The Orchard at the Edge of Town

by Shirlee McCoy

Sans the kids they’d planned to have, the house they’d planned to buy, the yard, the herb garden, and the vegetable garden. The dog.

  She blinked back hot tears.

  She hated crying almost as much as she hated failing, and she’d failed big-time when it came to relationships.

  “I’ll give you a ride back to Rose’s place.” Deputy Baylor touched her shoulder. He could probably see the tears in her eyes, but she didn’t want his pity or sympathy. She just wanted to lock herself in Rose’s house for a few days. Alone.

  Because alone was where she’d spent most of her childhood, hiding out at the little schoolhouse her parents had built for the community, because it was the one place none of her siblings ever seemed to want to be. “It’s okay. I can walk back.”

  “I’m sure you can, but should you? We’re talking three miles, and you’re in bare feet.”

  “I spent the first sixteen years of my life barefoot. I think I’ll survive.”

  “I’ll walk with you. Just to make sure you do.” He stepped into place beside her. He had a confident air, an easy smile. The kind of looks that took a second glance to really appreciate. She didn’t plan on giving him a second glance, because she was done with men. Forever.

  “Fine. You can give me a ride,” she said because she didn’t want him to have to walk her to the house and then return for his car. She also didn’t want to spend a whole lot of time with him or any other man.

  Heck, she didn’t want to spend time with anyone!

  “Relax, Apricot. It’s just a ride to Rose’s house. Not a ride to jail, and the only one who lives close enough to see you in my car is Dusty. Since he’s out in the fields, I think your reputation is safe.” He opened the cruiser door, and she slid into the passenger seat. Obviously, he thought she was worried about being seen in a police car. She’d been seen in a lot worse places, but she didn’t think he needed to know about that.

  “It’s Anna,” she told him as he slid into the driver seat. “Not Apricot.”

  “Your friends call you Anna?”

  Only her LA friends. Her Pennsylvania friends called her Apricot. But then, they were the people she’d grown up with, and they’d only ever known her as Apricot.

  “Most of them.” She answered truthfully, but the truth wasn’t quite as easy as she wanted it to be. Life had gotten busy, she’d gotten caught up in her work, in the need to create a successful, structured life. She’d gotten caught up in Lionel too. He’d been handsome and charming, and when she’d been with him, it hadn’t seemed like she’d needed anyone else. Obviously she had, because here she was, sitting in a police cruiser, in a town she barely knew. Alone, because she’d spent the past five years being part of a couple that spent most of its time with Lionel’s friends. She’d made some time for her friends—the ones from college and work—but obviously not enough time. Seeing as how the only one who’d tried to call her during her twenty-four-hour drive from LA had been Lionel.

  “Bastard,” she whispered.

  Simon heard Apricot clear as day, and he found himself smiling again.

  “I see we’ve moved up in our insults,” he remarked as he pulled up to the old Shaffer place. It needed painting, the old clapboard siding dingy gray rather than the bright white it had been when he’d moved to town six years ago. Not surprising. Rose visited the property once a year, stayed for a couple of weeks and then took off. As far as he could tell, she didn’t put any time or attention into the property. He’d heard murmurs about irresponsibility and selfishness. The place was, according to the town historical society, one of the oldest in Apple Valley, and it needed to be cared for and cherished.

  Seeing as how Rose owned the property, paid her taxes on time, and didn’t cause any kind of trouble, it was her choice whether or not she put money into the old house. That was Sheriff Cade Cunningham’s official comment when townsfolk filed complaints. Simon knew his boss felt differently. He’d heard him discussing the Shaffer place with his grandmother. Ida Cunningham was president of the town historical society, mayor of Apple Valley for more years than Simon had been in town. She knew every home, every family, every juicy piece of gossip. She also knew how to keep her mouth shut. She had the town’s heart for good reason. And Simon’s too, because she’d taken his family under her wing when they’d arrived in town—two toddlers and an exhausted, widowed Houston police officer.

  “Sorry,” Apricot murmured as she opened the car door and stumbled out, pink gauzy material fluttering in the late summer breeze. “He’s becoming more a loser with every passing minute.”

  “He stood you up at the altar?” he asked, even though he was pretty sure he should keep his nose out of it.

  “He was late to the altar, and I decided I didn’t need to spend my life waiting for his sorry behind to show up at important functions,” she responded. “There’s more, of course. I’m sure Rose has told someone who will tell someone who will tell you, so I’ll just leave the rest for rumor-mill. Thanks for the ride, Deputy.”

  She slammed the car door and flounced away. At least, that’s what it looked like she was doing, her skirts bouncing, her hair bouncing, her nose straight up in the air. She might have been dumped or betrayed or stood up, but she wasn’t going to let it get her down.

  At least not when anyone was looking.

  Simon’s sister-in-law, Daisy, could learn a little from Apricot. She’d spent the past six months alternating between silent bitterness and loud wailing. At first, Simon had tried to be sympathetic. After a while, though, he’d wanted to give her a little shake and tell her to get over it and move on. Then again, as far as he was concerned, Dennis walking out on Daisy was the best thing that had ever happened to his sister-in-law.

  And probably the worst thing that had happened to Simon since he’d moved to town. Without Dennis to take up her time and attention, Daisy seemed to be spending more time over at Simon’s place, finding excuses to stay the night, to stay for breakfast, to have lunch with him when he had the day off.

  He frowned as Apricot walked up the porch steps.

  Yeah. Maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad thing if he was a few minutes late getting home. Daisy would feel compelled to leave and . . .

  Apricot paused, her gaze jumping to some point beyond Simon’s car. She cocked her head to the side, tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. Tried to fix the not-even-close-to-fixable skirt of her dress.

  Right about that time, he heard the car chugging up behind him. He glanced in his rearview mirror, every muscle in his body going tight as he saw Daisy’s brand-new Ford barreling up the driveway. She stopped behind the cruiser, jumped out of the car, her long jean skirt a little tight in the hips, her brown sweater decorated with fall leaves. Unlike her sister, she didn’t carry herself with confidence. She moved apologetically, as if she were constantly afraid of reprimand. That had only gotten worse since the “incident.” That’s what the blue-haired lady at the diner called it. Daisy called it an unfortunate lapse in judgment.

  As for Simon, he’d kept quiet on the issue. Gossip spread like wildfire in Apple Valley, and if he’d said one word about his sister-in-law’s . . . lapse in sanity, she’d have known about it before the sun set. Known about it and been bitterly silent about his betrayal.

  Because that was how Daisy responded to every slight.

  In his opinion, she needed to start opening her mouth and telling people what she really thought. Then maybe she wouldn’t have to stoop to breaking and entering to get the things she wanted in life.

  “Hey, Daisy,” he said, climbing out of the car and greeting her with a smile he didn’t feel. He appreciated everything she did for him, appreciated that she loved the girls like they were her own, that she stayed late at night when he had to work and was there early in the morning if he couldn’t be.

  But, Daisy? She was difficult.

  “What’s up?” he asked as she approached, her hair scraped so tightly away from her face that her skin stretched taut over her cheekbones and he
r eyes seemed elongated.

  He wanted to tell her to loosen up, let her hair down, relax a little. As much as he thought her ex was a bastard for dumping her and eloping with a woman he’d met online, Simon couldn’t imagine any man wanting to spend his life with an overly uptight and way-too-sensitive woman like Daisy.

  “What is up, Simon,” she responded, her gaze skittering to Apricot and then darting back to him, “is the time. I have to be at the library—”

  “At eight thirty. You have an hour and forty minutes.”

  “An hour and twenty-seven,” she corrected him in typical Daisy fashion. “But I like to be there an hour before then. You know that.” She scowled, her mud-brown eyes and mousy-brown hair so different from Megan’s dark chocolate eyes and soft golden hair that he sometimes wondered if they were actually related at all.

  “Yeah. I do.” He glanced in the backseat of Daisy’s Ford. No tousled blond heads, so she hadn’t brought the twins along. He wasn’t worried about that. Daisy was a little nuts and a lot emotional, but she was cautious to the point of being overprotective with the girls. “Where are the twins?”

  “Still sleeping. I called next door and asked Mrs. Jordan to stay with them. I normally wouldn’t bother her, but I heard the call about a trespasser on the scanner.” She leveled a hard gaze on Apricot, who still stood on the porch.

  “My aunt owns the house. I’m here for a visit,” she offered with a smile.

  Daisy stared at her.

  “What I’m saying,” Apricot continued, “is that I’m not trespassing. I have permission to be here.”

  “I know what you’re saying. I may live in a small town, but I’m not a country bumpkin,” Daisy snapped.

  “I don’t believe I said you were,” Apricot responded. She didn’t seem ruffled by Daisy’s abrasiveness. Simon, on the other hand, was losing patience.

  “Daisy,” he cut in. “I’ve told you before, you can’t respond to the scene every time you hear something on the police scanner.”

  “I didn’t come because of the scanner. I came because I wanted to tell you that I was heading to work.” She scuffed her high-heeled foot on the—

  High heel?

  Simon took another look.

  Yes. Definitely heels. Black, shiny ones with little bows on the front.

  Maybe she had another guy on the horizon.

  Dear God, he hoped so!

  “I thought you’d want to know,” she continued, meeting his eyes. Her lashes looked darker than usual, a little thicker, and he was pretty sure there were little specks of black on one of her eyelids.

  Mascara?

  Another good sign, and he could feel the “Hallelujah Chorus” welling up from somewhere deep inside.

  “I appreciate that, but I know what time you have to be at work, Daisy, and I know what time you leave the house,” he responded gently, because as much as Daisy drove him crazy, he really didn’t want to hurt her feelings.

  “But—”

  “You know what you need?” Apricot interrupted, crossing the distance between them, her dress swishing along the ground. She took Daisy’s hand, completely ignoring her frown. “You need a nice strong cup of chamomile tea. It’s very soothing.”

  “Tea? I like coffee,” Daisy protested.

  “I’m sure you do, but it’s not the thing. Not with your temperament.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Daisy huffed.

  “Nothing that should ruffle your feathers. Just that we all have certain natural tendencies. We need to feed our bodies according to those. Not according to our preferences. Take me, for example. I love a good cup of coffee, but I drink one cup and I can’t sleep, because I already have a tendency toward insomnia. People who worry usually do.”

  “What does that have to do—”

  “Chamomile soothes the nervous system,” Apricot continued as if Daisy hadn’t spoken. “And you and I both need that. Not the stimulant that coffee provides. Plus, it’s also good for the complexion,” Apricot continued.

  “It is?” Daisy patted her cheek as Apricot hauled her toward the house.

  Simon was pretty sure he’d been completely forgotten by both women. He could have gotten in his car and driven away, but there was something fascinating about the way Apricot was weaseling her way into Daisy’s good graces. Thirty seconds ago, he’d have said it couldn’t be done.

  Now they looked like best buddies, holding hands as they walked up the porch stairs.

  “It is. Drink a couple of cups a day, and your dewy fresh complexion is going to be the talk of the town. And with that light brown hair and those big brown eyes . . .” She shook her head and whistled softy. “Well, let’s just say you’re going to have men drooling and women begging for your secret.”

  “I don’t think that will—”

  “Mark my words, sister. It works. And, fortunately, I always pack a few bags of organic chamomile tea in my purse. I’ve got some inside. You have time before work, don’t you?”

  “Well, I . . .” Daisy touched her cheek again. “I suppose I do.”

  “Wonderful. In we go.” Apricot opened the front door, gesturing for Daisy to walk in ahead of her. To Simon’s surprise, his sister-in-law went. Since she tended toward superstition, and the Schaffer house was reportedly haunted by old man Schaffer’s irritated ghost, he wouldn’t have thought she had the guts to cross the threshold.

  But there she went, right into the house, heading for whatever herbal tea concoction she was about to be served.

  Apricot glanced his way, winked, and disappeared inside.

  Simon stood right where he was, looking at the closed door and the old house. The place had been empty for most of the time he’d been in town, but the blue-haired ladies talked about better times. Times when Schaffer’s wife, Abigail, hung flower baskets from the front porch and planted a garden in the backyard. The way Simon heard it, her tomatoes were the best in town, and the pickles she made from her cucumbers won a blue ribbon at the county fair every year for six years running.

  He wasn’t sure how much of the legend of Abigail Shaffer was true, but rumors of old man Shaffer’s grumpier personality seemed to be. Even Cade Cunningham, sheriff of the town and Simon’s boss, talked about the guy. He’d kept his house and land pristine, had the best apple orchard in eastern Washington, and had shipped and sold those apples all over the inland Northwest. He’d made a boatload of money in his lifetime, but no one knew what he’d done with it. Aside from keeping up on the property, he’d lived a miserly kind of life. After Abigail’s death, he’d become even more frugal. He’d died alone in his house one day in September. His body had been discovered when Dusty called the sheriff and asked for a well-check. He hadn’t seen Shaffer for a couple of days, and the body was . . . as Cade had put it . . . noticeably decayed.

  Of course, that was before Cade’s time as sheriff, and he admitted the rumors could have been exaggerated. One way or another, those rumors had set the stage for every ghost story told around every campfire built by every teen in Apple Valley.

  Which reminded Simon—he had a workday planned with the local boys’ club for later in the week. He had to coral the teens and get them to clean the fairgrounds.

  Or, at least, what Apple Valley called fairgrounds.

  Really, it was nothing more than a huge dirt parking lot and several acres of grass. In another couple of weeks, it would look like a lot more—apple-pie booths, apple-cobbler booths, apple crafts, apple everything. The girls were looking forward to it, but Simon found the whole thing a little sickeningly sweet for his taste.

  He was more the rodeo type.

  But there weren’t any of those to be had in Apple Valley.

  He climbed into the cruiser, glancing at the Shaffer house one last time as he backed around Daisy’s car.

  Yeah. The place looked neglected, but he had a feeling it wouldn’t look that way for long. Not if Apricot had anything to do with it.

  Dusty wasn’t going to be pleased.
But then, he never was.

  As for the rest of Apple Valley, Simon thought the good citizens of the little town were about to be turned on their heads by a woman with a butt-ugly pink wedding dress and a quirky name.

  Chapter Three

  Apricot knew she had one last bag of chamomile tea in her almost-mother-in-law’s purse. She also had three ginseng tea bags and a small bottle of Forget the Sheep—an herbal sleep aid made with valerian and hops flowers. She thought that Daisy could use a couple of drops in her tea, but she’d refrain from slipping them into it. It wasn’t cool to give someone medicine without full consent. Even if the medicine was herbal and absolutely necessary.

  She glanced at Daisy.

  The woman had hair scraped back so hard that her eyes were tearing, little bits of mascara dotting her lids and starting to smudge in the dark circles under her eyes.

  Poor thing.

  She really did need to relax.

  Apricot couldn’t find a teapot, so she used an old pot someone had stored inside the oven.

  “What are you doing?” Daisy asked suspiciously as Apricot ran water into the pot.

  “Boiling some water. You can’t have tea without it.”

  “Most people use a microwave.”

  “Not where I come from.” She set the pot on the stove, found some matches in a little tin on the windowsill above the sink. It didn’t take long for her to turn on the gas, get the pilot lit, and start the pot boiling. From the look on Daisy’s face, it had taken just about an eon. “Why don’t you sit down for a few minutes, Daisy? You look like you could use some rest.”

  Actually, she looked like she could use some fun, but far be it from Apricot to point that out. Especially when she was standing in her wrecked wedding gown, dirty bare feet leaving marks all over the kitchen floor. Obviously, she wasn’t having all that much fun either.

  “Rest? I have to be at the library in—” Daisy glanced around the room as if looking for a clock. Apricot could have told her she was searching in vain. Rose didn’t believe in clocks, deadlines, or sticking to a schedule.