7
If Beckett could just forget for a couple hours that technically he was unemployed, barely into his community service, and due in Boston next week for his JAG Corps interview, tonight might turn out to be the perfect mix of rest and entertainment.
If he could forget.
And if he could get Kit to relax.
“Take a deep breath, Danby. This is supposed to be fun.” This being Maple Valley’s Annual Empty Pool Party. Every year on the Friday before Labor Day, the city threw a community-wide shindig in the newly drained pool. Live music, tons of food, probably a rambling speech from Mayor Milt at some point. The man had become an even more animated version of himself since beginning his campaign to impress some state people and bag extra funding or something.
The breezy strain of an acoustic guitar filled the air now, a meandering folk tune that echoed against the pool walls. And beyond the voices and laughter and fencing around the pool, a thousand fireflies danced in the cornfield across the street, stalks gangly and golden under moonlight.
But what were the chances Kit enjoyed any of it? All day she’d hurried around doing last-minute prep for tomorrow’s orchard opening. All day she’d worn the same look—furrowed brow, frenzied eyes.
“How am I supposed to have fun when I should be back at the orchard doing . . . doing . . .” She sat with her legs dangling over the edge of the pool wall, kicking her heels against the cement, keeping time with the staccato of her words. “Well, I don’t know what, but I should be doing something.”
Beckett couldn’t hold back a languid grin. Maybe it was the first hint of autumn in the evening air—a tinge of cool hovering over the pool, the lingering smell of chlorine blending with the loamy scent of grass and grain dust. Maybe it was who he’d seen so far tonight, so many family members and friends, and who he hadn’t—namely Sam Ross.
Maybe—most likely—it was Miss Ball-of-Nerves next to him. He’d practically had to drag her from the orchard to get her here. Cajoled her with his plan to stick orchard fliers under the windshield wipers of all the cars in the parking lot. But they’d finished that half an hour ago and she had yet to settle in and unwind.
“I know I forgot to do something. Yes, I crossed everything off my list, but I probably left fifteen things off the list in the first place, so what good was the list anyway?”
“That’s it.” He reeled to his feet. “You need pizza.” Maybe on the way he could find Coach Barton. That was the other reason he’d come tonight. The man had served nearly twenty years in the Air Force before ending up in Maple Valley. He’d be the perfect person to write a letter of recommendation for Beckett’s JAG Corps application.
If he could ever manage to talk to him. He’d just been so busy at the orchard. Helping Dad out at the railroad depot. Spending time with his sisters, his cousin. He’d met with Webster for a second tutoring session, too.
How was it his days could be so full and yet he couldn’t kick the feeling that his career, his dream, his whole life had stalled? Had it really been a full month since he’d come home, intending to stay only a couple days?
It was as if God had hit a pause button on his outside life, his real life. That is, if God was paying attention at all.
That was another thing that’d stalled—his faith. There’d been a day not so long ago when he’d honestly thought maybe God was nudging him. Opening doors. Reminding him of his long-ago JAG dream and paving the way.
But then he’d landed in Maple Valley. In jail. In court. At the orchard.
And his future felt further away than ever. Thus the gnawing need to do something—even something as small as talking to his old coach and securing a letter of recommendation.
“I don’t need pizza.” Kit looked up as she spoke. The shade of dusk deepened the blue of her eyes, and after so many days in the sun, her hair had lightened to the color of wheat.
Stop worrying about the future. Enjoy tonight. Isn’t that what you’re trying to get Kit to do? “Do too. I haven’t seen you eat all day.”
“Well, I did. I ate a Red Baron, a Gala, and a Haralson.”
“Something other than an apple. Just sit. Enjoy the music.” He patted her head as if she were a five-year-old and glanced past her to Raegan, sitting on her other side. “Keep an eye on her, will you?”
Raegan gave a mock salute as Kit rolled her eyes.
Beckett scanned the crowd as he wound his way toward the food stands set up near the waterslide, looking for Coach Barton’s telltale height. At six foot five, the man wasn’t generally hard to spot in a crowd. Ah, there, over by the beverage table. “Coach Barton,” he called, nearly bumping into a woman with a plate of pizza in his hurry to catch him.
The towering man turned, grinned, and lumbered toward Beckett, arm extended. “Beckett Walker, I’ll be darned.” Gray had overtaken what was left of the man’s hair, but he still had the athletic energy Beckett remembered. They shook hands as others joined their cluster—Coach Barton’s wife, his daughter and her husband, another coach.
“Beckett was one of my star players,” Coach Barton told the group. “Gracie remembers, don’t you, honey? I used to come home talking about him. I was so sure he’d end up playing professionally.”
“More sure than I ever was.”
“You could’ve done it, Walker. Your form wasn’t always consistent, but you made up for it with speed and quick thinking. And your three-pointers, hoo-boy. When I heard you quit in college, I had a mind to march over to Iowa City and wallop you.”
As if Beckett hadn’t gotten enough of a lecture from his college coach at the time. Hadn’t made a lick of difference. All the joy he’d once had in the game seeped away the night Mom had passed away.
Not that he’d been there. No, while the rest of the family gathered at her bedside, Beckett sat in an airport, desperate to race home after an away game in Phoenix. Too late.
He just hadn’t had the heart for it after that, had instead thrown himself into his classes, determined to finally honor Mom’s belief in his potential.
“Unfortunately, pre-law and basketball just didn’t mix.” Forced lightness backed his words now. Up on stage, the folk singer had ceded the mic to the mayor. “Actually, that’s what I called you about. I’m applying to the Army JAG Corps this fall, which means—”
His coach’s laughter cut him off. “I know what it means, son. You in the Army?”
“Well, yeah—”
“I have a hard enough time picturing you as a lawyer, but in the service? Walker, you’re the kid who could barely sit still long enough to watch game tape. You messed up drills, played by impulse, not strategy. Discipline wasn’t exactly your strong suit.” Coach Barton said it all with a jovial flair, no offense in his voice.
But the skepticism pricked all the same. A churlish wind clambered in, causing a crackle in the speakers hanging around the stage. “All due respect, sir, I was a teenager then.”
“True. Still.” The coach shook his head. “I just don’t see it. But listen, you give me a call again and we’ll talk more.”
The man turned before Beckett could say another word, which was probably for the best anyway considering the disenchantment knotting its way through him now. Was it really that incredulous, the thought of him donning a uniform to serve his country? Using his law degree for something other than lining corporate pockets. Traveling overseas. Being a part of something bigger than himself.
Was it really so unbelievable?
“Beck?”
He angled, slowly, hesitantly. “Hey, Kate.” How much of that conversation had she heard?
Enough. Clearly. His sister’s eyes were full of something way too close to pity. “He’s just one person, Beckett.”
“Who clearly thinks I’m chasing a pipedream.” Up on the stage, Mayor Milt was rambling about community spirit and summer’s twilight and who knew what. “How is he even still the mayor? You’d think someday he’d get tired of waxing eloquent.” Suddenly he wanted to cover his ears, drown out the sound of the mayor’s reverberating voice and the echoes of Coach Barton’s words.
And all the doubts now piling one on top of the other, impossible to dismantle.
“Beck.” She plied him in a gentle tone.
Sometimes he hated it—the way his family members could read him so easily. He’d forgotten what that felt like, living so far away from them for so long. “I don’t know what I’m doing here, Kate.”
“You’re getting that community service off your plate. You’re spending time with your family. You’re tutoring Webster, which is so great.”
She wouldn’t call it that if she’d seen the disappointment on Webster’s face earlier this week, when Beckett had confessed he hadn’t contacted the kid’s old social worker yet, nor made any progress on finding his friend. He felt a stab of guilt all over again. Never should’ve promised to try.
“And what you’re doing for Kit. You’re helping make her dream possible.”
While his own languished. But wasn’t it his own fault? If he hadn’t come home . . . if he hadn’t stayed away so long in the first place . . . if he’d never run that car into that tree . . .
If he’d never spilled his reckless heart to Kit . . .
“I haven’t told her about the JAG Corps.” The confession slipped from him.
“What?”
“She thinks I’m going to Boston next week just to pack up my office. She hates the military, Kate. Way she sees it, the Army took away her dad and then her brother. We’re finally, I don’t know, friend-ish again, and I just . . .”
He was just a coward, that’s what.
Because, no, it wasn’t just about her feelings toward the military that kept him from telling her. It was the uncanny truth that even after years of fractured friendship, hers was still the opinion that mattered most. And if he told her, if she reacted like Coach Barton had . . .
His eyes found Kit now. Eric Hampton had claimed the spot beside her, and she was talking with her hands, animated, finally relaxed.
Kate leaned in for a light side hug. “You have to tell her, little brother.”
He did. He would. Just not tonight. Not on the eve of her big day.
Coward.
“You know, you and Kit . . . all of us always kind of thought—”
“Nope.” The cut-off was swift but effective. Kate’s lips clamped.
He knew what they’d always thought. And maybe, for an all too brief, all too memorable twenty-four hours starting the night before Kit’s wedding, he’d started to wonder the same.
But he was wrong and they were wrong and there wasn’t a chance he was making that mistake again. For a whole host of reasons, really. But most of all, because he’d finally remembered what it felt like to have his best friend in his life again. He wasn’t going to lose her a second time.
“I am not racing you up a tree.”
Kit flung the words from her perch on the back of the wagon Beckett had been using all morning to transport orchard visitors from the main lot to this field. They’d reserved the cluster of trees for people to pick their own apples—just for this one September day.
She’d been concerned. Pick-your-own orchards were popular with visitors, but they often ended up with too much fruit on the ground and poorly harvested trees. Not to mention the liability of people balancing on ladders.
But Beckett had convinced her to offer the activity just during opening weekend. Which apparently made him think he could talk her into anything.
“You can bat your overgrown eyelashes at me all you want, Beckett Walker. I’m not doing it.”
He stood on the ground with a swell of people around him. And to think she’d been worried about today’s turnout. She didn’t know whether it was the advertising, the posters hanging around town, the new website Beckett had helped her design, or the fliers they’d used to canvass the pool parking lot last night—probably all of it working together—but the first few hours since opening had been hopping.
“Come on, Danby. All these people are waiting.”
“They’re here to pick apples.”
“They’re here to pick apples and see me win.” He turned to the girl in a cropped black jacket with a t-shirt underneath with the word Whatever spread across it. “Right?”
The young mom—Megan from the coffee shop, according to Rae—held a baby wrapped in a thin yellow blanket and had barely taken her eyes off Beckett since the wagon piled with hay bales had left the parking lot. “Well, I don’t know about anybody else, but I’m here because you can put my child to sleep in two seconds.”
Kit crossed her arms. “See? She doesn’t care.”
“Also in two seconds I could have this whole crowd chanting for you to accept my challenge, and you know it.”
She jumped off the wagon and brushed a piece of hay from the hair she’d left loose today. It had to be a windblown mess by now. This was the first she’d been out to the field all morning, and she’d known Beckett had something up his sleeve when he insisted she join the latest group of wagon-riders. She’d known and had willingly walked right into his playful little trap all of her own free will.
Because she wanted to assess the field, see how many apples had made it into bags and baskets instead of the ground. Because she wanted to determine whether this was something they should do again.
Because Beckett smiled and I couldn’t say no.
She squared off with him, head tipped to meet his wheedling gaze. “You can try to get a rise out of me by insisting you’ll win. You can shepherd the crowd into chanting until they’re hoarse. But there is nothing you can say that will convince me to make a fool of myself climbing a tree in front of everyone.”
He stepped into her space, so close she could’ve puffed and blown the tuft of dark hair off of his forehead. His expression was one of smug knowing. “I will run the cider press all afternoon.”
She blinked. Okay, so maybe there was something he could say. She’d spent all of an hour at the press this morning and already her arms ached. “You’ve got yourself a deal.”
He let out a whoop. “Too easy.” He turned to the crowd of people spread throughout the trees. “Hear that, folks? We’re on. This is happening.”
And then her hand was in his and he was pulling her to the tree she knew he would—tallest in the field—and pointing to a lone apple hanging from a high branch and telling her not to fall.
“I’m not going to fall, Beck.”
“Says the woman who fell through a stairway in the very recent past.”
And then they were racing to the trunk and grabbing for the same low-hanging branch. Laughing. Climbing. Shoving through leaves and branches while the people below cheered, their paths to the top separating and then coming together again.
Until . . .
Kit’s fingers closed around the apple just as Beckett’s arm snaked around her in an attempt to grasp it first. The branch beneath her feet shook from their shared weight, and she clasped onto the trunk with her free hand. Behind her, Beckett wobbled until he reached for the trunk as well, pinning her between both arms.
She shuffled to face him, still steadying herself with one hand behind her. If her hair had been a mess before, it had to be full of knots and twigs now, and she’d likely broken every fingernail during the climb. She gasped for air, the cotton of Beckett’s t-shirt fluttering in her face. “I won.”
“You won.” His breathing was just as heavy as hers.
“Bet you’re sorry you insisted we do this.”
His chest heaved as he inhaled, exhaled, slanted his gaze to lock with hers as he caught his breath. “Not even a tiny bit.”
Suddenly the crowd on the ground, still clapping and cheering, the rustling of branches, the apple in her hand . . . it all faded as she stared at the best friend she hadn’t realized until this very moment how deeply, achingly she’d missed in the past six years.
Of course he’d left a hollow space in her heart when they’d parted ways. Of course over the years she’d yearned for a return to their earlier friendship.
But she hadn’t known—or maybe simply hadn’t been able to face—how profound the impact of their parting, how bottomless the reach of her longing.
Or how so very different things might be now if she hadn’t pushed him away . . .
There it was again. The what-if.
As if reading her thoughts, Beckett let his hands slide down the trunk behind her, his eyes never leaving her face until he leaned in—carefully, lightly, and whispered in her ear, “Congratulations, Kit.” And then even closer, “Race you to the bottom.”
And before she could catch her breath, before she could contemplate the nervous energy tingling through her, he pushed away and began his descent.
“Unfair!” She tried to yell the word, but instead it came out a breathless gasp. What just happened? Not until her feet touched the ground did she regain even the barest hold on her senses or still the curious racing of her heart enough to jokingly call, “You let me win.”
“I did not let you win.” He started toward the wagon as the crowd turned back to their apple picking. But not before she caught the amusement glinting in his inky eyes.
“A hundred one-on-one games of basketball, laps across the swimming pool, races from your house to my house, and you never once went easy on me. Why now?”
He stopped at the wagon. “Katherine Louisa Danby, I did not let you win. You are the better tree climber. Accept it.”
“We’re doing a rematch tonight.”
“Fine.”
“You promise?”
“I said fine, didn’t I?”
“After closing.”
“Fine.” He nabbed the winning apple from her hand.
“Stop saying fine.”
“Fi—okay.” He took a bite, studying her as he chewed.
And why that should make her fidgety, she didn’t know. He’d seen her looking worse than this plenty of times. She’d even halfway dressed up today—though by now her dark jeans were dusty and one of the rolled, quarter-length sleeves of her hunter green shirt had unsnapped and unrolled. Her shoes were scuffed, and her necklace tangled in her collar.
She was a wreck. She was a tired, happy, exhilarated wreck.
“You did it, Kit. You made it to opening day and it’s a complete success.”
The admiration in his voice warmed her. “The crowd could dissolve this afternoon.”
“It won’t. You’re going to make a solid go of this.”
Oh, how she wanted him to be correct. It just felt so indescribably right to be here. More right than grad school ever had. More right than London and her job at the university and Nigel.
Nigel. Was it harsh to admit she’d hardly thought of him in the passing weeks? They’d exchanged a few emails shortly after he’d left, one stilted phone call. It all seemed so distant now.
She felt rooted to this place—this land, these trees.
And if it was a success—if they could continue to attract visitors all autumn long and keep the fire blight from recurring and pay all the bills, if they could keep the store’s shelves stocked and stay on top of field chores and bring in a healthy harvest . . .
If they could do all that, it might convince Dad to let her manage the orchard for years to come. Maybe he’d even begin to show some interest, come home at some point. And Lucas, they could find him and . . .
And she’d have a whole new life.
One she’d owe to Beckett. Because there was no possible way she’d have made it to opening day without him.
“Beckett, I . . . you . . .” Words weren’t enough to thank him.
As if sensing her grateful intent and strangely wary, he turned and jumped onto the wagon seat. “Now, if you really want to be a success, you could accept my offer of a loan and get started on that barn. I saw Drew’s estimate, Kit. It’s not undoable.”
She looked up at him, lifting one hand to shield her eyes from the sun. “I can’t take your money.”
“You could. You’re just being stubborn.” He reached his hand down to help her up.
She grasped his palm and climbed up beside him. “Anyway, Willa offered too. Apparently she has quite the nest egg.” It’d taken Kit completely off guard, but she supposed it made sense. Willa had never married. She lived in the house she grew up in—no mortgage hanging over her head—and she’d inherited money from her parents. “I think the only reason she ever worked at the orchard is she loved the land as much as my grandparents.”
“And you, Kit. She loved you.”
It was true. Kit had spent too much time over the years bemoaning the people who’d abandoned her—Dad, Lucas, and, well, Beckett. But why hadn’t she been more grateful for the people who’d stepped up—Willa, her grandparents, and, again, Beckett? “I always felt like Dad used his Army career as an excuse to stay away. Willa did the opposite—used her career as a reason to stay.”
Beckett stiffened on the wagon bench beside her. Was it the career talk? She’d been so consumed with her own work, she hadn’t stopped to think how unsettled Beckett must feel these days—no law firm to return to, stuck in Iowa until his community service was complete. What would he do once he was done here?
“Kit . . .” His tone was serious, uncertain. He shook his head, apparently closeting whatever it was he’d intended to say. He never used to do that.
After a pause, he spoke again. “You should do it. Accept Willa’s loan. Build the barn, expand the business like your grandpa always wanted to.”
It wasn’t what he’d meant to say, she could tell, but she latched onto his words all the same. “You think so? What about Dad?”
“He put you in charge. So take charge.”
The wagon was beginning to fill with visitors, and soon they were rolling over bumpy grass toward the main grounds. Within minutes, grass shifted to gravel and they were unloading in front of the store. Beckett was chatting with Megan, more cars were filling the parking lot, the bells jangled over the store’s front door.
Beyond all the activity sat the unadorned frame of Grandpa’s barn. What if I did it?
The thought trailed her through the next half an hour as she checked in on the store, restocked a few shelves, set Beckett to work at the press. She stopped to chat with Willa and then eventually made her way to the office, remembering she needed to feed Flynnie. Inside, signs that Beckett had been here earlier were all over the place. His abandoned coffee mug. His hoodie over the chair.
He’d jumped into his community service with both feet. All in. Because that was who Beckett was.
Take charge.
She glanced at the papers on her desk. Drew’s budget estimates, Grandpa’s blueprints. She plopped in her chair and fingered through them. Drew was convinced he could have the building up in a month. What if . . . ?
She pulled a folder from underneath the papers. This wasn’t from Drew. Was it something of Beckett’s? Community service paperwork she needed to sign? She opened the folder, scanned its contents.
Not community service paperwork. No, instead they were papers about . . . a Judge Advocate Office Basic Course. This isn’t any of your business. But something that felt an awful lot like desperation propelled her to keep reading. Application instructions. The address of an office in Boston.
An Army office.
Her heart plummeted.
Beckett wasn’t just heading back to Massachusetts for a couple days to pack up his office. Nor was he as up in the air about his future as she’d thought.
He was joining the military.
“Kit?”
At the sound of the voice, the sight of the figure in the doorway, the snarl of emotions she couldn’t even name—hurt? anger?—evened out into stark, suffusing shock.
Lucas.
Now Beckett knew why Kit had jumped so quickly on his offer to take over at the cider press. Only twenty minutes cranking the cast-iron flywheel and he was ready for a break.
At least the roof jutting over the store’s front porch shaded the spot where they’d set up the old-fashioned cider press.
“How long do you have to do this?” Raegan peered into the grinder, where a series of serrated stainless steel knives chopped the apples as Beckett turned the flywheel.
“Until we run out of apples, I guess.” Which, by the looks of the barrels lined at the edge of the porch, could last until eternity. Kit’s crew had done a fine job picking, sorting, and polishing apples in the past few weeks. Although the bulk of the crop was just now ripening, some of the apples that ripened earlier in the season—Bonners, Whitney Crabs, Pristines—had been bagged and either sold at the Farmer’s Market or kept in cool storage. “Takes thirty or forty apples just to make a gallon of cider.”
The process was engrained in his head from his years of working at the orchard as a teenager. Once he’d chopped a good amount, he’d move the pieces into the mesh-lined tub at the other end of the press. Then he’d use the wooden pressing plate to squeeze juice into another tub. The cider would oxidize into a rich, amber brown within minutes.
The bells jangled over the store’s front door as a customer exited. Raegan reached for one of the plastic glasses they’d already filled and handed it to the visitor. Then she was back on her perch, sitting on the porch railing as she had been for the past ten minutes.
She wasn’t the only Walker helping out today. Kate and Colton had taken a shift out in the field, and Dad was around here somewhere. Even Logan, Amelia, and little Charlie had driven all the way home from Chicago for the event.
When Beckett had gaped in surprise after they’d arrived late last night, Logan had laughed. “You do remember calling to invite us, right? Pretty much demanding that we show up?”
Yes, because he’d wanted to make sure Kit had a good crowd. Figured the least he could do was ensure the Walkers showed up in full force. “Just didn’t expect you to actually make the trip.”
“Well, you know how much Dad likes to see Charlie, and with everything else . . .”
He hadn’t known what Logan meant by “everything else,” nor the reason for the flicker of concern in his older brother’s eyes. It was there and then gone in a blink. Had he imagined it?
“So back to Megan.” Rae circled one arm around a porch beam as she leaned down.
“Not that again.” She’d been teasing him about the barista on and off all morning. “She does not have a crush on me.” Even if she had taken to giving him free drinks whenever he stopped at Coffee Coffee.
“Guess how long she’s lived in Maple Valley?”
“Why guess when you’re going to tell me?” He reached into the grinder to clear a jam of apple pieces around its blades.
“Two years. And guess how many town events she’s been to in that time?”
“I repeat: Why guess when you’re going to tell me?” He rose and gave the flywheel another series of turns.
“None. Considering we’ve got at least one major event each month, that’s twenty-four missed events. Until now.”
He began scraping the chopped apples into the tub underneath the pressing plate. “So Megan dug up some town spirit. Good for her.”
Raegan hopped down from the railing. “All I’m saying is you, big brother, have a fan. And, you know, just be careful with it, okay? From what Kate says, she hasn’t had an easy time of it.”
At the shift in Raegan’s tone, he turned, wiping sticky hands on his jeans. Bracelets crowded both Raegan’s wrists and she’d switched out her usual eyebrow ring for a smaller metal stud. The streaks of bright color in her hair had faded to barely noticeable.
Even with her quirky style, her cropped hair, she looked so much like Mom. He and the rest of his siblings had all inherited Dad’s darker coloring. Too, the rest of them had all come with some kind of built-in career drive. Sure, Beckett might’ve taken a little longer to lean into his own ambition, but since the day he’d decided to get serious about his college classes, it’d been an undeniable force.
Raegan? She’d never wanted to go off to college. Never targeted a career goal and gone chasing after it. Never even wanted to leave Maple Valley, it seemed. She said she was content still living at home for now, working a slew of part-time jobs.
But looking at her now, hearing the personal echoes in her light warning about Megan, it made him wonder if she was really as content as she insisted.
“You could’ve said something about Bear, you know.”
She shoved her hands in her pockets. “Who told you about him?”
“Seth.”
“Figures.” She turned away, propping her elbows on the porch railing.
“This is me, Rae. You used to talk to me.”
“That was before you went off to Boston without so much as a ‘see you later’ and didn’t come home for six years.”
She made it sound like he’d abandoned the family entirely, which wasn’t the case at all. He’d made trips to LA when Logan lived there, Chicago back before Kate moved home. They’d all come to Boston a few times for holidays. He’d emailed and called. Not often, but . . .
But he’d hurt his little sister without realizing it. He’d been so stuck in his own hurt, consumed with his own striving to make up for all the ways he’d messed up. He grabbed a cup of cider and moved to her side at the porch railing. “I’m sorry, sis.”
She shrugged. “I just didn’t get why you had to leave. For a while there, it felt like everyone was leaving. Logan and Kate. And Mom was gone. And . . .”
And now this guy named Bear, who Beckett didn’t know a thing about. Other than if he ever encountered the dude, he might revert to his firebrand days and take a swing.
“Anyway, I wasn’t purposely not telling you.” Raegan angled to face him. “And it’s not like we were ever a thing. We were just, like, really close. And then last fall he says he’s moving to South America but he doesn’t actually move ’til this summer, and Maple Valley’s basically the size of a bowling alley so I had to see him everywhere. But it’s over so there’s no point in talking about it.”
Except by the slump in her voice, it sounded far from over. And didn’t Beckett know better than anyone that some things just didn’t up and go away solely because you wanted them to?
Mistakes. Memories. Arrest warrants.
The guilty voice in his head constantly accusing him of wasting his life. It’d only gotten louder since coming home.
He swallowed a gulp of frothy cider. Maybe it was seeing Kit so focused, so purposeful. He’d watched her yesterday with a couple guys from Hampton House, showing them how to check soil moisture before the orchard opened.
“What you want to do is dig a hole about six inches deep right at the tree’s drip line. Grab a handful of the soil. It should be moist enough to make a ball when you squeeze it, but not so moist it doesn’t crumble.”
She’d had dirt under her fingernails and grass stains on her jeans. Her ponytail had long since loosened and hung limp over her shoulder.
And he hadn’t been able to stop the trail of his thoughts: He’d never seen her look so at home. So moored and confident. So effortlessly . . . what?
Captivating. That was the only word for it.
He hadn’t been the only one to notice. Eric Hampton, leaning against a tree laden with not-yet-ripe Braeburns, hadn’t been able to take his eyes off Kit. The guy had been spending more and more time at the orchard lately. Instead of just transporting the Hampton House residents, he’d begun lingering during their shifts.
Now that was a guy with purpose—running a nonprofit, making a tangible impact on hurting lives.
Longing coursed through Beckett, overwhelming and intense, pungent as the cider in his glass.
But this conversation wasn’t supposed to be about him. It was supposed to be about Raegan, her hurt. Yet it seemed he’d lost the right to play the protective older brother. “Well, if you ever do want to talk—”
“Beck! Rae!” Logan’s panicked call barreled in from across the yard.
Beckett pushed away from the porch, his cup of cider tipping to the ground. “What is it?”
That’s when he saw Kate running toward the wagon.
And Dad on the ground beside it, face in the gravel.
Raegan’s shaky voice sounded beside him. “I’m calling 911.”