“That’s the thing—this place is growing on me. I might sit out some time here. And we might never be friends, you and I.”
Jack gave a shrug. “Just so we’re not enemies.”
“Yeah,” Coop said, running a hand around the back of his neck. “But just so you know, you pretty much irritate the shit outta me.”
“Is that a fact?”
“You’re such a goddamn know-it-all…”
Both men looked suddenly at Preacher to find him grinning like a kid. “You’ll find that kind of comes and goes… .” He gave a chuckle. “You’ll like him better after you take some money off him at poker. He hardly ever wins.”
“Funny,” Jack said. Then to Coop he said, “Come on, let’s go get that envelope before the crowds descend.”
After tossing the envelope in his truck, Jack turned to Coop and stuck out a hand. “You irritate me, too. We might as well shake on it.”
Cooper took the hand. And he laughed.
* * *
Tom was up before 5:00 a.m. and the first sound he heard was that of Junior pulling a flatbed past the house with the smallest tractor. The jingling sound it made as it rode by was the telltale jingling of metal fence posts. He pulled on his jacket and boots and said, “Crap!”
It didn’t take him long to find not only Junior sitting atop the tractor, motor running like he might make a fast getaway, but the black, furry rumps of four bears ambling away from the orchard. Mother and her triplets. They were almost a hundred yards away before Junior turned off the motor.
Tom was on foot. “Did you run them off?” he asked.
“Yup. I saw one in a tree and went for the tractor. I’m going to put a post every two feet on this section now,” Junior said.
“I’ll help. You get coffee yet?”
“I don’t need coffee to wake up. I’m pissed. That got my motor running.”
By the time the fence was double repaired and half the orchard chores done, it was noon. Right now the last thing he felt like doing was spending a day with a bunch of little kids at a party on a farm, but he’d made a commitment. He’d be late to Nora’s; a shower and shave was absolutely necessary. By the time he made it to her house, it was twelve-thirty. And he was exhausted.
But the second he saw her, he felt a little surge of energy.
“Sorry,” he said. “I meant to be on time”
“Oh, Tom, please don’t apologize—it’s all right. Would you like us to go in separate cars?”
“Why?”
She gave a shrug. “Maybe you don’t want to give the impression that we’re, you know…”
“Friends?” he asked.
“Of course,” she said and unconsciously brushed her lips with her fingers.
“We’ll take your car so we don’t have to move car seats to mine. I’m going to throw the chairs in the trunk.”
“With the stroller, please?”
In the backseat, Berry chanted, “Punkin, punkin, punkin, punkin.”
Soon the blanket was spread on a grassy spot not far from the big Victorian and Berry was pulling at Nora’s hand, begging to go see the pumpkins. Someone had hooked up a few ponies for rides for the kids and there was a line for apple bobbing—apples compliments of Cavanaugh’s, brought earlier by Maxie.
Maxie greeted them like old friends and took Berry right off Nora’s hands.
“I’ll take her around and wear her down,” she said.
“Would you rather stay here with Fay?” Nora asked. “Berry’s getting fast!”
“I think I can keep up for a little while,” she said, disappearing.
Tom gave a wave to a group of men who were standing around the grill. “I’ll be back,” Tom assured her.
“By all means, take your time. Visit with your friends—I’ll be fine.”
And Nora was not without friends of her own—her neighbor Leslie wandered over and sat on the blanket for a little while. Not long after, Martha joined them. Within an hour Maxie was back with Berry and other men and women Nora knew came visiting—Noah and Ellie Kincaid, Mel Sheridan and Paige Middleton, Becca Timm, the schoolteacher and soon-to-be Mrs. Cutler—she was marrying Denny, who was farmer Jill’s assistant. Kelly Holbrook introduced her fifteen-year-old daughter, Courtney, and Courtney’s best friend, Amber—the girls put in a pitch for babysitting and as a favor, loaded Fay into the stroller and took charge of her for a while.
From her place on her blanket, Nora kept catching sight of Tom, laughing and enjoying a beer with a group of guys, helping to haul big pumpkins to cars for women he knew, throwing a ball with some young men Nora hadn’t yet met.
Friends.
The trouble with women, she thought as she admired her handsome, sexy friend, is that when a guy kisses us, we think he loves us. Women think kisses make relationships when really, kisses make kisses. And besides, was there really room in her life for a relationship? Probably not, even though there was nothing about Tom to suggest he could be as thoughtless, irresponsible and cruel as Chad had been. Not only were there too many differences in their characters, she had to remember that back in the days of Chad, he was a traveling ballplayer. She rarely saw him and when she did, she was so overwhelmed with her crush, she gave in to him quickly, easily.
She saw Tom every day. She spent many an evening at his dinner table. She witnessed firsthand how he cared for his grandmother. The man was nearly a prince in her eyes.
So, what if they were friends for years? Friends who had the occasional dinner out or went to a town event here and there? And what if, as good friends, there was sometimes kissing? Only one really crucial factor could make that an unappealing idea—if it wasn’t good for her children. And right now everything about Tom and Maxie and the orchard had been wonderful for her children.
Of course, she couldn’t be kissing him if he was also kissing someone else. The disposition of his relationship with Darla hadn’t been talked about, except that she knew Darla was only supposed to be in California for two or three more weeks.
Tom brought her food—pumpkin bisque to try; pumpkin muffins and bread. A little later he brought her a soda and a couple of hot dogs—one dressed sloppy and one plain for Berry. A plate of potato salad, cole slaw, veggies and chips appeared. Then came cookies and fudge and pie.
“How’s the sugar intake working out here?” Maxie said during one of her appearances on the blanket, glancing at Berry who was lying down on the blanket with a book balanced above her face.
“Berry is vibrating,” Nora said. “I nearly had to tie her down. Detox tonight is going to suck.”
“Want me to give Fay a bottle, since I’m here?”
And Nora smiled—if she decided to move south, to live near her father and go to school, she would miss Maxie as much as Tom. “That would be nice. She’d be more than happy to give herself a bottle, but you’re only a baby once. I try to hold her whenever I can.”
Maxie settled in one of the chairs Tom had brought and pulled the baby onto her lap. “Brings back such sweet memories,” she said. “Nora, you remind me of a younger me. When Tom’s father was a baby, I worked all the time. I worked so hard on the orchard. I can’t even remember if I had to—there were Warren’s parents and hired hands. But I had that baby in a sling all day while I did chores. Even picking apples.”
“I think you come from a generation of hard workers,” Nora said. “My generation is one of techie obsession. I’m just doing what works.”
“And I was trying to justify my existence. I desperately wanted to prove that Warren hadn’t made a huge mistake, marrying me.”
“I can’t imagine anyone would think that!”
“Oh-ho.” Maxie laughed. “Warren’s father didn’t even want to hire me, and he was furious at the notion that Warren would marry me! I was pregnant!”
Nora frowned. “You and Warren met on the orchard, married and you got pregnant right away?” she asked.
“Oh, heavens, no! I showed up looking for work with what you young women now refer to as ‘the baby bump.’ I was destitute, stranded, pregnant and alone. I tried to conceal my pregnancy for as long as I could. Back in my day, you couldn’t get away with illegitimacy. Single, pregnant women were hidden away and their babies were given up or taken away. It was Warren’s mother who hired me.” She chuckled. “This was not funny at the time—it was terrifying—but Warren’s mother said to her husband, ‘I’ll throw you out before I’ll throw this poor girl out! Can’t you see she needs to support herself and her unborn child?’” Maxie shook her head, but she laughed.
Nora was completely confused. She had to concentrate to close her mouth.
“That’s right, darling. I followed some useless logger from Idaho. Well, he let me come along, I guess you could say. And I lived in a logger’s camp with a few other women while my logger alternately ignored me and visited me. I was just a foolish young girl who thought the right man would make everything better.”
“And he was killed,” Nora remembered.
“God rest his soul,” she said. “We’re not to speak ill of the dead, but if he hadn’t gotten himself killed in a logjam, I can’t imagine what would’ve become of me. As it turned out, I couldn’t stay in the camp without his sponsorship, so to speak. I had to go looking for work. So I walked and hitchhiked all over this county and came upon the orchard at harvest time, just like you did.”
“And fell in love with the owner’s son… .”
“To be fair, I tried very hard not to. Poor Warren—what was he thinking? I had another man’s baby in me!”
“He must have been thinking how much he loved you.”
“He was the most beautiful man. We had such a good time. He could bring me out of a bad mood just by saying, ‘Maxine, you’re probably right but you’re so damn loud!’ He was a little older than me—twelve years. And we were married over forty years. We married just before my baby was born. We’d planned to have a lot of children, but it turned out we were only going to have that one. When I cried and cried and apologized that I couldn’t give him his own, he shushed me and thanked me for making sure he had at least that one. ‘This is my son,’ he said to me. He was a wonder. Warren took after his mother, I think.”
“And your son, Tom’s father, died in a plane crash,” Nora recalled.
Maxie inhaled sharply and gave a nod. Her eyes closed for a moment, proving you never get over burying a child. “Our children are not our possessions, Nora. They’re loaned to us to raise and to be set free. From the time he could look up, he was determined to fly high and fast. I wasn’t put on this earth to stomp on a young man’s dreams. Although…there were times I had to ask myself if I’d have been happier if I had discouraged him in every way, even if it meant having an unhappy, bitter man alive long enough to harvest many, many years of apples. Surely not. Surely not.”
Nora wanted to be her. She had to brush away a tear.
“What? You’re crying? Stop at once—I’ve had my setbacks, but I’ve had the best life of anyone I know! I can’t find a person I’d trade places with, and believe me, I’ve been looking!” Then she paused for a minute of reflection. “Maybe Penny, about once a year. Every Christmas her son gives her a ten-day cruise, anywhere in the world. I could stand a cruise, I think.”
Nora sniffed back a laugh. “If I could, I’d give you a cruise. Don’t worry, Maxie—I won’t ever tell anyone.”
She gave a huff of laughter, a quiet laugh as Fay’s mouth opened around the nipple on the bottle and her head lolled back, asleep. “Nora, this is a small town. The biggest mistake I could’ve made was trying to pretend to be something I’m not. Those people who were around back then knew I showed up in Virgin River pregnant, married the lord of the manor at eight months, raised a logger’s son as Warren’s… . Those people told the ones who came later, I expect. At least until my son’s young wife gave me their baby and he died shortly thereafter…and all that became more interesting news. Nora, there aren’t many secrets here. At least not for long.”
* * *
Tom spent some quality time with Nora at the picnic; he introduced her to Jill who gave her a tour of the enormous Victorian house that fronted her specialty farm. Tom helped Berry pick out a pumpkin while Nora was in the house and promised to help her carve a face in it. He tried to get her to take a break by lying still on the blanket with a book, even for a little while, but she was on the move. She would have been happy to stay on the ponies for hours and, because she so often played alone, the concept of taking turns was new to her.
As long as his day had been, made a little longer by chasing and holding small children, he was relieved when the late October sun finally began to sink behind the trees. He helped Nora pack up and take the kids home.
The day and possibly the cookies had worn on Berry. Tom had seen her fuss a little now and then, get stubborn or pouty, but the act she put on while being dragged to the car, and then on the drive home, was a shocker. Gone was the shy, mousy little girl. She screamed bloody murder and kicked her feet wildly. That had the effect of stirring Fay into a wail.
“So this is what happens when there’s no nap?” Tom asked Nora.
“And Fay didn’t have much of one—just a cat nap while Maxie held her. I’m going to have to get them right in the tub and into bed.”
Tom helped get the girls inside for Nora. While she got them into the bath, he unloaded the trunk, put the chairs back in his truck and brought the stroller, blanket and supplies into the house. By that time Berry was in a towel, still sniffing from what had seemed an endless meltdown while Nora was drying Fay. “How can I help?” he asked.
“If you could get a bottle for Fay, that would help.”
While he did that, Nora got them into pajamas. Since he was just standing around looking kind of useless with a bottle in his hand, she passed him the baby and asked, “Do you mind? I need to see if I can get this girl settled down so she can sleep. She’s had way too much picnic.”
“Course not,” he said, hanging his jacket over a kitchen chair. And he sat in the little living room with Fay while Nora fixed Berry a glass of milk, then disappeared into the bedroom with Berry, where there was a little more crying going on. Berry fought and cried, Nora murmured.
So this was what life would be like with children, he thought. Every hand would be needed at some points. And what if there were more children? A man might get to feeling pretty neglected.
Fay took about twenty minutes with the bottle, but her eyes were drifting closed. When her eyes were open and she looked up at him, she smiled sleepily. God, she was beautiful. He wasn’t that crazy about children in general, but this one and her crabby older sister, they were certainly growing on him.
He kicked off his boots to get comfortable. When she had finally fallen asleep in his arms he noticed there was quiet from the bedroom. He assumed Nora would join him in the little living room soon, but there was no hurry. Holding the baby while she slept felt surprisingly good; it made him somehow feel bigger and stronger. It was an odd feeling, as if all his resources were being called on to keep them safe.
Finally, too much time had passed without Nora joining him, so he quietly poked his head into the bedroom. Well, that explained it. Nora and Berry were cuddled on the mattress, asleep. He meant to put the baby down in the port-a-crib and gently wake Nora to say good-night.
Instead he put the baby down and lay down on the other side of Berry, who was framed by Nora and Tom. He pulled the quilt from the bottom of the mattress over all three of them and thought, I’ll just lie here for a little while…
The bed was too small, too low, the mattress too thin, and he’d never felt better in his life. He just couldn’t bring himself to move. The baby snuffled in her bed while Berry curled against him and softly snored; he could smell her sweet breath; Nora hummed in her sleep and sometimes talked, but it was in an indecipherable language. His sleep was not deep or con
stant—he was acutely aware of the children, of Nora.
And then he heard birds just as he felt something in his hair. He opened his eyes to predawn light breaking through the slats in the blinds and Nora was running fingers through his hair.
“I didn’t think you had enough hair for bedhead,” she teased in a whisper.
“I think maybe you had too much picnic, too,” he whispered back. “You were going to quiet Berry and instead Berry put you to sleep.”
“Children can show you a kind of tired you just didn’t think possible. Did you mean to spend the night?”
“Not at first. I woke up a lot. Sometime in the night I decided I just wasn’t going anywhere. I have to go now, however.”
“Is Maxie going to be upset? Worried?”
He shook his head. “It’s rare, but I have been known to get in at dawn. Whatever she feels about that, she doesn’t let it show.”
“Can I get you a cup of coffee?” she asked.
“Will she be all right without us here?”
Nora nodded. “When she wakes up, she’ll come right into the other room. I’ll make coffee.”
A half hour later Tom was saying goodbye at the front door. “The neighbors will all have seen my truck in front of your house all night.”
“You’re admired around here, Tom. I don’t think my neighbors will worry that I’m getting mixed up with a bad person. And we’re just friends… .”
His lips curved in a lazy smile. “There are friends and there are friends,” he said. Then he slipped an arm around her waist and pulled her against him. He tested her lips once, then again, then a third time and then took her mouth by storm. Her arms went around his neck to hold him close and she opened for him and God, he wanted to pass out, it felt so good.
But he made himself stop. “Gotta go,” he said, and realized his voice was hoarse. “I have to work twice as hard today since I gave you a weekend off,” he teased.
“If you need me to work, you know I’ll come.”