Chapter 3

Pete comes home after a long day's work. He throws his bag of tools by the door, and slams himself on the couch to relax. He then picks up his remote and begins watching TV. It was quite a day at the farm, picking up after animals, taking crop requests from the other villagers, and checking on his other properties. As he watches the tube, his mind constantly gets distracted with the image of the girl living in the sanitarium. It has been about a week since he visited the place. He has passed by the sanitarium several times since then, but never found the courage or a good reason to visit again.

That night after he takes a shower, he takes a look in the mirror. Looking into his own blue eyes, spiky brown hair, and good physique, he thinks to himself that it's quite unfair that he's still single. He believes that he is a decent looking man, and having a girlfriend in his life is not such a bad idea.

The village may be small, but there are some attractive looking single women around. Working at the farm takes up a lot of time, but the nights are young and the bar is open till late. There is also an attractive looking girl at the rival farm, and another at the ranch. As he continues to think about single women, he remembers the Cafe hiring quite a looker a few days ago.

After changing, he decides to take the plunge and find himself someone nice to go out with starting tomorrow. He jumps into bed, and imagines himself working at the farm with a cute looking girlfriend watching and cheering him on. Afterwards, they can go out and have fun playing all sorts of games and going to festivals together. He then imagines taking her home and kissing her goodnight.

“I wonder is that Dia girl is single. . . ,” he finds himself thinking randomly. He then closes his eyes, and drifts into a deep sleep.

The next day, he wakes up and goes to work. Like every morning, he feeds the animals, brushes them, cleans up after them, moves them around, and collects their byproducts. It's about lunchtime by the time he's done. He goes home and makes himself a good lunch; he imagines a special lady who can make them. Living alone has made himself a pretty good cook, a talent he intends to abuse to get himself a lady.

After lunch, it's time to care for the crops. The morning dew has already dried off, so he needs to water the plants to keep them healthy. Some of the crops are also ripe, so he collects them in his basket, and drops them into a shipping bin located close to his house. The day is now coming to a close. Pete is in one of his properties that he had purchased a while ago. In the plot of land, he has planted several trees to help him make a little extra money. He finds no problems with the growth of his saplings. As he further inspects the land, his attention is directed at some nearby blueberry bushes.

The property came with the bushes, and he decided not to clear them out. Around this time in spring, the bushes get filled with fresh wild blueberries ready for harvesting. As he harvests them, he remembers what Gina said about Dia and blueberry pies. Even though he originally wanted to ship the blueberries, he decides to store them in his home in case he'll need them.

The farm work is done, and now it's time to hang around the village. He takes off his blue overalls and hat, and takes a quick shower. He then changes to something a bit more casual and relaxed, like a pair of jeans, a short sleeved white shirt, with a blue sleeveless over it and some black sneakers to complete the look. He then straightens up his spiky hair, and throws on some cologne for good measure. Before he heads out, he takes a look in the mirror, and compliments himself on how good he looks.

He heads out to the bar to start his hunt for a lovely lady. The Moonlight Cafe is open well over midnight, so he has plenty of time for flirting and romance. At the bar, he finds a small collection of attractive women, but none other stands out more than the bar girl herself Eve. Eve has that slender curvaceous figure that most men find attractive in any woman. Add in the sexy cocktail dress, heels, long blond hair, and slender red eyes, and you have a combination that would make any man drool.

Pete feels that if he can catch this vixen, he'll surely be the envy of the village. So he heads over, and talks to the lovely young beauty. At first, they start to hit it off quite well. Eve is also attracted to him and shows obvious signs of interest. But as the night goes on, they start to hit some rocky roads. Neither of them had anything in common; Eve was not interested in farming, and Pete is not a constant late-night dweller.

When the bar closes, Pete returned home and lays on his bed. He tries to think about Eve, but instead remembers Dia’s pretty green dress. He has nothing in common with Eve, but maybe he has something with Dia. She is tough to talk to, but he wishes that he can get to know her. He drifts to sleep and perhaps try again tomorrow.

Several days later, Pete finds some time to visit the Spring Farm where the lovely Nina lives. She has long pink hair, and wears pretty frilly white dress like Little Bo Peep. Using his culinary skills, Pete made some strawberry jam and fresh homemade bread for her. Nina loves strawberries, so he feels that he is sure to attract her. He invited her out to a picnic and she accepts with a smile. At the picnic, Pete serves his jam on the fresh bread for Nina. He then gets his flirt on, trying his best to get to know this pretty little flower. Even through they has a lot in common, he still ends up thinking about Dia which distracts him. Nina can tell his mind is on someone else, so she loses interest rather quickly.

As soon as Pete has some more time off, he goes over to the Blue Sky Ranch and tries his luck with the more interesting girl in town, Ellen. Not too attractive, just plain brown straight hair and brown eyes. Nothing unique like the other girls, but she has that ranch girl charm to her, and would make a great lady for Pete. In order to get on her good side, he offers to help Ellen with her chores, which she finds quite charming. She happily agrees, and they both chat while they work.

They have many things in common, and she is a lot more interesting than the other girls he spent time with the last few days. They tell each other jokes, laugh, and have a good time as they tend to the animal's needs. She can be a great candidate for him, if it wasn't for that one small problem he forgot about. Her cousin Blue who also works at the ranch and is highly overprotective of her. As they made small talk, Pete finds Blue watching him from all corners of the ranch. He also carries a huge Pitchfork for what seems to be no other reason other than to be intimidating.

That evening, he once again thinks about Dia. Blue makes seeing Ellen impossible, but then he remembers how gentle Gina was. He spends the night thinking of Dia, almost as if she is a princess locked in a castle. He really wants to see her, but he is afraid that maybe she doesn’t want him to.

The next place he tries is the Callaway Cafe. At the Cafe, he meets the new waitress called Katie. He becomes a fan of her looks at first sight. Katie is eighteen years old, younger than the other girls he already met. Her little black waitress dress can turn a few heads in the Cafe, making most girls jealous of her. Her hair is tied to the sides and curls down like Shirley Temple. Young, fresh, and attractive, Pete has to get to know her a little better. He sits down at a table and ordered the cake. Katie brags that she made the cake herself, and Pete looks forward to trying her baking skills. She comes back with a slice and places it on the table. Since the Cafe is a bit slow, Pete takes advantage to talk to her for a while. Katie is from the city, and came all the way to the village to learn to bake cakes. However, Pete makes the mistake of tasting her cake and runs off sick like a dog.

Another week passes and Spring will come to a close soon. Pete lies on his bed, and thinks to himself. Every girl he has flirted with has ended in failure. There are other single girls in town, but they are not his type. His only other options are to wait till more girls settle into the village, or just remain single. After thinking about the week of failed flirting, his mind is once again on Dia. He has thought about her a lot over the last week. He is not sure why, they only had a moment to exchange a few words. He felt like Dia was of afraid of him, but he can't get her off his mind. He wants to see her again, but doesn't know what sort of excuse he could conjure up to do so.

He then remembers what Gina said. Dia loves Blueberry pie, and Gina goes out to get some for her whenever she wants it. He also remembers the blueberries that he harvested earlier. Looking through his refrigerator, he found the blueberries he has ripening for Jam. He then thinks up a plan; the Sanitarium is open to the public, and he really doesn't need a valid excuse to visit. He'll just go and see her, but he'll bake a pie just for her so she'll fell a bit more comfortable around him.

The next day, Pete wakes up early to bake his pie. During lunch, he takes the pie out of the oven and leaves it on his windowsill to cool off. As soon as his work is done for the day, the pie is cool enough to handle and deliver to the sanitarium. At the Sanitarium, Dia looks out the window with a book on her lap. Outside, she sees a young man giving some gifts to a girl. Although seeing things like that makes her feel lonely, she keeps saying to herself, that life is better this way. As she sighs sadly, Pete enters the Sanitarium. He does his best to sneak in without Dia seeing him from the window.

As he quietly walks up the stairs, he sees Dia sitting quietly looking out her window. He is nervous, but he takes a deep breath and finds the courage to say something. “Hey there,” said Pete trying to get Dia's attention. She looks over at him for a moment, then she looks back out the window ignoring him. Even though he is being ignored, he still approaches her cautiously.

As soon as he gets close enough, she asks, “what are you doing here? I thought I told you that I wanted to be alone.”

Pete smiles. He had a feeling that he is going to get a greeting like that. But he smiles for her and says, “I made some blueberry pie. I heard that you like blueberries. . . Do you like blueberries?”

“More than life itself.” she answered in a cold uninviting tone.

Pete then pulls out the pie from the basket, and says, “Well, I had some extra pie. I brought you some if you would accept it.”

Dia continues to look out the window, not once did she even make an attempt to look at Pete or the pie. Rather than trying to persuade her, he places the pie on a table next to her along with a fork. “I'll be going then. I hope I didn't upset you.”

As quietly as he arrived, he leaves the sanitarium her giving her the space she wants. Dia continues looking out the window watching Pete walk away back to his farm. As soon as Pete is out of sight, Dia turns her attention to the pie he left behind. The scent of fresh blueberries is too much for her to resist. So she grabs the fork and has a taste. A soft and gentle “It's good.” whisperes from her lips.