Chapter 51
Luna
- Three days later
The clipboard is slick with apple juice.
I stand on the edge of the cottage deck, pencil tucked behind my ear, watching the yard. Three days ago, our equipment was a smoking wreck. Today, we have a cheerfully loud, chaotic, hand-cranked factory made of the community.
“One hundred and forty!” Reed yells from the grass.
He’s at the scratter, a wood-framed apple grinder Cal brought over, his backward cap white with dried pulp.
He heaves a basket of apples into the hopper, his shoulders working under a sleeveless tee.
“Maggie! We need more baskets at the screw press!”
“On it,” Maggie calls back, carrying a tray of clean glass bottles that she sets down at the filling table where Ash is working.
Over at the main pressing station, Bram is leaning his entire weight into the iron screw of the old man’s hand-crank press, his boots slipping in the mud as he drags the lever around.
The wood creaks as the press tightens against the crushed apples, groaning one slow notch at a time.
Beneath the slatted wooden basket, a thick, dark stream of juice pours over the lip, splashing into the collection tub.
Through the bond, the static has smoothed out. It’s a steady, working hum, with the underlying feelings being peace and hope.
“Luna!” Cal shouts from the sorting bins, his hat tipped back. “Delia says these Honeycrisps are too soft for the Gold. Do we dump ‘em in the masher or send ‘em to the pies?”
“Masher!” I call back, looking down at my spreadsheet. “We need the volume for the last batch. Send the drops to the kitchen!”
Delia nods, her clipboard held tight against her chest as she checks the next crate. She’s been policing the quality with rigor, and I’m happy to say she hasn’t rejected a single bin in five hours.
By four in the afternoon, my neck is stiff and my knuckles are stained a deep brown from handling the pomace. The festival doughnut woman bolts for the cold store, hollering that there’s one more basket back there and to hold the line. The yard laughs.
Twelve.
Ten.
I cap and I cap. Delia’s filling faster than she has all day, and her hands are shaking.
Eight. Five.
Nobody’s working anymore except the people who absolutely have to. Everybody else has just gathered. They’ve drifted up the line until there’s a loose ring of them around Delia and the bottling end, forty people gone quiet, watching the juice run into the glass.
Three.
Reed brings the last of the pomace up himself, cradling the last bundle of crushed apples in both arms, tips it into the press, and Bram leans on the handle. The screw bites, the gold runs, and Delia fills two more.
One.
The last bottle, identical to the hundred and fifty-nine we capped. Delia sets it under the spout, lets it fill to the neck, lifts it away. Ash takes it from her and caps it, one slow press of his thumb on the lever.
Click.
For one second the whole barnyard just looks at the gold-full bottle in Ash’s hand.
“A hundred and sixty!” Ash shouts after a beat, and Hal Brody throws both fists over his head and bellows.
The whole yard comes apart, forty people who’ve been holding their breath for three days letting it out at once, whooping, banging on crates and the sides of the presses and each other.
The Carhartt man is crying. Somebody starts a chant of the orchard’s name and it catches and rolls around the yard.
“That’s the order!” Reed shouts over it, holding the bottle up where Ash handed it off. “All thousand!”
Bram laughs, wet and startled, and hauls Reed into a hug that lifts him clean off his heels.
Then Hal Brody and three of the warehouse guys are there, getting their hands under Reed’s thighs and Bram’s waist. They heave them up onto their shoulders, whooping. Somebody else grabs Ash from behind, hoisting him up.
Then, the crowd moves in a wave toward the cottage deck, and the festival doughnut woman is jogging up the steps, her cheeks bright red.
She grabs my hands, laughing, and pulls me down into the yard.
And suddenly I’m being lifted too, sitting on Hal’s shoulder, my hands flying out to find Bram’s sleeve.
Ash laughs and dumps his cap onto my head, and we are all held up above the yard, forty people shouting our names.
Maggie’s already moving. She comes down the line splitting out a stack of waxy paper cups into every hand, and the Carhartt man follows with a jug of the day’s fresh-pressed, sweet and cloudy and not a full day old—not the Hollow Gold of course, but delicious apple juice.
“To the orchard,” Hal says, lifting his cup.
“To the orchard,” forty voices say back.
But Bram shakes his head, one arm slung around Reed’s neck. He lifts his own cup and turns slow, taking in the whole yard.
“We never would’ve done it without every single one of you,” he says. “I’ll spend the rest of my life not knowing how to give this back.”
The Carhartt man wipes his eyes. “Then don’t,” he says. “Just keep makin’ the cider, son.”
And we drink.
***
By eight, the string lights are on.
They stretch in long, glowing loops between the apple trees, throwing a warm, yellow haze over the lawn where we’ve set up three long tables. The air is cold enough that my breath plumes, but the three bonfire pits are roaring, sending heat and sparks up into the dark.
The tables are loaded with three kinds of potato salad, warm sourdough, roasted pork, and a mountain of apple pies.
Bram stands at the end of the center table, a bottle of local rye in his hand. He’s cleaned up, his hair damp from the shower, wearing a clean green flannel.
“To all of you,” he says, his voice carrying over the chatter.
The yard goes quiet, faces turning toward him in the firelight.
“My father always said that you don’t ask for help when you’re the owner, that the orchard is your responsibility alone.
He was wrong. I was wrong. Apple Blossom is still standing tonight because of this community. ”
He pops the cork.
“Bram Miller,” Maggie says, holding up a heavy glass tumbler. “Sit down and pour the whiskey. Nobody asked for a speech.”
Hal laughs, banging his hand on the table. Bram shakes his head, a small, rare smile breaking across his face as he fills Maggie’s glass.
“Don’t you touch that,” Maggie adds, slanting a look at Reed, who’s trying to steal a biscuit from her plate.
Reed snorts, and takes it anyway.
The bankruptcy’s threat is pretty much gone with the two-million-dollar contract safe, and through the bond, I can feel my alphas’ relief after years of hardships.
Then, a warm hand slides over the back of my neck, the heat of it grounding. Ash slips onto the bench beside me, his scent settling over my shoulders.
“Still calculating the yield?” he murmurs, his thumb tracing my jaw.
“I’m allowed,” I say, grinning. “I’m the VP of fruit, remember?”
He laughs, a low, quiet sound against my temple.
Bram sits on my other side, his thigh pressing warm against mine, his big hand immediately finding my wrist under the table. Across the wood, Reed is leaning back, a glass of whiskey in his hand, his eyes bright as he watches the older folks start to clear the space between the fire pits.
Someone starts playing an accordion and a fiddle joins in.
“Luna,” Reed says, his chin tipping toward the grass. “A dance.”
“I’m horrible at it,” I say.
“Good,” he grins, sliding out from the table. “I’m worse.”
He pulls me up by the hands, the firelight hot on my face as he spins me. It’s chaotic, entirely out of step, Reed laughing as he nearly trips and Bram catches us both by the elbows.
Then Ash is there, taking my hand, his steps smooth and steady, guiding me under the yellow lights. The townspeople are cheering, Maggie clapping along with the fiddle rhythm. When Ash spins me out a few moments later, I land right against Bram’s wide chest as he steps off the bench to join us.
I look at the three of them. Bram’s warm face; Reed’s bright, teasing eyes; Ash’s slow grin. I press my face back into Bram’s shoulder, my hand sliding into Ash’s pocket, Reed’s fingers still warm on my wrist.
I used to wonder how they stood it. How anyone could pour their whole life into something, knowing that doing everything right didn’t guarantee you wouldn’t lose it all.
But watching the townspeople cheer under the lights, and feeling the solid weight of my alphas holding onto me, I finally get it.
Risk feels like a small price to pay when you’ve found what you’re willing to fight for.
And with Ash, Bram, and Reed beside me, I know I have.