Brooks
Mornings in Orchard Falls are nothing short of magical. They roll in slowly and quietly.
No music. No chatter. Just cold air and the soft creak of wood as I push open the doors to Calder Cider before the sun has fully crested the mountains. The building smells like apples and oak and fresh ambition—sharp and clean, nothing softened by time yet.
I like it this way.
Before tourists. Before opinions. Before the town wakes up and remembers we’re new.
The barrels line the wall in neat rows, pale wood still unscarred, waiting to earn their stains and stories. I run my hand along one as I pass, the grain smooth beneath my palm. We chose every barrel ourselves. Argued over half of them. Lost sleep over all of them.
While it might have been bought with our inheritance, nothing here is inherited.
Everything here was decided.
Outside, the orchard stretches like highways in orderly rows, leaves just beginning to turn at the edges. The apples aren’t ready yet—not quite—but they’re close. Everything is close this time of year. Victory. Failure. Belonging.
I step out onto the gravel drive, breath fogging in front of me, and that’s when I see it.
The sign in the distance.
Hartley & Sons Orchard.
It sits a couple miles down the road. A strip of land stretches between our orchards, a little no man’s land that has an easement that our lawyers have been back and forth with the Hartley’s lawyers regarding.
The land is barely visible from here, but I know exactly where it is.
I always have. Even before we moved back.
Even before Calder Cider was more than an idea scribbled on a napkin and argued over at a kitchen table that doesn’t exist anymore.
My parents used to bring us to Orchard Falls every autumn for years.
We’d pile into the car with thermoses of coffee and plans that never quite stuck, because once we’d hit Orchard Falls, everything slowed down. Apples. Cider. Pie. My mom laughing when my dad pretended he knew how fermentation worked.
Back then, Hartley & Sons was the orchard where we went to pick apples and have homemade donuts and hot cider out of a wood shed. Orchard Falls was where autumn felt real.
I didn’t know Hartley & Sons would become my competition.
I didn’t know this town would feel like a memory before it ever felt like home.
And I certainly didn’t know Willa would hate me as much as she did for simply following my dreams.
I touch my fingers to the bridge of my nose where there’s just the slightest bump and curve from when it broke when I was a kid and smile.
The wind kicks up, carrying the faint scent of apples and leaves, and I square my shoulders, shaking off the ghost of a memory.
Ever since breaking my nose years ago, I barely have any sense of smell left. Damn deviated septum.
Calder Cider isn’t about nostalgia. This is now about survival. And whether our orchard earns its place here—or proves we never should’ve come back at all. Proves if my brothers and I can’t get our heads out of our asses long enough to stick to one single mission statement.
The crunch of tires on gravel pulls me out of my head but I don’t turn right away. I already know who it is.
Evan steps out of the truck with a coffee in one hand and an iPad in the other, jacket zipped to his throat like the air personally offended him. He’s been up longer than I have—always is. Numbers don’t sleep, and neither does my oldest brother.
“You’re early,” he says, scanning the barrels before he even looks at me.
“Or you’re late,” I counter.
He snorts because we both know he’s never late to anything. He sets the coffee on a barrel and finally meets my gaze. “We need to talk.”
Of course we do. There’s always something to talk about.
He flips the iPad open, thumb already smudging the corner. “The competition list is out. We’re up against more entries than last year. And Hartley & Sons is favored.”
I don’t react. Not outwardly.
“That’s not surprising, they always are,” I say.
“That’s the point,” Evan replies. “We’re still the new guys. One bad showing and we’re a novelty.”
“A novelty that sells out every weekend,” I remind him.
“Until it doesn’t,” he says quietly. “Exposure cuts both ways.”
“Always the defeatist,” I mutter.
“Plus,” he continues, ignoring me, “there’s lots of other entries of cider from microbreweries around the area. This region is rife with microbreweries,” he adds with a sneer, as if we, ourselves, aren’t exactly like those other guys.
I exhale through my nose. “You’re worrying too much.”
“And you’re not worrying enough,” he shoots back.
Before I can respond, another set of footsteps announces itself—faster, less careful.
Jace barrels toward us grinning, hoodie half-zipped, energy already too big for the morning. “Well, if it isn’t one half of Orchard Falls’s newest power couple.”
I glare at him, not even sure what his joke means yet... but with Jace, it most certainly has to do with a woman. “Whatever you’re hinting at, don’t start.”
He laughs, unbothered. “Come on. You enjoyed pissing Willa Hartley off last night, admit it. I could tell.”
“I didn’t enjoy it. I don’t like pissing anyone off.”
“Uh-huh. You always did like a challenge,” he says, sing-song.
Something in my chest tightens. “This isn’t a game.”
Jace’s grin falters just enough to notice. Evan’s jaw sets. The air shifts—old tension, old memories, the kind we don’t name anymore.
Evan clears his throat. “We can’t afford distractions,” he says pointedly toward me.
“I know,” I say. What I don’t say is that the last time I thought I had everything under control, it nearly tore us apart.
And none of us are willing to survive that again.
Evan closes the cover to the iPad a little too hard, the sound echoing in the quiet morning. “I’m serious, Brooks,” he says. “We don’t have room for mistakes this time.”
This time.
“Well…” I say, “This time, I have more help from you two. So it shouldn’t be a problem.
” Unlike last time when they left the entire business in my hands.
I was drowning. I was drowning and begging them to help me.
Begging them to throw me a life preserver, but they just stood on the dock watching as our ship sank, then blamed me for it.
Jace shifts his weight, suddenly more interested in the gravel than the conversation. That alone tells me Evan’s about to cross a line we usually skirt.
“What exactly are you worried about?” I ask.
Evan exhales, scrubbing a hand over his face. “I’m worried that we’re pretending this is just another business risk. It’s not. Not with the clause hanging over us.”
Jace groans softly. “Jesus, Evan—”
“No,” Evan cuts in, sharp. “We’re not doing that thing where we pretend it doesn’t exist.”
I feel it settle in my chest, heavy and familiar.
The clause.
Our mom and dad’s last attempt at parenting from beyond the grave.
“All three of us,” Evan continues. “Together. Agreement on all major decisions. No splitting the money. No solo investments. If we fracture—”
“We lose it all,” Jace mutters.
Silence stretches.
“That’s not going to happen,” I say, even as something tightens in my throat.
Evan meets my gaze. “It almost did.”
Jace looks up then, jaw tense. “That was different.”
“Was it?” Evan asks. “Because I remember lawyers. And sleepless nights. And thinking we’d lose more than money.”
I do too.
“We also all apologized,” Jace says sheepishly. “And we all meant it, right? We love each other. And we’re not going to let that happen again.”
I remember standing in a parking lot at two in the morning, my phone pressed to my ear while Jace yelled and Evan went quiet in that terrifying way he does when he’s done fighting. I remember thinking I’d finally pushed us past the point of fixing.
“Jace is right. This is why we came here,” I say finally. “Because this mattered to them. Because it mattered… matters… to us. Because Orchard Falls was—is—”
“Home,” Jace finishes quietly.
Evan nods, tension easing just a fraction. “Which is why we can’t screw this up. Winning matters. Staying aligned matters more.”
I look past them, toward the road that leads straight to Hartley & Sons. “I know,” I say.
What I don’t say is that Willa Hartley already feels like a fault line—and I’m standing right on it. If we’re not careful, one wrong step could crack everything wide open.
Evan checks his watch. “So. About the pie thing.”
Jace perks up at the mention of the contest.
“I didn’t say yes, yet,” I say flatly.
“You didn’t exactly say no either,” Jace offers, his grin widening.
But the truth sits heavy between us: being chosen wasn’t an accident.
Orchard Falls doesn’t do coincidences—especially not when a committee’s involved. The town wants a show. New blood versus old roots. Calder Cider standing shoulder to shoulder with Hartley & Sons like it’s already earned the right.
“You can’t say no,” Evan scolds me. “It’s good for us, good for our relationship with the town if we volunteer more. Maybe it will tip the odds in our favor.”
Judging with Willa Hartley puts me on display. It invites scrutiny I don’t need. It drags things I’d rather keep private straight into the center of town where everyone gets a say.
And it stirs something else.
Something I don’t have a name for yet.
But I know my brother’s not wrong. We need to integrate ourselves more into town affairs.
“She’s not going to make this easy,” Jace says, almost fond.
“I wouldn’t respect her if she did,” I answer.
Evan studies me. “You’re curious.”
I don’t deny it, because I am curious. Curious about how she thinks. About how she runs her tasting room. Curious about the way she stands her ground like she’s protecting more than a business.
“Don’t worry. I’m not backing out,” I say finally.
Jace exhales. Evan nods once, sharp and relieved.
“I came back here to win,” I continue, voice steady.
“For us. For what this place means. For what we almost lost.” Winning best cider overall would be a huge boon.
But winning the People’s Choice? Being beloved by everyone in attendance rather than a panel of stuffy judges?
That’s the real win of the whole contest.
I glance toward the road that leads to Hartley & Sons, to Willa Hartley and everything she represents. “But I’m not going to sabotage her to do it.”
Jace’s brow furrows. “No one’s asking you to do that.”
Evan clears his throat, unnervingly quiet. “Maybe not. But what will you do if she stands in your way?”
I meet his gaze, unflinching. “I beat her fair.”
I didn’t come back to Orchard Falls to lose. But I didn’t come back to ruin anyone else with my success, either.
And somehow, that feels like the most dangerous line I’ve ever drawn.
After Evan and Jace head inside, I stay where I am.
The morning has warmed just enough to take the bite out of the air. Somewhere down the road, the town is waking up—doors unlocking, lights flicking on, fall settling into place like it always does.
I look toward the bend where Hartley & Sons sits, tucked into the land like it’s always belonged there.
My parents loved that place. Loved what it stood for. Simplicity. Craft. Family. They brought us here because it made them happy, because it felt like something solid in a world that rarely stayed that way.
I wonder what they’d think now.
Of me building something new on familiar ground. Of me competing with the very legacy that our family shared year after year. Of Willa Hartley—sharp and stubborn and standing exactly where my memories live.
This town taught me how cider should taste.
It also taught me what family looks like.
I’m just not sure yet which one is going to cost me more.