Fern’s knees folded. She slammed back down into thechair and stared at Lena, her lips parted and lungs empty. “George Black?”
“Yes. I told him I’d come get you.” Lena stepped back out into hallway and waited. “Fern?” she asked when, after a moment, she hadn’t responded. Or moved. “He’s waiting on the front lawn.”
17
Cal stood next to one of the elms lining the road. He’d parked his Roadster there, instead of bringing it up the gravel drive the way other visitors to the farm did. It was as if he wanted to keep distance between himself and Young Acres.
Fern saw him as she came down the front steps, pulling the cardigan she’d thrown on tighter around her. The breeze had picked up, and the bellies of the clouds overhead had darkened. Even so, as Cal spotted her and tossed down his cigarette, grinding it out with his heel, Fern knew only warmth and brightness. He started toward her, and she walked toward him, meeting him in the center of the front lawn. The grass was green, soft, and thick, like a carpet, and smelled freshly clipped.
Cal tipped up the brim of his fedora and seemed to inspect her from crown to foot with one economical sweep of his eyes.
“You’re all right?” was the first thing he said.
“What are you doing here?” she blurted out before shaking her head to clear it. “Yes. I mean, yes, I’m all right.”
He looked past her shoulder, and when she turned, it was to see Lena feeling her way out the front door. She couldn’t see them, but listening would certainly appeal. Fern began walking toward the orchard, and Cal fell into step beside her.
She couldn’t hold her tongue; her mind fired off too many questions at once. “How did you know where I was? Why have you come? Your gunshot wounds…have they healed?”
Cal kept walking, fielding her rapid-fire questions with silence.
“Sorry,” she whispered.
“It’s fine. I was at Doc Levy’s,” he said. “Stitches needed taking out. Anyway, Hannah said you’d sent her a letter.”
So, that’s how he’d known. Fern had included the address for Young Acres, hoping Hannah might write back. Relief made her a little more lightheaded than she already was.
Fern tugged the cardigan closer, against a gust of wind. It blew the sweet scent of ripening apples in their direction.
“Is what I heard true?” he asked. “They dropped you here and just left?”
Her heels dug in, and she stared up at him. She hadn’t mentioned that to Hannah.
He gave an easy shrug of his shoulder. “I hear things. Margie? She’s got friends who’ve got friends.”
Oh. Again, relief slid through her, the quick flip of her stomach making her feel nauseous. Upended and a bit dizzy. They walked another dozen strides or so without talking.
“They think it’s best for me,” Fern said. Before he could reply to that, she added, “And maybe it is. I don’t have anywhere else I can go, and…well, my turret was getting a little small.”
She laughed softly, remembering how he’d called her a princess, high up and hidden away from the world. But he didn’t so much as crack a grin. He kept his hands in his pants pockets as they reached a row of Macoun apples.
“You actually want to be here?” he asked.
“Why have you come?” Fern was avoiding his question, though not very craftily. It had taken Mr. Carlson nearly all day to drive here. That Cal would make the same drive to see her… She didn’t know what to think. It made her pulse beat faster. It scared her.
Cal reached into the lower limbs of the apple tree and grasped an apple.
“You shouldn’t pick them before they’re ready,” she said, repeating what she’d been told the week before when she’d attempted the same thing. The skins were still too green.
He left the apple alone and kept walking. “Someone needed to come get you,” he answered after a minute.
Fern slowed again. A drop of rain landed on her cheek.
“But they don’t want me.” Only after the words were out did she hear them. Really, truly hear them. Theysounded so small and pathetic.Shesounded that way, and it was humiliating.
“I never said I was bringing you back to them.” He stopped and looked her in the eye. Fern saw it then—anger and frustration. Loathing. “You have more than just two options, Fern.”
She shook her head and turned to keep walking. “You don’t understand.”
