CHAPTER ONE
Mira
I staredout the kitchen window, a medium-sized window above the kitchen sink, that looked directly into the backyard.
Mybackyard.
A whole damn apple orchard.
What the actual fuck?
“Are you staring at the trees again?” My best friend, Kelly, peered at me in the camera of her phone over FaceTime. All I saw was her face talking to the whole screen.
I shook my head with a laugh. “And you’re making out with your phone again. Back up, weirdo.”
Kelly smacked her lips together before making a face at me. “I miss you. I want to get closer.”
“Aw, you’re sweet. I told you you’d miss me. You should come here. We’ll live together and figure out this orchard thing…” One could hope, right?
My distant father recently passed and while attending his funeral out of respect, his lawyer approached me and informed me he had left me something in his will.
Turned it out it was his apple orchard in a small mountain town. So, I gave up my life in the city where I rented a tiny but cozy attic apartment with Kelly, my number one girl. I worked from home as a freelance journalist, so I wasn’t worried about my career. More like my lifelong friendship with Kelly and leaving the only place I knew. My mother raised me in the city streets and when she passed the day after my twentieth birthday from breast cancer, Kelly was there for me like no one else was. I desperately begged her to come with me, but she couldn’t leave her career or her recent boyfriend.
So, I packed my shit and moved into my father’s old, crumbling farmhouse featuring a dying apple orchard alone and kept asking myself-now what?
“If I could take my job and my boyfriend with me, I’d already be there. From the photos, it doesn’t look too terrible. At least the trees are standing.” Kelly shot me a wolfish smile through the screen.
I sighed in return. “Girl. I know absolute crap about gardening, especially not apple trees. Don’t they need special care?” My phone rested on the windowsill, but my eyes hadn’t left my dismal backyard.Ugh times a million.
My knowledge of apple trees was zilch, nada, none. I wondered if my dad’s was the same. By the looks of it, I’d say yes.
But then why own an apple orchard at all?
“Google it. Watch some YouTube videos. There are answers on the internet, I’m sure. Spring is only starting so you have plenty of time to get them ready for the fall harvest.”
“The fall harvest? Do you hear yourself?”
“What? It’s true!”
I grabbed my phone and placed it on the stand on my counter. Grabbing the kettle, I filled it with water and set it on the stove. I retrieved a mug from the cabinet and a tea bag. “I’ll figure something out.”
“I know you will. I can picture your orchard flourishing and filling with visitors who want to pick apples and buy them from you by the crate. You’ll make some extra money you can use towards the house.”
I tilted my head to the side and raised an eyebrow. “There’s no way that’s happening. But thanks for the motivation, Kels. I can’t wait for my orchard toflourish.” I said the last word with a huge dose of sarcasm. It was nice to dream.
“It’s going to work. I believe in you.”
“At least one of us does.”
“I’ll visit as soon as I can get some time off work and help you.”
The kettle whistled and I lifted it off the stove while turning the dial to off. I poured the hot steaming water over my tea bag before setting the kettle back down on the burner. Using the string of the tea bag, I dunked it up and down a few times and stirred the liquid with a spoon. “I’d like that.”
“Me too.” Kelly said. “It totally sucks here without you.”
“I know, babe.”
Kelly’s eyes roamed the screen, and I could tell she was scrolling while on video call.
