The Orchard at the Edge of Town

by Shirlee McCoy

  “He replaced my roof two months ago. Replaced and reframed my windows. So far, no leaks,” he offered. “Took him about four days, and he cleaned up his mess when he finished. I’d say it would take longer to side the Shaffer place.”

  She nodded. “I’d say so. He hasn’t given me a time frame, and I didn’t ask, but if he works alone, we’re probably talking a few weeks.”

  “He does most of the work alone, but he did have a guy helping with the roof. An older guy who works for a company in Spokane and does freelance work when he has time.”

  “Hmm. I guess that means paying two for the job?”

  “No. I paid a set fee and Jet paid his friend. No fuss or muss. No trouble. No complaints from the freelancer. If you hire Jet, you’re going to have to buy the supplies. He doesn’t have cash in hand to do that.” That hadn’t bothered Simon. He’d already purchased everything he needed to do the job. He just hadn’t had time to do it. With fall closing in and winter right around the corner, he’d needed to get the work done. Even if he’d been willing to wait, his hundred-year-old home hadn’t been.

  “That’s not a problem. As long as he’s able to tell me what I need.”

  “He gave me an itemized list along with reasonable prices for supplies. Want to take a look at the work he did?”

  “Sure.” She stood, box in hand. “As long as I can bring the kittens in. Handsome keeps escaping the box, and I don’t want him to get run over.”

  “Handsome?” He opened the screen door, touched her shoulder to urge her in ahead of him. Got a quick swat from the ugly gray kitten as a thank-you.

  “This guy.” She dragged the gray kitten off her shoulder and set him in the box. “He’s trouble.”

  “You think you’re going to find him a home?”

  “Someone will feel sorry for him and take him in. I hope.”

  “Hope is nothing to hang your hat on,” he responded, smiling as she laughed.

  “I guess you’re right about that, but don’t worry. I have a plan B.”

  “Yeah?”

  “If no one will take him, I’ll bring him to the . . .”

  The girls barreled into the foyer, each of them carrying a bowl of water.

  “Shelter,” Apricot finished.

  “No!” Evie shouted. “You’re not taking them to the shelter! You can’t. Aunt Daisy says they kill animals there.”

  Apricot met Simon’s eyes, mouthed I’m sorry. Then smiled at Evie. “Don’t worry. I’m sure I’ll find them all good homes.”

  “If you don’t, you have to keep them,” Evie insisted. “It’s the only right thing to do.”

  “Not if I don’t have time for them. That wouldn’t be fair to the kittens,” Apricot responded. “But, like I said, I’m sure I can find them all good homes.”

  “But—”

  “That’s enough, Evangeline,” he cut in, knowing his daughter would continue to press her point. At eight, she insisted she wanted to be a veterinarian. Simon was convinced she’d grow up to become an attorney. “How about you girls bring the kittens into the kitchen and give them the water there? I need to show Apricot—”

  “Your name is Apricot?” Rori gasped, her dark chocolate eyes wide, some of her natural shyness disappearing in the face of the wonder of Apricot’s name.

  “Yes, but most of my friends call me Anna.”

  “But Apricot is such a pretty name. Like a fairy-tale princess name,” Rori breathed, and Simon could see all the little-girl dreams in her eyes.

  “Rori,” he began, wanting to stop his daughter before she got too caught up in the fantasy. “She’s not a fairy-tale princess. She’s just—”

  “Very flattered that you like my name,” Apricot broke in with a gentle smile. “I never thought of it as all that special, but I think after today, I will. Give your sister the water, and I’ll hand you the kitten box. You’ll be careful with them, right?”

  “Yes.” Rori nodded solemnly. No overflowing enthusiasm, no jumping and squealing. She was the quiet twin, the one Simon worried about most, because her feelings were so close to the surface and so easily hurt.

  Too bad he couldn’t put her in a bubble and keep her there, safe from all the meanness in the world.

  She handed the water to her sister, who took it without protest.

  A minor miracle considering the kid always wanted to be in charge.

  Like Rori, she seemed to have fallen under Apricot’s spell, her big brown eyes wide with wonder as Apricot handed over the kitten box.

  “Is your hair real or is it the clip-on stuff that my first-grade teacher wore at her wedding?”

  “What kind of question is that?” Simon asked.

  “One I want an answer to. I’ve never seen a grown woman with hair as long as hers.” Evie didn’t seem at all apologetic. “And are those your real boobs? Jackson Anderson at school says most women have fake ones. I told him that only women in magazines have them, and he told me I was stupid.”

  “Enough!” Simon commanded.

  What kind of school was he sending his kids to, if that was the kind of conversation they were having?!

  “But, Daddy,” Evie said. “It’s a reasonable question, and I just want a reasonable answer. I’m going to be a woman one day, and I have to know these things.”

  Apricot laughed, and Simon would have laughed too, if it had been anyone else’s daughter making the pronouncement.

  “You’re eight,” he muttered. “You should be worried about bedtime and lunch boxes.”

  “Jackson says—”

  “How about we discuss Jackson and his opinions later?” he cut in. “The kittens are thirsty and they’re probably hungry too. Take them into the kitchen and feed them some of that food Aunt Daisy keeps here for Sweetums.”

  “Sweetums?” Apricot asked as the girls walked away.

  “The cat from hell. I think she got him from a breeder who charges an arm and a leg for squashfaced kittens with bad attitudes.”

  She laughed, following him into the living room, the scent of summer sunshine filling the air as she moved. “I’m getting the impression you’re not Sweetums’s biggest fan.”

  “He scratched up my favorite recliner. I had a friend reupholster it, and he clawed it up again.”

  “Is that the recliner?” She gestured to the chair he’d bought a few months after he and the girls had moved in. The sides of the chair looked like they’d been put through a giant paper shredder.

  “How’d you guess?” he asked drily.

  “I’m not always as clueless as I was the day I accepted my ex’s proposal,” she responded with a smile that made her eyes sparkle.

  “You’ve got an awfully good attitude for a woman who was—” He stopped short of saying what had popped into his head. No sense rubbing salt in an open wound.

  “Jilted?” She finished for him. “I told you. I wasn’t. I was left waiting. For a long time.”

  “And?”

  “I decided I didn’t want to wait any longer. He showed up right around the time I was telling my family the wedding was off.”

  There was probably more to the story, but he didn’t ask and she didn’t tell. That would be a little too much like getting to know each other, and Simon didn’t think either of them wanted to do that.

  “Is this one of the windows Jet replaced?” she asked, crouching in front of the double-pane glass and touching the oak framing.

  “Yes.” He crouched beside her. “He used wood from an old house that had been demolished, and cut molds to match the frames that weren’t dry-rotted.

  “It’s gorgeous,” she murmured, running long fingers over the smooth wood. Her nails were unvarnished and short, her face makeup-free, a few long strands of hair escaping her ponytail.

  She didn’t look high maintenance, but her wedding dress sure had been. If he’d based his assessment of Apricot’s nature on that, he’d say she was the kind of woman who liked fine dining and spa treatments, who liked fancy furniture and expensive je
welry. The kind of woman who wouldn’t blink an eye at spending thousands of dollars on a dress she was only going to wear one day.

  He and Megan had argued about that.

  Funny how he was just now remembering.

  Two weeks after they’d gotten engaged, Megan had told him her grandparents had put aside five thousand dollars for the dress. He’d suggested she spend half that and they could use the rest for a down payment on a house. She hadn’t liked the idea. She hadn’t even liked that he’d had it. It had been their first big argument, and he thought it had surprised both of them. In the end, she’d had her fancy dress, and they’d lived in an apartment for the first two years they were married. He hadn’t minded all that much. He’d loved Megan, would have lived in a hovel with her if that’s what they’d had to do to be together.

  “How many windows and frames did he put in?” Apricot asked, pulling him from the memory.

  “All the windows were replaced. He rebuilt the frames in here and in the kitchen.” He glanced toward the dining room. The girls were being very, very quiet. “I can take you in there.”

  “If they look as good as these, there’s no need.” She brushed the stray hair off her face, tucked it back into the ponytail holder, the gesture unconsciously feminine and much more appealing than Simon wanted it to be.

  Time to get her out of the house, because his mind was heading places it shouldn’t be going unless he wanted to get himself involved in something that would take way more time than he had.

  He straightened, holding out a hand to help her to her feet. “In that case, I’ll walk you to the door.”

  “Am I being kicked to the curb, Simon?” she asked with a grin that made him notice the deep blue of her eyes and the freckles on her cheeks.

  “Just out the front door,” he responded. “I have to feed the girls dinner.”

  “Much as I’d like to allow myself to be kicked out without the kittens, leaving them with you seems like the wrong thing to do.”

  The kittens. Right. He’d almost forgotten. Something about looking in her eyes was messing with his brain!

  “Girls!” he called. “Apricot has to leave.”

  They came running into the room, the box wrapped in a bright pink blanket and cradled between them.

  “Quiet, Daddy,” Evie said solemnly. “They’re sound asleep.”

  “Must be their full tummies getting the best of them,” Apricot whispered, taking the box from the girls. “Thank you for taking good care of them.”

  The girls followed her onto the porch and watched wide-eyed as she put the box in the passenger seat of her old truck and took off.

  “Is she a princess, Daddy?” Rori asked, tugging at his hand and pulling his attention away from the retreating truck.

  “Of course not,” he responded, bending so they were eye to eye. “You know that princesses are only for fairy tales.”

  “That isn’t true, Daddy,” Evie argued. “There are princesses in Europe and in Africa and—”

  “How about we get dressed and go get chicken nuggets at the diner?” he said, cutting into what was destined to be a very long debate with his daughter. “We can discuss princesses there.”

  “The diner!” the girls squealed in unison. “Yay!”

  “First we have to get water. We’re thirsty. Aren’t we thirsty, Rori?” Evie asked, grabbing her sister’s hand and tugging her inside. He followed more slowly, glancing over his shoulder and calling himself every sort of fool because what he was looking for, what he was hoping to see, was one last glimpse of Apricot’s truck as she drove away.

  Chapter Five

  Two of the kittens were missing.

  Apricot discovered the horrifying fact a few seconds after she walked into Rose’s house. She glared at the lone kitten—Handsome, of course—and lifted him from the box. “Where are your siblings?” she asked.

  He yawned.

  “Never mind. I already know,” she muttered, placing Handsome on the floor and watching as he chased his ratlike tail. “You need some toys, big boy.”

  And she needed to call Simon and let him know what his daughters had done. She didn’t have his home number, and that was as good an excuse as any to put the inevitable off for a while longer.

  The phone rang, and she answered it, figuring it was either Simon or one of her family members. “Hello?”

  “Babe?” Lionel’s voice was as unwelcome as a viper in a spring garden. She almost hung up. Almost.

  “How did you get this number?”

  “I had a friend pull up property records for your aunt. I figured you’d probably be at one of her places. Her number is in the directory in Apple Orchards, so I gave it a shot.”

  “Apple Valley,” she corrected, because there was really nothing to say. No reason to even be having a conversation with Lionel except to put some closure on what they’d had for five years.

  “Right. Whatever. When are you coming home? Someone changed the lock on the door and—”

  “Really?” Not surprising. Her family didn’t waste time.

  “Yes. Really,” he responded in his am-I-speaking-to-a-toddler tone.

  She’d always hated it, but she’d ignored it because she’d loved Lionel. At least, she’d thought she loved him. She didn’t feel nearly as heartbroken as she thought she should. Not about the wedding being called off, not about him calling because he couldn’t get into the condo, not even about him sleeping with her assistant the night before their wedding. All she felt was . . . tired.

  “And all my stuff was piled up at the curb. My clothes were on the ground, and a dozen homeless people were picking through them when I got home from work,” he continued, every word he said all about him. Why hadn’t she ever noticed that before?

  “That’s a shame, Lionel.”

  “I’m glad you think so. Now, what are you going to do about it?”

  “About what?”

  “About your family locking me out of our place and dumping my stuff,” he growled. She could picture the scowl on his face, see it as clearly as she could see Handsome scurrying under the sofa and chasing a dust bunny out.

  “How do you know it was my family?”

  “Don’t be obtuse, Anna. Who else has access to our condo? Who else—”

  “It’s not our condo, Lionel. It’s mine. I bought it. My name is on the deed. I paid it off last year.”

  “I lived in it for five years. By law—”

  “By law, if your stuff isn’t in it and your name isn’t on the title, you don’t belong there. So, how about you find another place for you and Diane to sleep?”

  “I’m not with Diane,” he protested. “I made a mistake, and I regret it, but it was one night. It didn’t mean anything.”

  “Not to you, but it means a heck of a lot to me.” She hung up, because she was done with Lionel and his excuses.

  When the phone rang she ignored it.

  When it rang again, she walked out back.

  Dusk shrouded the yard in deep purple and gray, turning old trees into giants and thick bushes into gnomes. She walked across the yard and into the orchard beyond. The air held a hint of apple and the ripe, thick scent of rotting fruit. At one time, the trees had been pruned and tended, but years of neglect had taken their toll. Still, with a little elbow grease and some initiative, the orchard could produce again. After years of working with herbs and leaves, she might just be ready for something new. She snagged an apple that hung from a gnarled branch. Small and tough, it had been overcrowded and had grown accordingly.

  “I can fix this,” she said to the evening sky and the cool, crisp breeze that was blowing through the trees. The leaves rustled, and she figured that was more of a reply than she’d have gotten if Lionel had been standing beside her.

  “Idiot,” she muttered, and she wasn’t sure if she was talking about herself or Lionel.

  Somewhere a rooster called a warning, and a bird flew from the tree beside her. She’d spent most of her childhood walking th
e woods of Happy Dale. Mostly alone. Lots of times at night when her overwhelming family had been too loud and boisterous and she’d wanted nothing more than to escape the little house and all the crazy people in it. She knew night sounds and nocturnal animals. She knew the difference between a deer stepping gingerly through a thicket and a man sliding through trees.

  Right at that moment, she was sure she heard footsteps.

  She glanced over her shoulder. Rose’s house jutted up from the yard, light spilling out of the kitchen window and splashing gold across well-trimmed grass. A shadow moved near the corner of the house, undulating with the branches of an old pine tree that stood near the edge of the yard.

  “Hello?” she called, moving toward it.

  Something lunged from the shadows, and she screamed, backed up so fast she fell on her butt. She lay there for a moment, stunned, staring up at the dusky sky.

  Get up, her mind screamed. You’re about to be attacked, and you’re just lying here like a sack of potatoes!

  She was almost on her feet when something landed on her back. Not a heavy weight. Light and purring.

  “Handsome?” She gasped, so relieved she sat down again, dragging the kitten off her back and into her lap. His purr sounded like an old-man’s snore, his claws digging into her thighs as he tried to make himself comfortable.

  “Ouch. Cool it!”

  “Cool what?” a masculine voice asked, and she screamed so loudly, Handsome jumped off her lap and ran for cover.

  “Sorry. Didn’t mean to scare the living daylights out of you.”

  She knew the Southern drawl, the broad shoulders backlit by the kitchen light. Simon.

  Relieved, she accepted the hand he held out, allowed herself to be pulled to her feet.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked, his hand still wrapped around hers, all warm and calloused and nice.