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He watched her walk toward the farmhouse with Penny. Alan was returning from the lower rows, and Janice stood in the doorway waiting for them. The four of them disappeared inside together. Wes headed back across the orchard.

By the time he reached his packing barn, the first drops of rain had begun to spot the dust on the tractor hood. Not the storm. Barely even rain. Enough to make him pull out his phone. The newest forecast had moved the heavier weather forward again.

Wes stood beneath the barn roof and read it once. Then he called the crew supervisor. “Tomorrow,” he said when the man answered. “We start at first light. Bring the cider block forward, and I want every usable trailer ready before anyone goes into the rows.”

He ended the call and looked toward Bramblewood. Could they get enough in before the weather broke? Wes rolled his shoulders under his jacket. He had asked himself that question through plenty of harvests. This time, Kate would be there in the morning, ready to help.

Tomorrow had stopped being an ordinary harvest day.

CHAPTER 17

Kate

“Have you eaten breakfast?” Janice called through the open back door.

Alan was already beside the tractor, checking the hitch on the trailer for the second time. He looked over his shoulder toward the house and raised his voice. “I had toast. I’m not going to starve before we get across the orchard.”

“That wasn’t quite what I asked.”

Kate came down the porch steps carrying her coffee and smiled at the familiar note in her mother’s voice. Janice was not really asking about toast. She was asking whether Alan intended to spend the entire day working on one piece of bread and determination. Her father knew it too.

“I’ll take something with me,” he promised. “Wes is starting early, and if we’re going over there with the trailer, I’d rather get it to him while it’s still useful.”

Janice appeared in the doorway with a wrapped sandwich in one hand and held it out to him. “Then put this in your pocket and eat it before lunchtime. You’ve spent all week complaining that the lower block refuses to be ready. You finally have a harvest to enjoy, and I know perfectly well you’ll forget everything else.”

Alan took the sandwich and tucked it into his jacket. “I haven’t been complaining.”

Kate stopped beside him. “Dad, you’ve walked the lower block so many times this week I’m surprised the grass hasn’t worn away.”

“I’ve been checking the fruit.”

“You checked it after dinner last night.”

“And it still wasn’t ready.” Alan glanced toward the rows behind the farmhouse. “I know Wes is right. Eileen too. Picking early just because I’m impatient would be ridiculous. But after buying an orchard, I would quite like to get the main crop in before winter.”

Alan sounded so eager that Kate laughed without making fun of him. “You will.”

“I know.” Alan looked toward the boundary with Wes’s land, where machinery had been moving since first light. “In the meantime, Wes has apples coming off faster than he expected and we’ve got a tractor and trailer sitting here doing very little. He’s helped us enough since we arrived. Today we can be the useful neighbors.”

That was clearly important to him. Kate had understood for days that her father was grateful to Wes, but she had not realized until now how much Alan wanted the relationship to become more balanced. Wes had lent experience, time and equipment because Alan and Janice were new to this. Alan had accepted the help without pretending he did not need it, yet he was still a man who liked being able to offer something in return.

Janice came down the steps, carrying a second travel mug and Penny’s jacket. “I told your father the same thing last night,” she said to Kate. “The lower block may not be ready yet, but we have equipment and four perfectly usable hands.”

“Six,” Penny announced from behind her. She came out with Fox tucked beneath one arm and the corn-husk doll Eileen had given her under the other.

Janice looked at her granddaughter. “I’m not sure your hands are going anywhere near a tractor.”

“They can do other things.”

“I’m sure they can.”

Penny considered this settled.

Alan smiled and reached for the travel mug Janice was carrying. “Are you coming over with us?” he asked her.

“Of course I am,” Janice said. “Wes has walked over here every time we needed something. It’s about time some of us walked the other way.”

Kate looked at her mother. “That sounded almost competitive.”