“We need to go in the house,” he said. “I’ll get a shower, we’ll have a little dinner with Maxie, then we’ll find a quiet place to talk for a while. We’ll get this all straightened out.”

“All right,” she said sadly. “Will you bring in my luggage?”

“Of course,” he said and he thought, Maxie is going to have my head for this. “First we go inside and tell Maxie that you’re here. Since I didn’t get the email, she would have no idea.”

“Didn’t get?” she said, lifting a pale brown brow. “Or didn’t read? Because that was something else you said—from now on you’d be very careful about checking your emails.”

“Yeah. Some old habits are tough to change. Come on,” he said, taking her elbow.

As he escorted her to the house, he noticed she was dressed as if she might be attending a very important business meeting in which she was the chairman of the board. The red boots were back, this time paired with a long black skirt with a fringe on the hem and a rich, red poncho. Who goes to classes like this? Who drives four or five hours to an orchard like this?

Life was not fair, he brooded. The woman was so beautiful and such an invasive, intrusive, demanding pain in the ass. He had a strong desire for a simple woman in worn jeans that hugged every little curve and a plain old hoodie. Even if he could dress her up in these designer clothes, he wouldn’t want to. He loved her unaffected style, her lack of guile. She was pure and simple and honest and that was all he wanted.

He walked Darla across the porch and opened the kitchen door. “Maxie,” he said. “Look who’s here.”

His grandmother turned from the stove and jumped in surprise. “Darla!” she said, her hand going to her chest.

Tom did not want to ever lose his grandmother but he did have the passing thought that if she at least fainted, it might divert Darla’s attention from what was going to be a very uncomfortable evening.

“Maxie,” she said, opening her arms to embrace the older woman.

“What a surprise,” Maxie said, submitting to the embrace, patting Darla’s back. Over Darla’s shoulder she stared daggers at Tom.

“I missed you,” Darla said warmly.

“Well, so nice you’re here. I wish you’d have called—I’m afraid there’s nothing but calories on the table tonight.”

“Oh, that’s good, I’m famished. And guess what? I brought a very nice, very expensive Chardonnay. I put it in the trunk in a frozen wine sleeve so it’s ready to be uncorked. Will you join me in a glass while Tom brings in my luggage and takes a shower?”

Maxie lifted one eyebrow. “Perhaps more than one,” she said. And while Darla may not have picked up on the sarcasm, Tom did.

Duke came into the kitchen, happily wagging his tail, because of course he assumed everyone who came to the orchard came to see him.

“No, Duke, no,” Darla said, backing away with the palm of her hand out, warding him off. “You’re hairy.”

“Darla, he’s a dog,” Tom said, perhaps a little irritably. Then in order to cover his tracks, he said, “I’ll get your bags.”

When he came into the house again, carrying three of her four bags, he noticed that she was sitting at the kitchen table. Remaining in the trunk of her car was a fancy briefcase and her chilled bottle of wine. He found it simply remarkable that the woman didn’t even bother to fetch those two lightweight items and bring them in but rather waited for him to do so. As he passed through the kitchen on his way back to her car he asked, “Just out of curiosity, how do you get the luggage into the trunk?”

“Oh, you just won’t believe it. The nicest man lives in the condo right next door—also a student at Davis. He’s been so helpful, so accommodating. All I have to do is tell him when I’ll need a hand and he’s right there, ready and able.”

“Does he carry your books to class, too?” Tom asked.

“Why, Tom,” she said, a teasing tone to her voice. “Are you possibly jealous?”

He was sure he would not have a problem telling her, tonight, that she’d better get some new ideas about her future because he was now officially off the map. The woman drove him insane. “Let me get the rest and get that shower.”

“Thank you, sweetheart.”

He did not dare turn around and look at his grandmother’s expression.

* * *

After Darla picked her way through an amazing roast chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy, Tom helped his grandmother clear the table and take care of the dishes. Darla excused herself to change into something more comfortable.

“Thank God,” he said to his grandmother. “Okay, listen, Maxie. You’re going to have to disappear for a while, give me the room. I have to tell her how it is—that we are not seeing each other, not now, not ever. She’s very determined, although I can’t for the life of me figure out why.”

“Maybe you just blow every whistle she’s got,” Maxie said with a sneer.

He just stared at her. “Oh, yeah, you have to leave the room. You’re losing control of your filter.”

“Well, I’d go into town, maybe stop off at Jack’s looking for gossip, but I had to drink two glasses of her very expensive wine just to be able to sit through dinner with her. Don’t you ever bring an anorexic to dinner here again! And by the way, she got screwed on the wine! Doesn’t she think we country hicks know good wine? We have award-winning vineyards around here! We know our wine! If that bottle cost more than eight-ninety-nine I’ll wet myself!”

He rolled his eyes. “Can you find something to do in your…room?” he asked.

“And miss the Raiders and Cowboys game?”

“If you do this for me, I’ll buy you a fancy flat screen for your bedroom.”

She snatched the dishtowel out of his hands and said, “I’ll record the game. And read. But would you please not beat around the bush? I’ve had about enough of this. And for God’s sake, don’t lie!”

“Yeah, stupid me,” he said. And then mocking himself, “What kind of trouble could a hunting lie create?”

“See? If you’d just listen to me…”

“Well, now,” Darla said brightly. “I brought some movies if anyone is interested.”

Chapter Eighteen

Although Tom dreaded the whole idea, he was burdened with the impossible task of helping Darla understand his position, which was one of not being even slightly in love with her. Ironically what made this even more difficult was the fact that he couldn’t understand what in the world made her want him. She didn’t really love his world, his apple kingdom.

“Movie, Tom?” she asked. “Maybe While You Were Sleeping?”

“Darla, before we look at movies, we have to talk. Let’s talk in the kitchen. I’ll fix you up with another glass of wine,” he said. “I’ll have a beer with you.”

She grinned devilishly. “Tom, are you trying to get me drunk?”

“No,” he said, though that wasn’t a bad idea. “Thing is…” Then he stopped. “Listen, how did you say you met Bob?”

“Did I say?”

“I think so. I can’t remember.”

“He was in Colorado Springs, snowboarding.”

In Vail, skiing. He did so remember.

“Did you date very long?”

“Not long, no. A few months. Almost just enough time to plan a nice wedding. It was beautiful. He had his orders for deployment right before the ceremony, actually.”

“Hmm,” Tom pondered, rubbing his jaw. “You must’ve fallen in love with him the second you met him.”

She sighed. “Well, what wasn’t to love? Big, handsome, decorated hero. Every woman I knew envied me. Bob was very nearly famous!”

“Didn’t you worry about how complicated life might be with a husband in the Corps? Hadn’t he deployed before?”

“Three times before,” she said with a nod. “But no—I wasn’t worried. And I sure wasn’t going to wait till the age of forty to be married.”

“Huh?” he asked.

“I expected to be married by thirty and when that didn’t happen I—”

“Huh?” he said again, interrupting her. “Bob was twenty-seven,” Tom said. “He enlisted right out of high school. He had almost ten years in. He told me he wanted a career.”

“That was just talk among the men,” Darla said with a wave of her hand. “Bob was a little younger than me.”

He leaned toward her. “How much younger?”

“A few years. But it was instant love…”

She had searched him on Google, Tom thought. Why hadn’t he done the same? “How old are you?” he asked.

“Tom! Do you need to see my driver’s license?”

He gave a nod. “Don’t need to, but…”

“Thirty-five,” she said, unmistakable annoyance in her tone. “That wasn’t a problem for us!”

“And you weren’t married very long when he deployed?”

“A couple of months, most of which he was with his unit and I was in Denver, but we saw each other every week. Almost every week.”

She had said less than a year, as Tom recalled. Well, that was far less. And her couple of months was probably actually a couple of weeks.

“Why all these questions?” she asked.

“Well, we haven’t known each other that long and I’m trying to figure out a few things. Like what you think our life would be like if we got serious…”

“I’m sure it would be so much fun!”

“Oh? And what fun things do we do together?” he asked.

She took a sip of her wine, her mood brightening. “Not many things, so far—but you’ve been very busy with the harvest. And you said the harvest doesn’t last all year. I suppose when you’re finally not picking apples and making cider all the time we can explore some of the fun things that revolve around my job—the travel, the entertainment, events. I have season tickets to the symphony.”

Kill me now, Tom thought. He knew, beyond the shadow of a doubt, she did not capture Bob with that bait.

“And every now and then I get passes to the company’s box at the Lakers’ games—you have to like that idea. I’m not really into sports, but I love being in that skybox.”

He reached for her hand across the kitchen table. “Darla, have you thought about how our lives just don’t match? I like to watch sports on TV—you like romances, chick flicks. I’d rather hunt than go to a symphony. And, well, I live with my grandmother.”

She laughed softly. “Tom, I adore Maxie, but as this gets more serious, you wouldn’t continue to live with your grandmother. We would have to be alone together sometime! In fact, I think it’s about time we explore what ‘alone’ would get us.”

It could get us laid, he thought. And what a damn shame. The idea of ha**ng s*x wasn’t far from his mind—he wanted sex! This woman was amazing-looking—and he didn’t want her at all. He didn’t even want to kiss her and he was no longer curious about her perfect br**sts.

He’d been having very disturbing dreams for several weeks in which he was having the most delicious sex of his life. He was taking his partner to heights she’d never before experienced and she was satisfying him in ways he hadn’t imagined. They were like bunnies, just screwing their brains out. He could taste her, feel her br**sts and hard ni**les under his hands, slide into her and make her cl**ax in seconds over and over again and he would wake up hungry for her.

And she was Nora, the woman he didn’t want to want. Every goddamn last time, she was Nora. The woman with kids from a felon, the girl who was desperately down on her luck and hanging on to her dreams and her pride by a thread…