by Melissa Tagg
Worry that he might once again find himself in the same place he had on her wedding night. So convinced she wanted more than his friendship. So convinced she wanted . . . him.
And that was all it took to send him back to that night—she in a dress that hugged her waist and he in a white shirt and a tie he’d loosened when they were barely a mile from the church.
He’d known the night before her wedding, as they walked through the orchard and talked as if classes and college life had never distanced them, that something in her was reaching out for help. He’d known when he hugged her goodnight, when he saw her before the wedding, when he caught her eye as she started down the aisle.
She’d wanted out—desperately. She simply hadn’t known how to do it, what to say. She’d never been a talker—not to anyone but him. She tended to freeze when she panicked. So he’d done it for her. Interrupted the ceremony and whisked her away without any thought as to what came next.
They’d driven for an hour, covering country roads, crossing county lines until finally Kit had insisted they stop. He pulled over onto a deserted, unpaved lane, and Kit got out.
By the time he’d rounded the Lincoln belonging to Sam Ross’s parents, she was in tears. He pulled her into his arms, cicadas droning from beyond the ditch of overgrown prairie grass. Cornstalks climbed from the soil in the field beyond.
“It’s okay, Kit. You’ll get through this. And Sam will, too.” He could feel the line of buttons up her back beneath his fingers.
“I don’t know how it happened—how it got this far. I was just . . .” His shirt muffled her words. “I was so upset after everything with Lucas. Sam was there for me. Dad wasn’t around, and Grandma and Grandpa were dealing with the orchard, and you were . . .”
A stab of guilt pierced his heart. He’d been so focused on school. It had been the only way he could deal with Mom’s death. But he’d ignored Kit in the process.
His arms tightened around her.
No more. He’d rediscovered his best friend the previous night, wandering through the orchard, talking about everything but her wedding. Their old connection had picked up right where it left off.
And something new had entered the equation. Something that crackled like kindling in a fire.
Beckett cut off the memory with a hard swallow. The rest of it was a blur he refused to walk back into.
“I know you don’t want to talk about it. But I hurt you, Beck. I know I did and I hate that I did and please, just let me say sorry. I’m sorry.”
“I’m the one who . . . misread.” So completely and totally. For once, though, on the brink of reliving the moment he’d ruined everything, it wasn’t mortification he felt. But maybe, surprisingly, something like hope.
That maybe he hadn’t ruined everything. Maybe they could find their way to back to friendship. It hit him all over again, just like it had the night before her wedding, how much he missed her, how much he longed to cross the gulf time and distance had created and reclaim their old bond.
“I don’t hate you.” He repeated the words—soft and, apparently, convincingly.
Because her every feature relaxed into something like relief. She knelt to pet the goat again, and when she looked up at him, moonlight sparkled in her eyes. “What should I name it?”
6
Kit never should’ve let Beckett talk her into this.
A man in jeans and a red tee studied the frame of the mostly un-built barn. He rubbed his fingers on his chin. “I mean, seriously, it wouldn’t take that long to put up some walls, get you a roof, finish off the interior.”
It wasn’t so much time Kit was worried about, but money.
Which was why meeting with Drew Renwycke, a local with a startup carpentry business, made no sense at all. But Beckett had been insistent. And in two and a half weeks of Beckett’s constant presence around the orchard, one thing had become clear: While her old friend might have changed in some ways, he hadn’t lost his ability to bend her will to match his whim.
“Just meet with him, Kit,” he’d said two nights ago as they’d worked on repairs to the fence in the south field. He’d been breathless as he spoke while simultaneously heaving a post into the hole in front of him. “Dad told me Drew built an addition onto the railroad museum this summer. Did it for half the price of a regular contractor because he’s new. Apparently he renovated almost his entire farmhouse, too—which, incidentally, used to be his grandparents’. You guys have something in common.”
She toed the clumps of dirt around the newly placed pole. “You’re not listening to me, Beck. I have zero room in the budget.” Especially now that she’d managed to hire all their seasonal employees and had put a small fortune into getting ready for their fall opening, just a little over a week away on the Saturday before Labor Day.
Fresh paint for the storefront. New layer of pea gravel in the parking lot. Equipment repairs. Newspaper and radio advertisements.
The past weeks had been a frenzied blur, and if they kept up the pace, they just might be ready to welcome their first batch of visitors on September 5. None of it would be possible without Beckett.
They’d had to get court approval for him to complete his hours at a for-profit business rather than a nonprofit organization, and it’d taken over a week to get the okay. But he’d started helping right away anyway.
He swiped the back of his arm over his forehead before reaching for a horizontal beam to fit into the post. She bent to help. They straightened together on either side of the beam.
“Just meet with him, Kit. Show him your grandpa’s blueprints.”
“But I don’t have any—”
“Money, I know. The two main costs in any construction project: labor and materials. We can get you free labor. I can get Seth and Colton to help. I don’t want to ask my dad because, I don’t know, he’s seemed tired lately and the depot is about to get just as busy as the orchard, but—”
“Beck—”
“I bet some of the guys at Hampton House would help out.”
Eric Hampton had been so relieved when she’d called him weeks ago to say the orchard would be hiring, after all. So far, four men had already started working for her under Willa’s supervision, picking some of the early-ripening apples—Elstars, Centennials, Ginger Golds.
“As for the cost of materials, I could lend you—”
“No way.” The muscles in her arms were beginning to burn from the weight of the beam.
“I’m a lawyer, Kit, working for a private firm. Or was. My salary wasn’t exactly a pittance, and I’m sure it’s more than what you earned doing whatever you were doing.”
“I was a field botanist for one of the best universities in England.” Which, fine, basically meant she watered plants and took soil samples, but he didn’t need to know that. “I’m not taking your money. You’ve already done way too much.”
He fit the beam into place and she dropped her arms, relieved. The sun was little more than a sliver of orange against a haze of pastels in the west, but heat radiated from Beckett. Another swipe of his arm, another beam to lift . . .
And then he’d met her eyes and delivered the clincher. “Think of how much it’d impress your dad.”
So here she was, two days later, standing with a man she vaguely recognized from high school. Drew Renwycke’s younger brother had been in her grade, hadn’t he?
“The foundation’s in great shape, by the way,” Drew said. “Some of the frame’s a little weather-worn, but I could fix that.”
He seemed nice, intrigued by the project. What if . . . ?
She did have some savings of her own. Not much, but if she could get some kind of store credit for materials, maybe work out a payment plan with Drew, take advantage of that free labor Beckett seemed to think he could round up . . .
It was crazy. A far-reaching risk.
But what if Grandpa and Jenson Barrow were right about the income potential from a special-events space? What if Beckett was right and there really w
as some way to make it happen?
What if Dad was impressed enough to abandon his talk of selling? After all, none of the weekly reports she’d sent him so far had garnered any more than briefly worded replies. Sounds good. Keep it up. Watch the budget.
She caught a glimpse of Beckett now, crossing from the machine shed to the store. The little goat scampered after him, as much a fixture at the orchard anymore as the man she trailed. Beckett wore jeans so faded they were nearly white over his knees and a plaid shirt, sleeves rolled to his elbows. His Boston Red Sox cap sat backwards over hair that had begun to curl at its ends.
This was the Beckett she remembered. Too busy to bother with a haircut. Too energetic to walk any slower than a near-jog.
She lifted her gaze to the sky. Rain. She could smell it hovering, tucked into pillowy clouds. Patient. The afternoon sun nudged through an opening, casting a yellow-green glint over the landscape.
“So, if I found a way to pay for this . . .” Hesitation slowed her words. “Would you be available? And how long would it take?”
“I’m available. The bulk of my work right now is custom furniture, to be honest. But I’ve been hankering to take on a bigger project.” Drew looked back to the frame. “Far as timeline, depends on what I’ve got for help.”
“If I could get you some volunteer help in the evenings, on weekends?”
“You get me some guys who can follow orders and aren’t completely inept around a construction site, I say we can have you up and ready in a month, month and a half.”
That fast?
As if sensing her uncertainty, Drew turned from the frame, an appeasing expression on his face. “How about this? I’ll take those blueprints and the budget your grandfather worked up, talk to my lumber guy, and update the numbers. It’ll be easier to make a decision with better information.”
“Thanks, I appreciate that.”
With a parting nod, he moved toward the orchard’s parking lot. But she couldn’t help calling after him. He stopped, and she shuffled to catch up. “Just have to ask, you don’t by any chance know my brother—Lucas?”
He grinned. “It’s Maple Valley. Everybody knows everybody. I think he was a grade ahead of me.”
“Did you happen to talk to him at all recently?”
Drew was shaking his head before she’d finished, as if he knew to expect the question. And why wouldn’t he? She’d asked almost every person in town these past weeks about Lucas. “I’ve only been back in town for the past year or so and it’s been a busy one, to say the least. I guess I saw him around a time or two, but we never talked.”
She thanked him again and waited until he started his engine to turn.
The sound of Drew’s truck rumbling down the lane accompanied her walk back to the orchard office, lingering concern over Lucas tangling with the murmur of optimism about the barn. The breeze ushered in the honey-sweet scent of the clematis just now in bloom. It climbed the outside of the building, reaching for the roof Beckett had patched only yesterday.
She found herself skirting the office entrance and heading instead for the store. Flynnie pranced around the first floor, hooves pattering. The little goat might be a female, but Kit had insisted on naming her after Beckett anyway. Beckett had laughed, said his abnormal middle name might as well be put to good use.
“Hey, Flynnie, you’re staying out of trouble, aren’t you?” She crouched to pet the animal, scanning the refreshed space. They’d made progress—new shelving, fresh paint on the walls—but the final week before the store opened was when it would really come alive.
Kit rose and turned in a slow circle, imagination spiraling into existence fresh bags of polished apples covering the shelves, glass coolers stocked with gallons of cider and juice. She pictured buckets of caramels and wall shelves with homemade jams and butters and a chalkboard behind the counter with the day’s specials and an inspirational quote . . .
A creaking overhead jutted in, giving away Beckett’s whereabouts. What was he doing up on the second floor? The stairs were ridiculously rickety, and she wasn’t convinced the floorboards were any safer. She’d planned to rope off the space before they opened.
“Beck?”
Kit started up the stairs, boards jostling as she gingerly made her way. She could only imagine a customer’s foot going through the old lumber or—
The step halfway up pitched beneath her. She yelped, grasping for the railing with both hands.
Too late.
At her hasty movement, the board beneath her feet gave away, and the next thing she knew, she was pulling the railing off the wall and flailing. Not down the steps but through them, her squeal accompanied by the cracking of wood and the whoosh of dirt and debris. And then a thud as she landed in a twisted heap on her back, broken boards and fragmented pallets strewn all around her.
“Kit!”
She blinked but couldn’t see Beckett through the cloud of dust. She could hear his frantic movements, though—his bounding down what was left of the steps and then jumping to the floor.
He was at her side in seconds, crouching down and sliding one hand under her shoulders. “Move, Kit. Make a sound. Say something.”
Remarkably, she did. She curled over onto one side, chest heaving in a sudden coughing fit.
Beckett’s fingers trailed over her neck and down her back, probably looking for anything bent or broken. Only when she made a move to sit up on her own, did he help situate her. With his free hand, he cleared away the wreckage around her.
“Are you okay? What hurts?”
“Other than everything?” She rasped the words as another spasm of coughing took over.
“I should call 911.”
“I’m fine.”
“You just fell through a stairway.”
Another cough. “Tell me this entrance tops climbing in a window.”
“How can you joke when I feel like my heart just did an acrobatic routine?” He brushed a piece of insulation from her hair.
“You were worried.” It shouldn’t please her so much. Not considering she’d probably wake up bruised from head to toe tomorrow. Not considering the damage she’d just caused and the expense it’d take to fix it.
“Of course I was worried. Because, again, you just fell through a staircase.” Beckett punctuated each word, gaze lifting to the hole overhead before lowering to her again. “Think you can stand?”
She nodded, and he helped her to her feet, toeing more debris out of the way and making sure she was steady before dropping his hand from her back. Even then, he stood close, as if ready to reach out if she swayed.
“I told you not to go up there, Beck. I said the stairs were unstable, the wood rotting.”
“You’re scolding me? Do we need to review which one of us the steps couldn’t hold?”
She couldn’t help it. Despite the throbbing where her hip had hit the floor, the mess all around her, she laughed.
“I mean, I’m just saying, Danby, maybe you need to lay off the cupcakes and pie.”
“Shut up.”
“You didn’t just fall through the steps, you pulled the whole railing down with you.” And now he was laughing even as his dark eyes pinned her with faux reproach and he swiped two fingers across her cheek. A streak of dirt probably.
“What can I say? I don’t know my own strength.”
A jolt suddenly cut off Beckett’s laughter as his attention pinned on something behind her. She turned.
Sam Ross was standing in the doorway, pinched expression pointed and irate and . . . pained. Only a flicker, but there was no mistaking it.
“Sam—”
He spun.
“So, listen, if this is weird at all—”
“It’s fine.”
The kid sitting across the restaurant table from Beckett was lying through his teeth. Webster Hawks. High school junior. Varsity wide receiver.
Sullen as a storm cloud. Hadn’t Colton cleared this with the kid? And how was Beckett supposed to focus afte
r such a long day at the orchard, including those moments in the store with Kit, Sam’s sudden appearance—and then just as sudden disappearance?
Beckett lifted his water glass only to find it empty. He’d guzzled the whole thing already? “Truth is, I’ve never tutored anyone before, and when Colt asked me, I tried to tell him I wasn’t the right one for the job.”
It’d been three weeks ago that Colton asked for the favor that day in the coffee shop, and Beckett was just now making good on it. Although why his sister’s boyfriend thought Beckett would have any success at this, Beckett didn’t know. Logan was the brainiac of the family.
But Colton had thrown back at him the fact that Beckett had made it through law school. “Whereas I skated through college on a football scholarship,” he’d said. “I’m great helping Web with his long pass. But he barely made it through summer school, and if he can’t keep up during his first semester, he’s going to end up sitting out games.”
It was Colton’s description of Webster’s past that’d finally swayed Beckett: His mother, a drug addict who’d eventually signed over her parental rights. Several years of foster home shuffling. Finally last year, Webster had landed in Maple Valley right around the same time as Colton.
Beckett lifted his glass again. Found it empty. Again. “Anyway, Colton’s a hard guy to say no to.”
It was his NFL size. And the fact that Kate acted like he was some kind of hero on a white horse or something. Which, Beckett guessed, he kind of was. Now that he no longer played football, he ran a national foundation from here in Maple Valley and had opened a home for older teens who’d aged out of the foster system. Apparently he was currently working on reeling in some big-name sponsors in an effort to open additional homes in other states.
And of course he was advocating for Webster.
The kid might welcome Colton’s intervention in his life, but he didn’t seem all that excited about the addition of Beckett. The Maple Valley Mavericks logo on Webster’s t-shirt was hidden behind his folded arms, and he’d yet to take a drink of the Coke Seth had set in front of him five minutes ago.