Page 63 of Fall is Brewing

The version I’m starting to think about too much.

She lifts her travel mug when she sees me waiting near the porch steps.

“Before you say anything,” she says, “I brought my own coffee today.”

I glance at the faded Hartley & Sons lettering on the side. “Scared of liking mine too much?”

“Scared of dependency.”

“On coffee?”

“On witchcraft.”

I smile despite myself. “Ready to work the orchard this afternoon?”

Her expression changes before she can stop it. Not dramatically. Just a flicker of interest under all that pride. “You trust me with your apples?”

“Trust is a strong word.”

“Ah, so you’re a coward.”

“More like…strategic operator,” I correct. “Besides, it’s not like I’m bringing you in to see any of our secret brew recipes.”

That earns me the smallest smile, the kind she tries to hide and fails at because her eyes give her away before the rest of her does. It shouldn't feel like winning. It does anyway.

The orchard still holds the heat of the day when we start down the first row, the grass dry now beneath our boots except in the low places where shade has protected the morning dew. Sunlight slants across the trees in thick golden bands, catching on red apples and turning the leaves translucent at their edges. The air smells like warm fruit, cut grass, and dust, with that faint yeasty sweetness from windfalls beginning to soften under the trees.

Willa walks beside me with her hands tucked into the pockets of her jacket, taking everything in with the same intensity she brought to the tasting room yesterday. She doesn’t just look at the trees. She studies them. The angle of a branch. The spread of fruit. The groundcover beneath. Her eyes move fast, intelligent and hungry, as if every detail is a sentence and she intends to read the whole damn book.

“You planted these too close,” she says finally.

I glance at her. “Good afternoon, Brooks. Your orchard is lovely. Thank you for this tour.”

“It is lovely,” she says, not missing a beat. “And the rows are too tight.”

“They’re high-density.”

“They’re going to shade each other if you let the canopy get away from you.”

“Well then, I won’t let the canopy get away from me.”

She looks at me then, sharp and amused. “That sounds dangerously close to arrogance.”

“I would say it was confidence.”

“Oh good. That’s much less irritating.”

I stop beside one of the Honeycrisp rows and reach up, turning an apple gently in my hand to check the underside. “Are you always this generous with professional feedback?”

“You haven’t paid for the nice version.”

“I paid in coffee.”

She shakes her Hartley & Sons to go mug. “Not today you didn’t.”

I laugh, and the sound catches me off guard. Out here, it feels different. Less contained than in the tasting room. The orchard opens around us—wind slipping through leaves, bees humming low near the late clover, the heavy sweetness of ripe apples pressing into the afternoon air.

Somewhere beyond the trees, Jace is arguing with the tractor again, his voice rising and falling with the kind of confidence only a man losing an argument with machinery can have.