Chapter 3
By one fifteen, I have learned three things about Grant Ashford.
First, he carries cash now because my aunt publicly humiliated him into financial preparedness.
Second, he can eat a cider doughnut without getting cinnamon sugar on a charcoal sweater, which is a level of control I find morally suspicious.
Third, when he is looking at me, I know it.
This last discovery is the least useful because I am trying to inventory extension cords while Tessa leans against the market-office door and watches me fail to count past twelve.
“Thirteen,” she says.
“I know.”
“You said twelve twice.”
“I was confirming it.”
“With whom?”
I put another orange cord into the storage bin. “Do you need something?”
“Yes. I need you to admit that the billionaire is hot.”
“We have discussed this.”
“No, I discussed it. You made a face like a tax auditor examining a suspicious horse.”
“He’s objectively attractive. That is not actionable information.”
“Everything is actionable information if you’re brave enough.”
I close the bin and write thirteen on the inventory sheet with unnecessary pressure. “That philosophy is why you once dated a man because he owned a motorcycle helmet.”
“The motorcycle appeared later.”
“Exactly.”
Tessa grins. “Still worth it.”
Outside, the orchard is deep into Saturday.
Car doors slam in the gravel lot. The kitchen exhaust carries hot sugar and frying oil across the market porch.
Somewhere near the pick-your-own entrance, a child is screaming with the pure joy or devastating grief that only a three-year-old and a Honeycrisp can produce.
I should be thinking about parking turnover, the two o’clock cider-press demonstration, and the Northspan crew scheduled to shoot around the picnic lawn at three.
I am thinking about gray eyes and the way Grant said Nora’s call without making it sound like a favor.
This is disgusting.
“You like him,” Tessa says.
“I have known him for five hours.”
“You disliked Landon within forty minutes.”
“That took four years to fully mature.”
Her expression changes at his name.
I look down at the inventory sheet.
“He asked if I still take oat milk,” I say.
“I know. I saw. I almost threw a fritter at his head.”
“You charge six dollars for those.”
“Some causes deserve funding.”
I laugh despite myself, then rub my thumb over the edge of the clipboard. “It’s stupid that it bothered me.”
“It bothered you because he remembered a version of you and expected her to still be waiting where he left her.”
Tessa has a filthy mouth, a deep fryer, and an occasional ability to say exactly the thing I do not want said aloud.
“I wasn’t waiting.”
“I know.”
“I came home.”
“Also true.”
I look at her.
She lifts both hands. “I did not say hiding.”
“Your eyebrows did.”
“Mae’s eyebrows have contaminated the family culture.”
Before I can answer, someone knocks on the open office door.
Landon stands there with his rolled site plan tucked under one arm.
Of course he does.
Tessa’s face becomes so polite that a stranger might mistake it for friendliness.
I know better.
“Nora,” he says. “Got a minute?”
“Forty seconds.”
“Generous.”
He smiles, and there it is again, that old expectation that I will meet him inside the joke because I always used to.
I do not.
His smile fades a fraction.
“The generator’s placed where you wanted it,” he says. “Cable run is barricaded. Jeremy signed off.”
“Good.”
“I also wanted to ask you something that isn’t about today.”
Tessa picks up a box of receipt rolls that does not need moving. “I suddenly have work to do three feet away.”
“Tess,” I say.
“Fine. Four feet.”
Landon exhales through a laugh. “Some things don’t change.”
“Some do,” Tessa says, and carries the box into the market.
He watches her go. “She still hates me.”
“She developed the hobby independently. What did you want?”
He shifts the site plan under his arm. For the first time all day, some of the polish drops out of him.
“I’ve got a winter run starting in November. Three corporate retreats, a museum gala, two product launches. Burlington, Boston, then Portland.”
I wait.
“I could use you.”
There it is.
Not I miss you.
Not I am sorry.
Not even I want you back.
I could use you.
The old phrase slides neatly between my ribs because I have heard it in hotel ballrooms, rental vans, our apartment kitchen, once while I was crying so hard I had to sit on the floor.
He sees my face and immediately understands too late.
“That came out wrong.”
“Did it?”
“Nora, I mean you’re good. Better than anybody I’ve hired since. You know that. We were good together. Professionally.”
“We were good because I built systems you kept treating like personality traits.”
His jaw tightens. “That’s not fair.”
“No?”
“I have a company now. A successful one.”
“I can see the logo from here.”
“I didn’t come over to fight.”
“Then stop bringing me the old argument in a new jacket.”
He looks at me for a long second. “You miss it.”
That lands because it is true.
Not him.
God, not him.
But the work. The big blank rooms before load-in. The floor plans. The call sheets. Turning an impossible number of moving pieces into one night people believed had simply happened beautifully.
I love the orchard. I love Bellweather. I love knowing which tree roots will turn a tent stake and which volunteer will disappear if assigned to parking after lunch.
I also miss building something with my name on it.
Landon sees that hesitation and mistakes it for an opening.
“Come do one event,” he says quietly. “No strings. See how it feels.”
I hate that part of me wants to say yes.
Not to him.
To the room in my head where I have been stacking ideas for two years and calling them impractical because practical things cannot hurt me as badly when they fail.
“Nora?”
Grant’s voice comes from behind Landon.
My entire nervous system behaves like an employee who has been caught browsing vacation rentals during work hours.
Grant is holding two radios and a folded traffic map. His sleeves are pushed up to his forearms now, which is frankly irresponsible in a workplace.
“Sorry,” he says. “I can come back.”
“No.” Too fast again. I clear my throat. “What’s up?”
His gaze moves from me to Landon, then back. He does not ask.
“Overflow is filling faster than Priya projected. There’s a line backing toward the south entrance. Ben says you have a hayfield lot you open on peak weekends, but he won’t do it without your call.”
Of course he won’t.
Because Ben understands authority and is therefore my favorite cousin until further notice.
“How many cars?”
“Priya counted thirty-two waiting, more on the road.”
I grab my radio. “Ben, open east overflow. Cones at the tractor crossing, one volunteer at each end. No pedestrians through the service cut. Route them back along the marked path.”
His voice crackles back. “Copy.”
I point at Grant. “Walk with me.”
He does.
Landon follows.
I turn. “I don’t need production for parking.”
“I can spare two crew.”
“I have volunteers.”
His mouth flattens. “Right.”
I soften it because competence does not require cruelty. “Thank you. I may need them later.”
He nods once.
Grant says nothing until we are outside and moving toward the drive.
Then, “Do you want me to ask what that was about?”
I look at him.
Most people ask the question first and pretend the wanting is politeness.
“Not yet.”
“All right.”
That is it.
No fishing. No strategic silence designed to make me fill it. He unfolds the traffic map as we walk.
“Priya thinks the campaign post drove some of this. Northspan tagged the orchard this morning and the engagement jumped.”
“How much did it jump?”
“Enough that I’m considering whether telling you would sound like bragging.”
“Grant.”
“The post has just over four hundred thousand views.”
I stop.
He stops too.
“Four hundred thousand people saw our parking lot?”
“Mostly a basket of apples and your barn.”
“That barn has never handled fame well.”
“I noticed.”
“Did anyone tell you that your company has the social reach of a medium-sized religion?”
“Cameron has used similar language in depositions.”
I start walking again. “No more same-day location pushes without warning me. Even if the content is already approved. I need to know when you’re pointing half the internet at a property with two hundred parking spaces.”
“Agreed.”
“You are allowed to say more than one word when I’m scolding you.”
“I was thinking.”
“Dangerous.”
“I should have asked what traffic assumptions were tied to the post schedule. I didn’t. That’s on me.”
I glance at him.
He means it.
My irritation dissolves before I can enjoy it.
“Fine,” I say. “Annoyingly responsible answer accepted.”
“Thank you.”
“Do not look pleased.”
“I’m trying not to.”
He is failing.
At the east lot, Ben has already rolled the gate open. We set cones, split two volunteers to the pedestrian route, and change the roadside sign before the backup reaches the main road.
Grant carries cones without being asked.
A billionaire in a four-hundred-dollar sweater is standing in a hayfield directing minivans toward overflow parking while an eight-year-old in a pumpkin hat points at him and says, very loudly, “That guy is on Mom’s phone.”
Grant looks at me.
I bite the inside of my cheek.
The boy’s mother turns scarlet. “Oh my God. I’m sorry.”
“It’s accurate,” Grant says.
I lose the battle and laugh.
By one forty, the traffic is moving again.
Ben takes over, and Grant and I walk back toward the market through the guest path instead of the service lane. Fallen leaves crunch under our boots, mostly green with a few early yellow ones mixed in. A family passes us carrying a picking bag so full the father’s arm is trembling.
“You do miss it,” Grant says.
I almost trip.
“Excuse me?”
“Whatever Landon was offering. You wanted it for a second.”
I stare at him. “You were eavesdropping.”
“I was approaching an open door at normal volume.”
“That’s rich-person eavesdropping.”
“Is there a different kind?”
“Poor people hide behind refrigerators.”
He smiles, but his eyes stay on me. “You don’t have to tell me.”
That makes me want to.
I hate him a little for that.