Sunrise Point

Epilogue


In early June, when the weather in the mountains was warm and sunny after a long winter, Nora sat on the porch at the orchard house. Maxie was in the kitchen making a very big dinner because Nora’s father and Susan were up for the weekend. Berry and Fay were playing on the porch; they were now Cavanaughs. Tom’s adoption of them had been completely uncontested.

There had been a quiet wedding in Maxie’s living room right before Thanksgiving and they’d been an extended family ever since. Jed loved visiting the orchard and had become enamored of researching the apple tree species. He was helpless in the face of research—he just loved it. It was hard to keep him away during the spring planting.

She rubbed a hand over the small mound in her middle that she and Tom had planted. They started it right around Christmas, it was another girl and she would arrive in September. Tom was thrilled and hoped that she, like her sisters, would look just like Nora.

No one had ever loved Nora as selflessly as her man. Her children were thriving within his love and the attention Maxie showered on them.

And just as he crossed her mind, he crossed the yard. She laughed as she saw that he carried a stem of apple blossoms. He put a booted foot up on the porch and held them out to her.

You have to stop doing this,” she said, taking the branch. “These are unborn apples.”

I promised you flowers every day.”

And love every day, which you shower on me.”

But that’s the easy part,” he told her.