Page 18 of New Hope

Together, we ran back through and with only a few wrong turns, we came stumbling out of the opening at the end. We were both sweaty, panting, and holding our sides from laughing so hard. It was such a perfect moment nothing could ruin it. Not even when we looked up and found Ford and Ellie sitting on a bale of hay, pretending to have fallen asleep as they’d waited for us.

“Hey! You beat us!” Hannah hollered. The two pretended to startle awake, stretching and yawning as if they’d been asleep for hours instead of the mere seconds by which they’d probably won. Their antics had all four of us laughing.

I took a deep breath, trying to slow my racing heart. Ford looked at me and I shot him a rueful grin. “I think I need to up my cardio workout. That wore me out.”

He chuckled. “You and me both.”

Hannah jumped up and down, clapping her hands. “That was fun! Can we go on the hayride now?”

Ellie gave her dad a pleading look. “Yeah, can we?”

“Sure. Let’s go,” he answered them, then looked at me and rolled his eyes. “If only I had half their energy,” he whispered.

“No kidding.”

With Hannah leading the way and Ellie by her side, we walked to the back of the main building where a string of tractors were lined up, waiting to take customers on a ride. We climbed onto a wagon and found a seat. The bales of straw made for an itchy seat, but none of us seemed to mind as we settled in. When the last person was seated, the driver took off. The old green tractor made a rumbling noise as it started off, chugging its way through the open field with us trailing along behind.

Ford grabbed onto Ellie worriedly as we hit a bump that caused us all to lurch forward in our seats. “You okay, honey?”

“Yeah. This is fun,” she whispered back. He smiled down at her then lifted his head, his eyes finding mine and a soft smile spread across his face. I smiled back, feeling warm all over.

The tractor rumbled to a stop at the top of a hill. Our tour guide handed each of us a basket as we climbed off. I led our tiny group over to a line of trees marked Golden Delicious. “These are the best for making apple crisp and pies. I like to get a bunch of these for baking and then a few Honeycrisps for snacking on.”

“Sounds good to me.”

With the sunshine on our faces and the scent of crisp, fresh apples filling our noses, we set to work picking apples for the next hour. Ford and I took turns holding the girls up so they could pick the best-looking fruit from the top of the trees. When our baskets were full, we wandered back to the wagon.

The rest of the afternoon was spent learning how an apple press worked, taking a tour of the apple sorting process, and loving on the animals at the petting zoo. I couldn’t ever remember having so much fun. In fact, my stomach and cheeks hurt from all the smiling and laughing we’d done. But the best part of all, was seeing Ford and Ellie so happy.

I let out a contented sigh and Ford looked at me questioningly. “This was a lot of fun.”

“It really was. Thank you for inviting us,” he said as we walked to the car. The girls were tired and sticky from the caramel apples they’d eaten.

“Can we go get pizza with Ellie and her daddy?” Hannah asked as I pulled a packet of wipes out of the car. I handed one to Ford to use on Ellie then grabbed another one so I could clean my daughter’s face.

“I don’t know. They may have something to do,” I answered, not wanting to put Ford on the spot.

“We aren’t doing anything, are we?” Ellie pleaded with her eyes as her dad wiped the sticky mess from her face.

He kissed the tip of her nose then glanced at me over the top of her head. “I could go for some pizza.”

My face broke into a smile as both girls began to cheer. “Okay, okay, you little turkeys. Get in the car and we’ll go get dinner.”

The girls climbed into the back seat, making gobbling noises as they buckled up. I shook my head as I climbed into the front beside Ford, but I was having trouble hiding my grin. “What have we gotten ourselves into?”

“Beats me,” he replied then shot me a wink that had my heart going haywire. As we began driving down the road, I knew one thing for certain; being just friends with this man was going to be much harder than I’d expected.

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