Town in a Blueberrry Jam Read Online Free PDF Page B

urge to glance at her watch. “So, you ready to get started?”
    “Yup, sure am.”
    Candy clapped her hands together. “Okay, here’s what we’ve got,” she said as she walked farther into the barn, pointing to a pile of wood near the back. “It’s a simple project—a three-sided booth with a wide counter in the front for displaying items for sale. I thought I’d hinge the sides so I can fold them in and load the whole thing into Doc’s truck.” She picked up the brass hinges that sat on a swaybacked bench along the back wall, then indicated a pile of raw wood nearby.
    “Doc’s already got all the wood we need. There are extra two-by-fours to use as crossbeams across the top of the booth to stabilize it. And I’m working on the banner I’ll hang across the front.”
    She pointed to the five-foot-long swath of canvas nearby, with the words HOLLIDAY’S BLUEBERRY ACRES, CAPE WILLINGTON, MAINE sketched out in pencil along its length.
    “I’d also like to build some shelves into the back side of the front display section,” Candy continued, “and maybe we can put some hooks in the crossbeams so I can hang up a few of the gift baskets for show.”
    Ray listened to her carefully, surveyed the materials and what she’d done so far, and set to work without a word. Doc had already cut some of the two-by-fours and marked the quarter-inch sheets of plywood for cutting. Ray walked back to his truck to get a cordless circular saw, and for the next half hour or so the summer air was filled with the smells of sawdust and the shriek of metal teeth cutting into raw wood, mixing in with the buzzing of honeybees, the chirps and trills of sparrows and terns, and the earthy smells coming off the blueberry barrens and surrounding woods.
    For the most part Ray worked silently, his mouth drawn into a tight thoughtful line, his hands fumbling about a bit more than usual. Candy regularly caught him glancing her way. She was used to glances like that. She knew that, at thirty-six, she still looked pretty good in a pair of jeans—not because she exercised a lot (which she hated to do) but because she did lots of farmwork. (“Who needs a gym,” Doc often said, “when you’ve got a blueberry farm?”) The sun had added some color to her high, full cheekbones this summer and a touch of rosemary honey to the tips of her hair. It contrasted nicely with her eyes, which were a light shade of blue but bright—“the color of forget-me-nots in the spring,” her mother used to tell her. And that morning she’d slipped on a faded red T-shirt, which clung to her a little more than she would have liked on this hot, humid July afternoon.
    Thank God she’d remembered to wear a bra.
    After awhile Ray settled down to business, his eyes focused on the work in front of him more than on Candy’s figure, and the booth began to take shape.
    At around three thirty they took a break. Candy invited Ray into the kitchen for some fresh-baked blueberry pie. Ray’s nervousness made him fidgety and restless. In a moment of carelessness he knocked his water glass to the floor, shattering it, and tipped over a chair when he turned around too fast. Sweat began to break out on his forehead. He mumbled a lot, shifted his eyes this way and that, and even had to ask directions to the bathroom.
    “Ray, you’ve been here plenty of times before. You know where it’s at,” Candy said, a note of frustration creeping into her voice. Struggling to hold back a sigh, she pointed him to the proper door. She didn’t want to hurt his feelings but she had too much to do today, and didn’t have time to deal with these kinds of delays.
    Chastised, Ray dropped his head as he walked down the hall and closed the bathroom door behind him.
    Once they were back outside, Candy decided Ray needed a few minutes alone to settle down, so she left him in the barn while she went out back to check on her chickens.
    Ray had helped her build the chicken coop last fall, right after