Falling For My Orchard Enemy (Seasons of Second Chances #3)

1. The Apples Dont Care

Chapter one

The Apples Don't Care

Sloane

The apples do not care that I ran.

This is the thing nobody tells you about inheriting an orchard: the fruit keeps happening regardless of your circumstances.

Grief, bankruptcy, panic attacks in grocery store parking lots, fleeing town halfway through a cider tasting because someone unexpectedly showed up asking for you about the orchard with a folder full of paperwork and the calm confidence of a man about to ruin your life — none of it slows the Honeycrisps.

They keep growing.

Keep dropping.

Keep demanding to be hauled from the barn to the sorting station before five-thirty in the morning by a woman whose spine has developed strong opinions about every life choice she’s ever made.

October in Willowbrook smells like woodsmoke, cold mud, and apples. Mostly apples. My hands are so permanently apple-scented at this point that I’m basically a walking candle from an overpriced farmhouse boutique, which is either charming or deeply pathetic depending on your outlook.

I stopped caring about outlooks somewhere around fourteen months ago.

I also stopped attending town events after the cider tasting disaster three nights ago, where I made direct eye contact with the stranger people had apparently been trying to warn me about and then promptly escaped through the kitchen like a Victorian heroine avoiding tuberculosis and emotional honesty.

Margot texted me seventeen times afterward.

Gemma showed up at my house with wine and concern.

I ignored both of them and spent the last seventy-two hours pretending if I worked hard enough, reality might lose interest and wander off.

So far, reality remains committed.

I balance on top of the sorting table with a crate lifted over my head because the pulley system jammed again sometime around dawn and apparently I’ve decided gravity is more of a suggestion than a law.

“Terrific idea,” I mutter while stretching onto my toes. “Nothing says emotional stability like balancing seventy pounds of apples above your own skull.”

The crate catches awkwardly on the top shelf.

I shove harder.

The table wobbles beneath me.

Naturally.

Everything is fine.

The crate finally slides into place.

Unfortunately, my boot slides too.

The edge of the table disappears beneath me.

“Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me—”

I pitch backward.

Strong hands catch me around the waist before I hit the concrete.

For one suspended second, I’m horizontal in midair, staring straight into the face of the man from the cider tasting.

Tall. Broad shoulders. Dark curls shoved beneath a worn cap. Warm brown eyes widened in alarm.

The same composed stranger who’d appeared at the tasting carrying paperwork and asking questions about the orchard like he belonged there.

He smells like cedar, cold air, and motor oil.

I blink once.

Then survival instinct returns in full force.

“Put me down.”

His grip tightens automatically as my balance shifts again. “You’re welcome.”

“I was handling it.”

“You were falling.”

“Debatable.”

Very carefully, like he suspects I might bite him — correctly — he lowers me back onto my feet.

I immediately step away because proximity to strange men before sunrise feels like the beginning of either a murder documentary or an emotional complication, and I’m not interested in either.

The man takes one measured step back too, hands lifted slightly in surrender.

“Sorry,” he says. “Didn’t mean to startle you.”

“You caught me in my barn before I’ve even had breakfast. Startled is actually the best-case outcome here.”

A flicker of amusement touches his mouth.

Up close, he looks genuinely worked-in. Torn jacket sleeve. Scuffed boots. Callused hands. Not one of the city tourists who come through every autumn wearing decorative flannel and asking where we keep the ‘rustic photo spots.’

He carries the same manila folder from the tasting tucked beneath one arm.

Which immediately ruins whatever points he earned by preventing my concussion.

“Help you?” I ask flatly.

“Sloane Mackenzie?”

“You already know who I am. You announced it to half the town.”

His expression shifts slightly at that. Not guilt exactly. Awareness.

“I was trying to find you.”

“Well, congratulations. Here I am. Briefly. Before I ask you to leave.”

“I’m Beckett Calloway,” he says. “Jamie’s friend. From college.”

I stare at him.

He stares back calmly, which somehow annoys me more than nervousness would have.

“Jamie never mentioned you.”

Something shadows his face — quick and real.

“We lost touch for a while,” he says. “A couple years before he died, he reached out again.” His voice lowers slightly. Softer now. “He asked me to come here if anything ever happened to him.”

“He asked you to come to my orchard.”

“He asked me to come to the orchard he co-owns with you.” He lifts the folder slightly. “There are documents. Can we talk?”

“We are talking somewhere,” I reply. “It’s called a barn. Willowbrook’s famous for them.”

Another small smile.

“Fair enough.”

He hands me the folder.

I take it because refusing would feel childish, and I prefer to reserve childishness for situations that truly deserve it.

Partnership agreement.

Dated eighteen months before the accident.

Jamie’s signature sits at the bottom in unmistakable crooked confidence.

The agreement grants Beckett Calloway forty percent ownership of Mackenzie Orchard in exchange for capital investment and operational partnership.

I read it twice.

Then a third time, because occasionally my brain requires a brief buffering period before unleashing my personality at full force.

“You’re telling me,” I say carefully, “that my husband secretly promised forty percent of our orchard to a man I have never heard of during our eight-year marriage.”

“I wasn’t a stranger to him,” Beck says evenly. “I was his best friend.”

“Interesting. His best friend somehow missed every holiday, birthday, and financial crisis conversation we ever had.”

I hand the papers back.

“Get off my property.”

“I understand why you’re angry.”

“You understand absolutely nothing about why I’m angry.” I grab another crate. “You walked into a room three nights ago and blew up the only stable thing I had left.”

His jaw tightens slightly.

“I didn’t come here to hurt you.”

“Fantastic. Love accidental devastation. Very comforting.”

He doesn’t react to the sarcasm. Which is irritatingly mature of him.

Instead, he looks out across the orchard through the open barn doors with an expression I can’t immediately identify. Not greed. Not calculation.

Recognition.

Like some part of him already belongs here.

“I know this is a lot,” he says. “But the documents are real. The notary’s real. And if you let me stay, I think I can help save this place.”

“I don’t need saving,” I snap. “I need people to stop assuming I do.”

“The foreclosure notice in your back pocket suggests otherwise.”

I go completely still.

The folded edge of the bank letter peeks from my jeans pocket. I hadn’t realized it was visible.

Apparently I was wrong.

Apparently Beckett Calloway notices things.

Which is deeply unfortunate.

The barn falls silent except for wind rattling through the open doors and one of the barn cats screaming at unseen enemies near the equipment shed.

“Six weeks,” I say finally.

His attention sharpens.

“You have six weeks to prove this agreement is legitimate and that you’re useful for something besides catching falling women and carrying folders. You work the harvest. You pull your weight. More than your weight. And if any part of this turns out to be fraudulent—”

“It isn’t.”

“I own shovels,” I continue calmly, “and I know where the ground stays soft.”

Something changes in his expression then.

Not fear.

Not amusement.

Just steadiness. Quiet and rooted, like an old tree that’s survived enough storms to stop worrying about weather.

“Deal,” he says.

I turn back to the crates because work is the only language I still speak fluently when everything else feels impossible.

Behind me, Beck steps aside just as Captain — Gemma’s golden retriever and local traitor — barrels into the barn and immediately throws himself onto his back at Beck’s feet with all the loyalty of a dog who has never once had a coherent survival instinct.

“Unbelievable,” I mutter.

Captain’s tail slams happily against the concrete.

Beck laughs softly and crouches to scratch the dog’s stomach. “Morning to you too, buddy.”

His voice carries the same warmth as his smile, and suddenly I decide I need more sleep and significantly less of this entire situation before I can process any of it rationally.

Six weeks.

Three nights ago, I ran before this man could explain himself.

Now he’s standing in my barn holding legal documents and catching me before I hit the floor.

Which feels, frankly, like the universe developing a sense of humor at my expense.

I’ve held this orchard together for two years using stubbornness, adrenaline, and repairs that would make licensed professionals physically ill.

I can survive six weeks with one unexpected business partner who has good shoulders and an infuriating tendency to notice things I’d rather keep hidden.

Probably.

I lift the next crate.

Haul, stack, sort.

My hands stay steady.

The rest of me is trying.