The Orchard at the Edge of Town (3 page)

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 her 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.
Daisy must have figured it out herself. She dragged a cell phone from a pocket in her oversized sweater and glanced at it. “In a half hour. It's a seven-minute drive from here.”
“You timed it?”
“Of course I did,” Daisy snapped. “I needed to know how much time I could spend helping Simon if he needed it.”
“Does he usually need your help?” Apricot was just curious enough to ask.
“I help him all the time,” Daisy responded, dropping into a rickety white chair that had been there the first time Apricot visited with her aunt and would probably be there long after both of them were gone. “I watch his girls. Evangeline and Aurora. They're eight.”
“Their mother can't—”
“My sister is deceased. She passed away very unexpectedly a year after the girls were born.” Daisy sniffed and used the edge of her sweater to dab at her eyes.
“I'm sorry for your loss.” Apricot wasn't sure if she should pat Daisy's hunched shoulders or keep her distance.
She kept her distance.
Grandma Sapphire had always warned the kids in the commune to stay away from rabid animals and to stay even farther away from rabid people. She'd never explained what that meant, but Apricot had had plenty of time to learn.
“Yes. Well, she is missed, but the girls keep me busy,” Daisy murmured.
“Glad to hear it,” Apricot responded, her gaze on the pot of water.
Please, hurry and boil.
Please.
Because Daisy wasn't the kind of person Apricot liked spending time with. As a matter of fact, she reminded her of Lionel's mother. Mary embodied the meaning of her name—bitter. Apricot had spent five years trying to impress the woman.
It hadn't happened.
It probably never would have happened.
Even if she and Lionel had made it down the aisle and produced the grandkids Mary wanted—one boy, one girl, and maybe a spare—Apricot would never have been more to her than that woman Lionel married.
She opened a couple of cupboards and finally found the small stash of mugs Rose always left there. Two blue. One yellow. All three chipped and well loved.
Apricot opened the purse and took out the tea bags and the tincture. All of them were A Thyme to Heal products, the little thyme-leaf emblem on the bottle and on the tea bags designed by her sister Plum.
“What do you have there?” Daisy suddenly asked, jumping up from her seat, her muddy-brown eyes wide. “Some kind of drugs?”
“Herbs. They're as good as drugs, though. Lots of people are using them to heal all kinds of ailments.” She dropped the last bag of chamomile into a mug and poured hot water over it. The sweet, fruity aroma drifted into the air, and she smiled. Nothing like good quality German chamomile. The scent was as soothing as the tea.
“Well, I don't have any ailments.” Daisy huffed, turning her pert nose up in the air.
“That's okay. Herbs are good for lots of things. Anxiety. Nerves. And, like I said, chamomile is great for the skin. I have a wonderful lotion that I'd be glad to—”
“I'm not even sure I want to drink the tea!” Daisy frowned, but she took the mug that Apricot offered. The yellow one, of course, because Daisy needed a little color in her life.
She sniffed, wrinkled her nose. “It smells . . .”
“Good?”
“Different.” She took a tiny little sip, frowned again. “It's not half-bad.”
“I thought you'd like it,” Apricot responded, figuring that not half-bad was Daisy's equivalent of fantastic. “If I had honey, I'd put a dollop in there for you. That really adds to the floral notes.”
“It's tea. Not some fancy wine,” Daisy muttered, staring into the light brown brew.
Apricot bit her lip to keep from commenting.
The fact was, none of her teas were
just
teas. She'd spent years finding just the right leaves, just the right herbs, just the right combinations to create teas that could soothe, excite, relax, invigorate. She'd traveled the world tasting and sampling. She'd trained as a tea sommelier, worked with some of the finest in the world.
Yeah. No. Her tea was not
just
tea!
“It's very good tea,” she said lightly. No sense throwing pearls to swine, but she wasn't going to pretend the tea wasn't something special.
“Excellent tea,” Daisy conceded, taking a long swallow. “I appreciate you brewing me a cup. Last night was long. I love staying with the girls, but they're at that age.” She sighed, plopping into the rickety chair again.
Dang-it!
Apricot hadn't given her tea so they could sit and socialize; she'd given it to her because she'd owed Deputy Baylor for the ride, and he'd looked like he'd had about all he could take of his taciturn sister-in-law.
No good deed goes unpunished
, Grandma Sapphire seemed to whisper in her ear.
Obviously, she was right!
Apricot grabbed a ginseng tea bag, plopped it into a mug and poured water over it. She needed energy, lots of it, if she were going to deal with this Daisy.
“It's not that I mind being a mother to those poor little things,” Daisy continued. “It's what Megan would have wanted.”
“Megan was your sister?”
“My older sister. By nearly seven years.” Daisy took another long sip of tea. “When the babies were born, I was just starting my job at the library. It's amazing that I've been able to keep it, what with the hours that I spend with the girls.”
“Aren't they in school during the day?” she asked.
Big mistake. Daisy scowled, her eyes flashing. “They are when school is in session. Holidays, snow days, summer—who do you think takes care of them then?”
“I'd assume their father. Or a nanny, if he hired one.”
“Would you want a stranger raising your children?”
Apricot didn't suppose she would. Since she wasn't going to ever have them, it was a moot point.
“Would you like me to top that tea off with some hot water?” She'd sidestepped the question, and Daisy frowned, pulling out her cell phone and checking the time again.
“I need to get going. I wouldn't want to be late.”
“No.” That would be a travesty. “Would you like to take my sleep tincture with you?” She grabbed the bottle, but Daisy shook her head.
“No. Thanks. I sleep just fine.” She stood, her jean skirt completely at odds with her fancy heels, the oversized fall sweater even more discordant.
Not that Apricot was judging. She was, after all, wearing a wedding dress that she was convinced had been someone's prom gown in the eighties. “If you change your mind, let me know. I have plenty in my trailer. I've also got plenty of chamomile tea.”
“I'll keep that in—” The floorboards above their heads gave a loud, old-house groan, and Daisy's eyes widened, her face losing every bit of color it had. “What was that?”
“The house settling.”
“Since when do houses settle that loudly?”
“Since forever, I'd guess,” Apricot replied. She'd grown up in a house that was falling down more than standing, and she'd heard much louder sounds.
“I don't think that's what it was,” Daisy whispered, grabbing Apricot's arm and dragging her out of the room, through the living room and straight out the front door. “It's him,” Daisy hissed as soon as they stepped onto the porch. “He's in there.”
“Who?” Apricot glanced through the open doorway. The curved staircase was empty. So was the landing at the top of it.
“Malachi Shaffer,” Daisy said, glancing into the house and then away. “He's in that room upstairs.”
“What room?”
“The room where he died.” Daisy moaned.
Apricot laughed.
She couldn't help herself.
There were a lot of things to fear in the world. A ghost wasn't one of them.
“It's not funny!” Daisy cried. “He died in this house, and he's stayed in this house. People have seen him!”
“What people?”
“I . . .” She scowled. “
People
. Okay? There've been stories about this place for years!”
“And you believe them?”
“You heard the floor creak!”
“I heard the house set—”
“I don't have time to discuss it. If you're interested in the history of the property, we have several books at the library. Once you read them, you'll realize that I'm right.” Daisy hurried down the porch stairs. She probably would have run if not for the fact that her heels kept sticking in the mud.
She peeled out of the driveway in a sporty black Ford SUV, the tires spewing dirt and gravel. Apricot watched her go, offering a wave she knew Daisy didn't see.
Maybe she
would
visit the library. Not because she worried about Malachi Shaffer's ghost, though. She'd always wondered about the history of the property. The first time she'd visited with her aunt, she'd been fascinated with the old house and all the things that had been left behind in it.
She hadn't had time to explore the closets that had still been filled with clothes or to study beautiful old furniture that was still in every room. She'd been too busy learning herbs and teas and tinctures. Too busy making soaps and candles that smelled like everything wonderful that nature had to offer. She'd learned a lot during her summers with Rose, but she'd never learned anything about any of the houses her aunt owned.
Now she had some free time. Plenty of it, and she thought that is exactly what she'd do. She'd go to the library and the historical society. She'd find books and journals and old pictures. She'd figure out everything there was to know about Malachi Shaffer and his orchard.
Because that was so much easier than figuring out everything she needed to know about herself and about where she wanted her life to go after she went back to LA.
She walked inside, closing the front door against the late September chill and standing still in the foyer, listening to the soft creaks of the old house, the quiet groans of settling wood. It didn't sound scary to her. It sounded like home and family, and something warm and wonderful that she'd been missing out on for a lot longer than she wanted to admit.
Sometimes life punched you in the face, knocked you off your feet, and dared you to hop back up again.
That's what Grandma Sapphire always said.
Apricot had been sucker punched and knocked off her feet. Eventually, she'd hop back up and make something great out of the mess she was in.
For now, she'd just go back in the kitchen, sip her tea, and wait for the tow truck to come.
 
 
“You're in big trouble, Baylor,” Emma Baily said as Simon walked into the sheriff's department.
“And that's news?” he asked, grabbing a cookie from the plate on her desk.
“Well, no,” she responded with a smile. “But I thought you'd like to know.”
“I guess Dusty called?” he asked, biting into the cookie and glancing at his watch. If the lecture he was about to get from his boss lasted less than twenty minutes, he could still get his report written and be home before the girls got on the school bus. Otherwise, he wouldn't see them until after school.
He hated those kinds of days.
“He called about fifteen times. Cade got sick of it after the third time and called a meeting.”
“With?”
“Max. He thought it was vitally important that they discuss security at the Apple Valley Fall Festival.”
“Since when is there organized security at the festival?” Usually deputies volunteered to provide help with parking and crowd control. Other than that, the Apple Valley Sheriff's Department simply enjoyed the festival like the rest of the town.

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