Chapter 1
Florence loved every season in the apple orchard. Each one brought its own special delights, but she couldn’t deny that the spring blossoms, with their varying shades of pink, were the most beautiful sight of all.
The air carried the sweet fragrance of the blooms as well as the scents of new life, rebirth, and the hope of all kinds of possibilities.
The bees buzzed by, busy doing their most necessary of jobs, and the birds were happily tweeting and flying about. The robins were another welcome sight that marked the beginning of Spring.
They were delightful except when they were making a feast of the young apples. This morning, a robin had sat on their kitchen windowsill chirping as she and Carter drank their morning coffee.
It was a pleasant start to their day.
As she took Spot on his walk, Florence glanced at the Bakers' orchard. Their mature apple trees were beautiful, and it would take years for hers to compare.
Right now, her orchard-to-be was level ground with no sign of vegetation. The extensive drainage had been finished, so they’d come a long way in the last couple of months. It would take her a long time, though, to replace what had been stolen from her. That was how it had felt, but she’d decided to let go of those feelings of resentment a long time ago.
It had been her decision to leave her home and her Amish family to marry Carter. She left knowing she would be cut off from her family and her father’s orchard. It didn’t matter that she’d known that. It still hurt.
Her heart ached every time she thought about her father’s orchard being in another man’s hands. Not just any man, one who had always disliked her for no good reason.
Levi Bruner had married her stepmother and had stepped into her shoes as keeper of the orchard even though he knew less than nothing about looking after trees.
It hurt even more when she learned he intended using non-organic chemicals, in and around the trees, when her orchard had always been organic.
If he proceeded along those lines, and she prayed every night that he wouldn’t, then her own orchard would have little chance of being organic accredited since the chemicals would leach into the ground and drift on the winds.
The only hope of her getting back her family’s orchard was for Levi to run it into the ground and then she’d buy it from them. The thought of that, though, brought her little joy.
By then, the orchard would be destroyed, and her stepmother Wilma would be devastated. Florence didn’t want that to happen.
Florence leaned against the fencepost and stared at her beloved trees. Her father would’ve had no idea what would happen. Since her two older brothers had never been interested in the orchard, he’d taught Florence everything as though she’d be the one to take it over. For that reason alone, she felt guilty for leaving. If she’d stayed, would Wilma have ever married Levi?
Levi had chased Wilma and showed his interest, but Mamm had never shown much interest in return until Florence left. Then they surprised everyone by announcing their wedding.
Mamm had never been strong, either mentally or physically and needed someone to rely upon.
That person was now Levi. And now Levi was responsible for the three unmarried girls still living at home. He also brought with him his own daughter, Bliss, who was around the same age as Hope.
Spot pulled on his lead. He was ready to keep walking. She walked on.
The baby growing inside her was her chance at a new life and a new beginning. She’d take everything her father taught her about apples and use it to full advantage with the orchard she and Carter were growing from scratch.
Now the weather was warm enough to fertilize the trees in the Baker orchard, and prune where needed.
But the question was, was Levi aware of that?
Trees were like people and each needed to be treated as an individual, but what would Levi know about that?
Nothing, and neither would he care, she feared.
All she could do was pray that he’d have a change of heart. For a stubborn man like Levi, that would require a true miracle, like the parting of the Red Sea, or the manna falling from heaven.
Two starlings swooped overhead and then darted about her and the dog. Spot took a leap at them, jerking on the lead.
“No, Spot.”
Spot pulled on the lead again when they landed on the fence close by, seeming to taunt him. He clearly wanted to give chase.
“Stop it!”
That was why she always had to keep him on a lead outside.
He’d most likely catch one of them and then Florence didn’t know what she’d do. When he pulled on the lead for a third time, this time jolting her whole body, it was time to end the walk.
“Back to the house, Spot.” He knew what those words meant. As they ambled home, Florence scolded him. “If you can’t behave, I’ll leave you home when I go for a walk. How would you like that?”
He looked up at her with his soft brown eyes. She was sure he knew every word she was saying. “Just behave, okay? Then we won’t have a problem.”
