Ruth Logan - A Hopeful Harvest

“You did just fine, sir.”

Jax’s words and his deferential tone puffed up Gramps’s chest.

Libby knew the work crew had nothing to do with the farm’s thin insurance policy, and Jax could have inflated his own ego by taking credit.

But he didn’t.

He let an aging dementia patient claim the kudos and seemed fine doing it. What kind of man did that?

A nice one , her conscience scolded. There are lots of nice people in this world. Stop being jaded.

There were nice people.

Libby knew that.

But her family’s reputation in Golden Grove left a sour taste on a lot of tongues. Her parents hadn’t been the raise-your-kid-normal and go-to-church-on-Sunday sort and when Grandma sent them packing, they took the one thing Grandma didn’t want them to take.

Her.

Then sent her back with a sack of ill-fitting clothes when they got tired of her eighteen months later.

Folks had looked at her funny then. And some still looked at her funny, but now she was mature enough to shrug it off. “I’ve got to get CeeCee ready for school. Gramps, are you going to stay outside and watch the action?”

“Don’t mind if I do.” He’d set an old hat on his head. He was still in his pajama pants and a faded blue cotton T-shirt, but it was a mild morning. “If Mother comes looking for me, tell her where I am.”

“I will.” She was never quite sure if she should play along or explain reality to him, and no one seemed to have the answer. This time she played along.

Jax shot her a look of sympathy. The look felt good. As if someone besides Carol Mortimer understood the situation and was on her side, but she’d been fooled by a man before.

Her ex-husband had taught her a valuable lesson about trust. If she and CeeCee went through life as a duo, she was okay with that. She’d been raised by parents who really never cared. CeeCee would never need to say that.

The five-year-old met her at the door. “Look. I got all dressed for school so I can see the fixer guys. Okay?”

“Okay, once you eat breakfast. What’ll it be? A bagel or cereal or an apple?”

“Apple!”

“Ginger Gold or Gala?”

“The redder one.”

Libby cut the Gala into slices. She’d seen a study online that talked about the amazing health benefit of apples, how modern science proved the old adage “an apple a day” true. How apples were like the perfect food.

They would have lots of apples for the coming months. That was an added bonus of being on the farm. But with the barn gone and the insurance shortfall and the co-pays on Gramps’s meds, the already tight situation had just become impossible.

With men this is impossible; but with God all things are possible.

One of Grandma’s favorite verses in the Bible. The walls of the house were peppered with cross-stitched Bible verses.

Libby would cling to the idea that all things were possible. She hadn’t come back here by choice but by necessity. God had worked that timing out perfectly. So now?

She would put this firmly in His hands because once CeeCee was on that school bus, she had an orchard to spray, and right now she was just real glad she’d parked the tractor outside the barn before it blew down.

The tractor wasn’t parked outside the barn.

It was under the barn. Buried. And as the gaping mechanical claw reached in and scooped up a serving of weathered wood, a generous section of the tractor went with it.

Libby couldn’t take her eyes from the scene.

She’d parked the tractor here. Right here. At the edge of the driveway leading to the orchard because her phone alarm had startled her. And besides, they rarely put the tractor in the big barn except at the end of the season, once the apple sales were complete.

Gone.

Demolished.

Emotions didn’t just rock her this time. They fought their way for possession, like that giant claw digging through a debris field of shattered hopes and dreams.

Now there was no tractor to lift the crates of apples to the barn storage or the sale bins.

No tank to give that last vital spraying.

No nothing.

Nothing at all.

Was this God’s message to her? To tuck Gramps in a safe spot and walk quietly away with CeeCee? Because it was coming through loud and clear.

“You okay?” Jax was coming her way and his question brought her up short.

She wasn’t all right. She wasn’t sure if she’d ever be all right. But Libby Creighton was a survivor, so she wiped moisture from her cheeks and turned.

Sympathetic gray eyes met hers beneath his military-cut brown hair. Ocean-gray eyes, they were. Not a hint of blue, but not storm gray like yesterday’s clouds. Softer. Gentler. She pulled in a deep breath and paused.

Then she blew out the breath and nodded. “Fine. As fine as I can be now that I see the tractor under thousands of pounds of roof and wall debris.”

“You didn’t know the tractor was in there?” Surprise furrowed his brow.

“Nope.” She made a face. “I parked it here when I realized I had to run to CeeCee’s school. Right here. There’s no way the wind could have pushed it into the barn, is there?”

“Not feasibly.”

“Then how?” She paused when she spotted Gramps talking enthusiastically with a very patient dump truck driver. “He must have moved it. After he woke up. Every now and again he’ll hop on it as if ready to work. Sometimes it’s a chore that needs to be done. Sometimes it’s a memory of what he used to do. He must have come out here and moved the tractor before you found him.”

“Into the barn. During the windstorm?” Jax looked disbelieving. “Do you know how close he came to being killed?”

His tone stung. She folded her arms, then unfolded them. She’d promised herself she wouldn’t cower again. Not now. Not ever. “I do now. I can’t imagine what he was thinking.”

Jax stared at her, and she read his gaze because no one knew what Gramps was thinking. Or what he might do from moment to moment. It was obvious that Gramps couldn’t be left alone anymore. Not even for short periods of time. How was she going to manage that with everything else on her plate?

Libby didn’t have a clue.

She turned back toward the cleanup. “We’ll make sure someone’s with him from now on. We’ve been seizing the good moments as if they were the norm, but they’re not. Not anymore. It’s time we faced the fact that now they’re the exception.”

“I like to see them as a gift.”

His words surprised her.

“When we get those moments of lucidity. Of recognition. An hour here or there.” A slight wrinkle formed between his eyes. “Like opening a curtain on the past.”

“That’s exactly what it’s like.” She faced him more squarely. “He wasn’t this bad when I got here last year to see my grandmother through her hospice time. She loved him so much. When she saw what was happening, she made me promise to keep him on the farm as long as possible. To let him find peace among his apples. And then Central Valley Fruit stepped in to buy the farm, Gramps had a mighty row with their sales rep, and Grandma died while they were arguing the merits of small versus big at the top of their lungs. I don’t think he’s ever forgiven himself for not being at her side when she died. When he remembers, that is.”

Central Valley Fruit.

The business his family began when irrigation was approved for the arid valley soil a hundred years ago. Central Valley Fruit was a megaproducer that had helped put Washington State on the map as a premier source of fruits, not just for American stores, but internationally. With European fruit production decreasing, Central Valley Fruit was happy to fill the void. His father had filled him in on their need for more land a few weeks ago, and available land wasn’t an easy find. So they’d put in a bid on this farm? Probably so.