She rolled her eyes.
With a final angry huff, she pushed the paper onto my chest and backed away. I placed a hand over my heart to keep the printout from fluttering to the ground.
Glaring from behind the windshield of the side-by-side, she said, “You’re going to regret this, Brady Judd.”
It wasn’t even an effort to keep the smile on my face while she peeled out and headed back over to Grandpappy’s. I assumed she was off to sacrifice puppies or write in her diary about how much she hated me. You know, whatever she did for fun.
The mug shot and the post had done exactly what I’d hoped—drawn Mac’s ire. And I’d solidified it with this little encounter—one I’d foreseen from a mile away. God, she was predictable. Now I just needed her to act out in retaliation. Maybe she’d hit the Apple House again. I doubted Mac had the wherewithal to think up a new plan of attack. And if she did decide to bring her paintball gun to the farm, I’d be ready for her. Then my family and everyone would know I wasn’t the ridiculous one for thinking Mac was capable of taking things too far.
I looked down at the paper I still held. It really was a nice drawing. Jase’s sister was talented as hell. She’d even captured the way Mac’s eyes looked like gray storm clouds. And the sort of elegant way her neck curved into her?—
A loud blast and an answering explosion had me ducking for cover. There wasn’t much cover to be had in the middle of the gravel driveway, and soon enough, I felt a sticky liquid raining down from overhead.
“What the hell?” I murmured. My gaze shot up toward the Judd’s Orchard billboard poised above the entrance to the farm just in time to hear another boom and witness the corresponding apple splinter on impact.
“Damn it, Mac!” I hollered, but there was no way she could hear me from this far away, and not over the sound of the apple cannon she was firing.
I awkwardly crab-walked over the chain blocking the entrance and retreated onto our property. While crouching under the trees on the side of the path, I watched as another apple came from the direction of Grandpappy’s. This one exploded against the faded billboard right between my eyes—well, the eyes of my younger self advertising wholesome family fun.
Six more propelled attacks struck the image of my youthful face as bits and pieces of obliterated apples fell to the ground and fruit juice burst in time with each impact. Finally, the barrage stopped. I figured she was out of ammo, or one of her saner family members had intervened.
I made my way back to the orchard’s parking lot and to my car. Briefly, I wondered if Mac and I had taken things too far. But then I thought,Nah, and started the engine of my truck.
Later that night, when my brain was too active for sleep, I made my way into my kitchen and started working on a batch of coffee cake mini loaves. Baking was something I’d done with my momma growing up. It gave me something to do with my hands when I was too busy or agitated. The rote actions of following a recipe helped give me focus and took the pressure off my mind.
I was scrolling through step four of the recipe when a notification popped up at the top of my screen. I placed the spatula on the edge of the mixing bowl and navigated over to the Chatter app. A vineyard near the farm had tagged Grandpappy’s in a post, and Mac had mentioned Judd’s in her reply.
@TheLonelyMountainWinery: That you taking shots after hours, @GrandpappysApples?
The reply featured an attached image of a row of four apple cannons with the following text:
@GrandpappysApples: Well, they weren’t Jell-O shots, but they were just as satisfying. Right, @JuddsFamilyOrchard?
My snort of laughter rang out in the stillness of my apartment. Instinctively, my gaze sought Mac’s mug shot. I’d affixed the printout to the front of my refrigerator with a magnet.
God, she was a menace.
But I was still smiling when I retrieved my spatula and got back to mixing.
three
MAC
I was watering the African violets out in the sunroom when I heard a commotion from the backyard.
After the apple-cannon incident two days ago, I was sort of expecting a retaliatory attack. It wouldn’t have been surprising to see Brady standing in my backyard with a twenty-four pack of single-ply, ready to toilet paper the whole house. His only hobbies seemed to be running his big mouth and annoying the hell out of me.
But it wasn’t Brady Judd completely dismantling the standing birdfeeder.
“Damn it,” I mumbled.
I set down the small watering can on the end table and walked to the other side of the room. The fall breeze ruffled my hair as I slid the door open on its tracks.
I clapped three times and hollered into the yard. “Get on out of here!”
The big black bear didn’t even look up from where it stood, pulling the top of the birdfeeder over toward the ground. The metal pole it was attached to groaned and bent under the animal’s massive strength. I tried yelling and clapping some more, but the bear spared me a single bored glance before it sat down heavily with its haul of birdseed that I’d just put out this morning.
As the beast shifted to paw at the contents of the feeder, I noticed its left ear. I sighed and shut the door, knowing there was no use bothering to try to scare it off.
