CHAPTER TWENTY
Sanna dumped the ingredients into the casserole dish. If she could get this made now, then she’d only need to put it in the oven after her dad’s physical therapy appointment this afternoon, but before changing the sheets on both their beds. Anders could change his own sheets. She added the water too quickly, sloshing some onto the counter. She reached for the paper towels but only found air.
“Pa, where are the paper towels?” Sanna said after looking in all the usual spots in the kitchen.
Einars sat at the table next to Anders, going over the paperwork he’d refused to look at last night.
“I stopped buying them. Just use a regular towel. Silly to waste all that paper when a towel works just fine.”
She grabbed the washcloth and wiped it up, rinsing the rag and hanging it to dry. Using a spatula, she stirred the dish, then covered it with plastic wrap and set it in the fridge. She gave the counter one last wipe.
“I’m going to the store later, where’s the credit card? It’s not in the usual spot.”
He pulled out his wallet and handed her three twenties.
“Here, use this instead.”
Sanna took the cash, confused. They rarely used cash.
“I can get cash from the ATM.” She tried to hand it back.
“Just use this.”
She shrugged and stuffed it in her jeans pocket as Isaac and Bass entered the kitchen.
“Great, right on time.” She pulled out a stack of papers and handed one to each person. “These are your schedules. I’ve mapped out everything I need you to do and how much time you have to accomplish it.”
Yesterday had been her first full day in charge, and they hadn’t gotten nearly enough work done. Due to her dad’s accident, they were behind on everything. Yesterday, they needed to thin the eating apples, spray the late-harvest apples, and mow the orchard, but they only finished half the mowing and a third of the thinning, and didn’t get to the spraying. Never mind she had two batches of cider that needed bottling. From now on, she’d be more on top of everyone’s job list to make sure everything was accomplished.
“Mine just says ‘Whatever,’ ” Anders said, holding up his paper.
“I don’t know what you do, so you can keep doing that.” Anders crumpled the paper, then picked up his stack of papers. “I’ll be in my room if you need me, Pa.”
“When do we pee?” Bass asked.
“When you need to,” Isaac said, rubbing his hair. “But seriously, I don’t see lunch on here. I’m okay with eating as I work, but Bass needs breaks.”
Sanna looked at her master list.
“Damn it.”
She collected all their schedules and laid them out on the counter. Isaac stood behind her shoulder and pointed.
“Here. If I take Einars to his PT, he and I can eat something in the car. Then you and Bass can have a lunch. Would that work?”
Sanna nodded, not trusting herself to be pleasant. She should have seen that error. She needed everything to go perfectly today. If she hadn’t let her dad climb that ladder, then this never would have happened. If she hadn’t kissed Isaac, she wouldn’t find herself so distracted when he was around. It was the main reason she had assigned him jobs on the opposite side of the orchard. She couldn’t let any more mistakes happen. She had to prove it to Anders. She had to prove it to herself.
She scribbled the changes on the schedules and handed them back to everyone.
“Okay, I’ll get Isaac started and meet Bass in the barn.”
Sanna led Isaac to the orchard, where the ATV sat next to the sprayer.
“You’re going to be giving the late-harvest apples their last spray.”
She pointed to the sprayer, but Isaac already started to hook it up without waiting for her instructions.
“How do you, an office worker guy, know how to work a sprayer?”
“First, I’m an independent contractor in the tech industry, so it’s a bit more involved than office worker guy. Second—my grandparents had a small farm south of San Jose when I was growing up. They had a sprayer just like this and they taught me to use it. As a sixteen-year-old, it was still fun to drive a tractor around. I’m not completely clueless.”
“I didn’t say that.” The words were as clipped as all her nerves.
“Hey, it’s okay. You’re doing great.”
He rubbed her arm from elbow to shoulder, and Sanna instantly calmed. How did he do that? She breathed deeply, focusing on the smell of summer grass and sun-warmed apples.
“I’m not. But I will.”
“That’s why I know you’re doing great. I’ve led enough teams of people. Half the battle is wanting to do it well.” Sanna checked her watch. She needed to meet up with Bass, then check on her dad or she’d already be behind. “Though you might want to rethink the strict schedule. Micromanagement never ends well.”
Sanna nodded, her mind already three steps ahead.
“I’ll take that under advisement.”
• • • • •
Isaac’s fingers flew over the keys on his laptop as if it hadn’t been almost five weeks since he’d coded.
“You really know what you’re doing on that thing?” Einars said. He sat next to him with his leg propped on the adjacent chair.
That made two Lunds who doubted his ability today—like father, like daughter. After he’d finished spraying the trees, Isaac had joined Einars in the house. They sat at the kitchen table while Sanna and Bass worked in the orchard. He’d been copying the bits of usable information off their old site into a file. Their entire website made him itchy and it needed to be fixed. He could have a bare-bones site up in half an hour, and something more robust by the end of the night. It would take him a few more weeks to get everything set up the way he wanted. Once that was done, he would create Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter accounts.
“This is what I do. Big companies pay me a lot of money to make over their online presence. Customers use the Internet to find everything, so having a well-crafted website should bring more people here. That’s the goal of a website, to get people to either buy something or go somewhere, hopefully do both. Once they’re here, then they’ll buy apples or cider. Then those happy customers can mention you on their social media accounts, sending more people to your website. It all works together.”
He was already thinking of favors he could call in for graphic design work. He’d started scribbling lists of what information he’d need for the website—like apple varieties, harvest dates, cider flavors. As he took notes, Einars got up from the table.
“Hey, what are you doing? I’m supposed to keep you off your feet.”
“I need to take my meds and then make the dessert for tonight.”
“I can do that. You sit and make a list of all the apples you grow and when they are available for purchase. Where are your meds?”
He shoved the paper and pen at Einars, who huffed, but sat back down as Isaac moved into the kitchen.
“They’re by the sink.”
Isaac found the bottle and his stomach dropped. Fentanyl.
“You’re leaving these out on the counter where anyone could grab them?” Where Bass could grab them? Or Sanna after a stressed-out day? It was like seeing a cobra in a baby’s crib—unpredictable and deadly.
“Of course. It’s right next to the water, so I can get my pills and water in the same place.”
“You can’t keep them out in the open like this. I’ll keep track of it for you. You let me know when you need it, and I’ll give you the right dose.”
Isaac’s breathing grew shallow and fast. Einars crossed his arms and studied him. Isaac knew he wasn’t making sense and he didn’t know how to explain without telling him about Bass’s mom.
“There something you want to tell me about?”
Isaac’s hands shook as he opened the bottle and took out one pill. He gave it to Einars with a cup of water, the bottle still clutched in his hand. The older man took the pill and water, then set his fingers on the bottle, but Isaac didn’t let it go. Letting it go would be the same as putting that cobra in the crib—he’d be responsible if Einars took too many. If he kept them, he’d be in control and no one could get hurt.
“I knew someone . . . It didn’t end well.”
“I don’t know about your someone, but I don’t like taking the damn things. They make me sleepy, but if I don’t take them, then the pain keeps me awake and the doc says I have to sleep. I need to be in charge of my own medication, but how about you keep count of how many I take and I promise to keep them somewhere safer?” Isaac nodded and let the bottle go. “I’m sorry about your someone.”
Isaac took a few deep breaths to get control of the fear. Einars swallowed his pill and slid the bottle into his shirt pocket. Isaac took the empty glass back to the kitchen, then stared—unsure what to do next.
“Do you even know how to bake? I think I should do it,” Einars said.
The question brought Isaac back to the present, knowing that he needed to keep Einars with his leg up or Sanna would not be pleased.
“How do you think I’ve been keeping Bass alive? Of course I can cook.”
Einars seemed to understand he’d put his past back where it belonged.
“Cooking is not the same as baking.”
Isaac chuckled, feeling more like himself.
“Fair enough, but I’m very good at following instructions.” He picked up the recipe and read the instructions for the salted caramel apple pie. “Maybe you have a simpler option I could make?”
Einars snorted.
“We’ll do a lazy-person’s apple pie. Which is basically cooked cinnamon and sugar apples over ice cream with a hunk of piecrust. I even have the crust in the fridge—you only need to roll it out and bake.”
As Isaac worked, Anders joined them with the papers and his omnipresent frown. Since Isaac had first met him, he and Anders had rarely spoken. He knew there was a lot of tension between Anders and Sanna, but there seemed to be more beneath the surface he didn’t know about.
“Dad, I need to talk to you. I’ve finally made it through all the books.” He looked at Isaac in the kitchen. “I’ll help you into your room so we have privacy.”
“We can talk here.”
“I don’t think Isaac needs to hear all the finances.”
“I know what’s in those books and I’m not fussed about him hearing. He runs a business, he might have a few ideas.”
Isaac gave a thumbs-up with flour-covered hands and continued rolling out the pie dough. “I’m happy to help, but I’m also happy to forget it all.”
“Fine.” Anders sat next to his dad and pulled out papers, then lined them in front of Einars. “How could you let this happen? You’ve borrowed so much money there’s no way you can make the monthly interest payments.”
“I’ve barely touched what the land is worth. It’ll only be tight until Sanna gets the cider up and running. She’s so happy when she’s making cider, I know it will take off.”
Anders rolled his eyes.
“Assuming that ever happens, you still can’t pay the bank the interest until that money materializes, no matter how happy Sanna is. You don’t have any cash on hand. Where do you think it will come from?”
“I’ve been taking care of the money for years. It was time to take this kind of risk. With only the two of us, the land is struggling. Cider is Idun’s future.”
Isaac really didn’t want to be here for this, but he had to finish baking the pie dough while the apples cooked. Maybe he could hide in the bathroom.
“Isaac, what do you think?” Einars asked.
Too late. He couldn’t very well ignore the question, but he felt Einars knew exactly what he had done and had a bigger plan that Anders and he didn’t understand.
“Well.” He walked to the table and looked at the papers spread out. “Anders is right. Usually agriculture is land-rich and cash-poor, so that can be a big problem if you borrow more than you can pay back with cash reserves. If these numbers are accurate, you need enough to get you through to the cider being profitable because your normal orchard profits won’t be enough. You won’t be able to make the payments by the end of the fall.”
Anders nodded along in agreement as Einars rubbed his chin in thought.
“I’m not ready to sell. Idun’s needs more time. There has to be another option.”
Isaac was saved by the buzzer. He pulled the crust from the oven as Sanna and Bass bounded up the stairs. Anders collected the papers and stuffed them away, clearly frustrated that nothing had been solved but unwilling to push the issue.
While he had only lived on the orchard for a short time, Isaac understood Einars’s stubbornness. This place was too special for the Lunds to lose. All he could do, really, was finish the website. The sooner people learned about this amazing place and Sanna’s amazing cider, the sooner the Lunds could stop worrying, the sooner Sanna could relax, and the sooner she might kiss him again.