They all say hello as Wendy comes forward and asks me to fill a wheelbarrow with debris and haul it to the waste bin.
I get to work, picking up rocks, trash, and debris and loading them into the cart. My boots sink a little in the soil. My heart, on the other hand, is lighter than air.
I haven’t felt this happy in such a long time. Although a part of me wishes I had gone to dinner with Ford, a bigger part of me feels so much joy being here. Giving back. Repaying the favor we were shown.
“You never fail to amaze me,” Wendy says.
“And why is that?”
“We don’t see a lot of girls your age out here getting dirty.”
“Ah, I guess it’s in my genes,” I shrug. “I was never much of a girly-girl.”
“That’s good for us, I guess.”
With a spring in my step, I take the full wheelbarrow and begin pushing it across the ground. The weight of it causes it to sink into the earth and it makes it super hard to get to the trash. Volunteers whiz by me like a beehive, every
one doing their part for the greater good.
I pull up to the garbage and begin transferring my haul. Twisting to grab a metal can that fell off the side, my hand pauses in the air.
A tall, lanky figure is on the other side of the site. He’s shoveling a pile of gravel into a trench.
Forgetting all about the can, I stand and watch him. He’s dressed in a pair of ripped jeans and has a purple t-shirt on with ARROWS emblazoned on the front. A white hat is pulled low on his head.
His body moves in long, graceful strokes. Even from afar, I can see his muscles under the sheen of sweat soaking through the back of his shirt.
It’s sexy as hell.
And it’s Ford.
I laugh in disbelief. He’s here. Here. At a Shelters site on a random day for a random family in a random neighborhood. Why?
“Hey, Wendy,” I call out as she pulls a tree beside me. “Is he here often?”
“Who, honey?”
“Him.” I point to Ford. “Is he here a lot? I haven’t seen him before.”
Her head cocks to the side as a smile takes over her full lips. “He’s never been to this one particularly, to my knowledge. I worked with him a couple of times on the south side of town over the last year or so.” She quirks a brow. “You know who that is, don’t you? He’s a Landry.”
“I know,” I whisper, watching him work.
“You don’t see that much—a man like that out here with the rest of us. Gives us some hope for humanity, huh?”
“It sure does.”
Wendy goes about her task and leaves me standing with my wheelbarrow.
A shovelful of rocks falls off the end of Ford’s tool, and as if he feels my eyes on him, his head slowly rises to mine. It takes no time at all for our gazes to lock. Like a band is pulling us together, we both walk towards one another.
“What are you doing here?” I ask as we meet in the middle.
“Same thing as you, I guess.” He takes his gloves off. One hand comes to the side of my face and he brushes it gently. “Every time I find you in the wild, you have something on your face. The first time I saw you, you had mud everywhere too. Remember that?”
“Yes. I almost feel into the lake that day.”
“If that shirt would’ve been wet when I found you . . .” He wiggles his brows. “We are both probably better off you just always have dirt on your face.”