A Hopeful Harvest. Ruth Logan Herne

didn’t just walk to the tractor. He strode as if spraying her trees was the most important job ever given.

      CeeCee jumped into her arms. “I’ve got so much to tell you guys because school was so much fun!”

      Her genuine delight eased Libby’s school concerns.

      “Tell me all about it. Gramps, how about if I make you a cup of tea and you can rest awhile?”

      “I won’t mind it a bit. These feet are tired of standin’ watchin’ others do the work, but it was some quick work, wasn’t it? I told your grandmother that policy would be just fine. I told her.”

      “You did.”

      She’d read that green tea helped cognition. She’d read a lot of stuff, but nothing seemed to help Gramps’s hastening decline. She brought him the tea and turned the TV on softly. He was asleep in five minutes. By the time Jax rolled the tractor back up the access drive, she had a pot of red sauce ready and water simmering for pasta.

      He knocked at the side door. CeeCee rushed to let him in. When she went to hug him, he held back. “Not with spraying clothes on, little lady. Chemicals and kids don’t mix.” He ignored CeeCee’s look of disappointment and called up the side stairs. “Give me your car keys and I’ll run the tractor up the road, then bring your car back.”

      She crossed to the stairs and looked down, right into his eyes. A gaze that hinted at melancholy, much like hers. “You don’t have to do that. You’ve done so much already.”

      He smiled. “I think a plate of pasta and whatever sauce you’ve got cooking makes it even. Don’t you?”

      Having him stay for supper? Um, no. Small-town single mothers and stray men were not a good mix.

      “You can have supper with us? Like, tonight?” CeeCee didn’t hug him, but she grasped his hand. “That would be so nice! Wouldn’t it, Mommy?”

      What could she say without being rude? She wiped her hands on a dry towel, stepped down and handed him her keys. When she did, her hand brushed his. The lightest touch. So why did that minimal contact send her heart beating stronger again? Faster? She drew her hand away quickly. “We’d be honored to have you to supper. Of course.”

      “I don’t have to stay.”

      He was graciously offering her a way out of the predicament. Because he sensed her hesitation? Or because he disapproved of how she handled Gramps?

      Either way, he’d gone the distance for them today. “Please stay.” She lifted her eyes to his as he took a step back toward the gravel drive.

      Big mistake. Because she was pretty sure when she looked into his eyes, she saw his soul. A soul that was just as fractured as hers. Then the glimpse was gone, replaced by a smile that seemed well practiced. She knew because she had polished one of those smiles herself.

      “Mighty obliged, ma’am.” He winked. Then he climbed back onto the tractor, whistling. She couldn’t hear the whistle when he started the old John Deere up, but she’d recognized the tune. Gramps used to sing it to her twenty-five years ago, when she’d dash in and around the apple trees. It was their song.

      She hummed it now.

      Gramps woke up as she put the pasta into the boiling water a few minutes later. He grinned as he came into the kitchen. “Remember how we used to sing that when you were a little girlie?”

      “I sure do.”

      “And then you went off and started sittin’ under apple trees with other folks. Not listenin’ to your grandma and me.”

      Every now and again he’d start scolding. It took everything she had not to take offense. He wasn’t wrong. They’d tried to warn her about her choices. In a search for someone to love her, she hadn’t listened, and every now and again Gramps brought it up. “We all make mistakes, Gramps. Look, I made red sauce. Your favorite.”

      Trying to change the subject didn’t work today. “I told ya. Your grandma tried to talk sense into ya, but kids don’t like to listen. We saw what happened with your mother and we didn’t want the same thing to happen with you.”

      She set down the spoon and crossed the room. “I learned my lesson. Now I’m here and we can leave all that behind us. Can’t we?”

      His brow drew down. His forehead wrinkled. He seemed to be grasping for something to say, but Jax walked in the side door right then.

      He seemed to size up the situation quickly. “Sir, can I take you for a short walk to the barn sites? I need your opinion on a couple of things.”

      “Me? Oh. Sure!” The transformation of Gramps’s face was almost instantaneous. “We’ll be gettin’ the apples in the barn soon, if I can get this girl on some kind of proper schedule.”

      Kindness deepened Jax’s expression when he looked at her. Then he took Gramps’s arm and helped him down the three steps to the side door. “Still smells real good in there.” He flashed a quick smile her way, but it was a smile tinged with compassion. “How much time do we have?”

      “Eight minutes until the pasta’s done.”

      “We’ll be back.” He led Gramps outside.

      She breathed.

      Minute to minute, she wasn’t sure what Gramps would say or do. Remember or forget. She would seek Mortie’s advice once Gramps and CeeCee were asleep. Mortie wouldn’t mind her calling after hours. She’d been a good friend to Libby’s mother when they were young, before her mother took a walk on the wild side. Mortie would advise and counsel. Never blame. And Libby could use a dose of that wisdom right about now.

      Worn down.

      That was what he saw when he looked into Libby’s dark blue eyes. Eyes that matched the Central Washington sky.

      Was she worn down by life? Circumstances? The current situation?

      Maybe all three. Which meant he needed to keep his distance like he did on every job. Trouble was, this job was different. If he stayed to help rebuild that barn, he’d be here every day, wanting to help because something in her called to him. The pain she tried to hide. The self-confidence she pretended to have. The hurt he’d seen from something the old fellow said.

      Grandma Molly had been the same way. She’d gotten downright nasty at times, and he’d been one of the few people who saw beyond the curt words. The hurled insults. Because he knew it wasn’t her saying those rude things. It was the disease.

      He should leave this job to someone else. The family foundation could have the whole thing done as an act of mercy, but then she’d know that it was Central Valley Fruit footing the bill and might refuse their help.

      “Them apples, them first ones, they’ve got to come off those trees now.” Cleve gripped Jax’s arm with one hand and pointed with the other. “They should be in the barn, and out on the sales tables out front. What’s that girl been doin’?” he grumped, then stopped dead to rights. “Where’d the barn go?”

      The old fellow’s angst made Jax’s decision. Yeah, the foundation could rebuild the barn but they couldn’t get to the root of the problem. The old man’s declining state.

      He could. If nothing more than giving her some respite as things got worse. He’d faced this disease with his grandmother with a host of help, professional and family.

      Libby had no one but herself and her little girl and the nurse from the local agency. Jax knew the score. This was a 24/7, 365 kind of illness. Two hours a day, three times a week wasn’t going to cut it.

      He’d see it through.

      He’d try to keep his distance from Libby Creighton and her precious daughter. He’d stay civil and kind. That was what they needed