Second Chance at the Orchard Inn, page 7
“The segue into the setup was okay. Not the smoothest, but tolerable. I give it a six outta ten.”
The sound of their old ranking system coming out of his mouth twisted her heart. They used to rank everything. Friday night pizza at Tony’s, nine out of ten if the crust was just right. Homework over the weekend, zero out of ten.
Kissing in his truck while parked by the pond, as it rained outside. Full ten out of ten.
Aurora wanted to melt into the floor right now, never to be seen again, but she had to face him.
She turned to Jude. He was standing entirely too close to her, his arms crossed as he stared down, blue eyes flashing. “How long you think they’d had it planned out to leave us alone together?”
“Since yesterday.”
Jude nodded and tapped his nose. “While we were chasing chickens.”
“Should’ve known.” She shook her head. “It’s not like our sisters are an unpredictable bunch.”
“True. And they probably want to give us time alone, to talk. You know, if we want to.”
Aurora stiffened, her nerves tingling. She wasn’t ready for all of that. She might not ever be ready.
He glanced around and stuffed his hands in his pockets, the strong line of his jaw undeniably appealing. “But we don’t have to. We can enjoy the fields and being outside. The weather is perfect, and I’m fine with showing you around.”
“You sure?”
“Sure. You came all the way out here.”
“And my ride just left me here like an unwanted UPS package.”
He laughed, the rolling warmth of it making her smile before she could catch herself. “Yeah, she did. Cece bailed on you, big-time. But I’m game for a tour if you are.”
She ought to be game. This was Jude. Regardless of their history, they knew each other, knew each other’s families. They weren’t bitter enemies, just old flames. She could spend half an hour in his presence, wandering the farm, and it wouldn’t be the end of the world.
To refuse this time with him would be ridiculous.
Aurora nodded. “I’m game. Show me the latest and greatest at Edge of the World Farm.”
They exited the back of the shop and were immediately surrounded by wave after wave of purple.
Jude walked between the two rows of lavender in front of him and she followed closely behind. The buzz of honeybees was so prevalent, it disappeared into white noise across the farm. Songbirds chirped and sang their approval of the warm midday sun.
Aurora extended her arm, letting her fingers dance across the tops of the blooms, stirring their fragrance even more. The fields were so familiar, comforting, even as her tour guide bewildered her.
“The fields are essentially the same as the last time you were here,” Jude said.
Perhaps it was just her, but every time he mentioned—or even alluded to—their past, a pang hit deep in her chest.
She didn’t hate him anymore, so why did thinking about them then cause such a reaction? Was that merely the default for all lost loves the world over? Maybe that’s just how it was for everyone, and if you never saw your ex again, then you never had to deal with that feeling. Out of sight, out of mind.
But now that she was here, and around him, would exposure help it go away completely?
One could hope.
“We’ve extended growth several acres to add in more culinary lavender, but the biggest difference out here is the addition of the herb gardening section.”
When they finally reached the end of the long row, Jude took a wide left and led her over a hilltop to a separate area.
This garden was all green, with smatterings of yellow and orange here and there.
Jude’s herb garden. He’d made that dream come true.
“We grow basil, thyme, rosemary, tarragon, sometimes cilantro successfully, though it’s been fussy, and a lot of mint. Oh, and we’re trying some lemon balm at Bonnie’s request. Not sure what she plans to do with it, but I thought I’d be supportive.”
“Did you ever branch out into wildflowers?” The question was out of her mouth before she could catch the words.
Growing wildflowers was a dream they’d once shared. Wildflowers for the bees to pollinate, then they could harvest the flowers for retail sale, gather honey to sell as well, then replant and start the cycle over again the next year.
He’d probably dumped that idea when he dumped her.
Jude paused and plucked some mint. “No, I…we uh, went with herbs instead. I guess.” He ran his fingers up the frond of mint and lifted his hand to his perfectly straight nose.
He’d never been able to resist scents.
Jude had always been highly attuned to olfaction. He’d reveled in the smell of flowers, his mom’s cooking, Aurora’s cooking. Old books, new books. Aurora’s perfume and hair.
She jerked her gaze away.
Enough reminiscing.
“Yeah, Bonnie was telling me about the herbs and her ideas for subscription boxes. And Jenna mentioned another project you’re all interested in?”
Jude stared. “She did?”
“She said she wanted to talk to me about it later today.”
He knew exactly what she was talking about, she could see it in his eyes. But when he opened his mouth, “Hmm, I don’t know” came out.
He was as bad a liar as the rest of his family, and hers.
Jude started walking again and presented the rest of the farm like a pro, speaking of crop rotations and soil acidity like it was the most fascinating stuff on earth. He was in his element out here, doing exactly what he’d always dreamed of doing. Jude was made to farm this land, and his contentment was contagious.
His calm confidence was as disarming as ever, too, and slowly, some of her unease began to fade across the fields.
“We still have several dozen acres unused,” he said, pointing beyond the herbs. “But for now, with our existing staff, we’ve got all we can handle.”
The same message she’d gotten from Jenna. If they wanted to grow the farm, they’d have to hire more farm hands, which meant people other than the folks who’d worked here for ages. But, as Jenna said, their father had no interest in growth or new staff. Because of that, the farm was stuck, right where it was. Successful, but stagnant. Eventually, the stagnation would cause decline.
John Jones needed to listen to the next generation, or the farm would cease growing.
Then again, none of this was her business. Not anymore.
“Your family has done an amazing job here. You should be really proud.”
“Thanks.” His gaze swept to hers, then skittered away, and a small tick tensed his jaw. “I, uh, I appreciate that.”
It was an old tell, but she’d recognize it until the end of time. Jude had two of them. When he was angry or frustrated, he clenched his jaw, hard. This wasn’t that.
This was Jude, nervous and anxious. His jaw would tense and relax, tense and relax. He did it only when he had to talk to his dad, he overthought a question from a tough teacher, or he got caught in a sticky situation.
A smile tugged at her lips.
The habit was charming, always had been. Even steadfast, confident, dutiful Jude Jones could still be vulnerable.
He might seem like a stranger, the years changing them both, but the core of what made him Jude was still there. And she knew him, in so many ways. The curve of his smile, the way his eyes and nose crinkled when he laughed, the way his skin smelled warm and nutty after a day in the sun by the lake. She also knew how hard he worked—at everything—and how he got tunnel vision sometimes, even to the detriment of those around him, but that he meant well, most of the time, even if he was hard-headed and proud.
They returned to the rows of lavender, making their way back to the store.
“You should…” Jude stuffed his hands in his pockets as they walked, his air of confidence still taking a little hiatus. “You should be proud too. Of everything you’ve done. I mean, at Orchard Inn. I…I don’t know about everything you’ve done, but I’ve heard business has really picked up because of you. Word around town is the inn is one of Fredericksburg’s best places for an event or weekend getaway.”
Aurora mirrored his steps, walking alongside him now. “That’s nice to hear. I think for smaller occasions, we’d be way up there. We haven’t done one of those three-hundred-guests-style weddings or anything, but I doubt people come to Fredericksburg to do that anyway.”
He chuckled. “That might be more of a New York or L.A. type wedding?”
Aurora stopped walking without realizing it. He paused as well.
She didn’t know why she’d stopped. Something about Jude speaking of Los Angeles, knowing that’s where she’d been all these years, combined with being here with him, doing something normal in a thinly veiled attempt to make amends…she couldn’t continue not talking about it.
He was still Jude and he was standing right here.
While she didn’t want to get into her feelings and past hurts, or deal with any of the messy, squishy emotions of their relationship, she also couldn’t be around him and keep pretending they were just casual old pals. School chums who hadn’t hung out in ages.
That was wrong in so many ways.
Aurora opened her mouth to attempt an eloquent explanation of her thoughts. Then, an unmistakable sting lit up her ankle.
“Ow!” she shouted. “Shoot. Ouch!” She swatted at her foot. She looked down, knowing exactly what she’d find and…Yep.
“Yellow jackets. Run!”
Chapter 8
Jude grabbed Aurora’s arm and they took off down the row, running as fast as they could, and they didn’t stop until they were halfway back to the store.
“You okay? Did one get you?” He knelt beside Aurora, checking her sock and shoe.
“I think two or three got me.” She balanced with a hand on his shoulder and lifted her foot up into his grasp. “Geez, I forgot how much those things hurt.”
“Let’s see.” He turned her ankle, carefully looking over her skin as her hand warmed his back through the old T-shirt. “They’re gone but looks like they got you three or four times.”
He looked up, and she scrunched her face in pain. “How can something so small hurt so bad? Did they get you too?”
Jude shook his head, still looking her over. “No, I’m good. We keep a pretty good check on the fields, but we must’ve missed that one. I’ll spray them at dusk, when they all calm down and return to the nest. I’m sorry about that.” He was still holding her ankle, for probably too long. “The stingers aren’t in there anymore though.”
“Good. I’ll be okay.” She moved to lower her foot and he let go.
As he stood, her hand brushed the length of his arm, pausing on his forearm. When his gaze met hers, she jerked away like she’d been burned.
“We need to get something on the stings.” Jude ignored the moment. “Did they get you anywhere else?”
“No. I— I’ll be okay until I can get home.”
“You aren’t allergic, are you?”
Aurora arched her brow. “I’ve never been allergic. We’ve been stung before, remember? A lot more than this.”
“That’s right.” He shook his head at forgetting. “At the lake that time. I think I got hit, like, five or six times. Come on, I have a first-aid and sting kit at the barn. We can put something on it to ease the pain.” He offered his arm as though she’d twisted her ankle and couldn’t walk.
She could probably make it to the barn just fine, but she took his arm anyway.
He’d need to get some of the farm hands to check the fields carefully over the next few weeks. He didn’t want any yellow jackets messing with people or the farm’s honeybee population.
Jude hadn’t always loved honeybees, but he learned to appreciate them, like all farmers.
“Remember our junior year biology project?” he asked Aurora.
“Of course. When I learned how much you hated bees?”
“I didn’t hate bees. I just didn’t like being close to so many of them.”
When they’d paired up for a big class research assignment, he and Aurora had chosen bees and pollination. They’d visited the hives at Jones’s farm as part of their research.
Jude had given the colony a comically wide berth, and Aurora had teased him.
The guy who was tending the bees had misunderstood. “Without these bees, there’d be no farm.”
“I know. I’m a fan of their work, just not the stinging and swarming part.”
That’s when the beekeeper explained, in detail, the symbiotic relationship between bee and farmer. Most of the information Jude already knew, having grown up on a farm, but that day they’d received a college-level course on bee behavior. Riveted, he and Aurora had decided to create an apiary for their project. And when they received an A and many accolades on it, Jude had been so proud.
“Who knows?” he’d said, a million years ago. “Maybe we’ll even go into the bee business. Make honey and raise bees together. Jones Honey.”
“Or Shipley Honey,” she’d corrected.
“Yeah, but what if your name ends up being Jones too?”
That’s where their wildflower honey dream began. He’d meant what he said too. Even at the ripe old age of seventeen, he’d thought about spending forever with Aurora.
When they first started dating, she’d talked about maybe moving to a big city after high school and taking culinary classes. She’d said big cities offered more opportunities, more chances to grow important skills.
Slowly, her plans had changed. They’d started dreaming of a future together, here in Texas. They were going to run the farm, expand into honey production, and Aurora could still take culinary courses locally.
Then, all those new plans, the dreams of a life together, were gone. He’d broken that dream, so Aurora went back to her original plan and left. Turned out, that was the best thing for her. She was thriving in her career and she must love living in L.A. because, as far as he knew, she rarely came home until now.
Jude took her to the renovated barn, as it sat a lot closer to them than the store.
Inside, there was a small kitchen area and a first-aid kit. Being himself, and given to overpreparedness, he kept first-aid kits in all the farm buildings and in all the family’s cars.
Much to Bonnie’s annoyance, he’d even snuck one into her trunk.
“Come in here and I’ll get the anesthetic.” He showed Aurora to the kitchen area and went straight to the cabinet with the first-aid gear. He found the sting swabs and had her hop up on the counter to treat her ankle.
“I can do this myself.”
“I know, but I can see the stings better from my angle.”
He gently wiped the red welts on her ankle and dotted the anesthetic on each sting, her ankle warm in his hand, her skin against his.
Aurora inhaled sharply when he touched the angriest-looking sting but relaxed as the swab took effect.
“Just sit there a second and let it soak in.” He let her go, resisting the urge to blow on her stings the way his mom used to when he’d stumbled upon a nest.
“Thank you,” she said after a moment, slowly rotating her ankle and looking a lot more comfortable.
His heartbeat thumped in his ears.
Years ago, a part of him had wondered if he’d ever see Aurora again. She might never come back, happy to be away from him and the pressures of home. Now here she was. At first, it was just as awkward as he had imagined, but their togetherness was getting easier. Being around her still felt…natural.
He cleared his throat and began packing away the first-aid kit.
“What do you do with this barn now?” she asked, easing herself off the counter. “Anything?”
“Some storage right now, but mostly it sits empty.”
“When did the renovations happen? I remember this used to be in rough shape.”
“Over the last couple of years.”
But the renovations didn’t just happen. He’d done them himself, mostly by himself. At the end of each day, for many days, his way of unwinding was to renovate this old barn. His dad kept such tight control on any changes at Edge of the World Farm, there wasn’t much Jude could do that wasn’t under the watchful eye of the patriarch.
This barn, however? No one gave two hoots about the old barn.
Jude had worked out his frustration and pent-up energy by sanding, scrapping, hammering, and painting. Eventually he’d worked his way into new flooring, and for that he’d called in a buddy to help.
His friend’s advice had turned into plumbing the place out and adding a small kitchen.
After two years of chipping away at the project, they had a fully renovated barn.
“What’s all this for?” his dad had asked, or, rather, demanded.
“It’s not for anything. Just a project.”
John Jones had grumbled while inspecting the finished product, but Jude’s mom and sisters had gushed.
The barn had turned out amazing, and he’d be lying if he said he wasn’t proud.
“Well, it looks really good.” Aurora wandered across to the windows. “Adding windows was a nice touch.”
She walked toward the front, where the doors still hung open from their arrival. “Who did you get to do the remodel?”
“I did it.” He fought not to grin.
Aurora turned, her eyes wide. “Seriously?”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence. I am capable of some carpentry, you know?”
“I know, but this is a tad more than carpentry work. You plumbed it out and fitted the barn with a kitchen.”
“A friend of mine is a contractor. He helped me bring everything to code and make the upgrades. Took a while, but it was a nice project for weekends and after hours.”
“I’ll say.” She went to one of the windows and opened it with the roll bar, leaving just a screen in place so a breeze could come in. “I’m impressed.”
It shouldn’t matter that he’d impressed her. But it did. Her opinion of him had never ceased to matter.
“What do you want to do with it?” She approached him with an expectant expression and his muscles stiffened. He stood a little taller, a zip of joy shooting up his spine.
