George shook his head. His dark hair flopped into his eyes, and he pushed it back. “Oh, I made you something.”
From the ground, beside the step stool, he produced a lunchbox he’d dropped there earlier. It was old-fashioned and metal with hinged latches. There was a race car on the front, but the paint was faded, and I couldn’t read the number on the hood.
Then George’s hand was in front of my face, dangling a bracelet. It was a circle of stretchy elastic with black-and-white letters and green, yellow, and red beads, like something a kid would make. Like a kidhadmade, apparently. For me.
I held the bracelet in the palm of my hand and flipped the round bubble letters until they were all lying flat.Apple Lady, it read.
Smiling, I met George’s gaze. “You made this for me?”
“Yep,” he replied easily, theppopping.
My smile widened as a strange, warm weight settled in my chest.Apple Lady. That might have been the nicest thing any kid had ever called me. His surprise was baffling, but also touching.
George was a mystery. And I still worried about him running all over the place by himself, but he was a sweet kid. Curious and smart, with amazing comedic timing. And I knew I was only seeing a small portion of who he was, but so far, he’d been very unexpected.
Most kids were silly and loud. Candace had been, when she was little. I could remember being fifteen or sixteen, and Candace wanting me to play circus or watch her dance and sing. But I’d been too old or uninterested in the games my baby sister had wanted to play, so I’d usually ignored her or foisted her off on Brady, who was only three years her senior. It was probably why we hadn’t been close as kids.
I’d just never been the sort of person—even as a child—who wanted all the attention, who acted silly in order to get it. I’d been more like George. A little too serious. More introspective. It was like I could see the gears turning in his mind.
But I got the impression that George hadn’t always been so solemn. That perhaps something had caused him to be more mindful and adult, still innocent but less childlike. Maybe it was having an absent parent who didn’t care where he ran off to. I didn’t know.
But I did wonder.
His watch picked that moment to buzz again.
George ignored it and sat down on the step stool to get his lunchbox back in order.
“Is that your kit? What did you call it?”
“My emergency kit,” he replied without looking up.
Crouching down, I asked, “What’s in it?”
He held out things as he explained, “Band-Aids, ChapStick, a compass, binoculars, two granola bars, a pencil, a ruler, dental floss, matches, chewing gum, a flashlight, a whistle, and a drawing pad.”
I watched quietly as the boy carefully rearranged each item so it fit neatly into the metal box. And I wondered why a kid would have all that. Why would he be planning for emergencies?
Before I could figure out a way to ask, an engine sounded in the distance. As it grew closer, George and I both turned to see Ian on a baby-blue side-by-side driving down the tractor path before stopping beside us.
George sighed, latching the closure on the lunchbox.
He stood as Ian climbed out of the vehicle and said, “Georgie, can you please get in? It’s time to go back to set. Miss Sophia has been looking all over for you. You didn’t answer your watch. That’s why we got it for you, bud.”
“Well, she didn’t look here, or she would have found me,” the boy said. But instead of protesting, he walked right over to the side-by-side and climbed up.
What was going on? Was George Ian’s son?
Rising to my feet, I tried to catch Ian’s eye, but he wouldn’t look at me. I’d never seen him like this—jaw tight, shoulders tense, and so closed off he may as well have had a sign swinging from his chest warning people away. For the first time in weeks, the man wasn’t smiling.
Just before he slid behind the wheel, Ian’s eyes—cagey and dark—met mine. He nodded stiffly and said, “Joan,” before making a U-turn and heading back the way he’d come.
George raised a tiny hand and waved goodbye, and like an idiot, I stood there and waved back, the little beads on my wrist clicking together as I moved.
“So, he just took off with the kid and didn’t say anything?” Mac, Brady’s girlfriend, asked.
I nodded and grabbed another broccoli floret from the tray.
“He didn’t explain?” Mac’s sister, Bonnie, wondered.
