Love Is Patient and A Heart's Refuge by Carolyne Aarsen

Author:Carolyne Aarsen
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Steeple Hill
Published: 2004-09-28T04:00:00+00:00

“You knew Rick Ethier was going to be taking over from Nelson, so why are you so angry?” Sam Ellison asked, crouching down beside another sapling.

“I guess the reality was harder than the idea.” Becky dug her hands into the sun-warmed dirt of the new apple orchard. An early-evening breeze fanned away the warmth of the sun, and she could already feel the peace of the orchard easing away the tension of the day. “I mean I just found out before I went to camp. That hardly gave me time to get used to the idea.”

“You’ll get used to it. Hand me the budding knife please.”

She pulled the small, but deadly sharp blade out of the toolbox her father carried with him and watched while he painstakingly cut a T shape in the bark of the young sapling. “I got the impression from Colson that he’s quite proud of his grandson,” Sam continued. “Rick’s travel articles are quite insightful.”

“As are his nasty book reviews.” Becky couldn’t keep the disdainful tone out of her voice, netting her a light frown from her father. “I still don’t understand why such a prestigious magazine chose my book to review.”

“That was a year ago, Becky.”

“And since then, the publisher has been pretty hesitant about buying another book.”

“Your editor is behind you.”

“He’s been great, but if he can’t sell it to the marketing people who seem to have a copy of that nasty review branded on their brain tissues, I’m just spinning my wheels.” She leaned forward, yanking an isolated stalk of grass from the newly cultivated dirt. “I don’t know if Rick even realized it’s my book he slammed—a casualty of his cutting words. I’m left bleeding on the sidelines while he moves on, blithely unaware of what he had done.” With a dramatic flourish she raised her face to the sky and pressed her hand to her chest.

“When you’re finished declaiming, you can hand me that whip please. The Alberta Red.”

“See, not even my own father appreciates my pain.” With a grin Becky plucked a tree branch out of the bucket of water. She carefully sliced the bud off it herself, taking a large piece of bark with it. Turning it over she plucked the pith away from the backside of the slice and handed it to her father.

“Change isn’t always a bad thing, Becky. Life is always about adapting.” He inserted the slice in the cut, against the live flesh of the sapling, pulled the bark back over top and secured it with a rubber band. “Rick can bring in a new way of looking at things.”

“He talks about finding a new direction for the magazine, but how can he when he doesn’t know the community it targets?”

“That can be good. He’ll bring his own perspective and skills to the magazine. Like bringing new genetic material into the orchard and grafting it onto established and mature stock.”

“Except he’s only here for a while, which makes me wonder if the ‘graft’ will take. He’s a wanderer, just like Trevor was.

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