Page 76 of Finding Gideon

Malcolm coughed into his fist, but the grin broke through anyway. He didn’t rush to correct her or put distance between us—just stayed exactly where he was, close enough that our shoulders brushed as we stepped inside.

Evelyn caught the grin instantly. “Don’t smirk, Malcolm Jones. A man like you with an ex-wife in the rearview should know better than to keep secrets from me.”

He shrugged, easy. “It’s not a secret, Evelyn. We went apple picking. That’s it.”

I felt her gaze on us like a spotlight, but Malcolm didn’t shift away. Didn’t hedge. Just said it like it was the most natural thing in the world for us to spend the day together.

She arched one silver brow. “Apple picking,” she repeated, like it was a clue in a mystery novel. “Mm-hmm. Well, thank you for the apples. And for the conversation this is going to start later.”

By the time we reached Mr. Atkins’ place, my hands smelled like apples and sun-warmed paper. His porch was shaded, the rocking chair empty, though the screen door stood open. Malcolm knocked twice, then gently pushed the door open with the back of his knuckles.

“Come on in,” a voice called. “Don’t make me get up.”

The living room was dim and smelled faintly of mint tea and wood polish. Mr. Atkins sat in a recliner with a crossword puzzle book balanced on his lap and a pencil tucked behind his ear. He looked up, eyes bright behind thick glasses.

“Well, well,” he said. “The vet and the stranger.”

“Not a stranger anymore,” Malcolm said.

I held out a sack. “We brought you some apples. Picked them fresh at Sweet Haven this morning.”

He took them with a nod. “I remember when that orchard was planted. Trees were barely taller than me. Still had hair back then, too.”

Malcolm perched on the arm of the couch, easy and at home. I stood for a minute, unsure if it was okay to sit, until Mr. Atkins pointed to a chair and said, “Go on. I don’t bite.”

We stayed longer than I expected. He asked me about Oregon, and I asked him about Foggy Basin in the 40s and 50s. By the time we left, I felt like I’d been given a chapter of some book I hadn’t known I needed to read.

Outside again, the light had shifted, late afternoon creeping in.

“Are you okay?” Malcolm asked as we walked.

I nodded. “He’s cool.”

“He likes you.”

“You think?”

Malcolm gave me a sideways look. “He asked you more questions than he’s asked me in the year that I’ve been living here.”

That made me smile, the slow, lingering kind that stuck even after we’d turned off Mr. Atkins’ street. The air smelled faintly of cut grass and someone’s dinner simmering a few houses over.

My head was still half in Mr. Atkins’ stories—ration books, neighbors gathering at the only house with a television to watch big events, the day Foggy Basin got its first traffic light, the summer night the whole town turned out for a drive-in movie—a world that felt impossibly far away. The other half was on where Malcolm and I were headed next.

We rounded the corner toward another house, Malcolm’s pace easing like he was in no rush.

“This is where Christian and Noah live.”

The closer we got to the house, the more my stomach buzzed with that jittery mix of wanting to make a good impression and not knowing how. Christian and Noah weren’t just friends—they werehisfriends. People who’d been in his life before me. People whose opinions would matter.

“Nervous?” I asked, partly to cover the fact that I was.

“They’ll either be themselves,” he murmured, “or they’ll try so hard to make a good impression it’ll get… awkward.”

I huffed a small laugh, though the sound felt thin. My chest was tight, like I was walking into a test I hadn’t studied for. “Sounds like you’re nervous too.”

“Just setting expectations,” he said.

He knocked twice. My stomach did this little flip as footsteps approached from inside.