Beginning tomorrow, he'd be with Clara all summer.

He'd find a way to help her, and the lovely eyes that had once seen colors and emotions no one else could see.

Three.

"Oh, Clara," he said when she opened the door and he saw her tears.

"You miss him, too."

"I do," Nick said. "All day, every day. Charles was the finest man I've ever known."

Clara nodded and wiped her eyes. "Are you dropping by for dinner?"

"Just dropping by." Nick smiled. "But I wouldn't turn down food."

"Then come on in."

They'd both known she'd ask, and that he'd accept the offer. He'd shown up often-at suppertime-since Charles's death. And at dawn, when her curtains signaled she'd awakened for the day. And midmorning for coffee, and in the afternoon for tea.

Both knew he was checking up on her, and why he never called in advance. She'd tell him what she told everyone else who worried about her. You don't need to come over. I'm fine!

She'd made such assertions to Nick in the beginning.

You can't possibly be fine, he'd tell her when he appeared despite her protestations. He'd arrive within fifteen minutes of his phone call, and she always seemed relieved when he did. And even if you're fine, Clara, I'm not.

Nick didn't care about the food she inevitably served him. He could cook his own meals. But if he permitted Clara to feed him, she'd end up nibbling on something, too.

It was past her usual suppertime. But Nick had the feeling she might have forgotten to eat. His impression was confirmed when they reached the kitchen.

On the table where her dinner might have been, four round boxes sat instead. Glossy boxes, he noted, each in a different shade of yellow.

"Hatboxes?" Nick prompted.

"They contain the letters Charles wrote me during the war. I haven't read them since his return. I didn't need to. I had him. And," Clara said, "I knew every one by heart."

"I'll bet you still do."

"I don't know. Getting them down from the attic is as far as I've gotten."

"The attic? Clara-"

"I'm perfectly ambulatory, Nick! And the railings a certain dear friend of ours added to all our walls and staircases make climbing up and down a breeze." Clara smiled at the dear friend who, following Charles's stroke, had made it easy for him to spend the remaining year of his life with the woman he loved in the farmhouse he'd always known. "Elizabeth painted these boxes for me."

"Oh?" Nick asked, moving closer.

The varying shades of yellow were background. On each lid was an apple tree. One for every season. The style was primitive and bold, painted by a girl who couldn't draw any better than she could sing.

The boxes weren't works of art. But they were works of love. And passion, Nick thought. An exuberant affection for the trees, be they barren for winter, blossom-laden during spring, bountiful with summer fruit or brilliant with the leaves of autumn.

Elizabeth's wintertime tree wasn't entirely barren. Oblong splashes of red dangled from its outermost reaches. Christmas lights-like the ones that had illuminated a sobbing little girl.

"When did she paint these?"

"The first year she spent the entire summer here. She was eight, and we had such fun. On rainy days, we poked around in the attic, trying on old clothes, looking at old photographs, playing with the mah-jongg set Charles inherited from his father. Charles's letters didn't pique her interest. But she could tell how important they were to me. She wondered if they needed brighter homes than the white hatboxes I'd stored them in. They definitely did, I told her, and asked if she'd be willing to decorate them for me."

"Did you suggest what she should draw? The seasons of the orchard?"

"I made no suggestions whatsoever. But, being Elizabeth, she shared her every thought. The boxes had to be yellow, she said, because I'd painted the house yellow to welcome Charles home from the war."

"She didn't go with the same yellow."

"No. She felt it would be all right-if I agreed-to pick four brighter shades. You remember her affinity for the bright and shiny."

"I do," Nick said softly. "And the apple trees? Why did she choose to paint them?"

"Because she loves them. She's always viewed them as the living things they are-as friends." Clara touched an apple blossom on Elizabeth's springtime tree. "When she was finished, Charles lacquered each box inside and out, sealing the cardboard and, or so we hoped, preserving her vivid paintings. But they've faded, haven't they?"

Not at all, Nick thought. He felt quite sure they were as bright as the day eight-year-old Elizabeth had dabbed her final drop of paint. But Clara couldn't see it. It was the worry he would find a way to address. Beginning tomorrow.

Tonight, he broached the worry that was foremost on Clara's mind. "Have you heard from Elizabeth?"

"Not since Monday night. I don't expect to hear from her, Nick. Not on that topic. She's not mad at me because of what I said about Matthew. Sad, maybe. Disappointed. But not mad." She sighed. "If anyone owes anyone a follow-up phone call, it's me who should call her."

"But you haven't."

"It wouldn't be fair unless I was calling to tell her I'd decided my instincts were wrong and he was perfect for her after all."

"You haven't decided that."

"Not even close. The more I think about it, the more convinced I become. It's better just to let some time pass."

"Is Elizabeth still coming for a visit at the end of the month?"

"We didn't discuss it Monday night, but I'm sure she will. She's not going to hold my concerns about Matthew against me. And she is going to marry him. I wasn't trying to talk her out of it. I probably shouldn't have said anything."

"That's not your style, Clara, not when the happiness of your family's involved. Especially Elizabeth."

"But I've made her unhappy. I wish you'd come to the party at the Orchard Inn."

"I was behind on the remodel for Pete and Celia."

"Ha!"

"Ha?"

"You were afraid I'd have a glass of champagne or two, and start reminiscing about Elizabeth's Christmastime adventure and say this is the boy who saved her. This is Elizabeth's hero."

Clara had made the pronouncement with fondness twenty-seven years ago. There was more fondness now.

"I was behind on the remodel," Nick repeated, smiling. "I'm not afraid of your introducing me as that boy. I just don't want you to."

"I know, Nick. And I won't. I do wish you'd been at the party, though."

"I don't know Elizabeth, Clara. There's no way I would've been able to tell if she and Matthew were right for each other."

"You'd have been able to tell. You'd have been able to see..." Clara sighed again.

"See what?"

"That Matthew's not in love with my granddaughter. There," she continued without a pause. "I've said what I could never say to Elizabeth. But it's what I believe, Nick. And it scares me for her."

Nick hadn't had a chance to reflect upon, much less dispute, Clara's assertion that he'd be able to see-or even sense-the presence or absence of love. But he heard himself say something astonishing. "It scares me for her, too."

Four.

In what should have been the final hour of Elizabeth's seven-and-a-half-hour journey to Sarah's Orchard, the drive became treacherous. The two-lane road from Medford was somewhat perilous in broad daylight when the pavement was dry. But in darkness, when rain fell...

Eight hours and forty-five minutes after she'd pulled away from the curb in San Francisco, Elizabeth reached the crest of a driveway down which-or so she'd been told-she'd scampered on a long-ago winter night.

It was almost ten. Would Gram be awake?

The glowing house lights told her yes.

The lights were blurry. The rain was drenching. The downpour was not, however, the only reason for the watery blur.

Since her glimpse into Matthew's bedroom, Elizabeth had kept her emotions as tightly sequestered as a deliberating jury in a high-profile trial. But as she neared the safe haven of her grandmother's home, those emotions escaped in a flood of tears.

"Now who could that be?" Clara wondered when the doorbell rang.

"No one you want to see," Nick replied. "Not at this hour."

Nick had personally installed the farmhouse's burglar alarm. It was state-of-the-art-every window, all the doors, panic buttons at various locations throughout the home. He had an uneasy feeling that Clara hadn't turned it on since Charles's death.

Now, at 10:00 p.m., she had no qualms about opening the door to whoever happened by on what had become a soggy night.

"You've come over this late."

"Not without a warning call."

"This is Sarah's Orchard, Nick." She stood up from the kitchen table and gave Nick, who was washing dishes, a gentle pat. "I'll scream if it's anyone sinister."

Nick wiped his soapy hands and followed. He stopped short of the door and off to the side, invisible to the visitor, but a step away from intervening if Clara needed him.

"Elizabeth!"

"Hi, Gram."

"Come in, darling girl." The hand that had patted Nick's arm went to her granddaughter's cheek. "Tears."

"And rain." Elizabeth lifted the rain-spattered box she'd taken from the trunk before dashing to the covered porch. "Lots of rain. Not that it matters if these get soaked."

"What are they?" Clara asked as Elizabeth walked inside.

"My wedding invitations. I thought we could build a fire with them."

"The design didn't work out as well as you'd hoped?"

"The design's fine. It's the wedding that's not so good."

"Oh, Elizabeth."

"How did you know, Gram? About Matthew?"

"What happened?"

"He was supposed to be in New York, on the business trip he told you about last weekend. I went to his house, to leave one of the invitations for him. He wasn't in New York. And he wasn't alone. He was with the woman he'd been involved with before he and I got together."

"Is he still alive?" Nick stepped into her line of sight as he spoke.

"Oh!" You. Whoever you are.

She'd seen him twice, briefly-but memorably. The first time had been eighteen months ago, in the neurology ward at the Keeling Clinic, the day Granddad was admitted with his stroke. He'd been standing at the periphery of the crowded waiting room of friends who'd remained at the medical center until Clara's family arrived. He'd disappeared shortly thereafter. But in the few moments before he'd vanished, and even though her focus had been on rushing to Gram's side, she'd been acutely aware of him.

It felt as if he, too, was at Clara's side. Despite how far away he stood. At Gram's side, protecting her-and Granddad. Guarding them with his life.

The second time she'd seen him had been seven months ago, in late November, at Granddad's funeral. He'd stood a distance away then, as well.

Now he was here. Whoever he was. And he was asking if Matthew Blaine had survived his faithlessness.

"I'm Nicholas Lawton."

This-he-was Nicholas Lawton? Elizabeth knew of him, of course. Three years ago, he'd been the talk, and worry, of the MacKenzie clan. Granddad had been wanting to remodel Gram's kitchen. Her "small" business, The Apple Butter Ladies, was becoming a force to be reckoned with.