page 42 of Cherry Tree Ranch

“That’s just how I smile.” He puts a hand on his hip, acting offended.

“Well, do it again! It was really—” I stop myself from saying cute.

“How about this?” He sets the cherries on his palm and straightens his arm out. I step closer, focusing on the cherries in the forefront and let Cash’s smile blur beautifully in the background. I look up momentarily from the camera and catch his eyes roaming to mine. I hide my smile behind the camera. With my eye to the viewfinder, I take picture after picture.

“OK, OK,” Cash says jokingly. “That’s got to be enough.”

My cheeks flush cherry red. “Oh, yeah, of course it is. Sorry.” I grab the cherries from his hand, trying to distract myself from embarrassment. “But it was fun making you stand there. Does your face hurt from smiling for so long?” I eat one of the cherries and side-eye him.

“You thought that was funny, huh?” He nudges my leg with the toe of his boot.

My words are caught in my chest. When I don’t answer, he goes back to picking. I stay and look through the pictures. I’m enamoured by every image of him. I got a little carried away, so I delete a few, especially those where I zoomed in a bit too far on his bicep.

He startles me from my trance. “You going to help pick or anything?” He laughs.

I press my lips together, embarrassed. “Hold your horses. I’m just deleting a few. So…” I let the camera hang from my neck by the strap. “Will your parents be mad about you for staying here after dinnertime?”

Cash looks at me and then away. “They don’t know I’ve been up here.”

“What?” I jerk my head. “At all?”

He moves the cherries around in his hand and shrugs. “I haven’t told them.”

“OK. Why?”

“Remember when I told you about what my parents say about this place?”

“Yeah?”

He sighs and looks up at me. “I don’t think they’d want me to be here.”

“It’s that bad?”

He nods.

“Will you tell me what they said?” I ask.

“The story that stands out the most is that the cliffs here used to be the colour of sandstone. But after that girl rode her horse off the cliffs, they turned red.”

A chill runs up my spine. “What else did they tell you?”

“Uh…” He hesitates. “Mostly that the place is haunted by her now.”

I push away thoughts of the barn door banging open at night, the sad feeling in the barn. “Why do your parents think all this?”

“My dad’s great-great-uncle worked up here once.”

“On the ranch? That’s crazy. Do you know what he did?”

“I think he was a shepherd, but other than that I don’t know.”

The crease between my brows deepens as I process this new information. According to the old letters, Joaquin was the shepherd here. Is it possible they’re the same person?

“Crazy your ancestor was here, and now you and I are here,” I say. “It’s like some weird twist of fate.”

Cash chuckles. “Or it’s just a small town where no one ever leaves.”

I relax. “Yeah, I guess so.” I decide not to say anything about Joaquin yet. It sounds like there’s fragile family history and I need to read more before I tell him about the desk. “Are you ever going to tell them about coming here and helping me?”