Sister's Choice (21 page)

Reaching the apple orchard, Maggie didn’t see Colby, but noting a ladder propped against one of the trees, she headed there and found him straddling one of the stout branches.

“Hi, Colby,” she said.

“Hi, Maggie—oh, I forgot you were coming today. I’m sorry.” He reached forward and plucked an apple from the end of the branch. “I’m trying to get the last of the apples picked.

Mother doesn’t like any to go to waste.”

“That’s okay,” Maggie said in response to his first statement. “You’ve got a lot to preoccupy your mind.”

“Here, would you grab the basket and empty my sack into it?” he asked. He removed the cotton sack slung over his shoulder that was bulging with apples.

“Good crop of apples this year,” Maggie commented, taking the sack and dumping the apples into the basket.

“Wish there was enough to sell. We could use the money.”

“It must be hard with your father ill.”

“I’ve been working like a plow horse.” He continued to pick apples, balancing himself on the thicker branches to reach the high ones. Finally, having filled his sack again, he stepped onto the ladder and descended back to the ground. He took two apples from the sack, tossed her one, and took a large bite out of the other. “Mighty good apples!”

She bit into hers and agreed. “You know, if you have something better to do, I could climb up into the trees and get apples as good as you.”

“Probably better ’cause you’re smaller.” He continued to chomp on his apple. “I sure appreciate your coming out to help.”

“I can come as often as you need me until your father gets better,” she offered.

He stopped chewing and looked at her. “He ain’t gonna get better.”

“Oh, surely not, Colby!”

“Doc was here early this morning—I had to go fetch him in the middle of the night because Dad was having trouble breathing. Anyway, that’s what he said. He might have only a year to live.”

Maggie gasped. The Stoddards were like family to her, just as was the entire community, so to hear this about Mr. Stod-dard, whom she knew better than her own uncles, was shocking and sad.

“That must be why Sarah was crying,” Maggie said.

“She took it pretty hard. Dad always doted on her. It’s having a hard time sinking into my head. All I can think of is work, work, work. No time for much else.” With what appeared to be frustration, he gave the core of his apple a hard toss into the bushes on the edge of the orchard.

“I’m so sorry, Colby.” She didn’t know what other words of comfort to offer.

“Guess I better get used to it—the work, I mean. It’s not going to change, and before I know it, this place will be mine, and the work will never end—” His voice broke a little over the words. He swallowed and ran a sleeve over his face.

She had never seen Colby show such emotion before. Impulsively, she put her arms around him. It seemed a better thing to do than recite lame words.

“I’m just not ready to run a farm!” Colby lamented. “I don’t want to work myself into an early grave like my father.”

She still didn’t know what to say, and she couldn’t voice the fleeting thought that his words sounded a bit self-centered.

Suddenly she felt the distinctive sensation of his lips pressing against the top of her head and forgot all else. She looked up at him, and before she knew it, he lowered his lips and pressed them against her own. As his arms tightened around her and the kiss deepened, she felt a tingle from her head to her toes.

All her dreams had come true! After years of pining for him and wondering what it would feel like, Colby was kissing her! She need wonder no more. It was a marvelous sensation. It occurred to her that she’d felt the same when Zack had kissed her, but it hadn’t been love in Zack’s case. She’d learned then there must be more to a kiss for it to represent love, though she hadn’t figured out what that was. So as Colby’s lips pressed against hers, she waited expectantly. For what, she did not know. Again, something seemed to be missing. It must simply be the poor timing, she rationalized. They were, after all, kissing while his father probably lay dying.

She surprised herself by being the first to push away. “Colby, I don’t know . . .” she murmured.

“I’m sorry, Mags. I shouldn’t have taken advantage of you,” he said. “It was even more wrong because—”

“Now, you mustn’t worry that you were betraying your father,” she offered.

“Yes . . . yes, that’s it. You must think me terrible.”

“You just needed comforting.”

“I’m really confused, Maggie,” he said, almost as if it were a confession.

“Let’s not think anything of what happened, okay?” But she was certain she would think of nothing else, even if she knew her heart hadn’t been in that kiss as much as she had hoped it would be. Perhaps
especially
since it hadn’t.

“I best get back to work,” he said at length. “Would you mind finishing here in the orchard? I have some things to do out in the field.”

“Your wish is my command,” she replied, then felt silly for the glib words.

Colby smiled. “You better watch out. I can think of some pretty outrageous commands.”

She laughed, trying to infuse some real mirth into the act, but the entire exchange with Colby was disturbing her more and more.

She watched him walk away and, when he was out of sight, gave a frustrated kick at the apple basket. Why did everything have to be so complicated? A kiss was a kiss, and it was dumb to analyze it so much. Colby had kissed her! That’s all that mattered. Maybe he was falling in love with her at last. And maybe she was falling in love with him.

Maybe?

Of course she loved him. She had loved him for years. But a vague unease assailed her. She kicked the basket again when her grandmother’s words about getting to know Colby invaded her mind. She was beginning to think that was the worst advice ever because she was getting to know him, and it wasn’t helping at all!

To get her mind off all this, she threw herself into the work in the orchard. She enjoyed climbing into the trees to pick the last of the apples. Everyone always accused her of being a tomboy and enjoying climbing trees more than doing housework. Who cared? She was starting to enjoy stitching but still preferred what she was doing now.

That was something, wasn’t it? Colby had given her this job. He didn’t mind her preference for this kind of work over the usual womanly pursuits.

She picked as many apples as she could reach, filling six baskets, which she began hauling back to the house, one by one. She was bringing in the last basket, sweat dripping down her face from carrying the heavy basket of apples all the way to the house, when she saw Tamara hanging clothes on the line. Tamara saw her, as well.

“You look like you have been working hard,” Tamara said.

“I think I got all the ripe apples picked.” Maggie felt awkward, as if Tamara would be able to tell that the man she was falling in love with had just kissed Maggie. She set down the basket by the back door of the house beside the others, then ambled over to the clothesline. She supposed a conversation with Tamara was preferable, despite the awkwardness, to facing the mother of the fellow she’d kissed.

Tamara clipped a shirt to the line and then swiped a hand across her brow to push back a curl that had fallen into her eyes. “It amazes me how the work on a farm never seems to cease.”

“You must be getting pretty tired of it,” Maggie said. “I mean, you didn’t come here to work yourself to death, did you?”

“I don’t mind it. I told Mrs. Stoddard right at the beginning that I wanted to help, that I didn’t want to be treated like a guest.”

“Well, she took you at your word!”

Tamara chuckled. “I was growing so bored and discontented with my life in Portland. I like it here. It’s refreshing and, I don’t know . . . healthy.”

Maggie thought of poor Mr. Stoddard. Maybe working a farm wasn’t what was killing him, though most farmers would agree it was backbreaking, and often even soul-crushing, labor. And the rewards were often poor crops and empty larders, with still no letup in the work.

“You sound just like Evan. Believe me, farm life isn’t as idyllic as you city folks think.”

“Neither is having servants do it all for you,” Tamara replied. “I fear turning out like my mother, whose life consists of one garden party after another. Here, I have had so much more purpose to my existence.”

“I don’t know. I can’t picture you as a farm wife. You seem more like one who should be married to . . . perhaps a lawyer with a big-city practice. Say, like Evan.” Even as she said this last, she realized it was nearly as halfhearted as the kiss with Colby had been. But she had promised Evan she would put in a good word for him, and this seemed the perfect opportunity.

“Evan is a dear, isn’t he? But I realized long ago he wasn’t for me.”

“Not even if he got back into farming?” Maggie prompted. “He told me he was disenchanted with the law and the city and that he liked being here in the backwoods.”

“That wasn’t the real problem,” Tamara said. “When I was with him, I didn’t feel any passion. And he was always talking about things that, frankly, I find boring—books and philosophy, politics and geography. It was like being in school.”

“Really? I think he’s the most interesting person I know.” Maggie’s voice rose defensively. How could Tamara say Evan was boring? Maggie hoped Tamara had never said that to his face. It angered her that anyone should hurt him like that.

“Now, calm down, Maggie,” Tamara said soothingly, “or rumors will fly that you like Evan, just as they are circulating about you and that boy who is in jail.”

“Tommy? What rumors?” But she already knew the answer to that.

Tamara replied, “They—”

“Who are
they
?” Maggie demanded.

“I—uh—can’t really say. But they’ve said you go into the jail to visit him and bring him gifts. They say you are in love with a half-wit and a murderer!” Seeing the obviously stricken look on Maggie’s face, Tamara hurriedly added, “I don’t mean to be hurtful, Maggie, I truly don’t. I just thought you ought to know what is being said. Perhaps it might be easier to take from an outsider.”

Her words sounded truly sincere, and that made it hard for Maggie to direct her anger at a seemingly innocent person. But she did anyway. “You are an outsider, so shut up about it! You don’t know anything!”

Maggie was about to storm away when Tamara laid a gently restraining hand on her arm.

“Please, Maggie. I just thought it might help for you to know,” Tamara beseeched. “I so want us still to be friends.”

“Well . . .” Maggie relented a little. It was hard to be angry at Tamara, with her innately kind and gentle spirit. “You shouldn’t speak of things you know nothing about. You don’t even know Tommy.”

“Is it true, then, what they say?”

Maggie stamped her foot. “No! It’s not true! But I’d sure like to know who is spreading such rubbish.”

“I wish I could tell you—”

“You know, then?”

“Oh no. I meant I wish I knew. That’s all.”

Maggie tried to calm down, but everything that had been said still seethed inside her. She knew more than ever that she didn’t want to face Mrs. Stoddard just now. She had done a good morning’s labor, so there was no shame in leaving early. “Look, I have to go home. Tell Mrs. Stoddard I’ll try to come back tomorrow.”

“All right.” Tamara paused, then added hesitantly, “Can I still come to your house for sewing lessons? I have so enjoyed them.”

“Come tomorrow morning if you want.”

Maggie turned around, got her horse from the barn, mounted, and rode away, thankful that Mrs. Stoddard had not caught her.

NINETEEN

Maggie continued to fume as she rode home, working herself into a lather all over again. She just couldn’t help being furious. How dare her friends and neighbors say such things about her! She imagined it was probably even worse than Tamara had said because, as an outsider, she wouldn’t have heard everything. And even if she had, she wouldn’t have told Maggie everything, in order to spare her feelings.

How could they think she was in love with Tommy? That made her angrier than anything. It actually embarrassed her that they would think she could love someone like that. Oh, she’d heard vague rumblings of this before, but she had been able to ignore them. But now—what if Colby had heard these things and believed them? She thought he was joking about it at the picnic. What if he wasn’t? What he must think of her!

She reminded herself that he had just kissed her. That must mean something. Or had it merely been a pity kiss?

Tears welled up in her eyes.

That’s all it was, then. He felt sorry for her. He thought all she could get was a fellow like Tommy and had kissed her out of pity.

Who was spreading these rumors and ruining her life?

Dad had told her to be careful in her friendship with Tommy, but she had ignored him, as well. But she and Tommy were just friends!
She
felt sorry for
him
!

Then the most horrible thought of all assailed her. Maybe Tommy
was
all she could get. Maybe she was the fool for aspiring to snag someone like Colby. Look what happened when she had believed she could get Zack, the next best catch in the county. He had rejected her, too. Maybe she had too high an opinion of herself.

Tears now dripped from her eyes. She swiped a sleeve across them and sniffed. She was not paying attention to where she was going, letting the horse follow his natural instincts to carry her home. Thus her surprise when she glanced up and saw a rider within a few feet of her. It was Evan, of all people!

Too late to hide her emotion, she stared at him starkly and silently.

“Maggie, what’s wrong?” he asked, riding up beside her.

“N-nothing,” she replied, stifling a rising sob. When he responded with a skeptical look, she continued, her voice breaking over the words, the emotion only becoming worse as she tried to explain it. “I hate the people around here! They are nosy, stupid busybodies!” She sniffed loudly and was about to draw her sleeve across her eyes once more when Evan took a handkerchief from his pocket and held it out for her.