A Hopeful Harvest

by Ruth Logan Herne

  “We’ve done good, haven’t we?” Cleve grinned at Jax with the innocence of a child. “I told her mama that if we held on, she’d come around, and she did. She did, all right. Won’t Carolyn be happy to see it?”

  Jax held his tongue. Cleve thought Libby was his estranged daughter.

  No wonder she walked away. The randomness of this wretched disease coaxed people to say and do things they’d never consider in their normal state, but a clogged brain was a dangerous thing. “Libby’s been working really hard to put this together.”

  Cleve frowned.

  He turned. Stared at the barn, then Jax, then up the road. “This isn’t my place.”

  “You’re using it this year because your place ran into some trouble with the wind. Mr. Moyer offered his barn to help you and Libby out.”

  “Libby.” For a moment he almost looked lucid, but then he spotted CeeCee and grinned. “There’s my little girl! How are you, darlin’?”

  “I’m so very good, Gramps!” She skipped their way and Jax didn’t know if Cleve was seeing CeeCee for herself or as her mother at the same age. In the end, he guessed it didn’t much matter because the old fellow beamed with happiness.

  “Can you help me sell apples?” CeeCee asked. She clutched her grandpa’s big hand and swung it back and forth. “Because there are so many people who want to know about our apples and I’m almost out of words!”

  Jax couldn’t imagine CeeCee out of words, but Cleve moved forward. “I’m glad to help, and it seems like the Moyers have done mighty well for themselves over here. Mighty well. I really like what they’ve done with the place.”

  Jax’s words hadn’t penetrated. Cleve didn’t quite get it, that these were his apples and his success. Or that Libby had worked so hard to help orchestrate the whole thing.

  Jax greeted customers as they exited their cars. It was a classic autumn Sunday with cornstalks, pumpkins, apples and football.

  But when he passed the open double doors, he took a moment to search out Libby. She was at the far end of the barn, working with a customer, but when she spotted Cleve at the other end, her look of sorrow cut Jax.

  He understood there was little he could do. Grandma Molly didn’t recognize anyone by the time she passed on, and each family member dealt with that in their own way. Some hadn’t handled it all that well.

  Dianna.

  That was Libby’s mother’s name. He knew that because he saw it on the farm records. Not because it was spoken in the house.

  As two more minivans pulled in, followed by a short string of SUVs, he put thoughts of old discord behind him because no matter how Cleve phrased it, this was Libby’s success. For today, apples and pumpkins took center stage, and like CeeCee said, it was easy to be happy around so many happy people. And that part of this felt downright good.

  * * *

  Ten thousand four-hundred dollars went into the bank on Monday morning, and when Libby exited the Golden Grove Bank & Trust, her feet felt light.

  There was money in the bank.

  She hadn’t had a positive account balance that wasn’t needed for bills in years. Depending on the fall weather, there were at least four weeks of significant sales time remaining. Maybe more if the weather held and she stayed open until Thanksgiving. Would all the weekends be this busy?

  Maybe not, this had been a record breaker but even more important than the money was the look of sheer pleasure on Gramps’s face yesterday.

  He’d called her Dianna. She thought of that as she opened the truck door.

  He’d never made that mistake before.

  Was it because Libby’s mother had come to see him in the hospital? Did he even realize she was there? She’d left before he woke up, but maybe he sensed her presence. Or was his brain just getting more tied up in knots as the days went on?

  Her phone rang. She spotted the school’s phone number and answered quickly. “Hi, Libby Creighton here.”

  “Ms. Creighton, this is Sandy Wilburn, I’m the school coordinator for Golden Grove Elementary.”

  “Yes?”

  “It seems we had several students out at your farm this past weekend and they loved it. CeeCee’s teacher was wondering if we could make a field trip to the farm in the next week or two. We’d bring the kids by bus, and maybe you could show them an orchard, talk to them about apples and fruits and farming. And then a visit to the sales barn would be lovely, so they can get an idea of what a farmer does, how they grow the food, then sell it. Some kids have no idea how food is produced and we’d love to give them that experience.”

  Libby didn’t hesitate. “We’d be delighted to do that. And I can order some donuts to have on hand for snack time. We don’t produce anything like that yet, but we’ve got everything else.”

  The coordinator’s sigh sounded happy. “Donuts and apples sound wonderful! I’ll email you possible dates that buses are available. If you could get right back to me about which works best for you, I’ll reserve the bus and the drivers. I’m so glad you’re able to accommodate us.”

  The thought of CeeCee’s classmates seeing all this should put their talk of homelessness to rest. “We’re happy to do so,” she replied. “I’ll watch for that email.”

  “Perfect.”

  She got back to the house just as Mortie was finishing up her visit with Gramps. Libby tucked a bottle of milk and a pack of Gramps’s favorite hot dogs into the fridge. She met Mortie as she crossed toward the kitchen. “How’s he doing?”

  Mortie made a face. “He’s doing all right, considering. His little adventure wore him out more than he thought.”

  “Plus our busy Sunday,” offered Libby.

  Mortie shrugged that off. “Seeing all those people was the best medicine for him. The weather’s nice, and he’s an outdoorsman. Always has been. I’d stick to your plan of having him at the apple stand with you. You wanted to give him a great season, Libby, and you’re doing it.” She tugged on a lightweight jacket. “You got to the bank all right?”

  “With more money than I’ve ever held in my life,” Libby whispered. “I kept telling myself to walk natural. Be casual. Pretend you’re not carrying around a pouch full of money.”

  Mortie laughed softly. “It’s an odd feeling, for sure, especially these days of automatic deposits and withdrawals. I never thought I’d see the day when cash was the exception to the rule. I’m going on to my next call. I saw Jax and a couple of people going into the orchard to pick just a few minutes back.”

  “Thank you, Mortie.”

  “And about Courtney,” Mortie asked. “Are you all right having her work here or would you prefer someone else?”

  Libby had considered that question and she’d come to the conclusion that no one was at sole fault for Gramps’s disappearing act. If she was going to keep Gramps at home like she promised, she had to be strong enough to take responsibility for whatever happened. Courtney hadn’t been negligent, and the new locks would help keep Gramps from slipping out unnoticed again. “I will welcome her back. She’s good with him, and the new locks should help keep him out of danger. And honestly, I appreciate the help she’s willing to give, so yes. Tell her we understand.”

  “Good. That will be a relief to her.”

  She waved goodbye as her grandfather came out of his room. “Gramps, I’m going to have you go up the road with me to the apple shop, okay? If you don’t mind working for a living, that is,” she added, teasing.

  “Can’t abide sittin’ around doing nothing. Lollygaggin’.” He frowned. “Up the road, you say?”

  “To Moyer’s barn. We’re using it this year.”

  “That wind was a fierce thing, wasn’t it?” He said the words as if remembering was suddenly the norm again. “It almost blew me away with that barn.”

  Her heart thumped. The image of Gramps outside, alone, with the barn being blown to smithereens ma
de her realize how close things came to an even greater disaster that day.

  “All I could think of was getting that tractor under cover before something bad happened. And I did it.”

  “You did.” She didn’t tell him that his action compounded their loss by a good twenty-thousand dollars. “Thank you for looking out for us, Gramps.”

  “Well, I promised your mama a long time ago, and I don’t make a promise and then not keep it. O’Laughlins say what they mean and mean what they say.”

  She didn’t know if he meant Grandma or Dianna, but it really didn’t matter. She patted his arm gently. “That’s a great quality to pass on, isn’t it?”

  He smiled as he went outside, and when he spotted Jax driving out of the orchard with a full bed of apples, Cleve’s smile deepened. He moved toward Jax, grinning at the sight of freshly picked fruit. “Now, that’s a good start to the day right there,” he exclaimed. “Nice job, young man.”

  Jax accepted the compliment with his customary grace. “Thank you, sir. I had help. The guys are working on the last of the pears. We’ll have them all in the cooler by tonight, but I figured we’d want to restock the hardest-hit apple varieties from over the weekend, so we focused on that first.”

  “Smart thinking. I’m going out with this young lady right now. I’ll be back in a bit and I’ll settle accounts then.”

  Jax didn’t blink an eye. “Sounds good, sir.” He helped Gramps into the passenger seat of the truck with gentle, firm hands while Libby scanned the apple crates. He must have started at first light to have that many apples picked, and light didn’t come any too early this time of year. Another act of kindness or just good business sense?

  She started toward the old pickup. Jax rounded the hood and beat her to the door, and when he opened it for her...

  When his eyes met hers—

  Her heart jumped again.

  It didn’t just pick up the pace. It soared. And when he gently closed the door for her, the mix of strength and compassion tugged her emotions.

  Her phone pinged, indicating she had an email. She opened it before she pulled away, then showed him the email exchange. “CeeCee’s school would like to bring the kindergarten classes here for a field trip next week and I’m going to need someone else here whichever day we pick.”

  “Any day works for me.” He lowered his voice deliberately. “I’ll make sure Cleve’s safe and sound. That’s what’s concerning you, right?”

  “If I’m distracted by sixty five-year-olds, I’m afraid I’d lose track of him,” she whispered. “I don’t dare do that.”

  “No problem, ma’am. I’ll be on hand.”

  “Thank you.”

  He winked.

  That put her heart back into overdrive, but the minute he did it, she smiled, encouraging more winks. Because when Jax winked at her, she wasn’t the ragamuffin girl or the cast-off wife any longer.

  She was the successful young farmer with a bright future ahead of her. And that wasn’t just the money in the bank talking.

  That was the smile of a good, kind man who made her feel like she was something special.

  And Libby hadn’t felt special in a long time.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Jax followed them to the apple barn. He unloaded some of the crates into the cooler, and others onto the sales floor for bagging. When Cleve seemed comfortable bagging the fruit, Jax let himself relax a little. Weekdays didn’t have the Saturday and Sunday crush of customers, but Libby was on her own today, and Cleve liked to keep busy. Jax didn’t want the old fellow to go wandering when Libby was taking care of customers, but as long as he was working, Cleve seemed to maintain focus.

  His brother Ken texted him as he drove back to the orchard an hour later. I’m at the Quincy office. Come straight over.

  Can’t, he texted back. Picking apples, and the engineers are coming to stake out the Creighton barn.

  You might want to reconsider putting all that money into a barn, Ken wrote back. Come over now. Cleve O’Laughlin just sold the farm to CVF with a signed contract dated in August. This isn’t how any of us saw this going down.

  Cleve sold the farm?

  He couldn’t have. If he had, they’d have known about it, but Libby did say that a CVF representative had come calling last year. Then Ken had followed up.

  It couldn’t be right. Somehow, something had gotten messed up because Cleve was one hundred percent determined to keep the farm out of corporate hands.

  Ken’s message left him no choice but to drive over to the company headquarters on the far side of Quincy and see what was going on. But first he had to make sure everything was set up for the day.

  He phoned the hired pickers and squared things with them. He met Gert and the other drivers as they pulled into the farm and explained what was needed.

  Gert was loading up apple bags while he talked. She handed them out and hooked her thumb toward the trees. “Are crates set?”

  “Did that first thing. And Dave’s got his truck here if you need to take apples up the road.”

  “Then we’re good.” She pulled a hat onto her head. Today’s breeze spoke more of fall than summer. “We’ll get on, then. You do what you need to do. We’ve got this.”

  He knew they did.

  A part of him wanted to ask why. Why would regular folks give up hours of free time each day to help an old farmer?

  There wasn’t time to pose the question. The drivers strode toward the orchard at a quick pace, anxious to work. He climbed into his truck and drove east. All the way there, he tried to make sense of Ken’s words.

  He couldn’t.

  First, Cleve had made his feelings quite clear about selling. And he’d been training Libby on fruit husbandry for over a year. Why do that if he intended to sell?

  He couldn’t think about what this might do to Libby. She’d been so excited about banking money from her very first harvest.

  Ken had to be wrong, and yet his brother prided himself on never being wrong.

  He drove to Quincy, conflicted. He wasn’t sure how this had happened, or how to fix it, but the one thing he knew was that there was no way on earth to explain this to Libby. And he didn’t even want to try.

  * * *

  Cleve O’Laughlin’s signature was scrawled across every page of the contract that CVF had offered midsummer, and the pages not requiring a signature had been initialed. That meant the person signing understood old legalities enough to make sure their intention was known.

  But how?

  Why?

  “This is a major problem, Jax.” He father scowled at the paperwork, scrubbed a hand across his fairly bald head and scowled some more. “How did this happen?”

  “I have no idea. He’s been saying all along that he’s signing the farm over to Libby and he’s been encouraging her to do all she can to make it a success. When he’s cognizant enough to think clearly, that is.”

  “Can we nullify the contract?” wondered Ken. “We could cite his cognitive decline and renege on the offer.”

  “I can guarantee he’s not in control of his faculties to make this decision and I sincerely doubt that he was that much better midsummer.”

  “Does his granddaughter want him to sell?” asked Jax’s father. “Is it possible that they came up with this as a solution to money problems? Maybe he wants to leave her money instead of property?”

  “Nothing she’s said would indicate that,” Jax replied. He reread the contract CVF had drawn up midsummer. “You allowed a three-month window on this contract, so he’s gotten it in with two weeks to spare.”

  He scowled as he scanned the forms again. Why had Cleve signed them? And why hadn’t he let Libby know? Was it a forgotten detail? And yet, he hadn’t mailed the papers until now.

  It made no sense. He stared at the papers and one thought came to mind: Libby’s j
oy over the busy apple sales, the happy people, the bustling store, the pinnacle of her year of hard work. “We have to break the contract.”

  Ken made a face. “We can cite his diminished capacity, of course, but it’s a delicate situation. No one wants to make his condition worse. If he signed this over the summer—”

  “Sat on it—” mused Richard.

  “Then sent it off a few days ago, what’s changed?” asked Ken. “What’s gotten him to do this? The accident in the creek?”

  Jax didn’t know. “He came home from the hospital on Saturday. He must have put this right in the mailbox for the postal worker to pick up when he got home.”

  “You’ve got to fix this, son.” Richard steepled his hands. “Whichever way it goes is fine with us. We didn’t put an offer on the land randomly. We wanted it. But I’m not putting a mother and child and an old man out of their home and livelihood because he might have had a bad day. You said he was happy with how busy it was yesterday at the farm stand, correct?”

  “Ecstatic. In his lucid moments anyway. So how can we take this at face value when we know those lucid moments are rare?”

  “Murky waters,” his father said. “If he’d given Libby power of attorney, we’d have that legal recourse, but if he hasn’t it’s tougher.”

  “Unless we pretend it didn’t arrive,” said Ken.

  Richard frowned. “We can’t do that. We’re honest people. We have to work this out for everyone’s well-being. And to respect an old man’s wishes. I can keep a lid on this for a little while, but, Jax, you’ve got to talk to his granddaughter. See what she thinks. And if Mr. O’Laughlin hasn’t drawn up a will yet, someone should make sure he does. Soon.”

  A will.

  A sold farm.

  Libby’s hopes and dreams and plans for the future whisked out from under her.

  There was no way Jax could let that happen. “I’ll talk to her. See if she has any idea what’s going on. And I’ll talk to Cleve, too, because none of this makes any sense.”