Despite himself, he slowed his steps enough to keep Sydney from having to jog to keep up with him. And because he knew Maggie would ask about this blasted tour later, he should probably at least attempt to make conversation.

“One of Maggie’s grandfathers—not really sure how many ‘greats’ ago—planted a lot of these trees as a windbreak between the sea and the barrens. Plus, gives the main house a little privacy during harvest time—that’s when we got a lot more foot traffic on the farm. I hire on a small crew for hand raking anywhere our harvester can’t get to and, of course, there’s all the people coming to pick up their berry orders.” And if one didn’t mind the walk, it was faster to get to the fields by shortcutting through the back grove than taking the gravel road around the long way. “If you follow the trees all the way to the southeast, you’ll come out on a real nice piece of shoreline.”

Sydney’s breath was white in the cool air as she spoke. “The land must curve. Because doesn’t the front of the house face the coast too?”

He nodded. “You can see the ocean from the porch, but if you actually want to walk along the beach, taking the route through the grove gets you to a smoother, sandier spot.”

They walked in silence for a couple of minutes, the cover of the woods trapping the chill around them and allowing only thin beams of sunlight through branches not yet bare.

“I didn’t realize blueberry farms existed.”

He gave Sydney a sidelong glance. “Where did you think berries came from?”

She shrugged, though he barely detected the movement through the bulk of his coat on her shoulders. “I don’t know. Random bushes here and there.” Another shrug. “The store.”

Random bushes. He snorted. “A lot of what you get in stores are highbush. Means they’re cultivated. We grow lowbush wild blueberries.”

“What’s the difference?”

“The taste, for one thing. Wild berries are a brighter blue, a little smaller, and they taste loads sweeter. The bushes are shorter, and because they’re wild, they’re kind of scattered all over the place. They even grow on rocky ground. No neat, tidy rows.” This, he could do—talk about the work he loved. The land that felt a part of his very soul, the tending to it an act of worship to the One who’d created it.

His faith had always been like that—somehow more real and vivid when his hands were dirty, when he labored in the barrens or stood in front of the sea than when he sat in a church pew.

“When’s harvest?”

“Usually starts in late July or early August. Done by Labor Day. We use a machine harvester wherever we can, but we hand rake plenty, too. After raking, we send the berries through a series of blowers for winnowing.”

“Winnowing?”

She almost seemed genuinely interested. “Blowing off all the chaff. We clean them up, pack them into ten-pound crates, then store them in a cooling room until they’re sold. We’re a direct-to-consumer outfit. People call in orders every summer and come pick up their crates in September.”