Apple Orchard Bride. Jessica Keller
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jeans were now dark-wash ones that accentuated the curve of her hips and the narrowing of her waist, and the Crest Orchard T-shirt she wore hugged her torso. Jenna had grown up to become a beautiful woman.
She leaned her head forward and arched her eyebrow. “You have nothing to say? Absolutely nothing?”
Right. He should have said something, but his mouth had gone dry. What was she asking if he had anything to say about? Was she referring to her threat to get her father to fire him, or was she trying to get him to talk about something...deeper? Knowing Jenna, it was the second.
He swallowed hard. “I’m sorry. For whatever it is I did to upset you, I’m sorry.”
“For whatever it is I did.” She mimicked his voice. “Nice, Toby. Real nice. I should have known you’d never own up to anything.”
“I’d be happy to own up to it if I knew what you were talking about.”
“So what happened? Huh?” She cocked her head to the side. “You finally messed up your life so badly down there in Florida that you had to come crawling back here to our podunk farm and beg for a job. Life is funny, isn’t it?” She lifted her hands, palms up, to indicate him. “Here you are...stuck in a place you openly scorned.”
Confusion tied his gut in a knot. “Jenna...”
“I suppose even a place and people you consider beneath you is better than jail though, right?”
Excellent. So she knew about his drunk-driving arrests, too. He had a huge hill to climb in order to convince people in Goose Harbor that he wasn’t that Toby anymore. “They don’t actually keep you in jail. You get out on bond,” he mumbled.
“You don’t remember, do you?” She laughed once, but the sound held no humor. “I guess something like spreading rumors about the poor, backward folk who lived across the street from you is an understandable slip of the mind. The great Toby Holcomb leaves a big wake and never looks back.”
At least she wasn’t focusing on his arrests. But...what was she talking about? “I’ve never said—”
“Don’t try to deny it. I heard you. More than once, I overheard you telling people about the orchard.” Jenna worked her tiny jaw back and forth. She cupped her hand over her forehead and released a long sigh. “None of that matters now. That was a long time ago. You’ve moved on. I’ve moved on. So...let’s keep with that notion and move you out of here.” She turned away and started for the farmhouse again.
Toby kept pace with her but didn’t say anything. What could he say? Nothing. Sometimes silence was the best option. He’d use the next few weeks to unravel the reasons Jenna was so upset with him, and then he’d spend the weeks after that making up for his wrongs, no matter if they were real or only perceived.
He couldn’t accept the fact that she might not forgive him or that things couldn’t go back to how they were before. They had to. He wanted to make her laugh again and suddenly longed to find their old haunts and set out on new adventures together. Dream about their futures, as they’d done before. Here at the orchard, they were somehow sheltered from the real world and the issues in their lives from the past years. He was able to breathe deeply here, and he felt more like himself than he’d felt...since he left. And Jenna was a part of that, wasn’t she? Even with ten years of distance between them, she knew him better than anyone else alive.
He’d make things right between them. He had to. Because as he walked beside her through the orchard again—even with the two of them at odds—his heart had never felt more at home. Perhaps that’s why his relationships in Florida had never worked, had never felt right.
His heart had been stuck in Goose Harbor all along.
Jenna felt like she was going to throw up.
Why wouldn’t Toby go away? Just. Go. Away.
A charge buzzed over her skin as if she were still touching the electric fence. He was invading her safe place. Her escape. Her mind instantly flew to a darker place. To a date in college with a very different man, who had invaded not only her space but her body, taking her innocence and destroying her faith in other people in one night.
She’d survived the past eight years since then by carefully constructing a life that kept her safe and protected at all times. Only interacting with other people on her terms—like at church or the farmers’ market or at the Bible study she attended—and then spending the rest of her time locked away. Alone. Safe.
The only man she really trusted was her father. He was the only one she was okay with being near. Toby living on her dad’s property messed up her protected space. She couldn’t feel secure here if she had to worry about running into him all the time. Not that Toby would harm her physically—she didn’t believe that of her old friend for one second—but the feeling of invasion made her gasp for air all the same.
A line of sweat slipped down her spine. They were in for another hot day.
Her father didn’t know, would never know, about the assaults that happened to her during college. He wouldn’t be able to comprehend why Jenna was so vehemently opposed to Toby living in the bunkhouse. The only way to get Dad to agree would be to tell him about the horrible things she’d overheard Toby say about his beloved orchard all those years ago and hope it fired Dad up enough to tell Toby to take a hike. Although... Dad could be frustratingly full of grace and forgiveness. It was a trait she had admired and loved about him until this very moment.
When she rounded the edge of the last row of trees, her two-story white farmhouse came into view. Although, instead of the normal, peaceful feelings that the sight of her family home usually brought, she zeroed in on all that was wrong with it. The house hadn’t been painted in years, probably because Dad had been declining for longer than anyone—even he—realized. Huge chunks of white were missing from sections of the lower portion of the house, and both sets of stairs and the front and side overhangs drooped. The gray-green roof had seen better days. The state of the house resembled Toby’s high school statements about the Crests being podunk and backward.
“I want to stay.” Toby’s voice broke through her thoughts. “I want to help here.”
“We don’t need you.” She sped up her stride, making it to the back steps a moment later. She yanked open the screen door, and it shuttered on its ancient frame. “Dad!” she called. “We need to talk.”
A bowl of oatmeal sat untouched and cold at the kitchen table. She glanced at the digital numbers on the oven. Almost nine in the morning. She’d been out longer than she’d planned, but Dad should have finished eating by now.
Worry gnawing at the back of her mind, Jenna left the kitchen and made for the front of the house. Because it was built more than a hundred years ago, there was no such thing as an open floor plan in their farmhouse, just little divided areas.
“Dad!” Her voice grew louder. Why wasn’t he answering?
Jenna all but ran into the front sitting room and screamed when she saw her father lying, facedown, on the floor. Chunks of a broken mug were scattered near where one of his hands rested in a pool of coffee, but more concerning was the small puddle of red near where his forehead rested.
“Dad! No! No! No!” she yelled and fell to her knees beside him. She touched his shoulder. Still warm. Alive. Thank You, God.
“Toby!” she screamed. “Toby, help!” The infuriating man had followed her all over the orchard but hadn’t followed her into the farmhouse. He must have heard her call, though, because his echoing steps pounded into the house.
“Jenna?” His voice lifted in question.
“Front room!” She turned her attention back to her dad. “Daddy.” She tapped his shoulders again. “Please be okay. I need you to be okay.” She smoothed her hand over his back. Should she move him? Flip him over? She probably