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It does.

This would be Eileen’s first harvest since selling Bramblewood. How would returning feel for her, when the trees were still the same but the orchard belonged to somebody else now?

He adjusted the ladder on his shoulder and started across toward Bramblewood. Before he reached the packing shed, his bear lifted his head. She’s outside.

Wes felt Kate nearby a moment later. The morning is better already.

He found the Harlands beside Eileen’s car. Alan was unloading baskets from the trunk while Janice talked with Eileen, Penny had claimed the smallest basket and was holding it against her legs with both hands, and Kate stood beside her with a mug of coffee.

Kate looked up when Wes approached and smiled. “Morning.”

“Morning.” He smiled back, and his bear’s mood improved considerably.

Eileen turned toward him. Her gray hair was shorter than Wes remembered, and she wore a dark red jacket against the chill. “There you are. Alan said he’d called you. I could have managed with the ladder in the shed, you know. I always did before.”

“I thought the taller one made sense,” Alan said as he closed the trunk. “No point making things harder than they need to be.”

“It’ll be easier with this one.” Wes lowered the ladder beside the baskets. “We can reach the taller branches without anybody stretching farther than they should.”

Eileen considered it, then nodded. “All right. We’ll use this one.”

Janice offered her coffee before they went out, but Eileen shook her head and looked toward the older rows. “Afterward, if you don’t mind. I’d like to get out there first.”

Eileen had worked through harvest here for decades. She had probably walked out of the farmhouse on plenty of mornings with coffee still in her hand because the fruit or the weather could not wait. Wes understood why she wanted to get moving now. She was standing beside a car while somebody else lived in the house she had shared with her husband for most of her adult life.

Penny lifted her basket. “I’m ready.”

Eileen smiled down at her. “Are you coming too?”

“Grandpa has been teaching me all about apples,” Penny said.

“That’s good. You can never start too young. Wes was helping with apples before he was tall enough to reach the lowest branches.”

“My dad used to put me on his shoulders so I could pick them,” Wes said.

“You must have loved growing up here,” Kate said.

“I did. The orchards around here were pretty much my backyard.”

“He and his friends used to run wild through them,” Eileen said. “I remember when none of you could reach half these branches.” She looked at Wes for a moment. “I don’t know where the years went.”

“Neither do I.”

Kate finished her coffee and set the mug on the ledge outside the packing shed when Eileen suggested they get moving. Wes picked up the ladder, and the group started toward the older part of the orchard, Penny walking beside Eileen with her basket held carefully in front of her while Alan carried two larger baskets and the old picking bag he had brought from the shed.

After a few moments, Janice looked across the rows. “I don’t think I’ve been out to this tree since you showed us the orchard.”

“It’s a little way beyond the north rows. We never planted much around it.” Eileen kept walking. “My husband said it needed room.”

“Was it already here when you bought the place?” Kate asked.

“No. He planted it.” Eileen was quiet for a couple of steps. “We hadn’t been here long. There was more work than money in those days, and we were still trying to decide what we were doing half the time. He wanted that particular variety. I told him there were easier trees to grow.”

“Did he listen?” Janice asked.

“No.” She didn’t sound irritated. She sounded fond. “He was right about the apples, though. They’re sharp, but they make a good pie.”

They walked a little farther before Kate slowed enough to fall into step beside Wes. “Did you sleep okay?” she asked.