Apple Orchard Bride. Jessica Keller
Extract
“This can’t be happening.” Jenna Crest jogged toward the line of dwarf trees she’d planted at her family orchard when she’d first moved back in with her father.
Young branches were stripped bare, and chunks of bark had been peeled off at least eleven of her sixteen new Braeburn trees. With damp dirt between her fingers, Jenna scrambled from tree to tree, desperately trying to determine if any of them could be saved. Even though she knew the answer right away, she still examined each one closer. All were ruined.
Much like her.
She stood, rested her hands on her hips and kicked at the ground. “All that work. For what? Nothing.”
These new trees had cost her countless hours of care, attention and even love. She’d researched and chosen the breed of trees, despite her father suggesting they plant Pristine trees along the edge of their property. She’d tested the soil’s pH and had dug sulfur into the row until it reached the correct level.
Whole days during the hottest portion of the past summer had been devoted to training the branches to grow correctly—tying them together to help the tree maintain the best shape for bearing the most fruit in years to come. She’d pruned and encouraged the branches and made special trips out at dusk just to recheck them before nightfall—even though going out at night caused panic to tickle up her spine. Jenna had battled the codling moths to keep her baby trees safe and had worried for weeks as she treated other plants in the orchard for apple scab, knowing that if the tiny trees caught the common disease, they’d be wiped out.
None of it mattered. Despite her best efforts, deer had come in the night and destroyed any chance the trees had of one day bearing fruit. She’d done everything right, yet still they were damaged beyond repair.
Story of her life.
Jenna swiped at the burning tears waiting to fall. Tears wouldn’t bring back the dying trees and couldn’t help her situation. They hardly ever did. She’d cried herself dry over the years, and the practice had never healed her. For that matter, neither had God. Wasn’t He supposed to care about His followers? If not her, then He should at least care about her father. Dad had been a God-fearing man his whole life. He’d raised her to know God and had loved his wife fiercely until the moment her soul slipped beyond life. Yet all of her father’s devotion to God had led to his being diagnosed with a debilitating condition. It didn’t make sense.
Honestly, not much did.
Fairness in this life was a fantasy.
Jenna sighed. Move. Stop thinking. It doesn’t do any good anyway.
She might not be able to untangle the ways of God, but she could determine the cause of the damaged trees. Stepping away from the row of Braeburns, she crossed over to the fence that enclosed the orchard. They referred to it as a deer fence because even though it looked simply like two thin lines of metal, they were charged. With the entire orchard being made up of dwarf trees that stood between only six and eight feet high, an electric fence was the only way to keep their harvest safe from being picked clean by pests. The deer must have found a weak spot.
Crouching toward the nearest patch of fence, Jenna angled her head, trying to listen for the telltale hum of electricity. Nothing. She reached to touch the line.
“You know better than to touch that.” A familiar, honey-smooth voice caused her muscles to jolt. Jenna lost her crouched position, her knees dropping into the longer grass.
Toby. It was Toby Holcomb’s voice.
That couldn’t be right though. Toby lived clear across the country, all the way in Florida. One of the best things about coming back to Goose Harbor this time around was knowing she’d never run into him again. Not after his parents moved out of town. He had zero reason to ever return to Michigan.
Still, her pulse picked up as a thousand shared childhood memories collided in her mind. The kid from across the street. The boy she’d built a tree house with. They used to run through the orchard at night, playing flashlight tag. A best friend who... But it couldn’t be him. He’d left town—left her—at eighteen and never looked back.
Jenna craned her neck and spotted him, less than fifteen feet away, closing the distance quickly. That was Toby, all right. Her heart pounded up into her throat. She swallowed hard and rubbed her palms against the thighs of her jeans. He couldn’t be here. She didn’t want him nearby.
That didn’t fit with her plan.
She squinted against the glare of the rising autumn sun. Even as a teenager, Toby had been handsome, an all-American boy with a heaping dose of superhero good looks thrown in for good measure. His hair was the same as before, a mix of brown and blond, the kind of color women paid a lot of money in salons to achieve. From the way his T-shirt pulled across his frame, the past ten years had given him tighter arm muscles and firmer shoulders. Despite the upper bulk on his frame, the rest of him—strong legs, athletic stride—was built for speed. A reminder that he’d played running back for a Division I school. He’d been a shoo-in to be drafted onto a professional football team until his career-ending injury during his final season in college. His eyes were a refreshing, crisp blue, like a cloudless fall day in the height of harvest time.
For the space of a heartbeat, as memories and lost hopes crashed around in her mind, words left her.
The first man to ever betray her. She should have learned her lesson. He should have been the first and last to hurt her. If only. She couldn’t change the past, but going forward, Toby wouldn’t get another opportunity to cause her pain. Never again.
Recovering from the shock of seeing him, she gulped in a fortifying breath and then leaned forward, toward the fence. “You, of all people, don’t get to tell me what I can and can’t do.” She tapped the wire with her pointer finger, and a shudder of power surged through her arm. That part of the fencing was very much alive.
Toby stopped less than three feet away from her. He smirked, crossed his arms and shook his head in a mocking way. “See? I’m guessing that hurt.”
The fuzzy feeling of electricity hummed around her elbow. “I’m fine.” She’d brushed the fence countless times in her life; the charge was far too weak to actually cause pain, and the feeling would be gone in a few minutes. She started to rise. Toby grabbed her arm to help her up, but she shrugged away from his touch. Dealing with him close-up hurt far more than any electrical zap could.
A part of her wanted to shove his chest and yell at him. You ruined my life! You were the catalyst that started it all! But telling him that would only give him power because it would reveal how much he’d once meant to her. She’d been in love with a fool. A fool who had never given her a second thought.
Jenna took a step back, creating more distance between them. “Why are you here?”
His lips tugged to an almost smile, but his lowered brows betrayed his confusion. “It’s good to see you, too.”
She copied his cross-armed stance. “Answer the question.”
He dropped his arms to his sides, tilting his palms up to reveal the smallest of shrugs. “It was time to come home.”
Home? As in...he was staying in Goose Harbor for good? No. Jenna didn’t want to—couldn’t—deal with running into him all the time. Not when he reminded her of past hopes, the time before the bad, and also why everything went wrong in her life to begin with. How could she heal when the man who inflicted the first puncture wound to her soul was nearby?
“Your parents don’t live here anymore.” So why are you here? The Holcombs had sold their home five years ago. Toby had no reason to be in Goose Harbor.
He nodded. “They love that retirement