5
It’d been thirty-eight hours and a handful of minutes since Beckett had stood in Kit’s grandparents’ kitchen and made his case. Begged for a job.
One in which he worked for free.
This being Maple Valley, word had already spread through town that the mayor was petitioning Kit to stay, keep the orchard open. Suddenly, he’d had his answer. Way he saw it, four or five weeks of volunteering at the orchard and he could have his community service done before his JAG interview in September.
That is, if Kit said yes.
And if he could convince the firm to give him a personal leave of absence. Hence the yelling in his ear at the moment.
“Are you even listening to me, Walker?”
Beckett held his phone a good inch away from his ear, the first cool breeze in days skimming over his face as he passed under a flapping striped awning and made his way toward Coffee Coffee. Raegan had assured him it was one of the best additions in town since he’d moved away. Second to Seth’s restaurant, of course, which his cousin had opened just last year.
Tuesday night he’d brought Kit a five-pound bag of candy corn to cushion his request. Yesterday morning he’d had donuts delivered to the farmhouse. Maybe caffeine would work better than sugar.
“Of course I’m listening, Elliott, but there’s really no cause to lecture me about responsibility and my role at the firm. I promise I wouldn’t be asking for this if it weren’t important.” Across the street and down a grassy slope, the Blaine River jostled against its banks.
“Of course there’s reason to lecture. We’ve rescheduled two depositions and Carol’s been working until ten each night to get the paperwork for the Bleckley case filed.” The junior partner at Louder, Boyce & Shillinger, son of Elliott Boyce, Sr., spoke with all the grace of a gong. “A one-week vacation midsummer? Fine, okay. But a month and a half?”
“Maybe only a month.” He’d just have to work crazy-long hours at the orchard.
“There isn’t room for ‘maybes’ on our schedule. Who do you think you work for? A hokey backwoods firm repping mom and pop shops? We have some of the biggest corporate clients in the country and they expect us to be fully staffed.”
Mosaic-topped metal tables dotted the sidewalk in front of Coffee Coffee, and the lilt of some old crooner’s song drifted from inside.
“Be glad you’re talking to me on the phone, not in person, Elliott. Because if you’d just dissed mom ’n’ pop stores out loud in Maple Valley, you’d have started a riot.”
This town thrived on local business with a side of seasonal tourism—the heritage railroad and museum Dad had taken over when they moved back to Iowa and Kit’s orchard being the main autumn draws.
After walking away from Kit Saturday night, never would he have expected to find himself back at the Danby house so soon. To be asking to spend the coming month working alongside the woman who’d once called him reckless and impulsive.
It’d stung because it was true.
He clenched his jaw against the memory. If he wanted to make it through the next month or more, he’d have to completely close himself off to thoughts of her wedding night, that’s all there was to it. Besides, what was the point in remembering? He had to focus on the present, the future. Despite everything that’d gone wrong between him and Kit, they could help each other now.
“This is all beside the point, anyway,” Elliott said—flatly, firmly. “You missed a meeting yesterday, Beckett. Stanley Oil.”
Beckett stopped a few paces from the coffee shop’s entrance. Ohhh, Beck, you didn’t. He dropped into a chair at one of the tables outside Coffee Coffee, brunt realization buckling him. Months ago, he’d practically begged for the chance to take the lead on the potential client acquisition. He’d done the legwork, met multiple times with the oil company’s rep, finally scheduled a meeting between the Stanley Oil board officers and the law partners.
How in the world could he have forgotten?
“I am so—”
“Look, there’s nothing more to say. I hate that I’m the one they’re making do this, but as the lowest partner on the totem pole . . .”
Searing August heat clawed at him. Too, a suffocating dread.
“I should’ve just told you first thing. The partners voted last night to let you go, Beckett.”
No. No.
“Elliott—”
“It wasn’t entirely their choice.”
“Don’t you mean your choice? You’re a partner, too.”
“I abstained from the vote due to our college friendship.” A friendship that was the only reason Beckett had landed an internship and later a job in the first place. “The officers from Stanley were offended by you not being there, I guess. Like, really offended.”
“So firing me is a strategic move.” Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.
Elliott’s silence bulleted from the other end of the call.
Somehow, minutes later, he ended up in the coffee shop, standing in line like a zombie. Shocked. Numb. He’d been fired. Fired. The clutter of voices around him, the gurgle of coffee machines, it all felt distant, muted.
Until a sharp voice and a baby’s cry plunged into his haze.
“Well?”
His gaze snapped to the girl behind Coffee Coffee’s counter. She looked ready to lose it as she attempted to calm the infant pressed against her in some kind of sling. But the wailing only grew louder.
“Well?” she demanded again. Her dark eyeliner matched her jet-black hair, which was pushed back on one side to reveal piercings all the way up her ear. “There’s a line behind you, if you haven’t noticed.”
At the cashier’s annoyed words, he glanced over his shoulder. A group of teens, a man reading a book, a girl with a neon green backpack.
He turned back to the counter. “Sorry, I’m still deciding—”
“Order now or forever hold your peace.”
Did she have to choose those words? Her nametag peeked out from the sling—Megan. She tried hushing her baby again. The noise of the infant’s cries, the rising voices of the teenagers behind him, the annoyingly smooth song playing over the speakers . . . all of it like scraping glass shards over top the grating realization of what had just happened.
He’d lost his job. His income. His safety net if the JAG thing didn’t work out.
“You know there’s such a thing as a babysitter.” Great, and now he was taking it out on the barista.
“And there’s such a thing as having compassion for single mothers trying to run a business.”
“You run this place?” Hold up, Kate had told him about this girl. His older sister had sort of taken Megan under her wing last year, become the girl’s friend last year when she’d needed it most. Kate had forgotten to mention the part about her sardonic edge.
“You think you can do better?” Megan reached into her sling and pulled out her baby. “Here, go ahead, give it a try.” She lifted the baby over the counter.
“I—”
“Go on, Mr. Know-it-all.”
And because he didn’t know what else to do, because no one else seemed to be weirded out by the fact that the pushy young woman who was apparently the manager of this place was thrusting her child at him, he took the baby. Obviously a she, obviously not more than a few months old. She wore a green onesie and a wrinkled expression until . . .
Until the second her head landed against his chest.
Just like that, her cries faded. Her kicking legs stilled.
Megan stared, mouth agape as her straight hair fell over one eye. “I don’t believe it.”
The fuzzy head tucked into his cotton tee made a sound of contentment. “I don’t either.”
“You some kind of baby whisperer or something?”
“Does this mean my coffee’s on the house?” In his periphery, he noted the details he’d missed when he’d walked in dazed—the exposed brick wall on one side, the eclectic collection of furniture and tables with multicolored chairs, the backsplash behind the counter.
“And a scone too if you want it.” She looked in wonderment from Beckett to the baby nestled against him and then back to him. “Her name’s Delia, by the way.”
He patted the baby’s back, ordered a plain back coffee for himself and an Americano for Kit.
“You’re a Walker, aren’t you?”
“Family resemblance that obvious?” Something—someone—jostled behind him and his grip on Megan’s baby tightened. He threw a glance over his shoulder. “Careful, guys—”
But the teens in line behind him clearly didn’t even notice he was there. It was the biggest of the three that’d bumped into him, the other two laughing.
“Aw, Webster doesn’t like talking about summer school,” one of the shorter ones taunted. “He can play football, but he can’t pass basic algebra—”
Beckett realized what was about to happen a second too late. With an angry grunt, the tall kid jutted both arms forward, barreling into both of the others at the same time.
“Hey!”
Megan’s outburst was lost in the noise of the brawl. One of the kids fell against an empty chair, the other took a swing at the one they’d called Webster.
It only took a moment for Beckett to hand Delia back to Megan, push his way into the middle of the fray. “Guys, break it up.” He managed to pull one of the instigators off Webster, but he missed the flying fist coming from the other direction. Webster’s jab landed on his cheek just as another authoritative voice barreled in.
“What’s going on here?”
The whole thing was over in seconds. Everyone in the shop had gone silent save for the jazz tempo coming from the speakers. One hand to his cheek, Beckett took in the identity of the other fight breaker-upper. Colton? Kate’s boyfriend, the ex-NFL quarterback. He hadn’t even noticed the guy in the shop.
“Web, what are you thinking?” Apparently Colton knew the tall kid. He turned to the others. “And you two. You don’t have anything better to do than pick fights?”
Colton’s NFL size and disapproving stare down—or maybe his air of celebrity—was enough to send them skulking. And the taller kid, the one named Webster, hung his head. “Sorry, Colt, they just—”
“They just nothing. You should’ve ignored them.”
A patron picked up the couple chairs the teens had knocked over, and with an annoyed huff, Megan disappeared into the kitchen. Colton exchanged a few more words with Webster before turning to Beckett.
“You should probably get some ice on that.”
“Already taken care of.” Megan had reappeared behind the counter, Delia once again perched in her sling—asleep and apparently oblivious to all that’d just happened. Megan handed him a bunched-up towel around a handful of ice. “Closest thing I’ve got to an ice pack.”
“Thanks.”
While she went back to preparing his drinks, Colton lingered. Why did he get the sense the guy was studying him? Shouldn’t Beckett be the one giving his sister’s boyfriend a careful once-over?
Not that Colton needed his approval. All of an hour in Colton and Kate’s presence his first night home had made their “perfect for each other” status clear.
“Okay, so we’re obviously sizing each other up and that’s fine, but once we’re done, can we talk?” Colton paid for Beckett’s drinks before he could protest. “ ’Cause I’ve got a favor to ask you. You’re going to be in town for a while, yeah?”
It was a distinct possibility before. Now, with no job left to return to, it was a cold, hard certainty.
Somehow Kit had to find the words to thank the financial advisor who’d spent two hours of his Thursday morning with her reviewing the Valley Orchard’s financial standing. But how was she supposed to dredge up words of gratitude after the horrifying numbers he’d just laid out for her?
They sat side by side in the lean-to Grandpa had always used as an office. No larger than a garden shed, really, but there was room enough for a corner desk beside an ample window. The office was connected to the orchard store. An oscillating desk fan exhaled feeble breaths of tepid air.
Jenson Barrow lifted the glass of lemonade she’d handed him earlier, a ring of condensation wetting the desk where it’d sat. His thin, wire-rimmed glasses perched low on his nose. “Everything make sense?”
Unfortunately, yes. The spreadsheet on the widescreen monitor taunted her. “I think so. Can’t promise I won’t call you with more questions later, though.”
Jenson swallowed the last of his lemonade with a hearty gulp, then replaced the sweating glass on the desk. “The good thing is, the bulk of your regular bills are set up for auto-pay. But that includes the mortgage, which as you saw is no small amount. So you’ll need to watch your spending and make sure you keep enough in that main account.”
Except if she was understanding everything correctly, their main account was a flimsy little rowboat barely staying afloat on a thirsty river. Might tip, might swamp, might run into a craggy rock.
Nigel’s skepticism echoed. “Unless you’ve got a storehouse of money somewhere I don’t know about, I don’t see how you could possibly afford to make something of this place.”
Yes, well, she didn’t understand how he could expect her to just walk away from her home, give up on the land she loved, not to mention her missing brother. So maybe they were even. The knowledge did little to ease the sting of their breakup, though.
And now she couldn’t help wondering, what if she’d walked away from that relationship all for the sake of a doomed venture?
“Hold unswervingly to the hope . . .”
The words trickled through her mind, and it took a moment to place them. Right, one of Grandma’s recipe cards taped to the inside of a cupboard. Only instead of ingredients, this one bore a Bible verse. Something from Hebrews, wasn’t it?
Somehow, that was what she needed to do. Hold on to hope.
“You’ll want to learn to use Quickbooks,” Jenson was saying now. “Or you could hire someone for the bookkeeping, but of course you’d need to cut expenses elsewhere.”
The fan’s whir shook the desktop, causing the pooled liquid from Jenson’s glass on the desk to dribble down the side. Kit swiped at it with her palm. “I have to admit, this is daunting. Seeing the numbers, grasping the constraints of this business.”
Jenson stood. “Yes, but it’s a little like farming. A lot of upfront spending, but if it’s a good crop, you see the return later.”
Problem was that tiny little word: if.
She walked with Jenson to his car, gaze lifting to the company of clouds moving in a slow march across the sky. The heat and humidity had been relentless since Saturday, but she could feel the impending break humming over her skin. Cooling rain, a wind to push away the gray canopy overhead and set free the muggy air trapped below. By midafternoon, if she guessed right.
“Mr. Barrow—”
“Didn’t we establish you’re old enough now to call me Jenson?”
She found a grin underneath her numbers-fatigue. Jenson had been one of Grandpa’s oldest friends. Not as constant around the orchard as Willa, but a regular on Friday nights when he and his wife joined her grandparents for game night in the farmhouse kitchen.
“Grandma was always such a stickler for manners, though. She drilled the ‘Mr. and Mrs.’ thing into us right alongside ‘please’ and ‘thank you.’”
Jenson chuckled as they reached his burgundy Buick—aged but polished to a sun-streaked gleam. “I miss your grandparents dearly, Kit, as does Margaret. Though I suppose that’d be Mrs. Barrow to you.”
“I miss them, too.” More than she could say. From the age of ten on, they’d been the one constant in her life. Alongside Beckett, that is. “I wanted to ask you, though, Mr.—Jenson, the barn Grandpa started to build . . . do you see any kind of leeway in the orchard budget to resume that project?”
Jenson’s kindly eyes turned toward the slat of cement and bare bones of a structure set back from the parking lot. “I wish I did, I truly do. Did you know it was my urging that prompted Henry to take on that project? I kept telling him if he really wanted to improve his financial situation, he needed to diversify his revenue stream. A small event center in a pretty setting like this could do so well. But challenge after challenge rose up in front of him, starting with that hailstorm, and I think he just never had the heart to get back to it.”
“I wish I could find a way to complete it. It’d be such a nice tribute to them.”
Jenson gave her a consoling pat on the shoulder, then made her promise to call if she ran into any accounting snags in the coming weeks.
Just as Jenson’s vehicle disappeared down the lane, another passed under the orchard’s welcome sign. Kit lifted her hand to shield her eyes from an errant shaft of sun breaking through a paunchy cloud and tried to make out the form behind the windshield.
Seconds later, Raegan Walker emerged from the car. Her jaunt was carefree and in her hands, two covered coffee cups. “I’m playing delivery girl.” Her purple Converse All Stars crunched over the gravel lot as she approached.
“You brought coffee?” Kit hooked her thumbs under the straps of the denim overalls she’d found in her bedroom. Baggy enough they still fit and barely faded. If she was going to run a rural operation, she might as well look the part. She’d completed the look with a white tank top underneath and red handkerchief over her ponytail. “Bless you. I was almost late meeting our accountant this morning, which means I missed my coffee. All I’ve had is a glass of lemonade, and let me tell you, the effect is nowhere near the same.”
Raegan handed her the larger of the two cups. “Well, I can’t take credit for this. It’s from Beckett, and I have a feeling it’s lukewarm at best by now. He meant to bring it himself, but he got tied up with Colton.”
She took a drink anyway. Americano, black and perfect even if no longer hot. He’d remembered. “Colton?”
“Kate’s boyfriend. Moved here last fall. Former NFL quarterback, old college friend of Logan’s.”
Ah, she’d seen him at the wedding. Suddenly the size and the vague feeling of recognition made sense. “So let me guess, in addition to delivering Beckett’s bribe, you’re also supposed to ferret out whether or not I’ve made any decision on his community service.”
Raegan laughed as she fell in step beside Kit. “You know my brother way too well.”
The uneven boards of the wraparound porch extending from the main building wobbled under Kit’s sandals as she approached the front door. Grandpa had added this porch decades ago, along with the storefront façade running along the front of the long building, disguising its origins as a dairy barn. In the busyness of helping Willa in the fields, she hadn’t taken time yet to so much as step foot inside.
“So, have you?” Raegan stopped beside her on the porch as Kit fumbled with a heavy key ring. “Made up your mind about Beck, I mean?”
“Don’t know.” Beckett expected a quick decision because he was a quick decision guy. Not so, Kit. She could belabor a choice until mentally paralyzed. Free labor was a good thing, of course. But could she handle working side-by-side with Beckett every day, knowing he still resented her?
Kit tried the first key with no luck. At least there were only a few on the ring she’d found in Grandpa’s office. Wouldn’t take more than a minute to pinpoint the right one.
“I still can’t get over the fact that he’s even home.”
She stopped, turned to Rae. Beckett’s younger sister wore a black tank top over a jean skirt and a collection of bracelets on both wrists. From what she’d picked up, his family had been as surprised to see him at Seth’s wedding as she’d been. “He really hasn’t come home even one time since . . . ?”
Raegan lifted one pierced brow. “Since your wedding? Nope.” Her fingers tapped on her coffee cup. “Nor has he ever told us exactly what happened that night. I mean, other than the running a car into a tree part. We all knew about that. What we didn’t know is that the arrest warrant was still outstanding. Or what happened with you and Beck.” She paused when Kit turned back to the door. “And now I get the sense you’re not any more eager to talk about it than he is.”
No. She’d been such a mess that night. Said such awful things. No wonder Beck had ditched town without looking back. But to stay away for six years? Surely there was more going on there than a grudge against her. Something else he was carrying around with him, enough to—
Her thoughts cut off when the second key she tried slid into place. A click, a twist, and the door nudged opened. The musty, mingling scents of apples and wood, spice and dust engulfed her. An uncanny flood of emotion accompanied her first step into the store . . . and Grandpa’s voice, like a contented sigh.
“You wouldn’t know this building used to hold four dozen smelly cows back before World War II. To hear my dad tell it—your great-grandpa—he milked so many Jerseys as a kid that by the time he was an adult and inherited this land, he’d had enough. That’s when he decided to make his living off the small grove of apple trees out back.”
As a kid, Grandpa had helped bring the orchard to life. Father and son had cleared additional fields, planted more trees, converted the barn into a two-floor store. Grandpa had carried on the business, raising his family in the same farmhouse he’d grown up in—including the mom Kit only remembered in shadowy snatches.
Kit blinked to adjust to the dim of the store now and let her gaze roam the space. The counters that traced the rustic walls, the shelves made of old pallets and recycled barn wood, all of it was covered in layers of dust. None of the inventory had arrived yet, and light bulbs needed to be replaced in at least half of the old-fashioned frosted glass lamps suspended overhead.
This space alone would take days to clean and organize. Then there was the equipment out in the machine shed to look over, repairs to order. Thirty-five employees to hire and schedule. Payroll to set up, a pre-Labor Day opening to plan, and . . .
She dropped the ring of keys. Oh my goodness. Ohhh my goodness. She bent over, hands on her knees.
“Kit?” Worry lit Raegan’s voice.
“I don’t know what I’m doing or where to start. Why did I think this was a good idea? I haven’t even had a chance to get groceries. I’ve been eating the donuts Beckett bribed me with yesterday for the past three meals and . . .” She gulped for air. “What does a panic attack feel like? I think I’m having one.”
Raegan’s hands on her shoulders guided her to the stool behind the antique cash register sitting on a glass display case. “Sit. Breathe.”
“Did I tell you my dad wants weekly reports from me? No, why would I have told you? Years and years of ignoring me and now he wants to hear from me each Friday, and tomorrow’s Friday and the only thing I’ll have to tell him is that I panicked and—”
“Shush, Kit. Take a deep breath.”
There was nothing to do but obey. Her lungs quivered with each breath and her hands shook. How had she ever thought she could pull this off? And if this was the weight Lucas had felt for two years and counting, no wonder he’d fled.
Oh yes, add that to the to-do list, too: a wayward brother to find.
At a scraping sound, Kit looked up to see Raegan pulling an old barrel over. She tipped it on end and then hopped up to sit on it, directly facing Kit.
“I don’t think I can do this, Rae.”
Raegan reached forward to press one palm to Kit’s knee. She squeezed, then straightened. “I think I said almost those exact words for days after my mom died. I know it’s not the same situation, but it’s different shades of the same panicky feeling. I’d get up in the morning and a flood of mundane tasks would hit my brain and next thing I knew, I was curled up in bed.”
Kit lifted her eyes to Raegan’s. She’d been around the Walker house for some of those days, but she’d been so consumed with consoling Beckett, she’d hardly talked to the others.
She’d sometimes wondered which was worse: Losing a mother to cancer so young you missed out on memories—as she had. Or, like Beckett and his siblings, losing her as a young adult—having the memories, but also the pain.
“Oh, Rae.”
Tears pooled in Raegan’s sky blue eyes—so different from Beckett’s. “It’s okay, this isn’t about me right now. I just wanted to tell you what my dad told me on one of those horrible mornings. He said, ‘Today, Rae, let’s just do one thing. And then if that one thing goes okay, we’ll do the next.’ So we made breakfast. And then we washed the dishes. And then we watched The Price is Right.”
“You do have the most remarkable dad, Rae.”
Raegan blinked, the emotion in her eyes and voice gone as rapidly as they’d arrived, replaced with an encouraging nod. “So, let’s just figure out what your one thing is.”
If Kit didn’t come to her window soon, Beckett would fall to his death. Or at least, wind up with his second injury of the day. His cheek still stung from the punch he’d taken this morning.
Though not nearly as much as his pride. He might’ve been growing restless at the law firm, but to get so unceremoniously fired? For something as irresponsible as missing an important meeting?
And now, the branch outside Kit’s bedroom barely holding his weight threatened to snap beneath him.
“Kit,” he hissed for the third time. But why was he whispering? The closest neighbor other than Dad was at least a few miles away.
He rapped on the old glass window and said her name again, louder this time. The branch wobbled as a cool gust riffled through the leaves around him.
Finally, the window opened. Kit practically flung the thing off its hinges. “What?” Her hair flopped in an off-center messy knot, and the thin strap of her pajama top slipped down her shoulder. She shoved it up.
He couldn’t help a grin at the pure irritation in her eyes. “Gonna let me in?”
“Now?”
“It’s ten fifteen. Don’t tell me you were actually sleeping. Not Kit the night owl.”
“I’m not a teenager anymore. I need more sleep. I’m old and responsible.”
“No, you’re not. You’re upset. You only go to bed early when you’re upset. Raegan said you had a hard morning.”
Her lips pressed into a thin line before she spoke again. “Your sister talks too much.
“Whatever. I need you to let me in before this branch breaks. It’s not nearly as sturdy as it was when I was a skinny thirteen-year-old.”
Exasperation riddled her sigh, but she moved back anyway, giving him space to grasp the windowsill and heft himself through. His left foot landed on a throw pillow that slid over the hardwood floor the second he shifted his weight inside. He ended up falling the rest of the way into the room, landing with a thud at Kit’s bare feet.
“Such a graceful entrance.”
“Such kind assistance.” He stood, taking in her striped shorts and matching sleeveless top. Apparently the cursory review was enough to make her self-conscious, because she immediately yanked the sheet off her bed and wrapped it around herself kimono-style.
He rolled his eyes. “I’ve seen you in your pajamas a hundred times.”
“When we were kids, Beck. It’s not exactly the same now.”
Moonlight slanted through the still-open window, highlighting the curves the sheet did nothing to hide. And suddenly she wasn’t just Kit Danby the childhood best friend or even Kit Danby the college girl who’d broken his twenty-three-year-old heart once upon a time.
But Kit Danby the woman. And if he’d thought she was pretty back then . . .
“What do you want, Beckett? And why didn’t you just ring the doorbell?”
“We used to climb in each other’s windows all the time. It was our thing.” He repeated her words from Saturday. “I thought it’d be endearing.”
The corner of her mouth quirked. “Try intrusive.”
Every encounter with her since he’d been home had been fraught with a frayed tension. But there’d been slim moments—like right now—when the tautness eased just enough to make room for a hint of their old effortless connection. The sun had freckled her shoulders and deepened the streaks of gold in her hair. He had to tear his eyes away to keep from staring longer than he should.
Because he absolutely wasn’t going there again.
So his scrutiny traveled around the room instead. The rumpled shape of the blanket on her bed said she still slept in a tight little ball. The white antique desk where she used to do her homework sat in its usual place against one wall. Her Pride & Prejudice movie poster was beginning to curl at its edges, and he could still name all three stuffed bears that sat on the lavender chair in the corner.
“Hawkeye, Hunnicut, and Winchester.” Named after the characters on M*A*S*H.
“Huh?” She followed his gaze. “Oh.”
“You’re still the only person I’ve ever met who preferred the later seasons of M*A*S*H to the early years.”
“And you’re still the only person I’ve ever met who feels the need to argue with me about it.”
She and her grandpa had gotten into the habit of watching reruns of the classic show on summer evenings just before supper. Beckett had frequently joined in, gangly limbs outstretched on the shag carpet beside Kit, staying for the meal afterward more often than not.
“Anyway, I don’t watch M*A*S*H anymore. Not super into anything Army-related this days.”
He swallowed. Right. Because of her father’s absence and her brother’s court martial. What would she say if he told her about his own plans to trade in civilian life for a military gig?
Kit lifted the sheet over her shoulders now as a breathy wind whooshed through the window. “Seriously, Beck, what’s up? I really was sleeping.”
“Brought you something. It’s out in the yard. Grab a sweatshirt. It got cool all of a sudden.” Which she’d probably seen coming. She always could read the sky and predict the weather. Regular Farmer’s Almanac.
She pulled a sweatshirt over her head, and it mussed her already sleep-tousled hair. “Don’t know about you, but I’m taking the easy way out.” She started for her bedroom door.
He followed her through the house he could’ve navigated blindfolded. Weird to think of her now living here all alone. So much space for one person.
Not that he’d been disappointed to hear the Brit had gone back to jolly old England. He’d asked about Nigel the other night when he came begging for a job. Kit had offered only a sparse, “It didn’t work out.”
Good enough for Beckett. Not that he had a right to any kind of say in who Kit dated. But come on, the man had applied sunscreen to his bald scalp how many times on Saturday? Why didn’t he just find a hat?
Kit’s steps stammered to a stop just outside the back door when she saw what he’d brought along—the tiny animal tied with a rope to the side mirror of Dad’s old truck.
The baby goat mewed at the sight of them, stamping one hoof.
Kit stared at the animal, then at him. “W-why?”
He shrugged. “It’s cute?” It really was—tufts of white hair and a circle of brown around its nose, stumpy little legs, and wobbled movements. He walked over, knelt down beside the animal, scratched under its chin. “I figured you’re out here all alone, you could use some company.”
“So you brought me a goat?”
He’d expected some girly oohs and ahhs, not this flummoxed reaction. Kit had her hands on her waist, long, bare legs planted in the gravel. Okay, so maybe it hadn’t been his best idea. But when he’d overheard a local farmer at the coffee shop talking about the runt of an animal, the idea had hatched itself on the spot.
Next thing he knew impulse had taken over—because didn’t it always with him?—and he was following the man out to his farm. He’d gotten instructions on bottle-feeding and had meant to bring it straight to Kit. But then he’d remembered his niece, Charlie. After a full week at home, Logan and his family were heading back to Chicago tomorrow. So he’d stopped at Dad’s to let Charlie see the animal and hadn’t been able to tear her away until Logan insisted it was bedtime.
Now here he was—suddenly rethinking the whole thing. Because if Kit was anywhere near as charmed by the goat as everyone back at Dad’s, she wasn’t showing it.
“You used to talk about how unfair it was you didn’t have a pet.”
“I was thinking more along the lines of a dog.”
He sat on the ground, legs crossed. The goat balanced two hooves on his knee. “Anyone can have a dog, Kit. You can have an adorable baby goat.”
“That will eventually grow into an adult goat who wanders off and eats all my grass and bites the paint off buildings and—”
“You don’t know that. This might end up being a well-behaved goat.”
She knelt beside him, eyeing the animal with something more than bewilderment now. “You don’t have to bribe me, Beck. Not with coffee. Not with a cute goat.”
“So you admit it’s cute?”
“You admit it’s a bribe?”
He didn’t answer, just nudged the animal toward where she crouched and watched as she petted its head, then its back. “My grandparents used to want to add a petting zoo to the orchard.” Her trace of a grin finally spread into the full thing. “And a pumpkin patch and hay bale maze and the barn, of course. They just couldn’t ever get financially ahead enough to do it all. Between double mortgages and insurance and regular operation costs . . .”
Responsibilities she’d now inherited thanks to an indifferent father and missing brother.
But couldn’t she see the answer was right in front of her? He’d spent so many summers and falls working here as a teenager. He knew how important it was to mulch around the tree trunks in order to trap moisture. He knew what it took to stay ahead of weeds and how critical it was to fix the broken-down fencing at the field borders to keep out deer. He knew how to check soil moisture at a tree’s drip line.
“Okay,” Kit blurted as if on cue, as if she’d heard his thoughts. “You can volunteer here. As many hours as you need to. I’ll sign whatever community service paperwork is needed.”
“Really?”
“On one condition.”
She stood, and he followed suit. “Anything. I could bring you coffee each day, if you want. Or another animal.”
She didn’t tease back. Instead, pausing, she played her next words over in her mind—he could see it. She was like Logan in that way, her tendency to work and rework her words before letting them free, sometimes pilfering through them at such length they never made it out.
Whereas his tended to scatter like dandelion seeds at the merest breeze of thought.
“You have to let me apologize,” she finally said. There was a surprise firmness to her tone. “You have to just stand there and hear me out. Because I can’t work with you every day wondering if you still hate me.”
“I don’t hate you.”
“But did you?”
“Do you want the blunt answer or the nice answer?”
“I want the honest answer.”
This was not what he’d come here to do. Yes, seeing her at the wedding last week had thrown him. Yes, helping her on Saturday had messed with the lockbox of stored-away, crushing memories of her wedding night. Yes, the thought of working with her every weekday for at least the next month planted worry in his brain.
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?”