Hank mentally reviewed all the old men in town. “Is this Ed Garber?”

“Yup. That’s him. Said he was the postmaster until he retired, and that his wife had died three years ago.”

“Better watch out,” Hank said. “I hear he only has one thing on his mind.”

“Lord bless him, and he likes to play bingo too. Life don’t get much better than that.”

Elsie took her apron off and put it in a drawer. “I saw that Linda Sue at the supermarket today. She was checking out groceries, and I tell you she could put a newspaper right out of business. Everywhere I went in town people were talking about you getting married to a dirty book writer. I wouldn’t hold my breath for that loan. Your reputation’s about as good as snake spit.”

“She’s not a dirty book writer. She’s writing about her Aunt Kitty.”

Elsie looked skeptical. “Don’t get me wrong. I like Maggie. She’s got something to her. And if I were you and had to make a choice, I’d take Maggie over an apple press any day of the year.”

Hank smiled at her. “You’re a pretty smart lady.”

“You’d better believe it, and I’m in good shape for being so old too.”

She took her purse from the counter when Ed Garber knocked at the front door.

“You’d better go pull Maggie’s nose out of that computer and get her down here while the corn bread’s hot. And it wouldn’t hurt to do something with her after supper. It isn’t natural for a body to sit that long. All her insides will get cramped up. I once knew someone who sat all day like that and nature never could take its course. Before you know it, you’re taking prunes and milk of magnesia when all you ever needed in the first place was to go for a walk once in a while.”

Ed Garber looked in at Hank. “Howdy,” he said. “Nice day.”

“Yup. Good weather for growing apples.”

“You still growing them organic? Don’t you have more than your share of rot?”

“I have to work at it, but so far they look fine,” Hank said.

“I should stop around sometime and see how you do it. I’ve got an apple tree in my backyard that’s plain pitiful.”

Hank closed the screen door on Elsie and Ed, and went upstairs after Maggie.

“Elsie says you have to come down to supper while the corn bread’s hot,” he told her. “And she says your insides will cramp up if you sit here much more. Then nature won’t be able to take its course, and you’ll have to eat prunes.”

Maggie finished typing a sentence and saved her file. “You sound skeptical, but she’s probably right.”

“I’m supposed to make sure you get exercise.”

Maggie shut the computer down. “I could use some exercise. We could go for a walk after supper.”

“That was my second choice.”

She wasn’t going to ask him about choice number one. “Would it hurt the apple trees if we walked through the orchard?”

“Nope. It’s crisscrossed with truck paths.”

In the kitchen Maggie ladled out the soup and took the corn bread from the oven. They sat across from each other in companionable silence while they ate.

“This is nice,” she finally said. “I always hated eating supper alone. Sometimes I’d set the table and fuss with a meal, but most of the time I stuck a frozen burrito in the micro wave and ate standing up.”

He grinned at her. “Does your mother know that?”

She laughed. “My mother is afraid to ask. And if my mother’s neighbor Mrs. Ciak ever found out…” Maggie shook her head. “My mother would be disgraced forever.” She buttered another piece of corn bread.

“At night, in my parents’ neighborhood, no one draws the shades downstairs. It would mean that you didn’t want anyone to see in. People would speculate that your house wasn’t clean. And all the women have dryers, but they still hang sheets outdoors because if you don’t someone might think your sheets weren’t white enough to be seen. I know it sounds silly, but it makes me feel claustrophobic. All those unwritten rules. All those comparisons. And as much as I tried, I could never fit my square peg into Riverside ’s round hole. I guess I was too stubborn.”

“I notice you’re using that in the past tense.”

Maggie chewed her corn bread. “I’m better now.” Hank raised his eyebrows and Maggie laughed. “You’re right, I’m still stubborn. But being stubborn can be good when you’re an adult. Now I like to think of myself as having tenacity, strength of conviction, and character.”

Hank pushed away from the table. He went to the refrigerator, took out two puddings, and gave one to Maggie. “Is that why you wanted to come to Vermont? To get away from the white sheets and open windows?”

“I wanted to make a new beginning. I needed to be anonymous.”

Hank averted his eyes and dipped his spoon into his pudding. It sounded to him like she’d jumped from the frying pan into the fire. Skogen was the gossip capital of the free world. He was sure every person in town knew what Maggie had worn last night, what she’d eaten, and what she’d said. And they were judging her. Riverside wasn’t the only town where sheets were hung out to dry. It wasn’t something he wanted to tell her right now. She’d find out soon enough for herself. And if she gave the town half a chance, she’d find out it had some redeeming qualities too.

They cleaned the kitchen and set out for their walk with Horatio trotting close on their heels. There was still plenty of sunlight so Hank headed south, taking a truck path that crossed the longest stretch of his property. It was July and the trees were thick with immature apples.

“What will happen to these apples if you don’t get the loan?” Maggie wanted to know. “Will they just rot?”

“No. It’s not really that drastic. I belong to a coop. I can put them in controlled atmosphere storage, or I can wholesale them.”

“Oh.” There was a blank look to her face that told him she didn’t know much about the apple market.

“There are three ways you can market an apple,” he told her. “Direct marketing means that you sell your own product at your doorstep. Regional marketing is selling your product locally, like I do at Big Irma’s. And the third alternative is wholesale when you go through an apple broker and sell your apples in bulk. You make the least profit and run the greatest risk when you wholesale. I want to develop my direct and regional marketing. I want to cater to the visiting skiers and the affluent, nutrition-conscious yuppies that migrate here from Boston and New York. I’m not at full production yet. It will take another seven years before all my trees reach maturity, but already I’m producing the apples I need to diversify.”

“So you won’t go broke if you don’t get the loan.”

He picked up a stone and skimmed it across the dusty road. “It’s not entirely a matter of money. If I have a good crop, I won’t go broke, but I won’t make any progress either. I don’t need to be a millionaire, but I need to have something of my own. Some success that I made happen.” He looked over at her to see if she understood.

“I was the kid that almost got an A in school. I almost made it to big-time hockey. I almost graduated from college. It’s important to me to see this through to the end. Just once I need to reach the goal I’ve set for myself. It’s not an unrealistic goal. I should be able to achieve it.”

“How soon do you need the money?”

He looked at the apples hanging on the trees all around him. “Yesterday would have been good. Last week would have been better.” He watched her brows knit together, and he ruffled her hair. They were supposed to be walking to get her intestines uncramped, not to discuss his business.

“Don’t pay any attention to me. I’m too impatient. Sooner or later I’ll get the loan, and everything will work out. There’s always another apple crop. I know exactly what equipment I need. I have the ground set aside and all the utilities are in for a small bottling plant and a bakery.”

“Where are you going to build?”