Joanne Rock - Promises Under the Peach Tree

Ally tried not to let that sting. She’d stayed up late to paint her fingernails and woken before the sun rose to hang out with him today. But he was either totally uninterested or...

God, she hoped there was another explanation, even though nothing came to mind. Maybe he was just in a bad mood, but since when was Ethan ever a downer like that? She was usually the one with a black cloud hanging over her head.

“You’re right. Guess I’m starting to let the perpetual bitch-mode at my house infect me.” She zipped her lip and went to work picking some low-hanging fruit on the tree next to Ethan’s.

She’d gotten good at giving the silent treatment, a ploy her parents used so often her house was a mausoleum most of the time. But anything she said would only reveal how much she was crushing on Ethan. Besides, she could use the quiet to gather her thoughts and study him.

Lanky and tall since ninth grade, he’d gotten bigger muscles last year. His dark hair brushed his eyebrows as he worked, his profile stark and serious.

Hot.

“I had to milk my parents’ cows,” Ethan said finally, the look of disgust on his face so dark and surly that it made her laugh.

“Really?”

“Yeah, really.” He started to pick the fruit faster, his tone sharp and aggravated.

“Sorry. Uh—that is, you don’t like milking cows?” There hadn’t been a lot of working farms in Heartache even a few years ago, but recently, some hipster families had moved into the old places to try and revive them with new, organic techniques.

Ethan’s farm was one of those. His parents gave tours of the place and spoke around the county about the “green” approach.

“It’s straight out of the Dark Ages. There are machines for that.” He chucked peaches in the basket hard enough that they were going to bruise. “And I didn’t come to this godforsaken town to be slave labor for a crappy farm where the equipment breaks down every few days.”

“Tell me about it.” At least this—anger—she could identify with. “You think I want to live here?”

He shrugged. “You’re a Finley. Your grandfather was the mayor for forever. Your dad runs the building-supply store. I figured you must like it well enough.”

“Do you like the same stuff the rest of your family does?”

“Good point.” He rubbed one of the peaches on his T-shirt and took a bite, a little river of juice running down his chin.

“My parents barely speak, and when they do, it’s to yell—at each other or at me. I took a crappy job sweeping up hair in a salon just to get out of the house.” Actually, the job wasn’t that bad. But the point was, she’d had to take it or she would have lost her mind being in that house. Even her grandmother had stopped inviting her over since Grandpa died, robbing Ally of that escape, too. “And then they’re surprised when I’m screwing up my senior year of school? I doubt they’d get an A in physics when the stress is so thick at the dinner table you can’t ask for the butter without stirring up some ancient resentment involving the butter dish.”

Ethan’s eyebrows rose. “For real?”

“True story. Swear to God.” She crossed her heart. “Apparently the dish was a wedding gift and my mom wrote all the thank-you notes. That was like...a million years ago. But she’s still pissed.”

“That sucks.” He wiped the peach juice from his chin on the back of his wrist. The scent of the fruit hung in the air, the buzz of summer bugs winding up as the day heated.

“Big-time. We were having corn on the cob that night. I didn’t even get any.” She was trying to make a joke, but he was looking off in the distance toward the barns, the only buildings you could see from the orchards.

“Less than a year and I’m out of here.” Ethan cocked his arm back and launched the peach pit into the air. He leaned one shoulder into the tree and gazed down at her with moody hazel eyes.

Ally’s heart beat faster. What would she do once he was gone? The thought of him was all that had gotten her through the worst summer of her life. The stress in her house was literally eating her from the inside out. Or so it seemed when the sores opened up on her arms from where she’d scratched them. She’d started wearing tons of friendship bracelets on each arm to hide the marks.

“I’m not waiting that long.” She blurted the words before she even considered what she was saying.

“What do you mean?” He frowned, but at least he was paying attention.

She swallowed hard. A buzzing started in her ears and it wasn’t from the bees that hummed lazily around the fruit. Her fate seemed to hang in the balance, every moment of her life just a prelude to this moment and Ethan Brady’s hazel eyes.

“I mean I’m getting out of this place soon. Like...after the Harvest Festival.” She couldn’t call herself a Finley and not help out at the Harvest Fest, a tradition her grandfather had reinstated during his long tenure as mayor of Heartache. Besides that, there was a dance at the end of the Harvest Fest and—call her shallow—she’d dreamed every year since Ethan had moved to town of getting to dance with him there. Maybe this year would be her chance.

“You’re really going to...run away?” A gleam of emotion flickered in his eyes, but she couldn’t tell if it was admiration at her plan or contempt for being childish.

“Not run away. Leaving town. Quitting school.” The more she thought about it, the more Ally liked the idea. She’d had enough of trying to please parents who were determined to be miserable no matter how hard she worked. “I’ll be eighteen in December anyway, so I can be on my own legally then. I’ve got enough credits to graduate by the end of the year.”

She sounded smart. As if she’d actually thought through this insanity. Or maybe it was Ethan’s surprised smile that was making her feel proud of herself for the plan.

“Wow.” He shook his head. “I never pictured you as the kind of girl who would ruffle the family feathers.”

Defensiveness straightened her spine.

“Is that so?” Her skin started itching and it was all she could do not to scratch.

“You just always seem so...I don’t know. Perfect, I guess. Like the kind of girl who wouldn’t get into trouble.” Ethan took a step down the ladder and then another until they stood on even ground.

Where he was still so much taller than her.

“You’re wrong, Ethan Brady.” She felt shaky all over, but in a good kind of way. He’d never been this close to her. “I wouldn’t be getting into trouble. I’d be leaving it behind.”

What could her parents do once she turned eighteen anyhow? Besides, Ethan was the one good thing in her life and if he left this town, she didn’t want to be in it.

He shook his head as if he didn’t quite believe her. That easygoing smile she’d always loved returned to his face.

“I don’t know about you, Ally,” he teased, picking up a lock of her brown hair and rubbing it between his thumb and forefinger.

Her heart stopped.

Then started again at a jackrabbit pace.

“Maybe you ought to change that,” she challenged him, hoping it sounded as flirty as she wanted it to.

His smile widened.

Ally drew a deep breath and took a gamble.

“So...you want to come with me?”

* * *

Where were you today?

Wiping the flour off her hands onto one of Gram’s old aprons, Nina read the text from an unknown number with a Tennessee area code. She’d been baking for hours and the kitchen currently smelled like hazelnut from the batch of Linzer torte cupcakes she’d made. Gram’s old oven was bigger than modern models, and it worked as well as Nina recalled, but she still couldn’t make nearly as many at a time as she could with professional-grade equipment.