“I’m meeting with a friend of mine at The Tea Pot. He’s a loan officer at the bank.” He smiled at them, capturing Chloe’s gaze when she would have looked away. “Trying to see how much the farm can pre-qualify for.”
Something fluttered in Chloe’s chest. Must be the possibility of selling the mill and getting out of debt. Couldn't be the intensity of his stare.
“What do we need a loan for?” Abigail stopped dancing. “Is the farm okay?”
“I want there to be something for Lizzie to inherit.” Teddy tugged a lock of his sister’s long, brown hair.
Abigail frowned, which didn’t faze Teddy in the slightest. He hurried off to his meeting.
“He’s worried.” Abigail tapped her toe impatiently after he left. “About money.”
“Most adults are. It’s hard to make ends meet and dream. He has a dream, you know.”
“More orchards? His dream means more work for the rest of us.” Abigail made it sound as if she was a slave laborer. “I don’t want this life for Lizzie. Working all the time when her friends are out playing.”
“What would you rather have Teddy do? Sell the farm? Pay off your debts? Have nothing?” That’s what Chloe was looking at, and it was nothing to dance about.
“You don’t know what it’s like to run a farm,” Abigail grumped.
But Chloe did know what it was like to run a business. Her heart went out to Teddy. He was trying to make things better for everyone in his family. He deserved his family’s support.
“And then there’s Lizzie,” Abigail continued her lament. “I’m exhausted all the time.”
“You had a choice when you first learned you were pregnant,” Chloe said. “You could have chosen to end the pregnancy or given her up for adoption.”
Abigail stared at her hands. “Sometimes you just have to own up to your mistakes.”
Chloe paused as the meaning of the teenager’s words sunk in. She hadn't been owning up to her failures. Chloe had to own up to her own blunders to move on. But move on to what?
Frank materialized out of the crowd with a willowy blonde on his arm. They made a striking couple. He with the dark good looks of Lucifer, and she looking like a tall angel descended from heaven. Except she couldn’t be divine. A diamond chip almost got lost on her left ring finger. Almost.
Abigail’s baby daddy headed directly to the apple booth. This was no accidental meeting.
“Frank?” Abigail’s voice shook.
Chloe moved closer to Abigail, who clutched Chloe’s arm.
“Abigail.” Frank’s voice was smoother than silk. His gaze was cowardly. He stared at the Santa’s Orchard sign behind them. “I want you to meet Theresa.”
Abigail didn’t extend a hand to shake. She clutched Chloe’s arm tight enough to read her blood pressure.
“Theresa is my fiancé,” Frank said, still staring at the sign.
The ice angel’s smile never wavered as she fluttered the fingers on her left hand, as if trying to attract Abigail's attention to the ring. She’d probably forced Frank into confronting Abigail in a public place.
“I don’t understand.” The blood drained from Abigail’s face. But she did understand. Frank was rejecting her. For good. “I…I have to go.” She pushed past Chloe and ran, her shoes tapping out an SOS.
“You know you’re pond scum, right?” Chloe glared at Frank, and then at Theresa. “Both of you. Now move along. You’re blocking my trade space.”
Chapter 9
“I’m calling a family meeting at dinner,” Ted said when he and Abigail arrived home from another successful day at the mercantile.
Well, the day had been a success sales-wise. Abigail was teary-eyed, silent, and moody. Her sighs were heavier than a wheelbarrow full of river rock. Whatever angst she was going through, Ted wasn’t touching it.
He’d wanted to speak to Chloe about the sale of the mill, but she’d left as soon as Ted returned, claiming she needed to buy a battery for her dad’s car. Apparently, she’d owned a car wash, but not a car of her own. He hadn’t gotten the chance to tell Chloe what he and the loan officer discussed.
The old two-story farmhouse creaked in the winter wind. Was it his imagination? Or was the yellow rosebud wallpaper his grandmother had put up in the dining room peeling from the corner? When had that started?
Dad hobbled to the table, something he hadn’t done in days, and sat at the head of the table with a minimal amount of groaning. Abigail rocked Lizzie in the corner of the living room, holding her daughter like she used to hold her teddy bear.
“Where’s Uncle Ben?” Ted asked, sitting at the dining room table.
“He was checking on something in the barn.” His mother banged about the kitchen. “Ted, the oven is on the fritz again. I’ll have to finish the pot roast in the microwave.”
A heavy weight landed on Ted’s shoulders. The house and the farm were always needing something.
Uncle Ben came in and hurried to the kitchen without a word to anyone.
Something clattered in the sink.
“Are you bleeding?” Mom asked in horrified tones.
Ted lurched to his feet and ran into the kitchen.
“It’s nothing,” Ben said too quickly, his back to Ted. “Just a scratch.”
“A scratch?” Mom cried. “Look at all that blood. Warm up the car, Ted. We’re going to Emergency.”
Ted hurried to the kitchen sink, gently moving his mother to one side. “Let me see. What happened?”
“The latch on the cellar caught me.” Ben tried to sound unconcerned, but his face was pale. “It’s just a scratch. Martha can sew it up.”
Mom blanched. “I’ll do no such thing.”
“Or I’ll take one of those butterfly bandages.” Ben was old school.
“I’ll drive you to the hospital,” Ted said, his shoulders sagging as much as Ben’s. Another bill.
“I’ve had worse. No need.” Ben held up his injured finger. “See? It’s barely bleeding.” The gash gaped open and there was blood all over his shirt and sleeve.
Ted and his mother exchanged glances. They already had plenty of doctor bills in a pile on Ted’s desk. Lizzie was due for a round of shots soon. And there was a possibility Dad would qualify to try the new pain patch, which wasn’t cheap. The apple sales would help, but they needed to create other sources of income.
“I’m fine,” Ben insisted. “If the wound hasn't closed after dinner, you can take me to Urgent Care.”
Crisis postponed, Ben made a makeshift bandage from a paper towel and duct tape. Abigail was put into her high chair, and the family congregated around the dinner table when the pot roast was finished in the microwave.
“So?” Ben examined his handiwork, which barely oozed any blood. “Family meeting. What’s the hubbub?”
“I want everyone to take a good look around.” Ted gestured to the house as a whole. “Mom, that oven must be at least twenty-five years old. Ben, the television is as old as Abigail. And Dad, you always joke that you bought our tractor when Ronald Reagan was president. We can’t go on living like this.”
Everyone began talking at once. Everyone but Abigail and Lizzie.
“What are you trying to say, son?” Dad scowled, and for the first time in months, it didn’t seem to be from his back pain.
“The place is falling apart around us.”
“Here it comes,” Abigail muttered.
“I want to expand the farm,” Ted said.
Everyone began talking at once. Everyone except Lizzie, who put her hands over her ears.
“I want…” Ted made a lower-the-noise gesture with both hands. “I want to buy the Wright mill property. Hear me out,” Ted said when Ben tried to interrupt. “Because of the bend in the river, it’s the most mineral rich soil available to plant in town. We’ll have an orchard with high yield, hybrid stock. And we can develop the facilities to produce apple products. We won’t just be growing apples anymore. We won't be dependent on our apple crop to make ends me
et.”
“What’s the catch?” Ben was giving Ted the stink eye. Or maybe his finger hurt. A lot.
“Money,” Dad said. “That’s what this is all about.”
“It’s about the future,” Ted correctly gently. “If we diversify, we won’t be devastated if one of us is hurt and can’t work.” He let that sink in for a moment. “We won’t have to decide between buying a new tractor engine and a new, safer car. We won’t have to wait for magic apples to sell to go to the beauty parlor, the eye doctor, to buy snow boots, or to get an oil change.”
For once, his family had nothing to say.
“But what’s the catch?” Ben finally broke the silence.
“Financing,” Ted said. “Turns out, I’m not listed as a partner. Ben and Dad will need to sign the loan.”
One by one, the family nodded, even Abigail.
“I guess there are changes ahead.” Ben dug into his pot roast.
“Yep.” Dad helped himself to some mashed potatoes. “We’re going to make Ted a full partner.”
For the first time in a long time, the weight on Ted’s shoulders lightened.
He was too excited to eat. There were plans to make, possibilities to be discussed. And all Ted could think about was talking the options through with Chloe.
“I was worried about Ted hiring Chloe,” Mom said out of the blue. “Because he had a thing for her since he was a boy.”
“Not since I was a boy,” Ted said. Since he was fifteen maybe.
Mom caught Dad putting two rolls on his plate and removed one. “But she’s really helped turn things around.”
“Chloe told me this morning she found a recipe for apple salsa. That sounds yummy.” Abigail sliced cooked carrots into pieces for Lizzie. “Ted, did you ever date Chloe? I can’t remember.”
“No.” Ted reached for the basket of rolls. Would that he was quicker to latch onto a new topic of conversation.
“You can’t deny you liked her.” Mom shook her empty fork at Ted. “You’ve been friends forever.”
“We weren’t friends. She followed me everywhere.” Although Ted had lost his appetite, he stabbed a piece of pot roast. “She annoyed me. Since we were kids in grade school.”
“Worshipped you, more like,” Ben said between bites. His injury seemed to have made him famished.
“Oh, yeah.” Abigail took up the fight. “I remember her bike had a flat tire once and you fixed it for her.”
“She had a flat in front of our house when I was in the seventh grade.” Ted didn’t know why he was protesting so much, except it just seemed wrong. He hadn’t fallen for Chloe until high school. “Does the word stalker mean anything to anyone?”
“I think she missed the bus after school that year and you walked her home,” Mom said proudly. “Such a gentleman.”
“She missed the bus to watch my basketball game,” Ted pointed out. And she’d laughed about it the entire walk to her house. She’d always laughed off the way she was treated, except that one morning at the mill.
“But I recall you made her cry after a baseball game you lost.” Dad eyed the gravy, which wasn’t on his diet. “Walked right by her without saying a word.”
“You guys are making that up.” Ted gave up pretending he was hungry and put down his fork to glare at his family. “Chloe was always smiling and laughing.”
“I saw her cry that day,” Ben confirmed. “Nearly broke my heart. And then she ran away.”
“I never saw her.” But now Ted felt rotten all the same.
“You were mean to her.” Mom inspected Dad’s plate with an approving smile. “We had to ground you one time because you called her pudgy.”
“Okay, that wasn’t me.” Ted leapt to his own defense. “That was Gary Higgins. I punched him out for teasing her. That's why you grounded me.”
“Awesome.” Abigail gave Lizzie a big smile. “Uncle Ted is good, isn’t he, Lizzie?”
“Goodie, Unka Ted!” Lizzie applauded, squishing carrots between her fingers.
He hadn’t been good to Chloe. He’d been rude and mean and often a bully. It was hard not to feel disgusted with himself.
“Well, we grounded you for something related to name-calling.” Mom finally got down to eating, or at least filling her fork with meat she planned to eat. “And then you started dating Gwen, who was just a poor substitute for Chloe. Look how that turned out.” Mom tsked. “I had high hopes for you and Chloe.”
Ted was hard pressed to eat anything. “If they were so high, I don’t know why I never heard about it.”
The old man used the distraction of the argument to try and sneak gravy onto his plate.
Mom whisked it out of reach. “Because I could never quite understand what was going on with you two. Sometimes you were mean to Chloe, and that's how boys express their liking when they're young. Other times…I remember you drove her home when her car broke down once after prom. I forget now why she didn’t go. Didn’t you say she was babysitting or something?”
Chloe had parted ways from Mark Wheatley a few days before the dance. Lacking a date, she'd accepted a babysitting job.
Martha shook her fork at Ted. The pot roast fell to her plate, landing in a lake of gravy in her mashed potatoes. “Don’t try to find an excuse for that one. You came home that night and you were glowing.”
Ted opened his mouth, but nothing came out.
That was the night. Their night. He and Gwen had called it quits at prom. He’d dropped her off early and came upon Chloe standing beside the road with her car hood up.
That night, he’d told her he loved her. He’d realized Chloe was magic, making everything she touched brighter, more interesting, more fun. But their time had passed. She didn’t hang on his every word anymore, or follow him around as if she adored him.
He’d promised to love her forever.
And he was afraid he’d keep that promise, even if Chloe never realized it.
Chapter 10
Chloe was in Dad’s office flipping through a folder with twenty year-old vet bills when she heard a truck pull up the curved driveway outside. She had a sneaking suspicion whose truck it was and why Teddy had come. He was going to make her another offer on the mill.
Chloe hurried to the front door, grabbed a jacket and stepped outside. It was dark and snowing, but she preferred the cold and dark to Marnie listening in.
Teddy came up the walk, grinning. “That’s how a man likes to be welcomed into a woman’s home. A porch greeting.”
“You can’t come in.” Chloe hurried down the stairs, grabbed Teddy’s hand, and towed him toward the truck. “Whatever you have to say to me, you can say it in the truck.” She climbed into the passenger seat, protesting when he started the engine. “What are you doing?”
“I came over to talk, not sit in the cold.” And then he put the truck in gear.
“What are you doing?”
“I can’t sit with the engine running in front of your house. Can you imagine what your dad would say?”
“He’d say come inside if I was seventeen, which I’m not.” It was a good thing it was dark, because Chloe was fighting a smile. “I know you’re here to make me an offer on the mill, so let’s hear it.” If Chloe was going to lose money, she’d rather hear it quick, like the way she ripped off Band-Aids.
Teddy pulled over in front of the mill, parking so the headlights illuminated it. The full moon and cloudless night made the snow glisten. The mill stood three stories tall, blanketed by snow. Icicles glistened off the eaves and the water wheel. It was postcard perfect, just as it had been ten years earlier.
Was this their full circle? What had begun with earnest declarations would now end with a business proposition? Chloe’s heart panged.
Teddy turned to her, his face in shadow. “My family seems to think I had a crush on you for years. Since grade school.”
“And this is relevant to your offer…how?”
“Sorry.” He chuckled, but it was a sad sound. “This has been a big da
y for me. I’ve been made a partner at Lincoln Farms and my head is spinning.” His voice rang with accomplishment.
“Congratulations.”
“I have approval to explore expansion of our business.”
“Bravo.” Maybe now he’d get to the offer.
“My family wants this property.” He draped his forearms over the steering wheel, staring out the windshield. “But before I make you an offer, I need to clear up some things from our past.”
“No,” she choked out. “You don’t.”
He ignored her. “I told myself a few hours ago that I’d make you an offer on the mill. End of story.”
Let the story end, Teddy.
“But I can’t make an offer without setting the record straight.” He sighed, and she wanted to sigh along with him. “The way I remember things, you were the one following me around.”
Chloe slouched in her seat. “For every second you humiliate me in this truck, I’m adding a thousand dollars to the asking price.”
He tapped the steering wheel. “My mom sees it differently. She reminded me I slugged one of my friends because he called you names.”
Chloe didn’t say anything. That had been one of the best moments of her childhood.
“And then I remembered how you kissed me backstage at choir practice.”
“On the cheek.” Her cheeks were hot with embarrassment. “And you couldn’t get away from me fast enough.”
“I ran behind the second curtain and touched the spot where you kissed me.” He placed his palm on his cheek. “It was right here.”
“Please.” She didn’t believe him. “I was a pest. I’m grateful you didn’t beat me up for tagging along after you all those years.”
“I wouldn’t beat up a girl.” His voice turned silky. “Especially one I wanted to kiss.”
“I’m not having this conversation.” Chloe turned her face to the glass, fogging it up. “How’s the apple business?”
“As rosy as your cheeks.”
Not that he could see. But it was getting hot in the cab. Chloe wanted to unzip her jacket, but didn’t dare for fear he’d realize his teasing was…well…making her hot!
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