mother to me than grandmother and I know the woman who raised me has a really rigid moral code… .”
She straightened her spine in shock. “Rigid moral code…?”
“You were so damn strict, the apples ran for their lives! I always planned to marry a woman a lot more like you, but this one just tripped me up!”
“Tom, Nora is—”
“I’m just telling you before I go one step further, you can’t judge her against your old-fashioned standards. You can’t condemn her for having a couple of kids without a husband or anything related. We accept her one hundred percent, just as she is.”
“Tom! You think I would judge her for that? You know that your grandfather and I—”
“I know, you had to get married—you’ve been honest about that. This is pretty different, but I don’t care. I wouldn’t care if she had six kids—I need her in my life. I’m not giving her up.” Then he laughed suddenly. “Damn, doesn’t this just have stalker written all over it?” He rubbed his hand down his face.
“Tom, have you not paid attention? We didn’t just have to get married, we—”
“I’m telling you, it doesn’t matter to me, so it can’t matter to you, because I’m bringing Nora and the kids to live with us. We could get our own house but if I’m going to work this orchard, I—”
“No, Tom, I absolutely don’t want you to find your own house and leave me on the orchard in this great big house,” she said, but she wasn’t sure he was listening to anything she said. He appeared to be just about deaf and blind and a little crazed. “Tom. Tom, look at me. Has Nora agreed to marry you?”
“No, but she will because she has to. They’re kicking her out of her house and she thinks she’s moving to Stanford to live with her father, but I’m not letting her go,” he said. “I’ll find a way to make it up to her if she wants to go back to college… .”
“We do have colleges,” Maxie said, mesmerized by her grandson’s passion. “I’ve never seen you like this before.”
“Probably because I’ve never been like this before. I knew I was falling for her but I thought I had time to get used to the idea of becoming a husband and father overnight. Man, I don’t need time—I only need one thing.”
“Can you slow down for just one second?” Maxie asked calmly. “Can you please listen to me?”
“Don’t try to reason with me, Max, because I—”
“Tom! Shut up! Listen to me!” He sat still and focused on her. “Better. You still look a little dazed, but better.”
“I didn’t sleep at all, and I was already running on very little sleep.”
“I understand, now please try to hear me. You have to calm down and see if you can lose that lunatic edge. No one’s going to marry you if you continue to sound completely insane.”
“I might be a little insane,” he said. “I sure feel that way.”
“Deep breaths,” she said. “I love Nora. If she’ll come here as my granddaughter-in-law, I would be very happy. But you must hear me on this—if you tell her she has to, any woman with a brain would run for her life.”
He was quiet for a second while he absorbed this. “Right,” he finally said. But he looked confused.
“Tell her how you feel. Just tell her how you feel and ask her if she can lower her standards enough to take you for a spouse.”
He sat back. “Very funny,” he said.
She grinned. “I couldn’t be more serious. And before you light out of here with a mission, make sure you’re wearing boots the same color and zip your fly.”
He looked down—sure enough, one black, one brown. And an open fly. How did she do that? “Sometimes you’re just spooky.”
“Women notice things like that. Are you done with me?”
He nodded. “I’m going to Nora’s now,” he said. “After I change boots.”
“Good. I think I’ve aged ten years since I walked in the door!”
But Maxie stayed in that chair until he had attended to his clothing and left again. Then he came back, kissed her forehead and said, “Thank you, Max!”
She sat. My God, she thought. She just shook her head. He really had no concept of what he was asking, what he