What Might Have Been (5 page)

He'd find a fax machine in town. “Yeah. Give me a couple hours and I'll have it back to you. Good work, Mike. Thanks for handling this for me.”

Without waiting for a reply, he disconnected the phone. They walked along in silence for several minutes before he decided an apology might not be a bad idea.

Increasing his strides, he ate up the ground until he was standing beside her. Wrapping his hand around her arm, he pulled her to a stop until they were facing each other. The space between them was too big and too small all at once. Part of him wanted to let her go and part of him wanted to pull her closer.

“I'm sorry. I had to take that. Please. Continue.”

She refused to look him in the eye but he could see her glare as she raked him from head to toe beneath the cover of her dark lashes.

“Honestly, I wouldn't have taken that if it hadn't been important.”

She sighed, but continued anyway. Extricating her arm, she turned back to the path, picking up where she'd
left off, explaining that each tree would be picked multiple times during the season to ensure that the peaches were perfect when they came off the branch. There was a finesse to handling the harvest. Peaches were funny things; they could be underripe one day, perfect the next and spoiled the following day. If each tree wasn't picked regularly they could lose a substantial amount of crop…and money.

She was telling him things he already knew, but he'd asked her to think of him as someone with no prior knowledge. He had purposely distanced himself from the farm growing up. While some of the information had filtered in just from proximity, he had no way of knowing what was important and what wasn't.

He studied the people around him, clearly hot and covered with the sweat of their labor. It didn't look fun to him at all.

Ainsley ran her hand over the trunk of a tree, telling him all the dangers they had to watch out for. All the things that could sink the entire orchard in the blink of an eye.

Precisely the risk he'd wanted nothing to do with.

If he'd made this his life's work he'd have always worried when it would end. When it, too, would be taken from him by some catastrophe. Farming was not for the faint of heart.

He understood, better than most, how easily he could lose the things he cared about.

He'd known that from the time he was three.

And everything he'd learned since then had reinforced his fears.

He'd lost his parents, his brother…Ainsley.

She stopped by a tree. They were acres into the orchard, the gently waving leaves above them.

She reached up, just as she'd done last night. This time she strained more, going on tiptoe and leaning hard into the trunk for leverage.

“Here. Let me.”

He came up behind her, saw the fruit just out of her reach and lifted to his own toes to grab it.

It was a moment before he realized that she'd stiffened beneath him.

And when he stopped, he realized why. His chest was pressed tight to her shoulders. The arch of her spine curved away from his body but that only seemed to emphasize the round curve of her rear as it pushed into his thighs.

His response was immediate. And damn hard to miss, especially pressed into the downward arch of her spine. Clearing his throat, he stepped away, bringing the peach she'd been reaching for with him.

She moved, too, sidestepping to put more space between them. The skin in the deep V of her T-shirt was flushed, drawing his eye to the skittering pulse at the side of her neck. She licked her lips and looked away.

Part of him wanted to see her eyes. They'd never been able to lie to him. He'd have known immediately what her response to him was.

Part of him knew that if he saw the slightest interest
there, he wouldn't be able to stop himself from a repeat of last night.

The difference was that it was broad daylight and they were surrounded by people. They might both be able to lie to themselves and pretend that moonlight and nostalgia had been responsible for last night's kiss. But if they did it again now, the smoke screen would be gone. And, frankly, he needed that smoke screen if he wanted to survive the next few weeks with his sanity intact.

Thinking about last night, though, brought up a question he'd wanted to ask…and had been too distracted to think of it before.

“I saw you pick a peach last night.”

She darted a glance at him from the corner of her eye and answered, “Uh-huh.”

“Why didn't you eat it?”

To his surprise the skin across her neck and shoulders turned an even brighter shade of pink. Not exactly the response he'd expected.

“Um, wasn't ready.”

“Then why'd you pick it? I don't believe that you didn't know that right away.”

She shrugged and looked at him. “I wanted to feel it in my hands.”

The same way he wanted to feel her in his hands?
He knew that wasn't what she'd meant but couldn't stop the thought.

“There's something about it that's settling. Knowing that trees have stood on this land, produced the same
fruit over and over again, for a hundred years. That's longevity. That's stability.”

That's what she valued most in this world and always had. Even as a teenager just starting her adult life, she'd wanted something safe and stable. Something her father had never provided.

Luke fought a twinge of regret and guilt. He'd left her precisely because he knew he couldn't give her the one thing she'd always wanted. And here he was taking it away from her now that she'd found it.

But he couldn't let that sway him. He was doing the right thing, making the right decision. Not just for himself but for everyone.

She'd find what she was looking for in another place. With another man.

For some reason, that suddenly bothered him very much.

L
UKE HAD NO IDEA WHERE
Ainsley was headed until they rounded a corner in the path to stare at a building he did not remember. It sat next to the packing facility he
did
remember and was about half the size of a normal barn, not huge but not exactly small, either.

When she walked up to the large double doors that fronted the structure and rolled them back, he thought he'd died and gone to heaven. Inside were several machines. Some he didn't recognize, but clearly visible in the front were two four-wheelers.

He and Logan had spent years begging his grandfather for something they could tear through the few areas of vacant land on. He'd flat-out refused. Always said they were expensive, unnecessary and dangerous to boot.

“How'd you manage this?”

Luke walked over to the nearest one and ran his hand across the red paint. They were clearly used, beat-up and scratched all over. But he'd bet they flew across
open ground. And would spin up mud like you wouldn't believe.

“Logan didn't tell your grandfather. He just came home with that one.” She nodded to the one his hand currently rested on. “Pops came around eventually. Especially when he realized that without them he couldn't make it to the back forty by himself.”

“He certainly did hate to be dependent on anyone else, didn't he?”

Ainsley smiled, a wistful expression that made him sad even as it melted away.

“You know how to operate one of these?”

“My Harley could beat this thing any day, but I'm sure it'll do in a pinch.”

As his machine roared to life, he was surprised to see Ainsley shoot out ahead of him onto the path leading back into the grove. Hell-bent for leather, her hair a streaming flag for him to catch.

The delicate tinkle of her laughter ghosted back to him as he opened the throttle and followed suit. Man, he'd love to see the expression on her face, eyes alight with mischief and happiness, a monster-size smile tugging at her lips, and her cheeks pink from the bite of the wind whipping past.

She stood up on the pegs, leaning over the bars as he drew closer.

These were the kind of memories he'd wanted to make with Logan.

And like that, his brother stood between him and Ainsley once more. He pulled back, but it was several
moments before she realized that he'd slowed the four-wheeler.

Plopping back into the cradle of the seat, she nodded her head to the right and took a sharp turn beneath the trees.

Reducing their speed and staying in the cleared spaces beneath the peach trees allowed them to pass through the rough terrain.

Once again, it took him several minutes before he realized her destination. The pond. He'd almost forgotten it was out here.

As he and Logan had grown up, they would slip out to the pond in order to talk and simply be alone. To escape the sadness that sometimes seemed to permeate the old farmhouse. While he and his brother had lost their parents, it had been a long time before he'd realized that his grandparents had also lost their son. Wrapped up in his own grief he hadn't appreciated theirs. He supposed it was normal for a young child to be so self-absorbed.

As he'd gotten older, he'd understood more.

He, Logan and Pops had spent many spring and summer days at the pond, fishing poles in their hands. He couldn't remember ever catching anything; he wondered if that was because the pond wasn't actually stocked. Or whether he and his rambunctious twin had inadvertently chased all the potential dinners away.

Ainsley turned the four-wheeler as they approached, killing the engine and letting the machine come to rest at the end of the dock built out over the still water.

He did the same, slowly dismounting and walking onto the sunbaked, dark-stained wood.

It creaked quietly beneath him, welcoming him back.

A memory flashed into his mind. Logan had been dozing beneath a tree, exhausted from the crash of a sugar high—Pops had given them Coke, cookies and a bunch of candy and sworn them to secrecy.

But Luke had refused to leave his post by the poles.

He'd sat cross-legged on the dock, his line bobbing gently in the water, his back tucked in tight to the four-by-four post at his back.

His grandfather had sat opposite him, his worn fishing hat drooping into his eyes and shielding his face from the sun.

Luke had thought Pops was dozing, as well, until he spoke.

He'd been…ten at the time, he supposed.

“Your grandmother and I are proud of you, son.”

His grandfather's praise, along with the sunshine beating down, warmed Luke from the inside out.

“You're doing well in school and you look out for your brother. But it's time for you to start helping around the farm more. All this will be yours one day. Your responsibility.”

Like that the warmth faded away. Even at ten he knew he didn't want the responsibility. He didn't want to be tied to the uncertainty of farm life. He'd seen the struggle his grandfather had gone through in the lean years, barely scraping by. That kind of life wasn't for him.

“I don't want to run the farm, Pops.”

Pops flipped the brim of his hat out of his way and speared Luke with his gaze. “I won't live forever, Luke. You're the oldest. Collier Orchards will be yours.” His words trailed off but Luke could hear his final mutter, “Always passes to the oldest.”

A nasty knot curled in the pit of his stomach. The thought of Pops dying, like his parents, left the bitter taste of helplessness in his mouth. Pops and Gran were his family. He couldn't think of losing them, too.

He'd known one day it would happen. Pops wasn't exactly young. But not now. Not yet.

In an effort to block the churning thoughts, Luke focused on another part of his grandfather's speech.

Responsibility. Tradition. He was sick of it. Sick of being constantly reminded of the ancestors who had sacrificed and worked hard to keep this land going. He didn't want their land. He wanted something of his own.

He wanted out of this sleepy little town. Out of the oppressive summer heat and wishy-washy winters.

“No. I'm not staying here, Pops. I don't want the farm.”

Throwing his pole down onto the scarred surface of the dock, Luke pushed past his grandfather. He sprinted into the trees, ignoring the hollers coming from behind him.

It was the first time he'd openly defied his grandfather. It wasn't the last over the final rocky and volatile years they'd spent together. They'd loved each other—they'd
both known that. But they'd wanted different things for Luke's life.

So why did that suddenly make him feel guilty?

“How can you turn your back on all this?”

He looked over and saw Ainsley, her head thrown back, her eyes closed and a serene smile gently turning her lips. Sunlight streamed across her body, as if it had been sent only for her.

Her legs, long and lean beneath a pair of shorts, seemed to glow. He hadn't realized how tanned she was until just now, but considering the hours she spent outside it made sense. A flowing tank top did little to hide her body. In fact, it did everything to accentuate the curves beneath.

When he'd left she had been a girl. Now there was no mistaking that Ainsley Rutherford was a woman.

Luke took an involuntary step toward her. He could envision the moment. Her gasp of surprise as he tugged her to him. Her eyes flying wide as he kissed her again…

He couldn't go down this road a second time. Being with Ainsley again was a fantasy that could never happen. Not when she'd married his brother.

Pulling up short, Luke was thankful that she had no idea he'd taken a step toward her. He didn't want to know what her reaction would have been…welcome or rebuff.

He closed his own eyes for a moment, calling on the memory of the one thing that could stand between them. The one person who could remind him why this was so wrong.

“You never talk about him.”

Ainsley's eyes flew open as she jerked around to look at him. “Who?”

“Logan. You never talk about him.”

A frown crashed over her face, pulling her cheeks in and making her face seem longer, harder. “What do you want me to say?”

He shrugged. There was no safe topic that involved Ainsley and his brother. He didn't want to know about their life together. And yet, he did. It was like picking at a scab even knowing that it was going to bleed and hurt once you ripped it off.

The temptation was just too much to ignore.

“I haven't once heard you talk about his death. Your grief.” Maybe that was something they could share…their grief over the loss of his brother. “How did you deal with it?”

She just looked at him, a strange light whispering deep in her eyes. “I didn't.”

He stepped closer to her. This time he had a plausible reason—comforting her. Not that she seemed to need comforting. Not like she had last night.

“What do you mean?”

“I was in the hospital for weeks, Luke. I had multiple broken bones, a punctured lung and internal bleeding. I was in and out of surgery for the first few days and then so drugged up that I could barely remember my name.”

The pain that stole into her eyes just about killed him. It was deep. An emotion he could identify with and un
derstand. She must have cared more for Logan than he'd realized.

Jealousy, red-hot and rampant, melted into his blood. Shouldn't he be past this by now? Apparently not.

But even as he fought the jealousy, the thought of her suffering… It left him cold and sad. He'd had no idea.

“No one told me.”

Why hadn't they? Why hadn't Gran or Pops said something? He knew Ainsley had been in the accident, as well, knew that she'd been injured, but they'd promised him she was fine. Recovering and simply too weak to come to the service.

At the time he'd figured she also hadn't wanted to see him. And he hadn't wanted to see her. Losing his twin brother was difficult enough. Seeing Ainsley would have been more than he could handle.

But my God. If she'd been in that much pain. That broken and torn apart…

“You didn't ask, did you?”

But he had.

“Yes, I did, Ainsley. I asked about you. They told me you were going to be fine. That you didn't want to see me.”

 

G
RAN SAT IN THE OLD ROCKING
chair in the corner of the den. The room was rarely used now; Ainsley preferred to spend her time either in the office or the kitchen.

Besides, this room had always been Gran's. As Pops had gotten weaker, she had often found him and Gran here together. Gran quietly pushing back and forth in the
rocker while she worked on whatever knitting project she'd picked up, Pops dozing on the chintz sofa. The room was open and airy, light streaming in from the floor-to-ceiling windows on the far wall.

Now it was somewhat sad to see the older woman in here alone. Sitting in silence. The needlepoint bag lying untouched at her feet.

Ainsley sat on the chair beside her and waited for her presence to be acknowledged.

When Gran finally turned to look at her, Ainsley asked, “How are you today?”

Reaching out, Gran patted the top of her hand as it rested on the arm of the chair. Her skin was paper-thin and dry and in her mind, Ainsley could almost hear the crackle as it rubbed against her own.

“I'm fine dear.”

Again, they sat in silence. There just wasn't much left to say.

“Have you picked out something to wear tonight or would you like me to help?”

This time when Gran reached for her, it was to lay her hand longways against Ainsley's cheek.

“Such a sweet girl. No, I'm fine.”

Ainsley nodded and secretly planned to steal upstairs and just check to make sure that what Gran had laid out actually matched. The older she got, the more eccentric her wardrobe choices became. It was probably a combination of being stuck in a fashion era of the past and having gained enough years that no one really questioned her clothing choices. Ainsley usually let her alone but for
today she'd be representing the family and she knew that Gran would never want to disappoint.

“I wanted to ask you something.” Something that had been bothering her ever since she and Luke had talked on the dock this morning.

“Luke said that you told him I didn't want to see him. When he came home for Logan's funeral.”

Gran swiveled her head to look at her and simply nodded.

“Why?”

“Well, because that's what you told me, dear.”

“No, I didn't.”

“Of course you did, honey. You were in and out of it what with the pain and grief and medications but whenever you surfaced you started talking about Luke. At least, for the first few days. It took us a while to figure out what you were saying but…you didn't want him to see you. That was clear as day.”

Gran's eyes suddenly sharpened to the brightness that Ainsley remembered from her first few years here at the orchard.

“You didn't want him to know about the baby. You most definitely didn't want him to know about Alexander.”

Ainsley sucked back a gasp, holding it in because she didn't want Gran to see her reaction.

It was the first time the other woman had ever indicated that she'd known Alexander had been Luke's and not Logan's. Gran had never asked and she and Logan had never said.

“I… It's not…” Ainsley just stared at the other woman, panic and guilt welling up inside.

“Don't worry, I won't say anything. But I really think you should. At the time I realized it would only hurt—you and him—and there was really no reason, as it wouldn't have changed anything. But I think you should tell him now, Ainsley. I think he needs to know, don't you?”

“But—”

“It isn't good to keep secrets, dear. Especially from the people we love.”

“I don't—”

Dismissing the denial she was about to utter, Gran pushed up from the rocking chair. Her movements were unsteady, the moving chair making an already difficult task even more so. But Gran refused to give up her rocker. She'd once told Ainsley that she'd spent many long nights in that chair…nursing and holding Luke's father.