slowly. When he got to the door to his office, he turned and looked at her. “You okay?” he asked.
She took a breath. “That was nice of you, to tell me that. It made me feel a little less…I don’t know…a little less like a loser.”
He actually laughed. “How long have you lived here?”
“Eight months.”
“If I hadn’t told you, someone else would have. Everyone knows. And everyone talks.”
“Right,” she said.
He turned to walk away and she said to his back, “So what would you ask her? Your mother? If she turned up suddenly?”
He pivoted. “I guess I’d ask her if she had any regrets.”
“Yeah,” she said. “Makes sense.”
“How about you?” he fired at her.
“What?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Any regrets? About finding yourself a single, twenty-three-year-old apple-picking mother?”
Remarkably, coming from him, she took no offense. After all, they shared some difficult history. And she was going to have to get used to that very thing he said—that everyone knew and everyone talked. “About having my daughters?” She shook her head. “I could never regret having them. They’re miracles. About not having them after being married to a handsome, rich investment banker for about six years? Yeah, that’s regrettable.”
That brought out his grin and she realized he had a very attractive dimple. Left cheek. “Investment banker, huh?”
“Okay, neurosurgeon. Astronaut. Computer genius. CEO of a Fortune 500 company.”
He laughed. In fact, he tilted his head back and guffawed, hands on his hips. “Damn, kid—an ordinary old apple grower wouldn’t stand a chance!”
She stared at him, watching him laugh at her for a long second. Then she headed for the office door. “I’ll make the coffee,” she said.
Well. If he’d been looking for something to take her mind off her current challenges, he’d certainly done it with that statement. He probably had no idea what a luxury it seemed to someone like her to raise a family in the healthy and pristine beauty of these mountains, in a great big house right in the middle of a delicious orchard. Or the fantasies it could inspire to think about being wanted by a man like Tom Cavanaugh.
He drove her back to the road to Virgin River after her shift. “You can’t do this every day,” she said. “It’s too much.”
“It’s two miles,” he replied. “And when you get a ride, you pick more fruit.”
“Well, I have to admire a man who knows what he wants,” she said. Then she jumped out of the truck and headed for home. Even though Adie was expecting her, she stopped at the church, looking for Reverend Kincaid.
She stood in his office doorway and waited until he looked up. “If that offer is still open, I’d like to set up a meeting with my father. If you’ll contact him and go with me.”
“Be happy to,” he said. “Any particular day?”
“Doesn’t matter to me. Weekend, if he’s available and if you’re available. Saturday? I could take a day off I think, but I don’t want to do that to the Cavanaughs—work weekend overtime and take off on a regular pay day. But if that’s the only option, I think Tom Cavanaugh would give me a break.”
“I’ll call him,” Noah said. “Jed Crane, not Tom.”
“Tell him I want some kind of evidence—that he’s my father, that my mother is dead, that he’s employed… . I don’t know what to ask. I just want to be sure he’s not a fraud. Or a creep who’s just after something. I’m not sure I can remember his face.”
Noah stood from behind his desk. “I’m glad you’re doing this. No matter where it goes from here, you deserve some answers. I’ll ask Ellie to help with your girls.”
* * *
They chose a public park in Santa Rosa as a meeting place and Nora was so stressed out, she barely spoke all the way there. She did say, “Please don’t leave me alone with him and don’t mention that I have children.” Once Noah had to pull over because she was afraid she was going to throw up. When they got to the park at noon, Nora knew Jed immediately. The memory of him came back instantly—he was the same, though older. He was very tall, his brown hair was thin over a shiny crown with a lumpy shape, his eyes kind of sad, crinkling and sagging at the corners. He