Susan Wiggs - The Apple Orchard

“What’s the matter?”

“You’re covered in powdered sugar.”

She glanced down. The front of her blazer was sprinkled with the white stuff.

“Oh. Damn.” She took the handkerchief—white, crisp, monogrammed—and brushed at the mess.

“Your face, too,” he pointed out.

“My face?” she asked stupidly.

“You look like a cocaine addict gone wild,” he told her.

“Lovely. I don’t have a mirror.”

He came around the desk to her. “May I?”

In spite of herself, she kind of wanted to say yes to this guy, no matter what he was asking. “Sure. Have at it.”

Very gently, he touched a finger under her chin, tilting her face toward his as he dabbed at the corners of her mouth.

Up close, he was even better-looking than she’d originally thought. He smelled incredible and was perfectly groomed. The suit fit him gorgeously. It was probably a bespoke suit, made-to-measure. Because no normal man was built like this guy. Maybe she’d manifested him. Hadn’t she just been thinking about how nice it would be to have a boyfriend?

Indulging—ever so briefly—in his touch, his very focused attention, she fantasized about what it would be like to have a boyfriend like this—attentive, patient, wildly attractive. Though she had no idea who he was, she already knew he was going to make her wish she had better luck at keeping guys around. When he finished his ministrations, she hoped she wasn’t blushing. But being a redhead, she couldn’t stop herself.

“Better?” she asked.

He put the handkerchief back in his pocket. “I just thought you’d be more comfortable...”

“Not looking like a cocaine addict,” she filled in for him. She forced herself to quit gaping.

For the first time, he cracked a smile. “Believe me, you’re better off sticking with donuts.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.” She did her best to ignore the pulse of attraction inspired by that smile. She flushed again, remembering her imminent meeting. “You’ll have to excuse me, but I’ve got something on the schedule that can’t wait.”

“Just...hear me out.” Somber again, he moved a stack of paraphernalia off a chair and took a seat. “That’s all I ask.”

“What can I do for you?”

He paused, a somber look haunting his whiskey-brown eyes. Oh, boy, she thought. He’d probably tracked her down for a valuation. People like this always seemed to find her. If he was like so many others, he wanted to know what he could get for his grandmother’s rhinestone jewelry or Uncle Bubba’s squirrel shooter. She often heard from people who came across junk while cleaning out some loved one’s basement, and were convinced they had discovered El Dorado.

She shifted her weight, feeling a nudge of anxiety about the upcoming meeting. She was going to need all her focus, and Mr. Dominic Rossi was definitely not so good for her focus. “Listen, I might need to refer you to one of my associates in the firm. Like I said, I’m a bit pressed for time today—”

“This is about a family matter,” he said.

She almost laughed at the irony of it. She didn’t have a family. She had a mother who didn’t return her calls. “What in the world would you know about my family?”

“The bank I work for is located in Archangel, in Sonoma County.”

“Archangel.” She tilted her head to one side. “Is that supposed to mean something to me?”

“Doesn’t it?”

“I’ve been to Archangel, Russia. I’ve been to lots of places, traveling for work. But never to Archangel, California. What does it have to do with me?”

His expression didn’t change, but she detected a flash of something in his eyes. “You have family there.”

Her stomach twisted. “This is either a joke, or a mistake.”

“I’m not joking, and it’s not a mistake. I’m here on behalf of your grandfather, Magnus Johansen.”

The name meant nothing to Tess. Her grandfather. She didn’t have a grandfather in any standard sense of the word. There was one unknown man who had abandoned Nana, and another who had fathered Shannon Delaney’s one-night stand. All her mother had ever told her about that night was that she’d had too much to drink and made a mistake while in graduate school at Berkeley. So the word father was a bit of a misnomer. The guy had never done anything for Tess except supply a single cell containing an X chromosome. Her mother wasn’t even sure of his name. “Eric,” Shannon had explained when Tess asked. “Or maybe it was Erik with a k. I never got his last name.”

On her birth certificate, the space was filled in with a single word: “UNKNOWN.”

Now here was this stranger, telling her things about herself she didn’t know. She suppressed a shiver. “I’ve never heard of...what’s the guy’s name?”

“Magnus Johansen.”

“And you say he’s my grandfather.” She felt strangely light-headed.

“I don’t know him,” she said. “I’ve never known him.” The words held a world of pain and confusion. She wondered if this guy—this Dominic—could tell. She felt completely bewildered. To hide her feelings, she glared at him through narrowed eyes. “I think you should get to the point.”

He studied her from behind the conservative banker’s glasses. The way he looked at her made her heart skip a beat and made it harder to hide the unsettled panic that was starting to climb up her throat. “I’m very sorry to tell you that Magnus has had an accident. He’s in the ICU at Sonoma Valley Regional Hospital.”

The words passed through her like a chilly breeze. “Oh. I see. I’m...” She really had no idea what to say. “I’m sorry, too. I mean, he’s your friend. What happened?”

“He fell off a ladder in his orchard, and he’s in a coma.”

Tess winced, flashing on a poor old man falling from a ladder. She laced her fingers together into a knot of tension, mingled with excitement. Her grandfather...her family. He had an orchard. She’d never really thought of anyone having an orchard, let alone someone she was related to. “I guess...I appreciate your coming to deliver the news in person,” she said. She wondered how much, if anything, he knew about the reason she didn’t know Magnus, or anyone on that side of the family. “I just don’t get what this has to do with me. I assume he’s got other family members who can deal with the situation.”

She flashed on another conversation she’d had with her mother, long ago, when she’d been a bewildered and lonely little girl. “I want you to tell me about my father,” she’d said, stubbornly crossing her arms.

“He’s gone, sweetheart. I’ve told you before, he was in a car accident before you were born, and he was killed.”

Tess winced. “Did it hurt?”

“I don’t know.”

“You sure don’t know a lot, Mom.”

“Thanks.”

“Well, it’s true. Were you sad when he died?”

“I... Of course. Everyone who knew him was sad.”

“Who’s everyone?”

“All his friends and family.”

“But who? What were their names?”

“I only knew Erik for a short time. I really didn’t know his friends and family.” Her eyes shifted, and that was how Tess knew she was holding back.

She didn’t even really know what her father looked like, or how his voice sounded, or the touch of his hand. She had only one thing to go by—an old photo print. The square Instamatic picture was kept in the bottom drawer of her mom’s bureau. The colors were fading. In the background was a big bridge stretching like a spider web across the water. In the center of the photo stood a man. He wasn’t smiling but he looked nice. He had crinkles fanning his eyes and hair that was light brown or dark blond, cut in a feathery old-fashioned style. “Very eighties,” her mother had once explained.