“I knew someone . . . It didn’t end well.”
“I don’t know about your someone, but I don’t like taking the damn things. They make me sleepy, but if I don’t take them, then the pain keeps me awake and the doc says I have to sleep. I need to be in charge of my own medication, but how about you keep count of how many I take and I promise to keep them somewhere safer?” Isaac nodded and let the bottle go. “I’m sorry about your someone.”
Isaac took a few deep breaths to get control of the fear. Einars swallowed his pill and slid the bottle into his shirt pocket. Isaac took the empty glass back to the kitchen, then stared—unsure what to do next.
“Do you even know how to bake? I think I should do it,” Einars said.
The question brought Isaac back to the present, knowing that he needed to keep Einars with his leg up or Sanna would not be pleased.
“How do you think I’ve been keeping Bass alive? Of course I can cook.”
Einars seemed to understand he’d put his past back where it belonged.
“Cooking is not the same as baking.”
Isaac chuckled, feeling more like himself.
“Fair enough, but I’m very good at following instructions.” He picked up the recipe and read the instructions for the salted caramel apple pie. “Maybe you have a simpler option I could make?”
Einars snorted.
“We’ll do a lazy-person’s apple pie. Which is basically cooked cinnamon and sugar apples over ice cream with a hunk of piecrust. I even have the crust in the fridge—you only need to roll it out and bake.”
As Isaac worked, Anders joined them with the papers and his omnipresent frown. Since Isaac had first met him, he and Anders had rarely spoken. He knew there was a lot of tension between Anders and Sanna, but there seemed to be more beneath the surface he didn’t know about.
“Dad, I need to talk to you. I’ve finally made it through all the books.” He looked at Isaac in the kitchen. “I’ll help you into your room so we have privacy.”
“We can talk here.”
“I don’t think Isaac needs to hear all the finances.”
“I know what’s in those books and I’m not fussed about him hearing. He runs a business, he might have a few ideas.”
Isaac gave a thumbs-up with flour-covered hands and continued rolling out the pie dough. “I’m happy to help, but I’m also happy to forget it all.”
“Fine.” Anders sat next to his dad and pulled out papers, then lined them in front of Einars. “How could you let this happen? You’ve borrowed so much money there’s no way you can make the monthly interest payments.”
“I’ve barely touched what the land is worth. It’ll only be tight until Sanna gets the cider up and running. She’s so happy when she’s making cider, I know it will take off.”
Anders rolled his eyes.
“Assuming that ever happens, you still can’t pay the bank the interest until that money materializes, no matter how happy Sanna is. You don’t have any cash on hand. Where do you think it will come from?”
“I’ve been taking care of the money for years. It was time to take this kind of risk. With only the two of us, the land is struggling. Cider is Idun’s future.”
Isaac really didn’t want to be here for this, but he had to finish baking the pie dough while the apples cooked. Maybe he could hide in the bathroom.
“Isaac, what do you think?” Einars asked.
Too late. He couldn’t very well ignore the question, but he felt Einars knew exactly what he had done and had a bigger plan that Anders and he didn’t understand.
“Well.” He walked to the table and looked at the papers spread out. “Anders is right. Usually agriculture is land-rich and cash-poor, so that can be a big problem if you borrow more than you can pay back with cash reserves. If these numbers are accurate, you need enough to get you through to the cider being profitable because your normal orchard profits won’t be enough. You won’t be able to make the payments by the end of the fall.”
Anders nodded along in agreement as Einars rubbed his chin in thought.
“I’m not ready to sell. Idun’s needs more time. There has to be another option.”
Isaac was saved by the buzzer. He pulled the crust from the oven as Sanna and Bass bounded up the stairs. Anders collected the papers and stuffed them away, clearly frustrated that nothing had been solved but unwilling to push the issue.
While he had only lived on the orchard for a short time, Isaac understood Einars’s stubbornness. This place was too special for the Lunds to lose. All he could do, really, was finish the website. The sooner people learned about this amazing place and Sanna’s amazing cider, the sooner the Lunds could stop worrying, the sooner Sanna could relax, and the sooner she might kiss him again.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Two weeks after Einars’s fall, Sanna finally had some time to herself. This was the first time in weeks that she was alone in the cidery, and her unsettled nerves tried to find the routine she had abandoned and missed. Each day was a scramble to keep pace with the orchard and get her dad to all his PT and follow-up doctor’s appointments. Her journal was covered in sticky notes to herself about tasks that needed to be done, making every day different from the last, no predictable pattern other than the daily chaos of chasing the problems. She picked up one sticky note with GARBAGE scrawled in her tired handwriting with a green colored pencil.
She had written it last night, right after Anders had finally gone home. He’d come to the loft where she’d been planning what needed to be done the next day, deciding what Isaac could handle, and what she’d need to help him do. If it required her assistance, she’d find a way to accomplish it with Bass rather than spend more time alone with Isaac. With Bass she could keep busy and avoid conversation. She only needed to show him something once and he could do it, and when his attention strayed, she let him play on her phone or wander the orchard. With Isaac, she didn’t trust herself.
When Anders had sat down next to her, she stifled the disappointment that he wasn’t Isaac. But when she saw his stack of papers topped with a WWW brochure, her disappointment turned to irritation.
“We need to go over the finances,” Anders said.
“Why? Dad’s already feeling better, he can take them back. Adding in one more person to the process will just confuse matters.”