Page 46 of Now to Forever (Life on the Ledge Duet #2)

Thirty-Two

“Aren’t you sweet as a bootlegged jar of apple pie moonshine?”

Wren tugs at the square neckline of her dress, the deep-red fabric beautiful against her fair skin as she climbs in the Bronco. “These shoes suck.”

I glance at the leather ankle boots, a far cry from her ridiculous combat boots she usually wears, and back out of the driveway as she tosses a duffle in the back seat.

“Let me know if Luke agrees.” I shift into drive. “What’s in the bag?”

“I’m staying with my grandparents tonight.”

Ford’s already at their farm, home of Cider Hills Orchard, a symbol of all things fall in Ledger.

Though I haven’t driven out there in years, the way is still second nature.

Ford picked up Zeb and I so many times and drove us out to his parents’ property I could find it drunk and blindfolded. Not that I would recommend either.

With the windows down and the cool October air blowing through the cab, I crank the music, Wren smiling as her favorite violin sounds fill the cab and dissipate into the mountains around us.

In the late-afternoon sun, the trees are a palette of autumn.

Like tubes of yellow, orange, and red paint exploded from the sky and landed on leaves.

I park at the property and a wave of nostalgia washes over me.

Hours spent picking apples, riding four-wheelers, and dreaming Ford’s life was mine.

Even all these years later, standing at his family farm feels a bit like the moment in The Wizard of Oz where Dorothy’s life goes from being a dusty sepia-toned scene in Kansas to the technicolor dreamland of Oz.

The fields of grass are already covered with cars and ATVs, and bluegrass music floats toward us from a large white canvas tent. Kids run by with a shriek.

“You nervous?” I ask, glancing at Wren.

She eyes my outfit, a burnt-orange sweaterdress that slips off one shoulder and hugs my body like a glove stopping shy of cowboy boots that hit just below my knee. Compared to the sea of denim and flannel that surrounds us, we look lost. “Are you?”

I lift my eyebrows. “I’m at your perfect grandparents’ farm dressed like a forty-one-year-old slutty pumpkin with the first boyfriend of my life, what could I possibly have to be nervous about? ”

She snorts. “Good luck with that.” Looking back to the crowd, she swallows slowly, lifting her chin. “I’m going to find my friends.”

Alone, I’m nervous as a bird with its wings tacked down.

I’m fully prepared for Ford to take one look at me and tell me he’s changed his mind.

But when I spot him through the crowd, carrying a stack of pies and laughing with someone who stops him to talk, my heart flip-flops.

His eyes meet mine before dragging down my body, and his expression is full-blown approval.

Every ounce of worry dissolves. Because: mine .

“That something I should know about?” Ford asks as he hands me a cider, tilting his head toward Wren standing across from us under the large tent.

She shyly tucks her hair behind her ears as she talks to Luke.

He’s a cute kid. Instead of the man bun he had on the track, his hair is down, brushing against the collar of his flannel.

Hands stuffed in his jeans, he’s just as nervous as her.

“Luke. He’s on the cross country team,” I explain as they laugh. “She has a crush.”

“Don’t like it,” he says as he takes a sip of his cider and keeps his eyes on them.

“Don’t worry.” I bump my shoulder into his. “I gave her rubbers.”

He frowns; I laugh .

On a small stage, the band’s upbeat fiddle-laden song shifts to something slower, couples instantly pulled to the hay-covered dance floor.

Around us, under this tent and beyond, tables of pies, ciders, and other fall treats are for sale as well as other fundraising efforts—apple bobbing for the basketball team, pie eating for the football team, even a dunking booth for the swim team.

Kids of all ages stand in line to participate, laughing and whispering to one another.

Bales of hay and upturned wooden barrels double as tables and chairs.

Strings of lights float over us like a million stars in the sky.

“You’re beautiful,” Ford says, rubbing a thumb on my bare shoulder.

I set my cider on a barrel and slide my fingers under his flannel. “You’re not so bad.”

“Not so bad?” he teases, setting his drink down and slipping his hands around my waist, tugging my hips toward him. “Still so one-sided.”

“Fine.” I feign consideration. “I’d let you cop a feel.”

He laughs, pecks me on the cheek, and in my ear whispers, “I’m counting on it.”

Despite the wholesome crowd around us, my body purrs like a dirty kitten.

“We have to dance, you know,” Ford says.

“Oh really?” I look at him. “Says who?”

“Says everyone.” His hands grab mine, and his lips lift as he spins me in a slow twirl. “It’s how it works when you go steady. You have to declare your couplehood to the town. ”

“Go steady?” I say through another laugh. “Do people even say that?”

“Sure,” he says, pecking another kiss on my lips, pressing me flush against him with one hand splayed across the small of my back and the other holding my hand. “All the cool kids.”

“Hm.” I nuzzle my nose against his cheek. “I thought you knew I told the cool kids to go fuck themselves.”

At this, he laughs. “I can’t wait to get your dirty mouth on my—”

“Ford, there you are!”

Charlene.

Ford and I step away from each other, giving her our full attention.

While most people associate an orchard owner with wearing flannel and denim, unlike everyone else, she’s in sleek pants and a chic red sweater.

His dad, Earl, handsome as ever with a new softness to his face and grey hair on his head, is a sight for sore eyes covered completely in denim.

“Scotty Armstrong,” he says with a grin, pulling me into an unexpected hug, which smells like whiskey and cinnamon. “I heard you would be here. It’s been too long!”

While Charlene turns me into some kind of bumbling buffoon, Earl has always been a comfortable space. “Earl, you haven’t aged.”

He chuckles and slaps his belly—a bit rounder than it used to be. “Charlene disagrees.”

Charlene waves a weak dismissive hand through the air with an amused eye roll then averts her attention to me, taking in my dress, eyes lingering on my exposed shoulder as Earl and I make small talk about the crematorium and the orchard.

“That’s quite a dress, Scotty,” Charlene says, tone unreadable. “Some things never change.”

“But some do,” I blurt against my will. “I have a job. And a house. And a dog.” Stop. Talking. Scotty. “And my checks don’t bounce like my mom’s did at the FoodMart.”

Earl looks at me with an amused expression while Ford clears his throat, a piss-poor attempt at hiding his laugh.

Charlene nods, same unreadable smile on her face. “Well, isn’t that all just great news for you.”

“Yes, ma’am. Miss. Missus . . .” I quit.

She looks away briefly at the sound of her name, waving across the tent before looking back to me.

“Well, Ford’s a big boy. He knows what he wants.”

She hates me.

“Especially that time Earl caught us in the barn,” I joke.

Earl chuckles at the reference of teenage Ford and I half naked between bales of hay, while Charlene remains neutrally frigid. Finally, Ford steps in. “Mama, you need help with something?”

Her eyes linger on me a few more seconds then turn to him, smile changing to a warmer shape. “Oh yes. We need to move the cider. Come. Earl, help Ford.”

Earl and I exchange a look that roughly translates to some things never change, and he and Ford follow on her lead through the crowd, Ford winking at me as they go .

I beeline to the hard cider booth and order the largest cup they have, downing it in gulps.

An upbeat song plays, couples twirl around, then another slow song, this one pulling Wren and Luke onto the dance floor.

Her eyes meet mine, and I put my index fingers together in a kissy motion that she glares at. They’re far enough apart it’s both cute and awkward, dancing in a motion like a teetering seesaw. She looks at him with hearts in her eyes.

“Can you believe them?” a blonde teenage girl says with a scoff to a brunette in front of me. “I heard her mom was in prison.”

My ears perk and hackles raise. Who the hell is this pint-sized bitch?

The brunette makes an agreeing sound. “And those weird boots she usually wears?”

Their giggles hit my eardrums like nails on a chalkboard.

“My mom said her dad used to be something around here but got himself involved in some kind of trouble. Had to tuck tail. Can you imagine? Owning all this and not being able to keep it?” She clicks her tongue. “Heard he got on drugs and ran away or something.”

“Good ones never know what’s good for them.”

They giggle; it encourages my step toward them.

“Apples don’t fall far,” the blonde one says as I step directly behind them. “I don’t know what Luke even sees in her. She’s so—”

“Sweetheart,” I say, making them both turn to look at me, confused. The blonde one I recognize instantly; she has the same face as her swine of a mother. Poor thing. “You’re Jessica Letts’s girl, aren’t you?”

“The one and only,” she says with a tone that makes me wish she was in an urn.

“Jessicunt was what I liked to call her.” I pause and smile sweetly to let that sink in. When her expression falters, I know it has. “She ever tell you she ate nearly every dick on the football team when we were in high school?”

The brunette laughs, earning a glare from Minicunt that makes her fall silent.

“Figured as much. Not Ford’s though—that’s Wren’s dad, who—how’d you word it?

Right, used to be something .” I shrug. “Either way, probably why your dad married her to begin with. Bet you started there, actually. Swallowed into conception—wonder if that’s a thing.

” I tap my chin. “Heard they got divorced though. Shame. A willing throat is so hard to find these days.”