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“Grandma helped.” Penny held up the apple, then noticed Wes standing beside Alan and looked at him curiously.

“This is Wes,” Kate said. “He owns the orchard next door. The one Grandpa told you about.”

Penny gave him a small smile. “Hi.”

“Hi, Penny.”

That was all there was to it, and Wes liked that. Penny accepted the introduction and immediately went back to telling Kate about the room she had unpacked upstairs.

Kate’s hand remained on Penny’s shoulder while she bent her head to listen.

His bear listened too. She has a good life, he said.

Yes, she does. The thought didn’t disappoint him. Alan and Janice had told him plenty about their daughter, but hearing about Kate was not the same as knowing her. What did her days look like at home? What made her laugh? What did she care about when she wasn’t worrying about her parents? Wes wanted to find out all of it for himself.

Alan nodded toward the packing shed. “Since you’re here, do you have a few minutes to look at that note I messaged you about?”

“Sure.”

“I was going to show Kate around in there this morning anyway.” Alan looked at his daughter. “You might as well come with us.”

“I’d like to.”

“Come on, then,” Wes said. “It’ll probably make more sense when you can see what the note is referring to.”

Janice took Penny back toward the house while Alan led the way inside. Kate fell into step beside Wes for the few paces to the open door.

They walked without speaking. Their arms came close, and Kate glanced at him at almost the same moment he looked at her.

The warmth from their handshake had not entirely gone away.

His bear stretched out inside him, deeply content. We have waited a long time for her.

Wes looked at Kate walking beside him, close enough that the back of her hand almost brushed his. We have.

Then don’t rush.

Wes smiled.

He had no intention of rushing anything.

CHAPTER 3

Kate

The packing shed smelled faintly of apples, old wood and machinery oil. Kate followed her father through the open doorway with Wes coming in just behind her and tried not to think about the fact that she knew exactly where he was without having to look.

She could still remember the warmth of his hand around hers. Which was ridiculous. It had been a handshake, nothing more. She shook hands with contractors and clients all the time and never thought about it afterward. So why was she rubbing her thumb across her palm now?

Alan crossed to the battered workbench beneath the window and pulled a folded sheet of paper from under a clipboard. “This is the note I messaged you about. I thought I understood what it meant until I compared it to the map, and then I started wondering if I was reading the whole thing backward.”

Her father didn’t sound frustrated. He sounded determined. Kate had heard the same thing whenever he talked about the orchard since buying it, but it was different seeing him here among the crates and tools, with dirt on his boots and the smell of ripening apples in the air.

Wes bent over the paper. “You’re not reading it backward. The picking order was changed after a cold spring. These trees started running later than the ones farther down the slope, so Eileen worked around them.”

Kate moved closer to look at the note. The other side of the bench had plenty of room. She ignored that fact.

Wes traced one line with his finger, and for a moment Kate found herself looking at his hand instead of the paper. His fingers were broad, the nails cut short, with a fresh scrape across one knuckle. Working hands. She dragged her attention back to the note before he caught her staring.