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Alan studied her for another moment. He could be irritatingly perceptive when he wanted to be, but he did not ask where she intended to walk or whether the neighbor had anything to do with her sudden need for fresh air. Instead he nodded toward the hooks beside the back door. “Take your heavier jacket. It’s cooled down.”

That sounded so much like her mother that Kate laughed.

“What?”

“Nothing.” She crossed to the hooks and took down her jacket. “I’ll be back before it gets properly dark.”

Penny looked up from the orange leaf she was covering with purple circles. “Can I come?”

Before Kate could answer, Alan slid another sheet of paper toward her. “I thought we were making an orchard picture.”

Penny considered the unfinished drawing. “We are.”

“And I still don’t know how to draw an apple tree.”

“You do.” Penny sounded exasperated by the suggestion that he might not. “You draw a tree and then put apples on it.”

Alan looked at Kate. “Apparently I need supervision.”

“You’re in safe hands.” Kate bent to kiss Penny on the top of her head. “Have fun. I won’t be long.”

Outside, the light had already begun to change. The clear gold of the afternoon had faded, leaving the orchard in the softer light that came before dusk. A few leaves skittered along the track as Kate walked away from the farmhouse, and the air had the cool edge her father had warned her about. She put her hands into her jacket pockets.

She was going for a walk. That was all. There was no reason a walk had to take her toward the boundary between her parents’ orchard and Wes’s.

Except that every time she thought about turning toward the older trees on the other side of Bramblewood, she kept remembering the night before. The dark interior of Wes’s truck. The moment when she had been certain he was going to kiss her. And the disappointment when he had not.

Then there had been this morning, when seeing him again had only made the question harder to ignore. He had wanted to kiss her. She was sure of that much. So why hadn’t he? Had he been waiting for some sign from her? Kate pushed her hands deeper into her pockets. She had spent far too much of the afternoon thinking about it.

The boundary came into view ahead of her. She slowed. The first time she had crossed into Wes’s orchard, she had wanted to understand harvest. She had arrived with questions about her parents, their orchard and everything they were taking on.

Today she had nothing. No question. No broken tractor. No festival problem. No reason to need Wes at all.

Beyond the gap, the track continued between his trees. Kate stood there for another moment. What was she going to say if he asked why she had come? That she had washed the same plate three times? Maybe she would just tell him the truth. Then she crossed.

His orchard was quieter than it had been earlier. The bins and trailers were still there, but most of the voices had gone, and no tractor engines broke the stillness between the rows. She found Wes near the packing barn, pulling the doors closed.

He looked tired. Not exhausted, but the day showed in the slower movement of his shoulders and the dirt on his jeans. His shirt sleeves were pushed up, and his hair looked as if he had run his hands through it more than once.

Kate stopped before he noticed her. It felt unexpectedly intimate, seeing him at the end of the day, when the people who needed answers had gone and he was no longer moving from one job to the next.

Then he turned. Whatever tiredness had been in his face changed when he saw her.

“Hey.”

“Hi.”

He let go of the door and came toward her. “Everything okay?”

“Yes.” Kate smiled. Of course that was the first thing he asked. Until now, there had always been some practical reason for them to see each other. “Everything’s fine.”

“Good.”

“I was taking a walk.”

His gaze moved briefly toward the track behind her before returning to her face. Kate could almost see him choosing not to point out that her walk had taken her through the boundary and halfway across his orchard.

“I thought I might see you,” she added.