"And that's a problem for you?" Winifred asked gently.

"I'm not sure. I've always chosen a quiet life." Chloe waved a hand at the campus around them. "I picked an academic career filled with books and study. How will Jake and I manage to blend our lives?"

"My Richard was a warrior."

Chloe felt her eyes widen. "Granddad? He was a sweetie."

"Yes, he was," Winifred agreed. "But he was also a warrior. I was a soldier's bride, as you know, and he went away to war when we'd been married for just two months. I thought we knew each other so well-after all, we grew up together. But war changes a man, or maybe it's fairer to say that war strips a man down to his very core. Richard was steel, solid steel. The bravest man I've ever known. But with me and the rest of his family, he was a teddy bear." Winifred's voice wavered and she paused, sipping her coffee. "We had a wonderful marriage, Chloe. More than fifty years, and though he's been gone for six years, I miss him every day."

"Oh, Gran." Chloe hugged her, moved beyond words at the wisdom and love apparent in her words and expression.

The door of the squad car opened and Chloe looked over her shoulder. Jake stood there, a frown growing as he searched her features. "What's wrong?" he asked.

"Nothing." She glanced at her grandmother.

"Did you arrest that awful man?" Winifred asked, leaning forward to look past Chloe at Jake.

Jake nodded. "A UW janitor saw Dodd toss his gun into the bushes outside Liberty Hall and followed him to McGyver Tower. When Dodd went into the tower room, the janitor locked him in and called the campus police to report Dodd for littering."

Chloe laughed out loud. "That must've been Fred."

"Yes. How did you know?"

"Fred tends to view any littering at Liberty Hall as a personal affront."

Jake lifted an eyebrow in query, but Chloe just smiled at him without explaining further. He turned back to her grandmother. "The Seattle PD have Dodd in custody. He confessed to assaulting the limo driver and forcing him to strip off his uniform before making him climb in the trunk. I'm guessing Dodd used the gun butt or a tire iron to knock the man out so he couldn't make any noise and alert passersby. All of which happened before Dodd picked you up at the cruise dock, Winifred."

"The poor driver!" Winifred exclaimed. "Was he badly injured?"

Jake shook his head. "He's been taken to Harborview Hospital, but the paramedics checked him out after the police removed him from the limo trunk. They seem convinced he wasn't hurt beyond a few bruises."

"Thank goodness." Winifred heaved a sigh of relief and made a shooing gesture with her free hand, the other occupied with balancing her cup. "Scoot, Chloe. I'll be fine here, drinking my coffee and contemplating my nice, quiet life."

Chloe slid across the seat and into Jake's arms. "I'm so glad you showed up at the tower when you did," she whispered. "To put it mildly..."

"Me, too." He nudged the car door shut and drew her away from the crowd to the far side of an empty ambulance. Then he wrapped her in his arms and kissed her breathless. Chloe kissed him back with all the emotion generated by the chaotic, terror-filled day.

He raised his head and stared at her, breathing harshly. "Marry me."

Stunned, she couldn't get her vocal cords to work.

"That's right, marriage. I realize we've only known each other a couple weeks, but we've been through more in these past days than most couples go through in a lifetime."

"Okay."

"Okay?" He sounded as stunned as she'd felt earlier.

"Yes."

He looked at her warily. "You're not shell-shocked from stress? You're not going to claim battlefield memory loss later on?"

Chloe laughed. "No. But I'm warning you, my grandmother wants great-grandchildren. And soon."

"I think we can manage that." He smiled lazily, his eyes hot. Then he bent his head and took her mouth with his once more.

Professor Weds Warrior, she thought blissfully. And then she stopped thinking and gave in to emotion.

From: Winifred@Codebreakers.org

To: Clara@AppleButterLadies.com

Sent: May 25th

Subject: Good morning-

Dear Clara, So much has happened since we said good-bye and I left you at the Seattle docks yesterday. I hardly know where to start! I was kidnapped by the horrible man who's been following Chloe. He trapped her with me in the Liberty Hall tower with a dynamite bomb he'd set to explode. I swear, Clara, I thought I was going to have a heart attack from sheer fright before Chloe spoke with Jake on her cell phone and he told us how to defuse the bomb. I had enough excitement yesterday to last the rest of my life-from now on if I ever think my life is getting dull, I'll watch a good British mystery on television!

All is well this morning, however. The villain is locked up in the King County Jail in downtown Seattle, I'm drinking tea while writing my daily e-mails, and Chloe and Jake will soon be planning a wedding. I can't wait to see her walk down the aisle. Now if I could only find suitable husbands for my other two granddaughters, I'd be completely content....

Have a wonderful day, Clara-we simply must get together soon. I miss seeing your smiling face.

All my love,

Winifred

THE APPLE ORCHARD.

Katherine Stone Dear Reader, What a pleasure it's been working with Debbie and Lois on Hearts Divided! We've enjoyed sharing our grandmothers and granddaughters with one another, and creating a novel in which their lives intertwine. We've cared about them all, and rooted for them all.

Now it's Clara and Elizabeth's turn. So...welcome to The Apple Orchard. To those of you who've read The Other Twin and Another Man's Son, the charming town of Sarah's Orchard will be a familiar one. To those of you who are new to my stories, I hope you'll find the fictional locale, and its characters, a pleasant place to visit. I'll probably return to Sarah's Orchard in the future. I love the setting and can envision a wedding, with all the trimmings and intrigues, at the Orchard Inn.

In the meantime, I've wandered off to Chicago for The Cinderella Hour, which will be published in paperback in August. It was the right place, I thought, to tell the love story of Snow Ashley Gable and Luke Kilcannon. I hope you agree!

And this summer's new hardcover, Caroline's Journal, also to be published in August, is set in my own hometown, Seattle.

I hope you enjoy The Apple Orchard and, if the spirit moves you, the other books. Please drop by my Web site-www.katherinestone.com-anytime. I'd love to hear from you, too. My mailing address is Katherine Stone, P.O. Box 758, Mukilteo, WA 98275.

Thanks for spending time with Clara, Elizabeth and Nick.

With all best wishes, To those who serve, and those who love them

Prologue.

Sarah's Orchard, Oregon

December 18

Twenty-seven years ago

His mom's boyfriend, Dennis, was going to be really mad. So would Marianne, his mom. Dennis would take Nick's being late out on her, too.

How many times, Dennis would shout, had he made it clear that if Nick wasn't home from school by three-thirty, the house would be locked, the burglar alarm set, and Nick would have to wait outside until his mom and Dennis returned from work at 1:00 a.m.?

It wasn't an idle threat. Since September, when Marianne and Nick had moved to Sarah's Orchard to live with Dennis, Nick had spent five nights outside. Dennis didn't care that Nick had an excuse for his tardiness. In each instance, the entire second-grade class-Nick's class-at Orchard Elementary had been dismissed late. It wasn't because of bad behavior, Nick had tried to explain. All five times there'd been something to celebrate.

Today's celebration, a Christmas party, was worth whatever punishment Dennis chose to inflict. It didn't matter how cold Nick would be by the time Dennis and Marianne returned. Nick's teacher had played the piano, and all the second-graders had gathered round to sing carols. The students took turns singing verses. No one laughed when words were forgotten or the tune was off key.

Nick wasn't sure his classmates even detected the discordant notes. He did. He couldn't help it. According to his teacher, he had perfect pitch. He hadn't known it before enrolling at Orchard Elementary. In fact, seven-year-old Nicholas Lawton hadn't even realized he could sing.

But he could, and he loved it.

He'd sing carols tonight, he decided as he ran toward the house-two miles away-where Dennis was probably shouting already. He'd sing as he froze on the porch. His carols would be sung quietly and in the shadows. The neighbors mustn't know he was alone every evening, Dennis had warned, whether he was guarding Dennis's house from the outside or within.

That was Nick's job, to make certain no one tried to break in while Dennis and Marianne were at the tavern where cocktail waitress Marianne served the drinks that bartender Dennis poured. Dennis made drugs in the basement of the dilapidated house on Center Street. Nick had never seen the lab. The door was always locked.

If not for his illegal enterprise, Dennis wouldn't have cared when Nick got home from school. It wasn't Nick's comfort-food, shelter, warmth-that made him furious when Nick was so late Dennis had to leave before he arrived. Dennis wanted Nick inside, awake and watchful, ready to call the tavern should anyone approach.

Nick had made a number of such calls. Dennis had never thanked him, but he'd come home right away. He'd yelled at the uninvited visitors, and on two occasions, he'd waved his gun around until they left. Even when he'd stopped yelling long enough to sell drugs to the intruders, he'd warned them that any future transactions would take place only at the bar.

Dennis could've given Nick the code for the burglar alarm. That way, Nick could let himself in on the afternoons he was late, reset the alarm once inside and be close to the phone if he needed it. Nick wasn't tall enough to reach the alarm panel. But if Dennis put a chair beneath it...

Nick made the mistake of suggesting to Dennis that he give him the code. Dennis laughed in a mean way, laughing at Nick for being so stupid as to imagine he'd trust him to begin with, much less trust that once he had the code, he wouldn't simply leave the house and spend the evening elsewhere instead of "earning his keep."

Nick was doing his best to make it home before Dennis locked him out. He was running as fast as he could. He didn't even slow his pace as he neared the apple orchard for which the town had been named.

Nick knew the town's history. All Orchard Elementary second-graders did. Their teacher believed it was important for them to know, and told the story in a fairy-tale way. Nick loved this story; he'd memorized its every detail.

Many years ago, the tale began, Dr. James Keeling and his wife, Sarah, moved from the big city, Portland, to what was then the farming community of Riverville.

The Keelings had an apple tree in Portland. Sarah treasured the tree and its apples. The tree was too large to be transplanted, but the cuttings Sarah took flourished on the small piece of Riverville farmland the town's new doctor had purchased.

Apples hadn't been grown in Riverville until Sarah planted her orchard. But they became the crop of Riverville, which was renamed Sarah's Orchard in honor of the doctor's wife. Sarah's husband left a legacy, too. The Keeling Clinic. Renowned for its exceptional staff and unsurpassed expertise in any number of medical specialties, the clinic was a referral center for patients from coast to coast.

Sarah's acre of apples had been a family orchard, not a working one, and that was how it stayed.

All the town's orchards were beautiful when the apples were ripening and the leaves were green. But Nick thought the orchard that had been Sarah's remained beautiful even after the fruit was plucked and the branches were bare.

He didn't know what made the trees beckon to him on these wintry afternoons. He knew only that they did. Time permitting, he always paused to catch his breath against the orchard's three-railed fence. And on the afternoons when he dashed out of the classroom the moment the dismissal bell sounded, there was time, once his breath returned, to sing a song or two.

Nick wished he could sing carols, even one carol, to the apple trees on this December day. Or, having made sure that Dennis and his mom had already left the house on Center Street, he could go back to the orchard and spend the evening here. It wouldn't feel as cold-here. Somehow the barren trees would warm him.

But on the nights Nick was forced to keep vigil from the porch, Dennis would get tavern customers, drunken ones, to drop by. They were supposed to confirm that Nick was there-and that, as they approached, he demand to know who they were and what they wanted.

Nick ran past the orchard, stumbling-but not falling-as he took his eyes from the path ahead to the trees he wanted to see. In the distance he saw the farmhouse.

When the Keelings lived there, it had been painted white and teal-which, his teacher explained, was a blend of green and blue. The new owners kept the original color scheme until the end of World War Two. With the help of the entire town, the young bride painted it daffodil-yellow with butter-cream trim. She wanted it to look like a beacon, to guide her soldier husband home.

The soldier must have liked the beacon. The farmhouse was still yellow and cream, glowing to Nick even on cloudy afternoons.

Today, the house also glowed from within. All the lights were on. The eaves were adorned for Christmas, as were the apple trees that lined the drive. Those closest to the house twinkled white. Along the drive itself the trees were wrapped in lights the color of ripe apples.