AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Romeo grumbled under his breath before saying, “Right. Who doesn’t love watermelon?”
Sin planted his hands on his hips. “Where do we start?”
“A couple of you can help me load the cardboard boxes onto the trailer. The rest can begin picking and lining the melons up, ready to put them in the boxes when we get back with the trailer.”
“How do we know which melons to pick?” Sin asked.
“Follow me.” Bernie walked out among the watermelon vines.
Gerard admired the woman’s no-nonsense approach to farming and the way she patiently showed the men how to determine if a melon was ripe enough to pick. She pulled a pocketknife out of her jeans pocket and sliced through a stem. She held up her pocketknife. “Who needs a knife?”
Each man pulled a knife from a scabbard on his belt and flipped it open.
Bernie chuckled. “Always prepared, huh? You all must have been good Boy Scouts.”
“No, ma’am,” Remy said. “Navy SEAL, here.”
She grinned.
The way her face lit up made Gerard’s blood run hot through his veins.
“All right,” Bernie crossed her arms over her chest. “Remy, show me a ripe melon.”
One by one, she had each guy identify a ripe melon before she turned them loose to start picking.
When she was satisfied they knew a ripe melon from a green one, Bernie climbed onto the tractor, turned it around and headed for the barn.
Gerard, Remy and Landry followed. At the barn, they loaded large, sturdy cardboard boxes onto the flatbed trailer and rode with them back out to the field.
Valentin, Romeo and Beaux turned out to be the best at picking the ripe melons. They passed the melons in bucket-brigade style from one man to the next, handing the heavy fruit up to Gerard and Bernie, who then set them gently into the cardboard boxes until each box was full.
The work was strenuous, the heat and humidity making them sweat. By the time the trailer was full, Gerard was tired, his muscles sore, and he was ready for a shower, a beer and food, but not necessarily in that order. He jumped down from his position on the trailer and stretched his arms above his head, working the kinks out of his back.
Bernie drove the tractor back to the barn, pulling the heavily loaded trailer along behind her. She’d worked as hard as the rest of them without once grumbling about the heat, the backbreaking task or the fact that they had to do it all again the next day.
Gerard suspected his teammates had stopped grumbling when they’d realized Bernie was keeping up with them without complaint.
And to think, she’d been running the farm single-handed. Gerard’s respect for the woman ratcheted up significantly. He walked with his team back to the barn behind the tractor and helped Bernie unhitch the trailer from the tractor and hitch it to her truck for the drive into New Orleans the following morning.
Bernie nodded toward the house. “There’s beer in the refrigerator in the kitchen. Help yourself. I have a huge pot of gumbo already cooked. All I have to do is warm it up if you’d like to stay for dinner.”
“You don’t have to go to the trouble,” Remy said. “We can get something to eat in town.”
“And leave me with all that gumbo?” Bernie shook her head. “I made it for the pickers. I always provide a meal for them when they come. I make a pretty decent gumbo if I say so myself.”
“Count me in.” Romeo rubbed his belly. “I could eat a whole pig after that workout.”
“Shh.” Lucas grinned. “Don’t let Penelope hear you say that. She might take offense.”
“It shouldn’t take me fifteen minutes to warm it up,” Bernie said. “I have plenty of beer in the refrigerator for those interested and bottled water for everyone else.”
Gerard followed her into the kitchen, grabbed the case of beer she had chilling in the fridge and carried it out to the team.
The men took turns rinsing their hands and faces under the spigot at the side of the house. Once they’d dripped dry, they each grabbed a beer from the case and settled on the porch steps, the swing or leaned against the railing, sipping beer and poking fun at each other.
“I think Delta Force training was easier than harvesting a field of watermelons,” Lucas said, rolling his shoulders.
Sin shook his head. “I don’t know what Delta Force training you went through, man, but it couldn’t have been the same as mine.”
