Jessica Keller - Apple Orchard Bride

Jenna set the bag of peanuts in her lap so she could knit her fingers together. “I know it’s irrational. I know... It’s just, at the time, it’s very real.” Her gaze latched on to his. “Do you think that’s silly?”

“Not at all.”

“Seriously?”

“Listen, Jenna, we all have things we struggle with.” He took a deep breath. “You clearly already know, but I spiraled into depression after the reality set in that I’d never play professional ball. I had no clue who Toby Holcomb was without that trajectory for my life. Unlike you, I wasn’t brave though.”

“I’m not brave.” She sounded hoarse. “Feeling like the world is collapsing when nothing is actually wrong isn’t brave.”

“You just told someone. That’s brave.” Toby rested his elbows on his knees and pressed his hands together. “I was a coward. I didn’t tell anyone when I was low.” Even himself. He should have known, locked up in his apartment for days at a time. Staying in bed. Not showering. Depression. The mind sure had a strange way of protecting itself...lying. Telling him he was fine. Normal. That how he was acting was how a failure of a man should act. He’d lost his dream of being a professional athlete and then tanked the sporting goods business he’d started after that.

Toby Holcomb is a failure.

Toby shook his thoughts away and pressed on. “Instead, like a fool, I self-medicated.” He scrubbed his hand over his jaw. Just say it. She already knew anyway. “Alcohol. Lots of it, I’m afraid. I’m ashamed to say that it took me almost five years to snap out of it.”

Silence. Say something. Tell me my past doesn’t make me a bad person now.

“What made you snap out of it?” Jenna quietly asked.

God. That was the simple—and complicated—answer. His mother’s constant prayers.

“I could really have hurt someone or myself, making poor choices like driving drunk. I thank God for both of those police officers who arrested me. If I hadn’t been caught...” He shook his head. “It’s more than that though. I was so busy focusing on what I lost—what I felt like was unfairly taken from me—” he tapped the knee that sometimes still gave him trouble, the one that had cost him his career “—that I lost sight of what God put me on this earth to accomplish.”

“Football?”

He snorted. “That was something I was good at a long time ago. Something I never used to glorify God. No.” He straightened in his seat. He’d never verbalized these thoughts to anyone—not even his parents—but it felt right sharing with Jenna. “I was put on earth for the same reason you were. I’m supposed to love people, Jenna—we’re supposed to share God’s love with people. No matter what situation I find myself in, I’m supposed to deal with it in a way that points people toward God. That’s my purpose.”

She pressed her hand into her forehead. “You make it sound like the easiest thing in the world. Dealing with situations that way—as if we’re on display for the sake of God.”

“Easy? Hardly. But, as Christians, isn’t that exactly what our life is supposed to do? At least...I think it is.”

Her eyes narrowed. “The old Toby wouldn’t have said all this stuff.”

He sat up in his chair. Tapped his fingers on the armrest. “The old Toby wasn’t a Christian.”

“And now?” she whispered.

“I am. Thanks to my mother.”

A soft smile lightened Jenna’s face. “She never gave up on you.”

“I’d long given up on me, but she hadn’t. I’m thankful for that. For everyone who pointed me toward God in some way. You included.”

Jenna hugged her stomach, her shoulders hunching forward. “I’m not like that anymore. I have a really hard time with some of the things that have happened in my life. I feel like if people knew that I had the anxiety...why I had it...” She shook her head. “If showing people God’s love through how I handle my experiences is my purpose in life, then I’m failing.”

Toby nudged her arm gently with his elbow. “Good news. I don’t think God expects perfection from us. There are all those grace and mercy and forgiveness parts of the Bible to back me up.”

Toby looked away. He was a hypocrite, saying things he wanted to believe but wasn’t quite sure he really did. He should tell her—tell her that he struggled with wrapping his head around grace and second chances just as much as she seemed to—but the words lodged in his throat.

He glanced back at her. No...he couldn’t tell her that he failed at everything. That he was bound to fail in his fresh attempt at a relationship with God. That he’d end up failing her. Again. Like he’d failed her after her mom died. It was impossible to say something like that when she was looking at him for the first time in the old way she used to when they were kids, with her eyes large, lighting up, as if talking together was the best and safest thing in the world.

Jenna relaxed her arms. “That’s not the answer I thought you’d have.”

Toby swallowed hard. “What did you think I’d say?”

“I thought you’d say you changed for your daughter’s sake.”

“My—wait—my what?” He jerked his head toward her, trying to read Jenna’s face for any signs that she was kidding.

“Kasey...your daughter.”

Wait. She thought? No. “Kasey’s not my daughter.”

“You said earlier that you guessed she was yours.” Her brow furrowed. “What does that mean?”

“I was named her guardian in the will.”

“Guardian? So who—?”

“You remember Sophia, my cousin, don’t you?”

“Sophia died? She was younger than us.” Jenna touched his wrist. “Tobe, I’m so sorry.” Her hold tightened. “Oh, poor Kasey. Losing her mom so young.”

“I hoped you could help her since...” your mom died when you were young, too. “I don’t know the first thing about taking care of a little girl. When your dad found out, he called and offered the bunkhouse, a job. My parents live in a retirement community, no kids allowed. I’m all Kasey has now. If I hadn’t accepted guardianship, they’d have placed her into foster care. I couldn’t let that happen.” He shook his head.

“You did the right thing.” She laid her hand over his for a second, then cupped it back with her other in her lap.

“I can’t do it alone though. I don’t know what I’m doing.” He skirted his gaze to hers. Her deep blue eyes captured his, and he never wanted to look away. They could be friends again. Everything could go back to how it was before. “Will you help me?”

“Of course. However I can.”

And just like that, they were a united force. He still needed to get to the bottom of why Jenna had been so upset this morning, but that would come in time.

Chapter Three

Jenna tried to focus on the abstract watercolor in the doctor’s office at her father’s follow-up appointment the next day. Staring at the strange shapes was easier than looking at her dad or the doctor. Thankfully, Toby had stayed back at the orchard to tend to the work they’d missed yesterday and wouldn’t have accomplished today if he hadn’t been around. Busy fussing over her father the rest of yesterday, Jenna had missed her opportunity to meet Kasey but hoped to rectify that once she was home from school today.

But after this blow, who knew? A motorized wheelchair. Her father, who used to think nothing of working ten hours a day in the busy season—the man who had taught her to ride horseback, to swim and to race on her bike—was being told it was best for him not to walk on his own going forward.

“You’re telling me my father can’t walk anymore?” Jenna tried to modulate her voice. It wasn’t Dr. Karol’s fault—he was a messenger, tasked with delivering bad information. Still, worry simmered through her veins.