The cart rumbled beneath him as he sat upon its driver's bench, the bay gelding young enough to easily pull the orchard's flatbed along while being just old enough to not be frisky about it. The bed behind Victor was empty. His bad leg he kept propped up on the wagon's splashboard at an angle to keep the joint from being jostled too much; while serviceable and sturdy, the wagon's banded suspension springs needed to be replaced soon. Still, the access road through the orchard had been kept smooth enough over the years that Victor wasn't bounced out of his seat. In fact, the ruts were worn so completely into the path that he didn't even really need to guide the horse with the reigns! It would have taken a great deal of effort even for the three year old gelding to pull the wheels of course. He didn't really even think about that though. His mind was far too busy on other matters.

[i]Why am I doing this??[/i] he berated himself internally. [i]Am I really neglecting work to go look at a pretty girl?? There are things that have to be done! I need to hire folks to help harvest the apples, remember? That's what this guest's money is paying for after all, for me to pay workers to help out! The cider press needs cleaning, too, a good pumice stone scrubbing. And the preserves, I have to get over to one of the larger towns and order jars and lids and wax for the preserves! And let's not forget cutting wood for winter! I should be marking which trees can be harvested. And these are just the things off the top of my head! Am I doing any of them? No!! i'm off to see some chit of girl from the city!![/i]

Only as the cynic in him raged on with its tirade, Victor found a calmer and warmer flow of reasoning within him to answer. [i]No. Not 'a pretty girl,'[/i] it said. [i]A young woman. A beautiful young woman with thick, healthy hair and dusky dark skin and a soothing voice and eyes... those eyes...[/i] It was Kijani's eyes that drew him out of his work shed and into the orchard's rows. He could have allowed himself to be curious, of course, of that there was no doubt. Did she really come all the way out to the middle of nowhere for a vacation? To him it didn't matter. Victor had his own secrets and he wasn't about to begrudge Kijani hers. All he wanted in that moment was to see her.

Victor spied her sitting beneath the great tree, reading. He knew how to read himself, enough to get by at any rate. Much like sums, he knew what he needed to know and didn't get much farther than that as there had far more important things to learn while growing up. The idea of books, that there could be so much worth reading as to bind it all between two covers, escaped him. Ledgers, charts, maps, inventories... these things he could understand. The rest? It was outside his realm of experience.

The road did not go up the hill to Grandfather Apple, only by it. There were indications that at some point it might have, old stone markers half sunk into the earth that might once have outlines a path up to the tree and its ancient semi-circle of benches. Whatever importance the tree once had faded long ago as maintaining the orchard became more important, and so that road to the hill's crest was long abandoned. If it had ever truly been. Victor stopped the cart and set the break, leaving the horse in its harness to munch on whatever nearby grass it desired. Grabbing his cane, he stumped upwards to where Kijani sat with her book. He had no idea of what to say to her, how to approach her. Three years he had played the hermit and played it well enough that what little social graces he might have known were now faded like the hill's road.

He stopped a little way from her, leaning on his stout cane for support as he looked upon her from the side. Had she heard or seen him come up the side towards her? Victor had no way of knowing, and as much as a part of him wanted to just stand there and take in the sight of her, he feared what the city woman's reaction might be if she found him hovering and staring in silence. Finally he gave a little rumbling cough. And the words that then came out of his mouth were words he would never have expected himself to say.

"Would you... read to me? From your book there? Please?"