COLLIN WANTED—BADLY—to adjust the tie trying its best to strangle him. He liked farm work because most days the dress code called for jeans and a T-shirt, like he’d been wearing last Saturday when Savannah had found him at the lake. God, he’d like to be at the lake now instead of this conference room talking to the head of a regional grocery chain about the next step in his plan to expand Tyler Orchard. Even if being there meant lying some more about how Savannah being Levi’s younger sister was the reason he’d walked out of the Slope that night.
Walking out of the Slope had had zero to do with Levi and one hundred percent to do with the things he’d been thinking while breathing in Savannah’s sweet perfume. He’d been thinking they could take a drive out to the lake, or maybe just a quick run to his truck, so he could strip her down to see if her skin was that glowy, coppery tone everywhere, or if it was just a trick of the lighting. Yeah, there was no way he was telling Savannah any of that. He didn’t need her kind of distraction right now.
Collin focused on the question Jake Westfall asked about growth averages for the past three years. Luckily, he only needed half of his brain to talk growth averages, as the other half was still firmly in the imaginary bed of his truck. He needed to get his mind fully into this office building in Joplin, an hour west of Slippery Rock. With effort, he pushed Savannah all the way out of his brain, imagining he and the other executives were walking one of the ruler-straight rows of apple trees instead of sitting in this conference room, with its wide windows looking over the downtown area, the potted ficus in the corner, and its granite-topped table.
Damn, but he’d like to loosen this damn tie. Suits and ties were for bankers and insurance salesmen, not orchard owners. The last time he’d worn a suit, this very suit, had been his grandfather’s funeral a year and a half before. The only other time he’d worn it had been to the party his grandparents had thrown after he’d graduated college with his degree in agri-business.
The other suits in the room didn’t appear to be suffering from the same issues as he was, though, so he kept his hands away from his neck as he wrapped up his presentation about how he’d taken the orchard from a small, family-run business to a larger business, still family run but with more ties to the community.
Adding peaches and pears to the apples Tyler Orchards was known for had been a risky move, but it was paying off. The fruit stand his grandfather had run had become a fruit market, and then other local farmers had joined in, creating a full-fledged farmers’ market with locally grown vegetables, dairy products and locally sourced honey. Going into business with a regional grocery company was a logical step in his plans to take Tyler Orchards to the next level. It would increase the family’s financial stability. Money might not buy happiness, but it definitely made it easier to enjoy life.
If the deal went through with Westfall Foods, maybe it would ease whatever was stressing Amanda out to the point she was using duct tape to reroute traffic downtown and getting caught up with a group of high school firebugs.
“We’ve gone down this road before with local growers. They promise us the moon, but then they deliver late or give us sub-par goods.”
He wouldn’t risk his reputation or the reputation of the orchard his grandfather had built from nothing. That’s what made the difference, Collin wanted to say. He didn’t think Jake Westfall, the lead partner in the chain, would be swayed by an impassioned plea about personal reputation or work ethic, though. Especially if he’d been burned by someone making the same impassioned plea in the past.
“I could send you to our pages on Yelp or Facebook or any of the review sites, and you’d see thousands of satisfied customers’ comments. I could make a fifteen-minute speech about personal integrity. But I have a feeling you’ve read those comments and heard that speech before. I can only stress...” He paused. Because what else did he have except his word? These corporate executives didn’t know him, and they didn’t know how important this move was for his business. His family.
He handed another paper-clipped bunch of papers across the conference table. Recommendations from a few local restaurants and B and Bs he’d begun supplying three years before.
“I’m going to give that speech to you anyway. My family has been growing organic apples for a local fruit stand for more than forty years. Quality has always been important to us, and that isn’t going to stop if we begin contracting with you. If anything, that focus on quality will increase. You have to make the right decision for your stores. I can only tell you that contracting with Tyler Orchards is a good move for both our businesses.”
The three executives exchanged a look and then Westfall said, “If you could give us a few minutes, we’d like to have the room.”
Collin nodded, picked up the leather attaché case he’d carried in college and left the conference room with its broad table and leather executive chairs. Alone in a tiled hallway with photographic prints of the Ozark Mountains and Mark Twain National Forest, he considered his options.
The worst they could do was say no. If they did, he would continue his search for a regional grocery chain, and continue supplying local businesses and the farmers’ market. If they said yes, he’d do all those and keep expanding the orchard.
He didn’t want to spend more time in his office researching potential partners instead of in the orchard, but he would do what he had to.
Collin ran his index finger along the inside of his collar. He didn’t want to wear his funeral suit to another meeting. He’d do that, too, though, if it meant more stability for the orchard, for Gran and for Amanda.
He would do anything for them.
Collin rolled his shoulders. Anything.
A few moments later Westfall opened the conference room door and waved Collin back inside.
“We’ve been looking to increase our organic produce section, as you know, for some time. We like what we’ve heard from the local businesses you contract with, and we’ve followed the orchard’s reviews on social media. We also like the proposal you brought in today—with one addition.
“Grove Markets, our main subsidiary, can’t risk its reputation on a small outfit like yours, especially one that is already spread thin.” He held up his hand when Collin started to interrupt. “As I said before, we’ve been taken in before by the stake-my-reputation-on-this promises of other growers. The changes you’ve made to the orchard over the past seven years are tremendous. What we are proposing is a four-month trial period.
“You have four months to prove to us that you are, indeed, staking your reputation on this partnership, and we have that time to see if our customers like your produce as well as your local customers do.
“During the trial, we expect you to withdraw Tyler Orchards produce from the local farmers’ market. We would also like you to consider closing the orchard stand for the trial. If both parties are happy with the partnership at the end of the trial, we’ll revisit your involvement in both.”
Collin swallowed. Not work the stand? Not spend most weekends at the farmers’ market? Those were things his grandfather had done for decades. Businesses the elder Tyler had helped to start. Tyler Orchards would be nothing without those things. Of course, it was only for a few months, and if those months led to more business, that wasn’t a bad thing. Was it?
“What about the local restaurants and B and Bs?”
“We understand you have contracts, and don’t expect you to break them. If things go as well as we’re hoping, you may decide being our primary organic source for apples, pears and peaches is more lucrative than those smaller ventures.”
“Primary source?” Collin flexed his hands as a quick hit of adrenaline made his heart beat faster.
“That’s the deal, Mr. Tyler. We aren’t just looking for another bag of organic apples or peaches. We’re looking for a business that can become our main resource. Tyler Orchards would, of course, be noted on the packaging, but the branding would become Grove Market or Westfall Foods.”
Collin’s heart beat a little harder. A primary-source contract was so much more than he’d considered. It meant multiple thousands of dollars. It could mean expanding the orchard sooner than he’d planned. Maybe even expanding the small greenhouses where Gran raised her plots of broccoli and carrots into full-fledged fields, too.
Giving up the local businesses for a windfall contract from a regional grocery chain could change their lives. He wanted to pump his fist in the air. Those first small contracts had been his babies, his idea, his plan to transform the orchard as a small, family-run business into a bigger player in the organic marketplace. Now those initial plans could be paying off much faster than he had anticipated.
The clipped-together recommendations from the local restaurants and B and Bs caught his eye, and he felt his elation leaking like air from a broken balloon.
Those local businesses depended on Tyler fruit for their menus. Collin’s stomach knotted. Sourcing organic fruits for a grocery chain was a big deal. It could mean so much more in the financial column. But...
Collin was on a first-name basis with everyone he contracted with. He saw them running into the bank or fishing on the lake during the summer months. The fruits of his labor literally made their businesses stronger. He couldn’t take that away from them. Could he?
“Tyler Orchards is a family-run business. I make the final decisions, but I would like the chance to discuss this with my family before signing anything.”
“Of course. We can give you thirty days, and then we’ll need the decision.”
Collin nodded. He collected his things and walked out of the four-story building in downtown Joplin, Missouri. Westfall Foods had lost its three main Grove Market stores in that tornado and the storms that followed. He looked up. This building had been reduced to a pile of rubble, but Jake Westfall had rebuilt his company bigger and better than it had been before. Partnering with him would be a boon for Tyler Orchards.
* * *
TWO DAYS LATER Collin stood in the fruit stand at the end of the lane leading to Tyler Orchards, still contemplating what he should do about the offer from Westfall Foods. Go all-in with the grocery chain? Or continue as a small-potatoes fruit operation with ties to a farmers’ market, a few B and Bs and some local restaurants? He hadn’t talked to Gran or Amanda about the option because he wanted to have a firm idea about what he personally wanted first.
His professors would tell him to go with the chain, but he’d never really liked any of the professors. They’d been too comfortable in their pressed suits and wingtips for his liking.
What was it Granddad had always said? If a man doesn’t leave a little of his work on him, how can you know he’s doing the job? Collin pondered the question.
Partnering with Westfall would mean more office and paperwork time for him. He’d need to hire a manager for the orchards, more labor for harvest times, and that would mean not having the dirt of the orchard in the treads of his shoes or the smell of the blossoms in his nose. Instead he’d have ink on his fingers from contracts and harvest forecasts. Would Granddad think ink was a good substitute for dirt?
He still didn’t have an answer, but he knew several people who always seemed to be in pristine condition, without a speck of dust on them. And yet he knew they worked hard.
He picked up a few more jars of Gran’s apple preserves, stuffed them on a shelf and winced as the jars cracked together. Inspecting them closely, he saw that there was no actual damage done and breathed a sigh of relief. His garbage can was already overflowing because of his carelessness earlier this morning. A deer had jumped into the road and Collin had wrenched the old truck’s steering wheel to the side to avoid it. As the truck swerved, he heard the sickening crunch of a few jars of peach jelly and blackberry preserves. He’d have to hose down the back or bees would start making a new hive where the remnants of those jars stuck to the sides of the truck.
There had to be a way he could serve both the local businesses and the regional chain. Working with the grocer didn’t have to mean the end of the Tyler Orchards stand, his partnership in the farmers’ market or the other contracts. Even with the grocer contract, if he signed, the orchard would have more than enough to fulfill that and still work locally. He just needed to figure out how to present a solution to the executives. That meant he needed a solution that was workable from both sides.
He picked up an oddly shaped apple and tossed it into the basket he would take to the house once his shift at the stand was finished. People stopping by wanted perfectly shaped produce, not a misshapen apple with a stem area that appeared to be grimacing.
He had twenty-seven more days to figure out the solution. He wouldn’t sacrifice his family’s financial security.
And he wouldn’t go back on his commitments to his community, either.
* * *
A BRIGHT RAY of sunlight shafted through the barn window, blinding Savannah for a split second. She sat on a three-legged stool, staring at the udder of one of the dairy cows. She’d found this one, already gated in an area of the barn away from the other cows. She wasn’t sure why it was here, and she didn’t care. She was going to figure out how to milk the darn thing if it was the last thing she ever learned.
“That one’s been a little under the weather lately. She had trouble calving last year, and doesn’t like the machines.”
Savannah nearly fell off the little three-legged stool at the sound of Bennett’s voice. His big hand steadied her shoulder, and slowly, she swiveled to face him.
“I was wondering why she was over here and not with the others.”
“She just needs a little extra attention, don’t you, girl?” Bennett asked, patting the cow lightly on the rump. The cow didn’t respond, just kept chewing on the hay in the trough before it.
“I can teach you how to milk, if you want.” She shot him a look. “You think Levi and I haven’t noticed you skulking around the barns?” He winked at her. “Fine, skulking isn’t really the right word, but every time you saw us, you’d hightail it in the other direction. Do you want to learn?”
Savannah nodded. “I want to be useful.”
“People are useful in different ways, Van.” Bennett, nearly as tall as Levi, but slighter and more wiry, squatted down beside her. He took her hands in his and put them on the smooth udder of the cow. “You start at the base of the teat,” he said, putting her hands at the small crease between the cow’s teat and the udder. It felt weird. Warm and smooth and weird. “Make a ring with your index finger and thumb and then you bring your other fingers in, kind of like you’re making a fist around the teat but in a slow, kind of rolling motion.”
Savannah focused on the udder, making a ring with her finger and thumb, and then squeezed her hard as if she were making a fist. Nothing happened. She tried again, and again nothing happened. Bennett put his hands over hers and squeezed. A steady stream of milk squirted into the pail beneath the cow. Savannah shot a glance at her father.
“Okay, I’ve got this.” She placed her hands in the proper position, closed her eyes and squeezed her hands in the same rolling motion Bennett had used. Nothing happened. She tried again, but only a few drops of milk hit the pail.
“You’ll get it. It takes time.”
Frustrated, Savannah stood, leaving the cow with its head in the gate.
“I don’t know why I even tried. I’m not a—a milkmaid,” she said. “I’m not...I’m not anything.”
“Sure you are.”
She crossed her arms over her chest. He was wrong. She wasn’t anything. Not a singer, she wasn’t even sure her label wanted her anymore. Or, maybe worse, if she wanted the label to want her. Did she want to sing? Was that what would finally make her feel as if there was purpose to this life?
She couldn’t cook like Mama Hazel; cooking for people served a purpose. She couldn’t milk a freaking cow; cows provided milk and dairy products to people. That held purpose. Hell, she couldn’t be trusted to take her car to the shop when the check engine light came on and, maybe worst of all, remember to fill the tank with gas when she was on a road trip.
“I’m a mess.”
Bennett reached out, tugging on a braid. Savannah turned to face him. “You’re my Savannah, and you’re stronger than you think.” A smiled spread over his dark face, and his eyes, the color of walnuts, seemed to brighten. “What is your dream?”
“What is my dream?” she parroted his words back to him.
“I overheard you talking to Levi the other day. What is it that you want, sweet girl?”
Savannah mulled the question for a long moment. What did she want? She didn’t really care about milking cows, although it would be nice to have something to do at the ranch other than stare out the windows. She loved to sing, but the thought of singing before thousands of people left her cold. Colder than the thought of everyone learning about that last night on the tour. She liked flirting with Collin, had loved being in his arms for that brief moment at the Slope. Savannah kicked at a small pile of hay on the floor.
“I don’t know,” she said, and the words felt like another failure. How could she have reached twenty-seven years old and not know what she wanted out of life? Bennett started to say something, but Savannah held up her hand to stop him. She didn’t want a platitude. This was something she had to do herself. “I think I’ll go see if Mama needs help getting the pies and jams ready for the market this morning,” she said, and hurried out of the barn before her father could tell her she wasn’t a screwup, that she would figure things out.
“Savannah.” He called after her, but Savannah kept going. Into the house and up to her childhood room. She sat on the side of the bed, putting her hands to her head. She couldn’t milk a freaking cow. What kind of person who grew up on a dairy farm couldn’t milk cow?
She had to figure this out. She needed to decide what she wanted, and she needed to decide fast. She couldn’t hide in Slippery Rock forever. She wouldn’t let herself just float. She’d come home to figure out her life.
“Savannah?” her mother called from downstairs. “I’m about ready to leave. You coming?”
Savannah stood, straightened her shoulders. “Coming, Mama.”
Savannah wasn’t sure what she hoped to accomplish by working the farmers’ market this morning. She’d already failed at her second attempt to milk a cow. It wasn’t as if spending a day selling Mama Hazel’s state-fair-winning apple pie and telling locals about their dairy farm was much in the way of penance for going into that bus with Genevieve’s husband.
It was nice to be here, though. The clock tower on the county building that dominated the town square read 11:05, but it had been broken for as long as she could remember. Bright Missouri sunshine was just beginning to clear the trees on the east side of the marina. Before long, that hot sun would make it nearly unbearable in the brick building where locals sold their pies and jams and things. Not to mention the cracked-pavement parking lot where her father and brother were selling fresh milk, other farmers sold berries, and Collin Tyler sold the first pickings from the orchard.
The scent of fresh produce made the air taste almost magical, peppered with the muted conversations of the farmers working the market, talking about topsoil conditions, the importance of the early rains they’d been having and the potential for severe weather later in the summer, which had so far bypassed their part of southern Missouri.
Savannah couldn’t remember ever being at the farmers’ market before, which was just another mark against her, she knew. She’d been too wrapped up in her own misery before leaving Slippery Rock to think about weather conditions as more than a bad-hair-day nuisance.
God, she’d been so self-centered.
Through the storefront windows she caught sight of Collin’s tight butt in worn jeans, and another wave of regret hit her. She’d been crazy to be so forward with him at the lake last week. Of course, his overly sincere “you’re my best friend’s sister” excuse was equally idiotic. The man was twenty-eight, not sixteen. The time for teenaged bros-before-hos dating rules was long gone.
He was right, though. They should keep their distance. The last thing she needed right now was another fling. What Savannah needed was to figure out why she kept sabotaging every good thing that happened to her. Getting wrapped up in Collin Tyler was not going to help her figure that out. She wondered if Slippery Rock had a therapist with a couch she could borrow for an hour or so.
Mama Hazel bumped her elbow into Savannah’s ribs. “He’s turned into quite the nice-looking young man, hasn’t he?” Her gaze, too, focused on Collin’s butt as he bent to pick up another crate of apples. He stood and Savannah swore she could see his quads and hamstrings ripple beneath the worn denim covering his thighs. She shook herself.
“I hadn’t noticed,” she lied, and quickly began rearranging the pie boxes on the folding table Levi had set up earlier that morning.
“Psshh,” Mama Hazel grunted. “You didn’t notice that boy about as much as I didn’t notice him.” Savannah shot her mother a shocked glance. “What? I’m married and over fifty. That doesn’t mean I’ve lost my ability to recognize Grade A Man Meat when I see it.”
Savannah blinked. She didn’t think her mother had ever said something so...sexual before.
Hazel giggled like a schoolgirl and the crow’s feet at her eyes deepened.
“I don’t think you’ve ever said anything like that to me before.”
“Then it’s high time I did. For example, and this will deepen that blush on your cheeks a bit, did you know your father—”
“No, don’t say it,” Savannah interrupted, shaking her head as she put her fingers in her ears. “I’d like to keep my illusions about you and daddy and your abstinent lives intact, please.”
“And just how did we get Levi if we were abstinent?”
“The same way you got me. Stork.” Savannah finished her pie box pyramid and started on a pyramid of blackberry preserves. Hazel laughed.
“You children are hysterical. Over twenty-five and still believing in the stork and that their parents don’t have the sex.”
“First, it isn’t ‘the sex,’ it’s just sex. And, no, parents aren’t allowed to have it. It’s in the parenting rule book.”
Hazel took apart Savannah’s pie pyramid, grumbling about the lattice work denting from the stack. “Hate to break it to you, Van, but there is no rule book. It’s just a lot of luck and figuring things out on the fly.”
Savannah chewed on her lower lip, considering. This wasn’t the place to have a conversation about her childhood, but so far she’d been pretty good at avoiding having it at the ranch. Maybe having it here, where they’d be interrupted occasionally by customers, would make it simpler.
“I made you figure a lot out on the fly.”
Hazel chuckled and finished arranging the pie boxes in a pretty fan pattern. “You were a challenge, that’s true, but I’ve always liked a challenge. And I loved you from the moment I laid eyes on you in the back of that social worker’s minivan.”
“I wasn’t much to look at.”
Her mother shook her head. “You weren’t. Hair all tangled up because the white officers who brought you in didn’t know what to do with it, dirty from head to toe, and wearing not much more than a few rags. You looked at me, and I just knew.”
“Knew what?” Savannah asked after a long minute.
“Knew you were mine.” Hazel wiped a dark brown hand over the pristine tablecloth. “Just like I knew you needed your space when you were in Los Angeles. Just like I knew you’d come back home when you were ready. The only thing I don’t know is how long you’re staying.”
Savannah wasn’t sure how to answer her. She’d left Slippery Rock because she didn’t feel she belonged here. Had followed her wandering heart to a reality show, and then a recording studio in Nashville. She had an album nearly finished, had been kicked off a tour and was now persona non grata in Nashville for at least a little while. She’d been back in Slippery Rock for nearly two weeks, and she knew she couldn’t hide forever, but for now, it felt right to be here.
More right than it had felt in any of the years she’d lived here as a child, and she thought maybe it was because coming back had been her choice. Sure, she’d been running away from something bad, but she could have kept running instead of stopping here.
She didn’t want to tell her mother about Nashville yet, though. If she never had to tell her, that might be for the best. Savannah had a feeling Hazel’s support might not survive a blow like that. And where would she be if the one person who had been fighting for her all her life suddenly stopped fighting for her? What if Nashville was the thing that made Mama and Daddy and Levi realize they never really loved her at all?
A few customers began trickling in the doors. Savannah put on her best reality-show contestant smile and focused her attention on the locals buying her mother’s pies and jams instead of the unasked questions in her mom’s dark brown eyes.
By noon they had sold out of Mama Hazel’s pies and had only a couple jars of preserves left. The cool of the early morning had long passed, and when a break in customers occurred, Savannah offered to run down to the bait shop for a couple of cold drinks.
She crossed the street, waving to a family in a minivan who allowed her to cross early. Barrels filled with marigolds, petunias and impatiens were placed every few feet along the main street of town. She’d always thought they were too hokey for words, but the familiarity of them was actually nice.
Bud’s Bait Shop, which did double duty as a sandwich shop, was blessedly cool when she opened the door. A small bell hanging over the door tinkled. Air-conditioning poured into the hot street, and Savannah breathed deep.
Bud stood behind the counter, and he seemed shorter to Savannah. He still wore his salt-and-pepper hair in a comb-over, and his overalls were a pinstriped blue-and-white, just as she remembered.
Hand-written signs advertising night crawlers and worms were taped to a glass-fronted cooler on the left side of the counter. On the right was a menu for cold cut sub sandwiches, coleslaw and potato salad. The same brands of fishing lures lined the shelves, and along the back wall were fishing poles in every color, shape and size Savannah could imagine. It was like stepping back in time.
“Hey, Bud, two Cokes, please. From the fountain.”
“Savannah Walters. I heard you were back in town. What’s going on with that fancy Nashville record deal?” he asked as he shoveled ice into two oversize foam cups and set them under the fountain machine.
“It’s going,” she said, and ordered herself to come up with something better to say to the question nearly everyone in town had asked since she’d returned. “I cut the last song a few weeks ago.” She didn’t bother to tell the now-familiar lie that she was taking a break from the tour. Lying made her feel almost as squidgy as anticipating how people would treat her when they learned why she’d really left Nashville. “How’s the bait business?”
“Better the bait, the shorter the wait,” Bud said. “Be better if we could get some rain in here, cool off the water. Hot lake makes the fish lazy.”
“I always thought a hot lake made the fish frisky.”
Bud put lids on the cups and punched a few numbers on the register. “Depends on the day, I suppose. That’ll be two dollars.”
She handed him the money, stuck straws in her back pocket and picked up the drinks. “See ya later, Bud.”
“See ya, Savannah,” he said as she pushed the door open with her hip. “You tell Hazel if she has any preserves left, I’ll take ’em.”
Hot, sticky air assaulted her, making her wish she’d put the straws in the cups for a quick sip before leaving the air-conditioning of Bud’s shop.
She hurried across the street, handed her mother one of the Cokes and shoved her straw through the plastic lid before taking a long drink. She closed her eyes, letting a few of the bubbles tickle her nose, enjoying the taste. The advisors for the reality show had told the contestants to back off sugary drinks and fried foods during the show, hoping to keep everyone svelte and looking good on the cameras.
Savannah had kicked her Coke habit cold turkey. Until today. And she didn’t even care that the cup in her hand represented about three hundred bad calories. It tasted like heaven.
Finally, she looked around. Most of the other vendors were tearing down tables and displays. Their table was completely empty. “Darn, Bud was hoping for a jar of preserves,” she said.
Hazel nodded. “I swear, that man has to be about fifty percent preserves by now. I saved him a jar, and I’ll have your father drop it off when he stops in there for his usual Saturday cheat meal.” Bennett’s cheat meal consisted of a sub with every kind of lunch meat Bud had on hand, a slathering of mustard, and Colby Jack cheese. Savannah’s stomach growled. Not a good idea. Cheating with a soda was one thing; a sandwich like Bennett’s might send her into a deep food binge.
Savannah took the white cloth from the table and began folding it. Hazel took it from her. “Don’t do that, sweetheart. I can get it. Why don’t you go see if your father or brother needs anything?”
Savannah felt a little like a teenager, being told where to go, but Hazel had always been particular about how things were folded and put away. She figured letting her mother do the grunt work would actually save time. And give her a moment to apologize to Collin Tyler for...whatever that had been at the lake.
Okay, so she didn’t want to apologize to him so much as just talk to him again. The man was like a denim-clad, dusty magnet, and maybe if she talked to him her brain would wrap around the fact that he was just another guy.
Nothing special.
She caught a glimpse of him through the plate-glass window fronting the inside of the market, and her heart thumped in her chest. So maybe he was grumpy and uninterested in her, but there was definitely something attractive about Collin Tyler. Maybe she would just ogle him a little.
She found a stall that had already been emptied out in the parking lot, sat on the table and watched. Levi and her father had things clearly in hand at the dairy table. A couple of farmers loaded their leftovers into the beds of their pickup trucks. Collin sat on the gate of his truck, feet dangling inside dusty boots, and a tight T-shirt covering his torso. He was chewing on what appeared to be a piece of straw, making Savannah laugh.
Only in Missouri would a twenty-eight-year-old orchard owner sit on the gate of his truck chewing on a stick of straw like some actor in one of those black-and-white comedies from the 1940s.
Only in Missouri would the man not look ridiculous doing it.
Okay, maybe cowboys in Texas or Wyoming could look that good being a stereotype, too. But still.
“He looks ridiculous,” a sullen voice said to Savannah’s left. A young girl with long blond hair in a French braid, wearing a faded T-shirt, ripped jeans and Chuck Taylors rolled her eyes when Savannah turned in her direction. “Like we’re living in the eighteen hundreds instead of the twenty-first century.”
“I take it you don’t like farmers’ markets?”
The girl scuffed her shoe against some loose gravel. “Not when I’m here under duress. He says I owe him compensation.”
“Amanda Tyler, right?” The girl nodded. Savannah didn’t remember her exactly, but her features were too similar to Collin’s to deny, and since she was too old to be his secret love child, she had to be his sister. His other sister. Savannah and Mara were the same age, although they’d never been close friends. Amanda was clearly several years younger. “Savannah Walters.”
“I know who you are. You almost won that singing show last winter.” Amanda breathed a heavy sigh. “Even people who get out of this town don’t really get out of it.”
Oh, she could so relate to the teenager. The last place she’d wanted to be when she was sixteen was Slippery Rock. People either called her Levi’s sister, ignored her completely or made not-quite-whispered insinuations about her adoption and the possibility that either Bennett or Hazel had a love child. Or that she was a drug baby from Springfield who needed to be saved by the wholesome Bennett family. The speculation was endless. She patted the table beside her.
“Pull up a corner of the table and we can plot your exit from the oppressive Slippery Rock.”
That got a grin from Amanda. She sat beside Savannah, swinging her legs.
“Why do you owe him compensation?”
She mumbled something Savannah didn’t catch, but before she could ask again, Collin interrupted.
“I said five minutes, not fifty.” Annoyance laced his words and his expression, which was focused on Savannah rather than his sister.
“There was a line at Bud’s and I was barely gone fifteen,” Amanda retorted. She shoved the cup in her hands at her brother and stomped off. “I’ll be in the truck if my penance is over.”
“What did she do?” Savannah couldn’t resist asking.
Collin looked from her to his sister’s retreating back, and then winced when she slammed the door of his truck. “She shouldn’t have been—” he squeezed his eyebrows together as if searching for the right word “—bothering you.”
Savannah sat straighter, reading between the lines. He didn’t really see this situation as Amanda bugging someone, he saw it as his innocent baby sister being led astray by Savannah Walters, Screwup. “You really think in the two minutes we were talking I could have convinced her to...what? Run away from home?”
“Isn’t that what you did?”
“I tried out for a reality show. I was over twenty-one. It isn’t the same thing.”
“That isn’t what I was talking about.”
Savannah blinked.
Collin watched her for a long moment, and then said, “I was talking about homecoming night, my senior year, your junior.”
Her breath caught in her throat. She didn’t think anyone outside the family knew about the time she really had run away. The night the boy who’d asked her to the homecoming dance, the boy who’d made her feel like she might finally fit in here, had called to tell her he couldn’t take her to the dance because she was mixed race. She’d been waiting by the front door in the pretty peach gown she and Hazel had found in Joplin, she’d straightened her hair and spent an hour on her makeup.
And she’d wanted to die.
She’d run as far as she could, gotten lost in the woods between the ranch and the lake, and spent most of the cold, rainy night hugging a tree trunk and hoping there were no wolves or bears in Missouri. Bennett had found her at dawn the next day. He’d carried her home, but no matter how gently they’d asked what had happened, Savannah hadn’t been able to tell them.
People in town trusted and liked the Walterses, despite racial tensions in the area, but she wasn’t really a Walters. She was different, and that boy made sure she knew it.
“How did you know about that?”
“Who do you think drove all the country roads with Levi that night while your dad and my grandfather and Sheriff Calhoun searched the woods?”
She swallowed. He’d helped look for her. God, no wonder the pristine Collin Tyler wanted nothing to do with her. Collin, who had the perfect life with his perfect family whose roots went back further than the Walters clan. Collin, who was a Tyler by birth, unlike her, a Walters by adoption.
“I should thank you for helping Levi that night. And it was no bother talking to Amanda. Mama Hazel sent me out here to get out of her way and into my dad’s. I decided to steer clear of both and enjoy a cold drink. Amanda made for a little company.”
“Still. She had her orders.”
“And I’m not the kind of influence you want around her. Well, from what I recall, teenage girls don’t do so well with orders. You didn’t answer my question. What did she do? Skip curfew?” Savannah knew she should drop the subject, but she couldn’t. Despite Amanda’s obvious annoyance at Collin, there was something very connected about the two of them. Family dynamics fascinated her.
Collin rubbed a hand over the back of his neck. “What hasn’t she done? Cut class, skipped curfew. She was with the kids who set that fire downtown just after you got back into town. Last weekend she duct taped the one-ways downtown to run the way she thought made more sense. She needs a keeper.”
Savannah chuckled. “Sounds like some of the stuff you guys did back in high school.” Pranks and raids she’d never been invited into, not that she was bitter. Even if Levi had asked, she would never have gone.
“Totally different.”
“Because you were boys and she’s a girl?”
Collin’s mouth twisted to the side and a little stab of attraction hit her belly. Lord, but a man twisting up his mouth shouldn’t be so hot. Especially when said man was once again dusty from head to boots. At least he’d dropped the piece of straw.
“We never taped off downtown. We didn’t set any fires—”
“I didn’t see her name in the police blotter.”
“Technically, she was trying to put it out, but that doesn’t—”
“I remember something about the five of you absconding with the sheriff department’s boat,” she interrupted him.
“We were pretty sure there was a drug deal going on at the sandbar at the time. And no one would listen to us.”
“So five high school football players were going to do a citizen’s arrest, at night, on potential drug runners in the middle of the lake?” She tilted her head to the side. “You guys wanted to take your girls out on the lake that night, admit it.” He beetled his brows again. “In the grand scheme of things, your prank was a lot more dangerous than taping off a couple of streets.”
“It’s still not the same.”
“Of course it isn’t. She’s your sister. Doing idiotic things is part of growing up. It isn’t like she’s on the fast track to the supermax prison in Colorado.”
Collin exhaled. “I thought you were an aspiring country music star, not a headshrinker.”
“Yeah, well, I’m multitalented,” she said, not wanting to get into the therapy sessions they’d attended when she was first adopted, and that Mama Hazel had gotten her into again after the homecoming dance. She could talk the talk, but if Nashville was any indication, the Walterses’ money hadn’t been well spent in regard to her mental health.
She needed to get out of there before she forgot this was Collin. The guy who disliked her so much he made up a lame excuse about a bro code so he didn’t have to spend time with her. “I’m sure my family has had enough time to empty out the stalls and prep for the trip back out to the ranch. See you around, Collin,” she said, stepping away from the table.
“Sure, I need to pack things up, too.” He looked at her as if unsure what to say. “I’ll see you around, Savannah,” he said.
Savannah couldn’t resist watching him walk away.
She picked up a few foam cups that had been left behind by either vendors or shoppers, and hurried to the trash can near the corner of the building. Mama Hazel was picking up some of her empty boxes. If she hurried, she could take them off her mom’s hands.
Voices around the corner of the building stopped her in her tracks.
“Did you see her slinging jams and pies with her mother?” Marcy’s voice cut through the afternoon air, stopping Savannah in her tracks. She giggled a little. “She never would have bothered with that in high school.”
“Because she was too busy pretending to be just like the rest of us,” Dana, Marcy’s best friend and co–head cheerleader, said. At the Slope a few nights ago, Savannah had been surprised at how much Dana had changed. The tall, thin woman, who had had frizzy red hair and an addiction to Little Debbies in high school, now straightened her hair and looked as if no sugar had passed her lips in the past decade. “When she’s nothing like us,” she added.
Savannah pressed her back against the brick wall. She told herself to walk away, but couldn’t make her feet move. It was as if she was right back at Slippery Rock high, hiding in a bathroom stall while the other girls talked about her crazy hair or her unusual coloring or, in the very worst of moments, speculated about her life before she landed in Slippery Rock.
“As true as that is, I meant she wouldn’t have bothered because she was so over-the-moon for Vince Honeycutt. She was too busy skulking after him to do anything productive.”
“Selling jams and pies is productive? Come on, Marcy, it’s a step down from being a clerk at Mallard’s Grocery.”
“How is it a step down?”
“Because the Mallard family has a choice in who they hire. Her family is stuck with her because they saw her as some kind of waif in need of saving. But not even Bennett and Hazel Walters could make her into anything good. I mean, she couldn’t even win a silly talent contest.”
Walk away, Van, walk away.
“Come on, you bought her single.”
“Because she’s from Slippery Rock. What is someone going to think if they click into my music app and the one person from here who has a song on country radio isn’t in my playlist?” Savannah could envision Dana rolling her eyes and shaking her head as she spoke. “I am the daughter of the town mayor. People expect us to be civic-minded.”
One of them giggled, but she couldn’t tell which one. Maybe both of them because the sound seemed to morph and grow into something much uglier than a simple giggle as Savannah listened. God, and she’d been the one to call them about girls’ night out. How they must have laughed about that. The abandoned and adopted Walters girl calling two of the most popular, former cheerleaders at Slippery Rock high to go out for drinks.
Savannah fisted her hands and pushed off the wall. She’d pretended to be oblivious to the Marcys and Danas of Slippery Rock high school all those years ago. The truth was, she’d let them feed her fears about the past, and look where that had gotten her. Possibly blackballed from Nashville, sleeping in her childhood bedroom without a clue what she might want to do with her life. She was twenty-seven years old.
She was too old to sit back and take this kind of...of meanness.
Savannah pulled a bill from her pocket and stepped around the corner of the building. Marcy saw her first, and her eyes practically bugged out of her head. Dana turned slowly, but where Marcy was now blushing and looking anywhere except at Savannah, Dana simply stared at her, as if daring her to confront them.
In school, Savannah hadn’t been strong enough for these kinds of girls. Hell, she wasn’t sure she was strong enough now. She knew one thing, though—she was tired of running away from the things that hurt.
“I think coming in third from a pack of more than three thousand people who tried out and the twenty-five contestants isn’t such a bad placement. It isn’t quite as sad as, say, having daddy call the school when a certain girl wasn’t chosen for head cheerleader.”
Dana blanched, her body recoiling as if Savannah had slapped her. She kind of wished she had.
“How do you know that?”
“I was in the principal’s office, talking about college placements, when your father stormed in. He didn’t notice me sitting across from Mr. Tolbert. That’s okay. Most people ignored or didn’t notice me back then. I kind of liked that because being ignored is so much better than being bullied.”
“I never bullied you—”
“You never hit me, and you never said anything mean to my face, but can you honestly say this is the first time you’ve talked about me behind my back?” Marcy’s face flamed a bright pink. Dana narrowed her eyes.
“If we were such bullies to you back then, why did you call us the other night?” she sneered.
Savannah offered the five-dollar bill to Dana. The other woman folded her arms across her chest. “Calling you when I got back to town was a mistake. Kind of like you wasting a buck fifty buying my song when it came out.” Dana didn’t take the money, so Savannah let it fall to the ground between them. “You can keep the change.” She turned on her heel and walked away.
Savannah pasted a smile on her face when she entered the farmers’ market, kept her back straight and her shoulders squared. She wanted to slink away and hide, but where could she go?
What was that saying about people like Dana? Whoever is trying to bring you down is already beneath you. There was another one, too. That the person trying to bring you down is insecure about themselves. That one had been on a poster in the office of one of the family therapists Mama Hazel and Bennett contacted when she was a teen. She’d never believed that saying, but when she’d been standing around the corner from Dana and Marcy, something clicked. Marcy had never been outwardly mean to her, at least not in high school, and she’d seemed embarrassed when she first saw Savannah come around the corner.
Dana, on the other hand, had been. Too many times to count, she had been leading the gossip while Savannah hid in the bathroom stall or simply pretended she couldn’t hear what was being said two rows behind her in Biology class.
Calling Marcy had been a gamble.
Not walking out of the Slope as soon as she saw Dana come in with her was a mistake.
If she’d left, though, she wouldn’t have that dance with Collin.
Inside the farmers’ market, Savannah picked up the last of Mama Hazel’s boxes and pressed a quick kiss to her cheek.
“Now what was that for?”
“For being you,” Savannah said. And for the first time in a very long time, she thought she might be on the way to finding herself.