Chapter 4
Chapter Four
Daisy
By nine in the morning on the third day, the guys from the ranch had spread themselves across the orchard again.
Thanks to the dozen pairs of hands, we’d finish today.
Ash moved between groups, keeping them organized.
Eldon started some kind of debate with Henry over whether apples were superior to peaches for cobbler.
Colt had kissed Ivy once before heading to his row, and Sage had watched that with the expression of someone charmed by new love.
Knox had said hello to everyone—except me.
He’d only tipped his hat in my direction when he got out of the truck, then turned and hefted two bushels of apples as if they weighed nothing. No teasing. No sly grin or lazy, deliberate eye contact that made a woman forget everything.
We had danced wide around each other since that night at the cottage.
Guess he got the message. All we could ever be was friends.
So why, every time I glimpsed him between the trees, did it feel like something inside me sagged a little?
Had I gotten so used to his unwanted attention, and now that I didn’t have it… ?
The morning wore on in the warm autumn sun. I drifted to the fence near the house for water, where we’d set up a drinking station with jugs and cups, apparently the same time he did.
“Apple-picking is thirsty work,” he said, and reached for a cup when I did. Our hands brushed. Not enough to mean anything. Barely enough to count. But heat jumped up my arm anyway.
He filled his cup and leaned a hip and an elbow against the rail, casually sipping. I knew better. There was a set to his mouth this morning, as if he was keeping himself on a shorter leash than usual, none of his typical teases.
I looked everywhere but at him. The trees. The sky. A basket of sandwiches Willow had left on the porch. Anywhere.
“Did you sleep at all last night?” he asked.
My grip tightened on the cup. “Some.”
“Is that a yes or a no?”
“A maybe,” I chuckled. “How about you?”
He gave half a shrug and a twitch of his lips. “Maybe.”
I should have said thank you again for the help. Or made some normal comment about the weather, or the apple bins filling up nicely, or the fact that Eldon was hatching a plan to make apple butter in industrial quantities.
Instead, I heard myself blurt, “You don’t have to keep your distance like I’m contagious.”
His head snapped to mine then, a little too knowing. “Giving a little space. Thought maybe you’d prefer it.”
I hated that he was trying to do something that would make all of this easier for me.
“Friends, right?” I replied.
“Yeah. I remember.”
“Which means keeping things exactly as they had always been between us. Doesn’t mean you have to keep away.”
His mouth twitched. “You saying you like having me around, sweetheart?”
Then Dusty’s truck came barreling up the road so fast it kicked gravel in a wide arc, and the moment with Knox evaporated.
Our friendly local vet climbed out in a hurry. “Daisy,” he called. “You got a minute?”
I set my cup down. “What happened?”
“Rancher named Chesson called me about a horse with an abscess. He’s just over the county line.
” Dusty scrubbed a hand over the back of his neck.
“I got a breach birth emergency to deal with today. I told him I’d grab the best farrier in three counties to help care for it.
But I heard in town you’re harvesting, so I hate to ask. Chesson’s wound tight about it—”
“You should go, Daisy. We’re fine here.” Knox gestured toward the trees.
“You need directions?” Dusty asked.
“I know the Chessons. Hey, Sage,” I yelled, running toward my rig, “you’re in charge until I get back.”
I risked one glance at Knox when I launched into my rig. He straightened from the fence, watching me go in that intense way of his again. One dark eyebrow rose beneath the brim of his hat as though he knew perfectly well he couldn’t stay away from me long.
“Good luck,” he shouted.
I waved back.
About an hour later, I pulled up to the Chesson’s barn, parking at the side. Their property was nice, big log home, a decent-sized cattle operation. I climbed out and reached for my tools. I rounded the building to enter the front, and stopped short.
A black SUV sat there, shiny and out of place against the mud and gravel of a working ranch yard. Montana plates, but the kind of clean that said this vehicle spent more time in a larger town or city than it did on a ranch.
Macy Chesson came out of the barn to greet me. She’d gone to school with Poppy, but had elected to work the ranch with her father instead of attending college. “Much appreciated that you dropped everything to be here, Daisy. I’ll show you to the horse. Pretty bad abscess.”
“Not a problem. Let’s get to work.”
I moved with her toward the barn when the door slid open and Mr. Chesson stepped out with visitors. I froze at coming face to face with the Congressman and Trevor Brewster.
“Well, Daisy Wylde. How good it is to see you.” Trevor greeted me.
The hairs on the back of my neck stood at attention, ready to take flight if necessary.
He wore a suit the way men with money did: slim and slickly tailored. His dad’s money benefited him. Good coat, hair neat, a smile with perfect teeth that flashed when it was supposed to and stayed as long as it was useful.
Why did a vision of Knox, the rough military-vet-turned-cowboy with kind eyes, broad shoulders and muscles, wild hair, and tattoos drift through my head in comparison?
I dismissed Trevor,, and kept moving.
The Congressman, silver-haired and broad-shouldered, held the particular polish of a man who’d been shaking hands for thirty years and had never once lost his grip. He nodded at me pleasantly while closing the conversation with Mr. Chesson off to the side.
Trevor stepped forward before I could get further, filling the space between us in a way that required me to either stop walking or I’d run smack into him.
“Haven’t seen you in some time,” he stated.
“I’m busy.”
“You always were.” He said it like knowing that about me was a thing he was entitled to. “I should stop by. Catch up. See how the orchard is doing.”
“Please don’t. Like I said, I’ve been very busy,” I clipped.
“Hope I can count on your vote in the election.” Nothing about his voice was threatening, or his posture imposing.
At least not in front of his father or the rancher.
He was perfectly pleasant in the way a man was superficially so—when he wants you to feel like you’re the only constituent who mattered.
Underneath all of that, I knew the real Trevor Brewster.
“Excuse me, I have a horse to see to.” I shuffled around him, but his next words stopped me.
“I’ve been thinking about Forest Grove a lot lately.
When I win the election, I’ll be around town regularly.
Permanent presence. You understand what that means.
The county sheriff has eyes everywhere, Daisy.
Every property and person.” He let that land.
“In fact, I’d consider it a personal mission to keep a close watch on you and your sisters.
Make sure nothing happened to your pretty orchard, given everything you’ve all been through. ”
“We manage just fine,” I gritted out, trying to not let him get to me. “We always have.”
“Trevor.” The Congressman’s voice came in sharp and low behind him, the particular tone of a man who’d been managing his son in public for years and had perfected the art of making it sound casual. “We need to leave. Now.“
“I’ll be in touch real soon. You can count on it.” Trevor’s smile held for exactly one beat longer than it should have, then he stepped back and shuffled around his dad.
The Congressman’s eyes met mine for a split second. An acknowledgment passed between us. Two people who knew the shape of an old arrangement, checking that it still had legs to stand on.
I held his gaze until he looked away first, and then I forced my feet to move, the boots clicking into the barn at a perfectly even pace while my pulse was anything but.
For the better part of two hours, working on Chesson’s abscessed horse and a few others while I was there kept me sane and away from reading into every word from Trevor’s mouth. Every chance I could, I kept looking over my shoulder as though he might still be standing there.
By the time I loaded my equipment back into the rig, I was a mess.
I hit the road and turned up the radio. I'd taken the back roads, not the main route, and didn't analyze the choice.
It was just what my hands did when a certain kind of unease got into my body, old wiring from years ago, still live.
It didn’t stop a memory from moving through my mind, uninvited, the way it always did when Trevor Brewster was involved. One of many unpleasant memories from years ago…
Ivy and I had been standing in line at the county fair, waiting to buy a lemonade when Seth Brewster appeared behind us, tanned and easy-smiling, two years ahead of me in school and already the kind of entitled guy who thought the world owed him.
Trevor had come and stood beside him, quieter, watching me with those odd eyes of his, while his brother turned the full force of his charm and attention on my sister.
I never really cared for the brothers, and had very little interaction with them at school if I could help it. When another friend of mine happened by, I’d thought nothing of leaving Ivy with the Brewster boys for ten minutes while we went on the tilt-a-whirl. What was ten minutes?
From that day on, Ivy and Seth had become almost inseparable, a fact she and Dad argued over often.
After our parents’ accident and everything fell apart, she’d left, and took off with him, leaving me with our two sisters to look after, an orchard to run, and a grief I didn’t have time to properly heal from.
Only later did I learn how he’d mistreated her, and all the horrible things she’d witnessed because of him.