Page 6

Wes took it. The first touch stopped him as completely as the first sight of her had. Her hand was warm in his, but there was a deeper warmth beneath it, something that traveled through his palm and up his arm until every part of him seemed to become aware of where they touched. His bear went very still.

Kate seemed to feel something too. Wes saw it in the small widening of her eyes and the way her fingers tightened around his before she seemed to realize she had done it. Her gaze dropped briefly to their joined hands, then came back to his face.

For a couple of seconds neither of them moved.

His bear was the first to recover. She felt something, he said softly. Excitement ran beneath the words, but so did restraint. She doesn’t know what it is. Give her time.

Wes loosened his hand and let Kate go. His palm still tingled where her skin had touched his. He wanted to take her hand again and tell her what he already knew, right there beside Alan’s stack of crates. But what would she make of that? She had walked out to meet her parents’ neighbor and nothing more. He curled his fingers into his palm and kept his hand at his side.

Kate rubbed her hand on her thigh. A faint crease had appeared between her brows, as if she was trying to decide what had just happened.

See? She did feel something, his bear said happily.

“I wanted to thank you,” Kate said after a moment. “They’ve told me how much you’ve helped since they got here. I know Dad would have figured everything out eventually, but it’s been good knowing there was someone close by if they needed to ask.”

Alan made a quiet sound beside her. “That almost sounded like confidence in me.”

Kate turned toward him. “I have complete confidence in you. I’m still allowed to worry.”

Her father smiled, and Wes caught the familiarity between them.

“They’re doing well,” Wes told her. “There’s a lot to learn with any orchard, especially when your first harvest is already waiting for you. But they ask when they’re unsure, and they listen to the answer. That matters more than pretending to know everything in the first week.”

Some of the concern left Kate’s face. “Thank you,” she said. “I know they’re happy. I can see that now that I’m here. But sometimes it helps hearing it from someone who actually knows what he’s looking at.”

“I know what I’m looking at. Apple trees,” Alan reminded her, although he sounded more amused than put out.

Kate touched his arm. “You know exactly what I mean.”

“I do.” Alan looked at Wes. “She’s been worrying about us since we told her we were buying the place.”

“I have,” she admitted.

“Sometimes she forgets she’s the child and we’re the parents,” Alan said with a sly smile.

Kate laughed and shook her head. “Wes will think I’m a worrywart.”

“You are.” Alan slipped an arm around her shoulders and pulled her close. “And we love you for it.”

Wes laughed with them, but his attention remained on Kate. He liked the way she was with her father.

She loves them, his bear observed.

She does.

I like that.

Wes did too.

“Mom!” a small voice called from near the house.

Kate turned at once.

A little girl was hurrying toward them with Janice following at a more sensible pace. She carried an apple carefully in both hands, but the moment she reached Kate, she leaned against her side without seeming to think about it. Wes knew who she was before anyone introduced her.

Penny, his bear said, his earlier excitement gentling into interest. Alan talks about her all the time.

Kate rested a hand on her daughter’s shoulder. “Did you find a good one?”