Stellar work, Ash.
And yet, in spite of the disaster, a deep, primal part of me takes pride in the other thing that did happen. I got her interested enough to drag me back to her room, to let me eat chocolateright off her body... A low rumble builds in my chest before I force it down.You need to find her, Ash. And when you do—
“Hey,” Reed says. His voice snaps me back, cutting through the fog. “We’ll figure it out. Carrington’s not the only money around. We’ll find a new plan. Grants, maybe. Or that co-op thing one of my friends mentioned.”
“The one he mentioned on the porch after four beers?” Bram asks.
“He has good ideas sometimes,” Reed says, shrugging.
He has ideas, certainly. The ‘good’ part is open to interpretation.
“Guess we’llhaveto find something alright,” Bram says, heading toward the door and grabbing his keys from the hook. “In any case, I volunteered for a shift tonight since the station’s short. Not like there’s anything more we can do about the orchard today, anyway.”
“Deputy Bram rides again,” I say, tipping an imaginary hat.
“Don’t start.” He pulls on his jacket. “I’ll be back late. We’ll sit down tomorrow and lay everything out. Financials, options. We’ll come up with a plan.”
“Assuming Reed shows up,” I say, jerking my chin toward him.
“Hey, I always show up.” Reed clicks his tongue.
“We’ll figure this out,” Bram adds, as if repeating it will somehow make it real. “We always do.”
Do we?
“Yeah,” I say instead. “We will.”
Bram holds my gaze for a second, nods, then heads out, the screen door slamming.
I stand in the sudden quiet, the walls seeming to close in, grounded only by the persistent scent of apple blossoms drifting through the open kitchen window... and beneath it, still, impossibly, hours later—her.
6
Luna
The sign for Apple Blossom Orchard appears at the end of a gravel lane, hand-painted with a cream background, green letters, and a small red apple in the corner.
Charming, if you ignore the fact that it is nailed to two weathered posts, one of them leaning hard.
Past it, the property opens.
Rows and rows of apple trees roll down a gentle slope toward a barn with peeling white trim. Beyond that, a long gravel yard holds a tractor, a stack of wooden crates, and a rusted trailer with one wheel sunk into the dirt.
So. Not exactly the serene picture Mom sold me on.
I slow near the barn. The cabins sit under the trees to the right, small and wooden and tucked in a loose row, but half of them have porch boards stacked outside and one has a blue tarp pulled over part of the roof.
I park beside a dented pickup with mud on the tires and sit there with both hands on the wheel. My phone sits face-down in the cup holder, blessedly quiet. It took a rest stop and a minor hand tremor to block Derek on every email, text thread, andsocial media platform I own, but the silence is worth the thumb cramp.
I look around. The place looks deserted, though with the car, there’s got to be someone around.
“Okay,” I whisper, grabbing my purse. I shut the car door carefully, and start toward the cottage.
“You lost?”
I stop so fast my purse swings into my hip.
“Ow. Hello.”
