Authors: Nichole Christoff
I struck out for the tree and the vantage point the crest of the hill would afford. The track was steep, but the switchbacks made it manageable. I heard Barrett’s boots thudding on the dirt behind me as he hustled to catch up with me. His gait was slightly off. I supposed, after weeks in a cast, his leg was cranky about cooperating.
In the morning, it would be Monday, and Barrett had an appointment with an army physical therapist on the books. She’d set him straight before he returned to his regular duties. Except I doubted he planned to head to D.C. and Walter Reed tonight. I wondered what excuse he’d given to his superior to be granted a few extra days of leave instead—but the question slipped to the back of my mind as I topped the rise and got caught up in the beauty of the view.
Halting alongside the magnificent apple tree, I wouldn’t have been surprised to see Rip Van Winkle asleep under it. It was wild and wonderful with branches that seemed to scratch the underbellies of the clouds above. Others reached low and got lost in a tangle of yellowing grasses growing all around its trunk. Except for the one apple I’d seen, its overripe fruit had dropped from its limbs. They scented the air with cider and made me feel like the coming dusk was warmer than it really was.
Beyond the tree, the land sloped to form a golden bowl. Like some kind of shorthand, more fruit trees and splintered stumps dotted the hillside as regularly as Morse code. Altogether, they formed an old orchard, untended and untamed.
Where the ground leveled out, stones had been stacked on one another to create a foundation. Whether a house had ever been built on it, I didn’t know. But in the distance, above the rim’s far side, I could see the peaks of a familiar yellow Victorian home and the roofline of a bright red barn, too.
“This is the end of your family’s land,” I said as Barrett joined me on the hill.
“No.” Barrett sat on the grass. He stretched his legs in front of him, crossed them at the ankles, and scowled at the shallow valley. “This is the start of it.”
“ ‘Barrett Orchards,’ ” I quoted, recalling the sign in front of his grandmother’s house and putting two and two together. “ ‘Since 1799.’ ”
Barrett nodded. He’d been drinking again. The tang of bourbon clung to him and clashed with the scent of the apples.
I sat beside him. The earth was cool with a hint of the coming season, and the ancient tree’s shade chilled me as it spilled into my lap. But the grass had soaked up the sun’s goodness during the course of the afternoon, and it felt warm when I raked my fingers through it.
“Since 1799,” I repeated. “That’s quite a legacy.”
Barrett didn’t respond.
“I thought the trees along the lane to your grandmother’s house were impressive.” I turned away from him, looked up into the old tree’s tangle. “But this one’s my favorite.”
“Local folklore says Johnny Appleseed planted it.”
“Really?”
“Really.” Barrett’s voice was hard. And the edge of it was as sharp as a scythe. “My grandfather proposed to my grandmother under it. My father proposed to my mother here, too.”
Something in his tone had me scrambling to my feet—and feeling uncomfortably like I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Part of me wanted to ask whether he’d proposed to his ex-wife beneath the tree’s branches. But I suspected I wouldn’t like the answer.
Beside me, Barrett got tired of glaring at the landscape. He scrubbed a hand across his eyes. “I had no idea Eric’s mother was such a mess.”
She certainly was. And her son was barely holding himself together. I’d seen it in the way he’d waved that shotgun at Barrett.
And I’d sure felt it when he’d backhanded me.
The throbbing he’d left behind in my cheekbone had simmered down, but when I ran my tongue along my teeth, a couple of my molars wobbled. They’d be all right. I’d just have to give up chewing for a day or two. They’d serve as a great reminder that Eric was capable of cleaning my clock. And they’d remind me to stick to Dawkins’s advice to watch my step. I stopped probing my mouth, shoved my fists into the pockets of my suede coat—and I caught Barrett looking at me a little too intently.
He said, “Jamie, I think we should stop seeing each other.”
And at that instant, I felt as if the entire hillside had shifted beneath my feet.
“You’ve been great,” Barrett went on. But he wasn’t looking at me any longer. He grimaced at his family’s old homestead nestled in the bowl below us. “This just isn’t going to work out for me.”
I turned to look in the opposite direction. I couldn’t quite make out the peaks of the Wentz house in the distance. But I could see the barn’s crumbling roof.
“I get it,” I replied. “You want me out of your hair while you and Vance—”
“No, I want to call it quits permanently. I’ve been thinking about this for a while.”
Like last Tuesday night? In my guest bedroom?
I felt cold all over.
“I think it’s best if we end things where they are.” Barrett clambered to his feet. “Now, we should go. It’s getting late.”
But that was an excuse to part ways and I knew it. I opened my mouth to call him on it. He interrupted me.
“It’s getting dark. I’ll wait here while you walk to your car.”
“You could come with me. Your grandmother will be glad to see you.”
Barrett’s chocolate-brown eyes slid away from mine. “No, thanks. I’d rather walk. But you watch your step. The hillside’s steep.”
In Barrett’s words, I heard Deputy Dawkins’s warning.
And this angered me.
“You don’t need to do me any favors, Barrett. I can put one foot in front of the other—with or without you watching my back.”
I turned on my heel, started for the trailhead.
Barrett’s voice, as rough as gravel, chased after me. “I let a girl walk through that pasture alone once. I’m not making that mistake again.”
I didn’t stay to argue. I picked my way down to the creek bed, strode across the meadow without looking back. But before I got into my Jag, I glanced at the hilltop, at the old contorted tree, to see the silhouette of the man standing next to it—and I knew he was just as twisted inside.
And worst of all, I knew there was nothing I could do about it.
Chapter 11
As I slid behind the wheel of my XJ8, I refused to shed any tears over Lieutenant Colonel Adam Barrett.
But I sure as hell felt like it.
I fired up the ignition, tried to take comfort in my car’s racy growl. And the fact that I’d be going home to D.C. in the morning. After all, if Barrett and I were through, there was no point in my staying in Fallowfield any longer. As much as my heart bled for Pamela Wentz, she was beyond harm now. Besides, I had clients waiting for me. Clients who’d be glad to hear from me. And I’d spoken to the sheriff as well as brought Barrett home from his overnight in the county jail, so I’d met my obligation to Barrett’s grandmother. She’d have to be content with that. Even if I wasn’t.
In all fairness, though, I had to admit Barrett never promised me a rose garden. And from the get-go, I’d sworn to him I didn’t want any kind of commitment. Having been raised by a decidedly single father and with a ratty ex-husband in my past, I couldn’t imagine what a healthy commitment even looked like. Happily ever afters, I was convinced, were for other women. Except I couldn’t deny that the more I got to know him, Barrett had seemed an awful lot like a prince among men.
That idea made me angry beyond reason. I hit the brakes a little too hard, skidded to a halt alongside an obligatory stop sign. Apparently, I’d reached the fork in the road that would take me into Fallowfield—or back to the Barrett house.
But I wasn’t ready to face anyone or anything connected to that last name.
So I headed into town—and to the Apple Blossom Café.
The glow of good cheer spilling from the diner’s wide window drew me like a moth to a flame. And I wasn’t the only one. A guy in baggy pants, a tight T-shirt, and a leather vest peered into the plate glass like tomorrow’s lottery numbers were pasted on the wall inside the restaurant. At the curb, his companion stood in the shadow of the open driver-side door of a black Dodge Charger with wide red racing stripes running its length. He had propped one foot on the car’s floorboard as if he needed to be ready to jump into the vehicle and make a clean getaway.
And I didn’t like the look of that.
I called to the guy at the window.
“I think they’re open.”
The man turned. A scrolling tattoo patterned his throat, and in his mouth, a toothpick flicked from side to side like the tongue of a snake. He looked me up and down like I was a little brown mouse who’d arrived at the Reptile House in time for dinner.
“Next time,” he said, “I’ll get carryout.”
His friend guffawed like he’d said something dirty. The two of them got into the Charger. Their tires squealed as they took off up the street.
I pushed my way into the diner, but I couldn’t see what had been so interesting that Toothpick Boy had pressed his face against the glass to get a better look at it. The place was as quiet as if all of Fallowfield routinely stayed home on a Sunday night. Maybe they did. But in one of the deep booths, a young mom enjoyed a meatloaf dinner she hadn’t had to make, while her equally young husband spoon-fed mashed peas to the infant in his lap. The baby’s brother was old enough to hang on to his own spoon. He repeatedly banged it on the tabletop with glee.
At the far end of the lunch counter, Charlotte laughed with two men as they each finished a piece of banana cream pie. It took me a second to realize the man in jeans and a navy blue hoodie was actually the sheriff. I’d never seen Luke Rittenhaus out of uniform before. The second man wore a kind of uniform, too, but his was a beautiful camel tweed sport coat with suede elbow patches and the same burgundy pocket square I’d seen him wear the day before. He was the spitting image of what a librarian ought to be, and that was a good thing, because a librarian was exactly what Calvin Mead was.
He glanced my way as I made tracks to a table in the corner, did a double take when he recognized me.
“It’s Jamie, right? Come join us.”
Rittenhaus turned, saw me, and didn’t look delighted with the invitation.
“Cal,” he growled, “maybe she’s here to meet Adam.”
But I wasn’t going to meet Adam Barrett anywhere anymore.
And the pain of it must’ve shown on my face.
“Oh, no,” Charlotte said. “I know that look. Here. Sit here. The chocolate cake’s on the house.”
She laid a fresh paper placemat and cutlery beside her brother’s spot.
I thought,
What the hell,
left my table, and, despite a surge of shyness, settled onto the stool at the counter.
“What happened?” Charlotte asked, sliding a fat wedge of cake in front of me. “Did you argue?”
“Adam’s been arguing with everyone all week,” Rittenhaus declared. And he had the black eye to prove it, though the bruise was fading to a mossy green. “Now that he’s pissed everyone off, maybe he’ll have the sense to go back to wherever the army’s been keeping him.”
“Nope,” I said, forking up a mouthful of chocolatey goodness and nibbling on it carefully. “I guess he’s got a whole lotta leave, because he’s staying in Fallowfield for the foreseeable future. Meanwhile, I’m going back to D.C. in the morning.”
“I’m very sorry,” Charlotte said.
So was I. I swallowed hard, pushed the plate of cake away. I didn’t want to bare my heart and soul to these kind strangers. Besides, they were Barrett’s friends, not mine. At least, they’d been his friends at one time. But the bonds of youth were hard to break. If push came to shove, I’d lay money that they’d step up to be his friends still. And with that in mind, I changed the subject. I told Rittenhaus about the jokers I’d seen outside the café when I’d arrived.
Cal eyed his sister. “I don’t like the sound of that.”
“Neither do I.” She crossed her arms against her chest.
“About three months back,” Cal told me, “a guy hit her cook over the head in the alley when he went to take out the trash after closing. After he filched the cook’s wallet, he forced his way in here, stole all the money in the till.”
“He didn’t get much,” Charlotte said defensively. “I’d already left with the night deposit.”
“Just because it could’ve been worse,” Rittenhaus interjected, “doesn’t make it any better.”
I said, “I take it assault and robbery are rare things around here?”
“Robbery,” Rittenhaus confirmed, “assault and battery, rape…all crimes against persons are pretty unusual in our neck of the woods. Don’t get me wrong; people still get themselves into all kinds of trouble. We’ve got our share of burglary, drunk and disorderly, theft, and drug use.”
Having met Vance McCabe, I could well believe that last one.
I said, “Drug use often means drug trafficking.”
“Yeah, we’ve had a definite uptick in that, too.” The sheriff got to his feet, tossed his napkin on the plate he’d practically licked clean. “I’ll call in your description of that Dodge Charger, see if my deputies can spot those guys tonight.”
Charlotte walked him to the end of the counter. There, their body language changed. Playfully, she flicked his hoodie’s zipper pull—and he leaned in for a lingering kiss on her lips.
My jaw must’ve hit the floor, because Calvin chuckled.
He said, “They should get a room, right?”
“What? No.” I turned my attention to my flatware, lined it up on the placemat just so. “I didn’t realize they were seeing each other, that’s all.”
“They’ve been together about two years now.”
And Barrett had cut me loose after seven months. But I didn’t want to think about Barrett. Or the dull ache throbbing behind my breastbone since our last conversation.
Still, I said, “What’s Rittenhaus got against Barrett, anyway?”
“You mean except the brawling and the black eye?” Cal laughed outright this time. “They were good friends in high school.”
“I’d gathered as much. What changed?”
Calvin Mead’s good humor disappeared.
“Pamela,” he said.
“I visited her home,” I admitted, “and saw the shortcut through the field where she was attacked. Did you ever see anyone out there who shouldn’t have been?”