Chapter 2

two

MARK

Wow.

She really didn’t remember me.

I forced my face to do something that could hopefully pass for a smile and said, “Welcome home, Candace.”

She’d been Candy back in high school. Maybe she’d forgotten her own name right along with mine.

She was trying to play it off and be polite, but she was a shit liar. Her smile looked like a photograph of a smile, copied and pasted onto her face, instead of the real deal.

There was a part of me who acknowledged that, yes, I did look different now, and we’d never really run in the same circles. But our graduating class had less than one hundred people.

Plus there had been that thing that one time.

Anyway.

Of course, I remembered her . Candace Judd had been the valedictorian of our class and the president of a handful of clubs. She’d organized events and led volunteer work. And if that hadn’t been enough, she’d been popular and well-liked among her peers. Candy hadn’t been head cheerleader, but she had run track and cross-country and been both homecoming and prom queen.

The part of me that had been a scrawny seventeen-year-old nerd took Candace’s convenient memory loss as my due, but it still stung a little. Like a thorn I hadn’t expected while pulling weeds.

Amy raised her voice over her daughter’s well-meaning rambling. “Mercer, why don’t you stay and have dinner with us? I have chicken and dumplings in the slow cooker.”

“Thank you, but I should get back to work. I’m finishing up a few things and then heading home.”

Plus, I’d seen Joan stalking along the path between the orchard and the house with quite the facial expression. Someone needed to protect the farm equipment from her obvious wrath.

“I’ll see y’all tomorrow,” I said with a wave and backed away.

Candace took a tiny step forward, like she might stop me. “Bye, Mark. It was good to meet—to see you!” She fought her wince, but I caught it.

Lord, she was trying hard. Bless her heart.

I smiled—authentically this time—and nodded.

I watched long enough to see Brady roll his eyes and wrap his arm around Candace, directing her toward the front porch. He sighed out, “God, you’re hopeless,” and then threw me a wave over his shoulder.

Climbing back inside my truck, I felt a little twist of guilt when I shifted into drive. I didn’t actually have any work left. It was ten after five, and I had been on my way out when Amy flagged me down.

I kind of wished I’d kept on driving.

Despite her unintentional dig, it was good to see Candace back in Kirby Falls. Her parents never passed up an opportunity to talk about her—her life in New York City, her job, how amazing she was, or how proud they were of her. I was happy for them to have her back.

Nick and Amy Judd were good people. In the three years I’d been working for them, they’d always treated me like one of the family. I got invited to dinners and cookouts and birthday celebrations and holidays regularly. I had a good friend in Brady Judd and a good co-worker in Joan. She was quieter and less intentional in her friendship, but it was there. I knew I could count on her for damn near anything. And the Judds had never once made me feel like the hometown tragedy I was. They ignored the gossip and nosy neighbors. They were the closest thing I had to a family.

I moved to Kirby Falls in middle school, during my seventh-grade year. I’d already been a bit of an outcast because I was new. Most of my classmates had known each other since kindergarten. A brand-new student, much less a midyear transplant, was pretty rare around these parts. Add in the fact that my homelife looked a lot different than most of my peers’, and you had a recipe for a loner in the making.

My neighbors had been the first folks to welcome me to North Carolina. The Prices were a charitable bunch. Reverend Price was the preacher at Kirby Falls Baptist Church, and his wife, Peggy, was generous and involved. Their only daughter, Hannah, had been in my grade at school and was the first person to offer me friendship. I’d held on tight and given her my undying devotion as a result. Even now, after all that had happened, I wasn’t sure if I regretted it or not.

I rolled the window up on the truck and let the air-conditioning cool me down. The summer months were a killer down south, and this week made it feel like autumn was a ways off and not right around the corner.

The orchard would be opening this weekend for the season. Judd’s Orchard was only open to tourists and visitors from mid-August through November 1. Thursday through Sunday, we’d welcome tourists onto the farm. They’d be eager to pick early-ripening apples and sample the items from the refreshment stand. Amy worked behind the counter, handling the apple slushies and the apple cider doughnuts and the apple slices with caramel. Brady and his dad, Nick, rotated between stations in the Apple House—either selling tickets, passing out buckets for the u-pick customers, and manning the merchandise counter in the front, or grading and washing the apples used for pressing in the back. I was mostly in the fields with Joan, but I pitched in where needed. I helped pick and prepare the produce we sold locally, and we all did our part to cover the weekly seasonal farmers’ market and scheduled Kirby Falls events.

It was tight with just the five of us full-timers, but we managed .

I worked during the off-season too. A farmer’s work was never really done. Joan and I had pruning to do in the winter when the apple trees were dormant. And in the spring, we kept an eye on the fields for any sign of blight or disease. We brought in bees to pollinate, hand-thinned the trees to guarantee longevity and production, and administered pest control.

The whole county was big in agriculture. Across the highway, Grandpappy’s Farm did good business too. Their public-facing operation was a year-round affair. With more acreage and a wider variety of produce, they catered to tourists on a much larger scale. They went all out with hayrides and corn mazes and even an apple cannon.

I’d interviewed with William Clark before accepting my position here with the Judds. Between the two apple farms, I’d been more comfortable with the smaller setup. I couldn’t imagine working in the Clarks’ large General Store, which stayed open year-round, or being part of a whole team of farmers who worked the fields planting everything from cucumbers to potatoes to pumpkins to apples.

I liked where I’d ended up, and I liked the people I worked for.

And it appeared we’d have one more Judd on the property this fall. I wasn’t sure how Candace’s presence would affect the consistency and balance we’d established. However, it wasn’t my place to question it. Kirby Falls was more Candace’s home than it had ever been mine.

Nick and Amy had warned me just over a week ago that their youngest daughter would be returning to North Carolina. They’d said she’d be using her marketing know-how to work her magic behind the scenes. So if all went according to plan, I shouldn’t have to deal with Candace Judd at all.

Maybe today would be the only awkward amnesia-riddled encounter I’d have to endure.

I thought of her fancy black slacks and her silky-looking blouse, not even muddled from travel. Her brown ponytail, sleek and sophisticated, just made her seem that much more put together and untouchable. Her gorgeous hazel eyes were the perfect swirling combination of green and gold and warm brown. Unlike me, Candace had a face you couldn’t forget.

But something about that copy-and-paste smile made me wonder about her— probably more than I had any right to, even now, twenty minutes later, as I turned toward my house.

Candace had always been tall and beautiful, even when she’d been Candy, captain of the debate team and cross-country star. Now, though, she was elegant in a way that teenagers couldn’t really manage. She looked like she knew the best restaurants to recommend and always ordered the priciest thing on the menu. Like she drank wine instead of beer and had a ten-step skincare routine. The years of city life had turned her into someone unknown and unpredictable in a town filled with the same old, same old.

I wasn’t sure how the polished young woman would fit back into farm life here in Kirby Falls. But I guessed that she’d be welcomed with open arms and widespread curiosity. That was what happened when a successful hometown favorite returned.

Reaching toward the visor over my head, I hit the button to open my garage. The house was quiet, as usual, when I entered. I lived at the end of a quiet one-lane road between the orchard and town.

When I reached the kitchen, I hit preheat on the oven and dropped a frozen pizza inside. No sense in cooking something real when it was just a party of one.

Setting the timer, I figured I’d have enough time to do some watering.

After grabbing a beer from the fridge, I slid open the back door to the deck and stepped outside. The garden in my backyard was full to bursting this time of year. I’d left the center of the yard open and lined the perimeter with raised beds. Colorful spots stood out from the plantings on the left, where yellow and orange bell peppers were ripening. The tomatoes were on the opposite side of the yard but were no less vibrant. They’d be producing well into September. I grew heirloom varieties in bold reds and striped yellows and pinks. The zucchini and summer squashes had their own space in the back near the fence line with plenty of room to spread out alongside the vine-like cucumbers. And the blackberries twining through the lattice below the porch were nearly done producing for the year.

First, I went around checking to see what could be picked. With my arms full of zucchinis and cucumbers, I briefly considered dropping some off with my next-door neighbor but then decided to just bring them inside for the time being. After depositing the vegetables on my kitchen counter to wash later, I went back outside by way of the back porch and started watering all the plants that needed it, sipping my beer as I went.

I could have set up an automated irrigation system to ensure regular soil hydration, but I was always home in the evenings. Besides, I liked to monitor the rainwater the plants received and supplement as needed. I’d spent several hours this past weekend weeding the beds, so my work tonight was nearly done.

My phone vibrated in my pocket just as I turned off the sprayer. I pulled my cell out and saw a text.

Brady: Here’s your weekly invitation to trivia night at Trailview, even though I know you won’t come.

I sighed, staring down at my phone.

Brady Judd asked me to join him at Trailview Brewing nearly every week. And every week I said no.

The familiar weight of guilt made my feet feel heavy as I climbed the porch steps.

I liked Brady. I really did. He was a good guy and a good friend. Brady had been a senior when I’d been a sophomore. But in a lot of ways, I felt like the older one between the two of us. He just wore his youth so blatantly. Brady had this carefree quality that made him seem like a perpetual frat boy. He lived to joke around and play pranks and tease. He had freedom, though, that other people didn’t. And he hadn’t lived the life I had—growing up fast out of necessity—so he couldn’t really understand my inclination to keep to myself.

None of that was Brady’s fault, but it did make things, like invitations to trivia nights at a local brewery, a little more complicated. There was a reason I chose to avoid Kirby Falls. I didn’t go out. I spent my free time at home, for the most part.

And tonight—like most nights—I didn’t have it in me to deal with an evening in town and the folks I might encounter there. So I texted back a quick, No, thanks, man. See you tomorrow , and put my phone away.

I snagged the small food and water dishes from the back porch and brought them inside to refill. The cat would probably be by soon for his supper .

Eyeing the placement of the sun in the sky, I briefly considered heading up to Juniper Point for some shots of the sunset. With the cloud cover moving in tonight, it had the potential to be a dramatic one with a sky full of pinks, purples, oranges, and everything in between.

But I figured the popular spot would be packed with tourists this close to the start of the season.

So I went inside, checked on my pizza, and finished my beer.

Twenty minutes later, I’d eaten and cleaned up. I peeked out the window to see that the cat hadn’t shown up yet.

My phone buzzed from its place on the kitchen table, and I frowned. It wasn’t like Brady to keep trying—not again on the same night, at least.

Wenn: Want to hit Craggy Peak tonight?

As I stared down at my phone, the only sounds I could hear were the clock ticking on the wall and the distant call of a bird somewhere outside. A quick scan of my kitchen and the living room beyond showed absolutely nothing going on.

I thought about it for all of ten seconds before replying.

Me: Sure. Meet you at 9. I’ll get the beer.

Wenn: Bring that cider, if you’ve got it.

I peered out the back door one last time to see the bowl of cat food still untouched. Then I went to grab my gear and put a couple of ciders in the cooler.

The drive up to Craggy Peak took about thirty-five minutes. I got to catch an amazing view of the sunset after all, it just happened to be outside my side passenger window as I maneuvered the twists and turns on the Blue Ridge Parkway.

I parked next to Wenn’s massive Jeep and transferred my camera, equipment, and belongings to his backseat. He was just walking back from the direction of the visitor center when I finished up.

“What’d you barter tonight? ”

“Peach strudel bars,” Wenn replied and then hopped in the driver’s side.

My friend had an arrangement with the visitor center employee on duty. For over a year now, Wenn provided baked goods, and the worker looked the other way while we used the access road off the main trail at Craggy Peak. There was the area that tourists and locals were allowed to hike and visit, and then there was the narrow, bumpy path that was roped off and intended only for park employees and law enforcement.

As was our routine, Wenn pulled right up to the dirt drive, and I hopped out and unlocked the chain as he drove past. Then I climbed back in and we continued our rough journey out of the trees and on toward the lookout, where the landscape flattened beneath our tires and the hills spread out below us.

At just over five thousand feet in elevation, Craggy Peak provided a nice view of the surrounding area. You could see nearly to Tennessee from our vantage point. Wenn and I came out here, usually once a month when the weather was good, to shoot long-exposure photos of the night sky and mountains.

I’d taken a random photography class in college, and half a decade later, I found myself with an expensive hobby and intermittent income from selling prints online.

Wenn and I had met a couple of years ago at a photography group meetup in Asheville. He was quiet, like me. Maybe that was why we’d gravitated toward one another. Our friendship had pretty stable boundaries. We didn’t grab dinner or go out for a beer at a brewery. Wenn had never been to my house, and hell, I didn’t even know where the guy was from. But every now and then, he texted me to come out to Craggy Peak. He’d pass me some sort of baked good that tasted like heaven on earth while I provided the beer. Then for a few hours, we’d sit in peace and mostly quiet, in between taking photographs of the night landscape.

Wenn’s tall, broad form moved around his Jeep, getting out a tripod and setting up camp chairs for us. I brought out my own gear and dropped the cooler in between our seats. The moon was bright enough for us to see what we were doing without the aid of headlamps or lights. And turning on an electric lantern would have messed up our exposures anyway. We performed all our usual tasks in silence, but it was a different sort of quiet when you shared it with someone else .

Twenty minutes later, when we were sitting comfortably and the night air was still in the low eighties, Wenn popped the top on some ancient Tupperware and passed me the contents.

Peach wasn’t my favorite stone fruit by a lot, so I had low expectations. But when I took a bite, the cinnamon from the strudel topping blended perfectly with the sweet, ripe peaches. The base of the bar was some sort of vanilla shortbread. Combined with the texture of the cream cheese layer, it was all just ridiculously delicious.

“Man, that is good,” I said after I swallowed.

Wenn’s dark eyes stayed fixed on the barely visible horizon, but I could tell he was pleased by the compliment. “Thanks. I had a basket of peaches I picked up in South Carolina that I needed to do something with.”

I took another bite and finished chewing before I mentioned, “I brought you a bag of zucchini from my garden. Left it in the backseat. In case you want to make any more of that chocolate chip zucchini bread.”

Wenn nodded. “I might just do that. Thank you for the produce.”

“Where do you learn to make all this stuff?”

I was tempted to take a third bar.

My friend gave me a scrutinizing look, so I backpedaled. “Hey, I wouldn’t have asked if I thought it was a secret. I’m sorry.”

A sound left Wenn’s lips. It would have barely been amusement on anyone else, but it was practically a guffaw from the quiet man.

I didn’t know Wenn’s story, not really. He liked his peace and quiet. He was generous with his baking, but a stingy bastard with his words.

While we were friends, I’d never really felt like it was my place to ask why he had a picture of a woman and a kid as his lock screen when he’d never mentioned having any sort of family. I didn’t initiate deep discussions. I didn’t know why he went months without texting sometimes, or why he had trouble sleeping. I kept our interactions simple. I thought my friend got the only sort of socializing he could handle. So I called it good and didn’t push .

Wenn seemed like the kind of guy who’d be easy to scare off. And the sad truth of it was, I liked having a friend who didn’t know about my recent past either.

When you lived in a town as small as Kirby Falls, everyone knew your business and your history—or, at least, they sure as hell thought they did. It was inescapable.

But my friendship with Wenn was easy, and I wanted to keep it that way.

“It’s not a secret,” he clarified, amusement still lingering. “It’s just embarrassing. I follow this home baker on social media. She shares recipes and makes step-by-step baking videos that are entertaining.”

I waited for the embarrassing part. “So...you, like, have a crush on her?”

Wenn snorted. “No. She doesn’t—you can’t even see her face in the videos. I just know it’s weird for men to enjoy baking as a hobby.”

It sounded like my friend had some toxic masculinity in his background, which was also none of my business.

“Plenty of male top chefs in restaurants, all across the world,” I challenged lightly and then took a sip of my cider.

Wenn nodded thoughtfully, like maybe he knew that already.

“What’s it called? Maybe I’ll look the videos up.”

“It’s called Not Your Aunt Linda’s Kitchen ,” Wenn replied. “Her name is Melinda, and she takes traditional recipes and puts a unique spin on them. Makes a lot of substitutions for people with dietary restrictions.”

“That sounds really cool. Don’t worry. I’ll keep your dirty little secret.”

Wenn laughed—a real one this time. “Thanks, Mercer. I knew I could count on you.”

I let loose a big sigh. “That’s me. Dependable Mercer.”

Wenn’s gaze cut my way. “What’s that self-deprecating sigh about?”

I was so surprised by my friend’s genuine interest and rare personal question that I actually answered. “It’s just, that’s who I’ve always been. The reliable friend. The one who gets walked on and looked over. The dependable sucker. ”

It was dark now but not so dim that I couldn’t make out Wenn’s deep frown as his eyebrows drew together. “That’s not what I meant. I?—”

“No, I know,” I interrupted. “Ignore me. They’re my own hang-ups.”

And they were. Wenn couldn’t know that calling me dependable triggered the part of me that felt used and manipulated. There was no way he could have anticipated my reaction. I was Mercer: the loyal, trustworthy employee. The responsible friend. Need someone to call when your car won’t start? I’m your guy. How about when you need coverage at the farmers’ market on Saturday? Just ask Mercer. He’s got you. Or if you happen to find yourself knocked up in college, risking public scrutiny and being disowned by your religious, conservative family? Yeah, get Mercer for that, too.

Wenn didn’t know all the complicated emotions tied to being the dependable one or what it had cost me. So I distracted him with a different truth instead. “Hey, you wanna hear something funny? The girl I had a huge crush on in high school just came back to town today, and, get this, she didn’t even recognize me.”

The man occupying the camp chair beside me stayed quiet, so I laughed to cover up the awkwardness of the last thirty seconds and explained who Candace Judd was and that she was back on her family’s farm for the first time since high school.

“She held out her hand and introduced herself like we didn’t have honors chemistry together junior year,” I admitted.

Wenn groaned. “Jesus, that is rough. Is she clueless or just mean?”

I was already shaking my head. “No. Neither. I looked different back then. I can’t really blame her for not recognizing me right off.”

“Different how?”

I thought of puberty and how it hadn’t been kind. Somehow I’d had acne from fourteen to nineteen but hadn’t grown past five one until after high school graduation. “My face was a mess. I wore glasses—cheap, basic frames because that was all my aunt could afford. I was scrawny and small. The summer after graduation—the summer Candace left—I shot up so fast that my bones ached.”

With a commiserating glance, Wenn said, “I was a late bloomer too. ”

Taking in his imposing form in the tiny camp chair, it was hard to imagine Wenn as anything but the large-framed, muscular man before me. He looked like an action star or a professional athlete, maybe a soldier or an MMA fighter.

But it was nice to imagine that we had something like teenage awkwardness in common. I was six feet tall now and had taken up strength training and weight lifting in college. I wasn’t the skinny nerd who enjoyed art class and dreaded PE, like I used to be. And I wasn’t the eighteen-year-old guy growing too fast for his body to keep pace with. There had been a time when I couldn’t eat enough to keep my belly full. Mrs. Price—Hannah’s mom—had loved inviting me to have dinner at her house next door. I’d been the only one at the table who wasn’t a picky eater. I ate everything she put in front of me, and the leftovers she’d send home with me too.

The Prices had been more than my neighbors. Hannah had been my best friend. Mrs. Price had treated me like a son, and the reverend had taught me how to grow a garden, drive a car, and shave my face. They’d done their best when they realized my homelife wasn’t ideal. But it had never been their job to fix what was broken in me.

Having your deficiencies exposed made you vulnerable. And in the long run, having the illusion of a family was worse than growing up without one.

I’d been raised by my aunt after my mom took off when I was a baby. Having a kid hadn’t worked out for my young mother, and I’d never known my father in any capacity. My aunt Autumn was pretty sure my mother hadn’t even been sure of my paternity.

I barely had memories of my mom. A few old photographs in a shoebox in my closet and a hazy image of a blond woman humming “Blackbird” as she held me. There wasn’t much to go on and even less to miss.

Aunt Autumn had been bitter and resentful, having to raise a kid she’d never asked for. I’d been clothed and fed, so I couldn’t complain too much. I had it better than a lot of kids out there. The best thing Autumn had ever done for me was move us to Kirby Falls when I was twelve. I’d had people who cared about me and a place to call home.

For a little while, at least .

“So, what are you going to do?” Wenn’s deep voice yanked my thoughts out of the past, and not a moment too soon.

“About what?”

“About the girl—Candace. Are you going to tell her who you are? That you have history together?”

Taking in the darkness beyond and the sweet scent of honeysuckle growing on the hillside, I let myself picture her friendly but mortified expression from this afternoon. And then I smiled.

“Nah. I’m going to let her figure that out on her own.”