SATURDAY MORNING DAWNED bright and clear at the orchard. Collin woke to the sound of cardinals in the trees outside the window, and for the first time in more days than he cared to count, he wasn’t waking up thinking about Savannah.
Much.
He showered, lukewarm instead of ice cold, and pulled a pair of jeans over his hips. He grabbed a Tyler Orchards T-shirt and his favorite ball cap, but skipped the boots. It would be too hot for boots today. He slipped his feet into his old Nikes and headed for the kitchen.
His grandmother, Gladys, had made pancakes and she pointed him to the table. “Short stack or tall?” she asked, her slight Missouri drawl more pronounced than usual. She wore orthopedic shoes on her feet, jeans, a Tyler Orchards T-shirt, and her hair was held back with a colorful scarf. She looked like a shorter, older, female version of him. He studied her closely. The paleness of the last few weeks was gone. Her eyes were alert. The post-surgery limp remained, but he thought it didn’t seem as pronounced.
A wave of love and relief rushed through him.
“Short. How are you feeling this morning? And where’s Amanda?”
“She rushed through breakfast a few minutes ago and said she was going to make sure the truck was ready to go. What’s gotten into that girl?”
“She says she wants to learn the business.”
Gran shook her head. “I hope she stays with it.” She brought his plate, only limping a little, and sat across from him. “I’m going to the market with you today.”
“Gran—”
“I had hip surgery, not heart surgery. I miss my friends. I need to be around people,” she said. “A woman can only take so many naps, and I’ve already taken far too many.”
“That old parking lot is filled with potholes, and you know the building isn’t air-conditioned.” Not limping was one thing, taking Gran in her condition to the market was another. He took a bite of pancake and then another.
“And you know we didn’t have air-conditioning in this house for a lot of years. I can deal with the heat, and I’m going.” She set her mouth in a stubborn line that Collin recognized. It was the same expression he and his sisters wore when Gladys or Granddad laid down a law they didn’t agree with.
“I’m just thinking of your comfort.”
“And I’m just thinking of my sanity. It’s been more than two months since the surgery, and the only people I’ve seen outside of the family are in my doctor’s office. Besides, I’ve got Red Rider.”
“Who’s Red Rider? And what does he or she or it have to do with the market?”
Gran went into the mudroom and a second later motored into the kitchen on a red mobility scooter with orange flames painted on the sides and a long orange flag swinging from behind the seat. “This is Red Rider, guaranteed to make it through potholes, crowded restaurants and even a sandy beach without an issue,” she said, gesturing with her hands like one of those models from The Price is Right.
Collin choked on a bite of pancake. “When did you get a mobility scooter?”
Gran turned off the machine, stood and returned to the stove where she flipped another pancake. “A couple of weeks ago. I couldn’t sleep so I was watching one of those middle-of-the-night health shows—”
“You mean infomercials?”
She waved a hand. “Whatever. There are people older than me running all over the world on these things, and you know I’m not as fast as I used to be. I figured one might be the answer to my problems. Plus, you won’t have to wait on me so much. It arrived yesterday and I tipped the delivery driver an extra fifty to help me put it together.”
“Gran, I don’t mind waiting.” He didn’t. He might get frustrated when she asked him to run back and forth all over the grocery, but at least he had her in the store with him.
“I mind.” She looked at the scooter as if inspecting it. “I’m not sure I’d have painted it to look as if there were flames shooting down the sides, but then again, the flames are kind of cool, don’t you think?”
He sighed and got up to inspect the scooter. The tires seemed fine. It was electric, so no worries about gas or oil. Collin decided to make a deal.
“If I put your scooter in the truck so you can get around easier, you have to promise that you’ll use it. No leaving it in the market while you traipse off with your friends,” he said, feeling as if he were talking to a teenager rather than his grandmother. He had to, though. Gran might seem excited about the scooter here, but once she was around her friends there was no telling how she would feel. Gran started to say something, but Collin held up his hand. “Do we have a deal?”
Gran drew her brows together. “Fine.”
A half hour later the three of them were at the market, Amanda watching the table inside with jams and jellies, and him outside with the apples, berries from the garden and a few early peaches and pears. Gran cruised the aisles on her scooter, the orange flag flying behind her as she motored around, talking to her friends. Collin shook his head.
Maybe he’d been wrong about Gran’s mental health. This morning she’d seemed like her old self, not the sad, tired woman he’d been worrying about the past few weeks.
He spotted Savannah inside with Hazel at their table. She wore a white tank top, olive shorts, and had her hair pulled back in a ponytail. Long chains hung from her ears, and he wondered if she still wore the green belly button ring or if she’d changed it. Could belly button rings even be changed?
She laughed at something Mama Hazel said, and the pure joy on her face sent a shiver of awareness through him. Collin couldn’t remember her ever laughing or smiling that freely in the past. Whatever had brought Savannah home, it seemed to have changed her from the sullen person she had been all those years ago into someone a little less angry and a little more happy.
Happy looked good on her.
He knew he wasn’t being completely reasonable. He hadn’t interacted with her enough to know if she were truly sullen or if there was something more to the quiet girl she had been.
“I’ll take a dozen apples, please.” A young woman with two toddlers at her knees jolted him back to the parking lot. Collin filled the basket the woman carried and then focused on the rest of his customers.
The morning flew. With summer in full swing, even if the calendar hadn’t made the official changeover, people were out looking for fresh produce and other locally made goods. By noon he’d sold out of berries and had only a couple of baskets of apples left.
“Hey, stranger.” Savannah came around the side of his truck with two large foam cups in her hands. She gave one to him.
“Lemonade. You looked like you could use it,” she said, and sat on the edge of his tailgate. Collin joined her.
“Busy today.”
“Isn’t it every Saturday? I’ve been here twice now, and both days have been crazy.”
“Sometimes I think we could run this market every day of the week and we’d have a crowd. Thanks for the lemonade,” he said as he sipped from the cup.
Bud’s famous lemonade, always on the tart side, made his eyes squinch together. It was the best taste in the world. He shot a glance at Savannah. Maybe the second best, but he wasn’t going there.
“Any news on the tour?”
“Not a peep,” she said, and maybe he was imagining it, but her voice sounded happy about that.
“Got tired of singing about nothing, did you?” he teased.
Savannah shot him an annoyed look. “I don’t sing about nothing. People loved that first single.”
“Of course they did. It was a song about getting drunk and getting revenge on an ex. Who wouldn’t love that?”
“Apparently you.” She shot him another look. “Are you trying to pick a fight with me? Because I’ll take the lemonade back.”
Collin switched his cup to his other hand protectively. He backpedaled. “I’m just saying you don’t see King George singing about drunken revenge.”
“No, he sings about breaking the law and running off to Mexico. But that’s okay because—what?—he has a penis and I have a vagina.”
“That’s not what I meant.” He was losing control of the conversation too fast. It was just a joke.
“Because there’s nothing wrong with party songs, as evidenced by where that particular one landed on the charts.”
He’d offended her. Collin didn’t mean to offend Savannah. Damn it, he should have just drunk the damn lemonade and kept his big mouth shut.
“I just meant...never mind. I like songs that have meaning, that’s all.”
Savannah shook her head. “What are you, fifty? Not all music has to be about some deep, dark issue. Music can be about having fun and being free.”
He was quiet for a long moment. “What’s your next single about?”
Savannah took her full bottom lip between her teeth and shot him a sidelong look. “A girl who gets dumped at her baby shower, and takes revenge in a series of diabolical ways.” That was, assuming the song or any others ever got released. Savannah laughed. “So that’s not the greatest example, but there are a couple of ballads on the album, and even one or two George-worthy songs.”
“Good for you. When does it come out?”
An emotion he couldn’t read clouded her big brown eyes for a moment. “I’m not sure,” she said and then shook her head. When her gaze connected with his again, that strange emotion was gone. “What about you? Figure out those twenty-year-old numbers?”
Collin finished the lemonade. “I did, actually. Now I just need to figure out how to present it to a potential business partner.”
“Someone’s buying into the orchard?” She sounded surprised.
Was he that transparent? Contracting with the grocer was as far as he wanted to go on the partnership route.
“No, it’s staying in the family. I had a meeting with a regional grocer who wants Tyler Orchards to become their main organic provider.”
“That’s amazing. Congratulations.”
He wanted to reach out and take her hand in his, but he couldn’t. They weren’t dating. That one sexual experience didn’t even make them friends, which made it even stranger that he was telling her this when he hadn’t mentioned it to Gran or Mara or Amanda yet. Collin wobbled his head from side to side, not agreeing with her but not disagreeing, either. “It could be. The thing is, the contract would call for us to only provide to the chain. No more market or farm stand and, after this summer, possibly no contract with the local restaurants and B and Bs. I want to convince them our trees can provide ample fruit for them while still keeping the market and stand going.”
It felt good to be telling someone else about his plans, even if the someone he was telling wasn’t technically a friend. Maybe because the someone wasn’t technically a friend. Savannah was an outsider, not someone like Gran or his sisters who might agree with his decision even if she didn’t like the choice. Talking it over with Savannah could be his best chance to get an honest opinion about the choices before him.
“Why not just give them what they want? It sounds like an amazing deal.”
He wanted to reach out and take her hand in his, but he couldn’t. They weren’t dating. That one sexual experience didn’t even make them friends. “It would be. More money, more potential for growth. More stability for the family.” He paused. “The stand and the market were important to my grandfather, though. It feels almost disloyal to turn away from them.”
“But if it’s more money for less work,” she said as if she were playing devil’s advocate with him. “Why not go for it? It isn’t as if people won’t still get Tyler Orchards’ produce. They’ll just get it from a bigger store.”
He didn’t want her to play devil’s advocate. He didn’t want to think of the ways it would be simpler to give Westfall Foods exactly what they wanted. And this was not the conversation to have with Savannah, the woman he’d screwed on the side of a lake earlier this week. The woman he still couldn’t get out of his head. The woman whose hand he wanted to hold, whose neck he wanted to kiss, whose body he wanted to get lost in.
None of those things would help him make this decision; they might muddy it, though.
Savannah had run away from this town twice already. What could she know about the kind of root system that was so important to Collin when, instead of facing whatever bothered her, she ran from it?
Then again, she wasn’t running now, was she? She’d come back, and although she said it was only for a couple of weeks, she’d already been here three and showed no interest in leaving. Maybe he hadn’t given her enough credit. Running away from pain as a teen was a normal thing, wasn’t it? And going on that reality show wasn’t running away, exactly, it was running toward, wasn’t it? His hand tightened around the lemonade cup. She was still here.
That was dangerous ground. Savannah still being in Slippery Rock right now didn’t mean she would always be here any more than the offer from Westfall Foods would always be on the table.
He couldn’t deny he wanted the grocer’s contract, but he wasn’t willing to give up on the market or the roadside stand to do it. Maybe it was selfish, but he wanted all the options. He needed to hold on to more control until he knew Amanda was back on track. Until he knew Gran was truly on the mend and not just having a good day.
If things ended badly with the grocer and he shut down the local sourcing, it would take a long time to build that trust back up.
“We’re a local farm. Going into business with a chain is a great opportunity, but it’s also a risk. I need to hedge the bets. This isn’t anything you would understand.”
Savannah blinked at him and anger lit her brown eyes. Collin leaned back. “Nothing I’d understand?” she asked, and her voice had a strange edge to it.
“You aren’t a farmer. The people in this county depend on my orchard. I have business relationships with other local owners.”
“That’s an asshole thing to say. You think because I can’t milk cows that I don’t know what it means to be a local farmer? I’ve seen my brother and father get up before dawn for most of my life. Even when he was playing football, Levi would call home to talk about the herd or new techniques.”
She twisted her wrist, sending the ice in her cup rattling against the sides. “Leaving Slippery Rock doesn’t mean I don’t understand the people who choose to stay here. The fact is you’ll still be providing fruits and berries and other produce to the community, it’ll just come from a store with air-conditioning instead of the back of your truck.”
She didn’t get it. Collin blew out a breath. “And what about the people who can’t afford grocery-store prices? I sell a bushel of apples for fifteen dollars here at the market. In a grocery store, that price is going to jump to at least thirty.”
“What family of four needs a bushel of apples every week? You’re acting like all people eat around here are apples for breakfast, lunch and dinner.”
“You know, money isn’t everything, Savannah.”
“You’re the one making this about the almighty dollar. Or did you not just say the money from this contract would mean a more stable cash flow?”
Collin wanted to disagree, but he had said that. It had been his main motivator for renegotiating the contract before he signed it. Money didn’t buy happiness, but the stability of it made life easier to enjoy.
Savannah shook her head. “It’s your business, none of mine, but if you want the security of the big contract you’re going to have to let go of whatever it is that is making you put this market above your family’s financial security,” she said and hopped off the tailgate.
She walked back into the market and began to help her mother tear down the remainder of their display. Like most of the other booths, Mama Hazel’s pies had nearly sold out.
Savannah had a point. A family of four didn’t need a bushel of apples every week. He could go along with what Westfall wanted and then renegotiate next year when they saw that he could provide for them and the local buyers.
Damn it, this Saturday had started out so well. Gran was having a good day. Amanda seemed to be regaining her balance.
Savannah looked freaking hot in those shorts.
He’d known exactly how to present his counter-presentation to the executives at Westfall, and now he was torn between the immediate security of the deal and the tentative security of keeping things the same.
There was nothing wrong with his grandfather’s way of doing business, but Collin wanted more. For the orchard and for the family. He wanted to build something bigger and stronger. Something that couldn’t be torn down by anything.
Collin shoved the tailgate closed and stomped to a trash can to throw away the empty cup.
He should have kept the options to himself to mull over a bit more. Sitting with Savannah on the tailgate of his pickup didn’t make her his confidante any more than having sex with her had made her his girlfriend.
He’d wanted an unbiased and possibly uninformed opinion on his plan, and what he’d gotten was a bit of devil’s advocacy and sniping about her lack of farming knowledge. She deserved better than that.
Now he’d not only insulted Savannah when he should have kept things light and fluffy between then, but he was back to square one: put all his apples in Westfall’s basket or keep doing things the way Granddad had always done them.
* * *
HAVING SEX WITH Collin didn’t make her an expert, but he didn’t seem like the kind of guy who would want a business partner, especially one who told him where to sell his produce and for how much. Savannah tried to wrap her head around Collin’s dilemma. It seemed straightforward to her: choose the road with more dollar signs attached.
She knew it was shallow, but it was also true. Money made things easier. She didn’t remember much about her life before coming to Slippery Rock, but the things she did weren’t pretty. Hunger and anger were what stood out the most. Hunger on her part. Loud words and angry voices from the shadowy people that stomped around the dirty little apartment. She remembered always feeling cold and the smoothness of the note attached to her thin jacket when she’d been left at the police station.
When she got to Slippery Rock it was warm. She was clean. Nobody yelled, or at least not often. There was plenty of food. Money for toys and clothes.
Taking the contract with the big chain didn’t mean Collin was turning his back on the community. It meant he was choosing financial security for his family.
Without saying a word to her mother, Savannah began folding the white tablecloth Hazel used every Saturday. She carefully matched the corners, just as she’d seen Hazel do a thousand times, placed the remaining pies carefully in a box, and wiped down the tiered pie display Hazel had brought from the farm that morning. Her mother watched her for a long moment.
“Everything okay?”
“Everything’s fine,” she said, anger lacing her words. She couldn’t breathe. Felt like all the fresh air had been sucked from the room. She had to get out of there. Savannah put the tablecloth in the box and picked it up. “I’ll put these in the car.”
Outside, she put the box on the trunk and then put her hands on her knees. She took a long, slow breath in and held it for a few seconds. Breathed out.
She wasn’t mad at Collin, not even for that swipe he’d taken at her short-lived singing career. He didn’t understand that taking that record deal in Nashville was about choosing financial security for herself.
Savannah had no illusions about why she’d accepted the contract with the Nashville label. That decision had been based solely on security, as had the decision to go on tour with Genevieve. Savannah had wanted money and she’d wanted it fast. Money that wasn’t given to her in an allowance or because Bennett or Mama Hazel knew she was going out with her friends. She scuffed the toe of her sandal on the asphalt. Money that wasn’t scraped together from the two-dollar tips left on the tables at the Slope.
Every single thing she’d done the last few years was for the benefit of Savannah.
She’d wanted to be able to show her family she had something to offer; that she was good enough.
For too long she’d scraped by on part-time waitressing hours at the Slope and using her mother’s credit cards when she went shopping. Farm work had seemed dirty all those years ago. Savannah didn’t like to be dirty, so she ignored the cattle and other chores. She liked singing because it was clean. Getting dressed up, putting on makeup, entertaining people with the fake fabulousness of her life. Her voice was a means to an end. She didn’t go to college like Levi. She didn’t know how to be a farm girl. Singing was what she had to offer them.
Then, when all those things she’d wanted were within reach, she’d destroyed the perfect picture she’d been painting. Just like she destroyed everything good in her life. Savannah twisted her ponytail around her hand and pulled.
Now she didn’t even have singing. She had a record label on the verge of cutting her, a ticked-off Nashville star against her, and she wasn’t even sure she still wanted to sing. Sure, a few of those moments on stage were fun, but most of them were awkward and scary, and afterward it was a blur of people she didn’t know telling her how amazing she was, and long days and longer nights on a lonely tour bus. People using social media to talk about her like they knew her. Running the risk of reporters digging into the past she didn’t like to think about, much less make into the next headline.
“Hey, Savannah.” Amanda walked out of the building, arms loaded with her own box of leftovers.
Savannah released the tiny, braided locks she’d fisted in her hand, popped the trunk and put the pie box inside. “Hey.” Savannah looked toward the building, hoping Hazel would be out soon. She wanted to leave. Things were getting a little too close for comfort.
Hazel didn’t magically appear in the doorway.
“Do you like my brother or something?”
The question startled her. Amanda stood near her, arms folded over her chest, watching Savannah intently.
“I, uh, barely know him,” she said. Having sex with Collin didn’t mean she knew him.
“Because you guys looked chummy out in the parking lot for a little while, and then you stomped off. Did he say something stupid? Because he says stupid things a lot.”
Savannah grinned. He did say stupid things. But then, so did she. And throwing Collin under the bus with his kid sister was just wrong. She was tired of doing the wrong thing. “He was just voicing his opinion.”
Amanda nodded and then sighed. “Yeah. He has opinions.”
“Opinions like?”
“He thinks I’m a felon waiting to happen.”
“And you’re not?” They leaned against the trunk of Hazel’s car. Savannah watched Amanda closely. Her white-blond hair was so different from Savannah’s nearly black hair. Savannah’s skin the lightest of browns and Amanda’s nearly peach. But the look in the younger girl’s green gaze was as familiar as the look she sometimes caught in her own brown eyes. The look that came whenever she was feeling particularly inadequate. Misunderstood.
She hated that look.
“I just... No one listens to me,” she said, and Savannah could understand that, too. Not that she’d ever tried hard to make people listen to her. Still, she’d often hoped people would understand what she couldn’t say.
“I felt the same way when I was your age. The thing is, people can only hear what we put out there and sometimes we think we’re being clear about things—” like money, security, but those were her battles, not Amanda’s “—but we aren’t.”
“I’m not sure how much more clear I can be.”
“About what?”
Amanda didn’t say anything for a long moment. She glanced at Savannah from the corner of her eye and bit her lower lip. “Don’t laugh.”
Savannah used her index finger to cross her heart. “Promise.”
Amanda seemed to choose her words carefully. “Saving the world.”
Savannah opened her mouth and then closed it. Those three words were nowhere near the words she’d thought the young girl would say. She’d thought they were talking about boys or maybe taking a year off between high school and college.
“Never mind. Stupid idea.” She started to walk away, but Savannah grabbed her elbow, stopping her.
“What do you mean ‘save the world’?”
“I mean leave it greener than it is now. Reverse global warming or at least slow it down. Granddad and now Collin run an organic orchard, but one orchard isn’t enough. I want to do my part, but no one will listen to me.”
“Then you have to find a way to make them listen. You have your purpose. You need to find a way to make that purpose heard.”
“Do you think I can?”
She nodded. “I never underestimate the power of a young woman with ambition and goals.”
“Like you?”
Pain stabbed at Savannah’s heart but she held her smile steady. She’d had all the wrong ambitions, all the wrong reasons for leaving this place. Look where it had gotten her. Back here, yes. Reconnecting with her family, yes. Having a quickie by the lake with a man she barely knew. Not such a smart move. Practically obsessing over said man? An even dumber move.
“I’ve made a few missteps, but I’m working on finding my purpose.”
Amanda grinned. “You make a good listener,” she said, and the simple words eased the pain in Savannah’s chest.
“Thanks.”
Amanda started toward the market. “I’d better go find Gran. Thanks, Savannah.”
“You’re welcome,” she said, but Amanda had already gone.
Savannah had the feeling it was she who should be thanking the younger girl.
She didn’t yet know what her purpose was, but she was more determined than ever to find it.