Berried Secrets Read Online Free

sliced tomatoes for a salad. Probably the best way to break the news to Jeff was to do it quickly—like pulling off a bandage in one swift motion. She grimaced at the thought.
    Jeff arrived exactly at six o’clock, just as Monica was preheating the broiler for the steak. He and Monica had both gotten their father’s height and auburn hair that had a slight curl to it, although Jeff’s blue eyes and cleft chin came from his mother. He was wearing jeans and a plaid flannel shirt with the sleeves rolled up, revealing his forearms—the strong right one, and the left, which looked wasted in comparison. It hurt Monica to see it, and she glanced away quickly.
    â€œYou look tired.”
    Jeff ran a hand across the back of his neck. “I am. The temperature really dropped last night and I was worried about afrost. I had to go out and check the temperature sensors in the bogs. It’d be just my luck to lose the crop the day before we plan to harvest.”
    Monica looked at him curiously. “It didn’t seem that cold to me.”
    â€œThe cranberry bogs are lower than the surrounding land. They can run ten to twenty degrees cooler, especially at night.”
    Monica absorbed that fact. There was still so much to learn. “But what would you do if there was a frost?” She couldn’t imagine how they could blanket the acres and acres of cranberries that made up Sassamanash Farm in order to keep the fruit warm.
    â€œIt sounds crazy,” Jeff said with a grin, “but we run the irrigation system and spray the berries with water. The water turns to ice, releasing heat, and the heat warms the berries. It’s a law of physics known as the heat of fusion.”
    â€œOh,” was all Monica could say. While Jeff had excelled at science in school, she had been more inclined to have her head buried in a book—preferably a mystery. She’d started with Nancy Drew and had worked her way up to P. D. James before she was out of middle school.
    â€œI have some cold beer in the fridge,” she said as Jeff plopped down at the kitchen table, making the small space suddenly seem even smaller.
    Jeff scrubbed a hand across his face. “Sounds great.” He reached out his good arm, pulled open the refrigerator door which was right behind him and yanked a bottle from the cardboard six-pack Monica had stashed there. He twisted off the top and took a long pull before putting the beer down on the table and tilting his chair back on two legs.
    â€œHow’s Gina?” Monica turned toward Jeff and leaned on the counter. “Have you heard from her lately?”
    Gina was Jeff’s mother and technically, Monica supposed, her stepmother, although she wasn’t even ten years older than Monica and looked even younger than that, since she visited the best hair salons, had a personal trainer and had had enough Botox injections to paralyze an elephant. Monica couldn’t help but think of her as
the woman who stole her father away from his family
. Although strictly speaking, her parents’ marriage had been on the proverbial rocks even before Gina had dug her well-manicured nails into John Albertson’s arm.
    Monica had been besotted, however, with the younger brother who had arrived a year after their marriage, and she had gradually come to realize that Gina wasn’t as bad as all that—vapid, for sure, but in a harmless sort of way.
    â€œShe’s okay, I guess,” Jeff said in answer to Monica’s question. He took another long draft of his beer. “She’s coming to visit.”
    Monica stopped with her hand halfway to the oven door. “When?”
    Jeff glanced at his watch. “In about an hour.”
    â€œWhat?” Monica squeaked.
    Jeff shrugged. “She called last night and said she was at loose ends and could she come and stay for a bit. The timing couldn’t be worse, but what could I say?” He shrugged.
    Monica was