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Wes went with her.

EPILOGUE

Kate

Aweek later, Penny stood beneath Eileen’s old apple tree with a strip of white plant label clutched in both hands and the serious expression of someone entrusted with an important job.

“Don’t lose it,” Wes told her.

“I’m not going to.”

Kate leaned against the tree beside Eileen and watched Wes return his attention to the young rootstock he had brought over from Russet Hill. The morning was cool enough that she had zipped her jacket nearly to her chin, but the sky was clear.

Around them, Bramblewood still showed signs of the storm. There were spaces among the branches where damaged wood had been removed, and one section of fence had been replaced rather than repaired. But the orchard no longer looked wounded. It looked busy.

Alan and Janice had spent most of the week sorting fruit, clearing debris and learning the thousand small jobs that appeared once the obvious damage had been dealt with. People from Bear Creek had continued to arrive in smaller numbers, sometimes for an hour, sometimes for most of a day. The Community Kitchen had taken a ridiculous quantity of bruised but usable apples and returned some of them as pies, applesauce and containers of apple crisp.

Wes had spent almost as much time at Bramblewood as he had at Russet Hill. Kate had been wherever Penny happened to be. And she had still managed to answer client emails, make two calls, move one meeting and explain to Penny’s preschool that she had extended their short vacation. Nothing had collapsed. Her life had needed rearranging, that was all.

Wes looked up from the rootstock. “Penny, come here.”

She hurried over. “Can I do the knife part?”

“No.”

Her face fell. “You said I could help.”

“You can. Your job comes after mine.”

Penny looked over her shoulder. “Mom.”

“He’s right,” Kate said.

Wes crouched again. “This is called chip budding,” he told Penny. “I’m taking a bud from the old tree and putting it onto this young rootstock.”

Penny moved closer but kept her hands obediently behind her back. “Is that a baby tree?”

“The rootstock is young. The bud came from your tree.”

“Eileen’s tree.”

Eileen smiled. “You can call it ours if you like.”

Penny considered that with great care. “Okay.”

Wes made the cut with the small budding knife, his movements slow and precise. Kate had watched him do plenty of things around both orchards now, but she still liked seeing the concentration that came over him when he worked.

Russet Hill had belonged to Wes long before she arrived in Bear Creek. His competence among the trees had been one of the first things she had noticed about him, even before she understood how much of his life was bound up in trees, weather and seasons. She did not want him to love it less because he loved her. And she was beginning to understand that he did not want her old life reduced to make room for him either.

“Now what?” Penny asked.

“Now I fit this piece here.”

She leaned so close that Wes put one hand gently against her shoulder. “Give me a little room.”

Penny moved back perhaps an inch.

Wes looked at Kate. “That’s probably the best you’re getting.”