Rotten to the Core Read Online Free Page A

apparently Seth saw a lot of potential in it.
    As he warmed to the subject, Meg zoned out, studying him, bent over his diagrams. She had to admit he was pleasant to look at: real New England stock, sandy haired, gray eyed, with a sturdy body and capable hands. And she could tell that he really enjoyed his work: give him a problem to solve, and he’d come up with six ways to do it, then find the people who could make it happen. The people of Granford had acknowledged that when they elected him selectman in his relatively young thirties, and he hadn’t let them down. That infectious enthusiasm made him a great business partner—and friend. She wasn’t sure how she would have made it through the last couple of months without him, and she probably wouldn’t be sitting here figuring out what to do with tons of apples without his help. He was warm and strong and sweet, just like her cup of tea.
    Oh, ick. The aftermath of the shock of finding the body, plus the warmth of the kitchen, were rapidly putting her to sleep, and she was getting mushy. Not that Seth wasn’t an entirely suitable candidate, if she were in the market. But she had too much on her plate at the moment, between the house and the orchard, to think about romance.
    “Seth,” she broke in, “could we maybe wait until tomorrow to talk about all this? Briona’s going to be here then, and you’d just have to repeat it all. And you need her input about the apple storage part. For that matter, she may have some good ideas herself. So why don’t we just save it for then?”
    Seth tore himself away from his increasingly elaborate drawing, now bristling with lines and arrows. “Oh, right, Briona’s your new orchard manager. You want me to swing by tomorrow sometime?”
    “I told her to come over in the afternoon—I’ve got a class in the morning. She’s going to stay in the room over the kitchen—I’ve moved into the front bedroom—and she said she had some stuff to move in. Why don’t you plan to stay for supper tomorrow? That’ll give us plenty of time.”
    “Sounds good. So, what’s she like?”
    Meg considered, choosing her words with care. “She’s young, around twenty-one. Smart. Very focused. Seems a little prickly. I told you she was Jamaican, didn’t I?”
    “A lot of the pickers around here are Jamaican—that’s been true for years. Makes sense,” Seth commented.
    “I didn’t make the connection with the pickers. Briona was born here, from what I can tell—since I’ll be paying her, I had to do the paperwork on her. And we’re still wrestling with what to do about health insurance—that’s one reason I threw in a free room, to save her money. Anyway, I think she believes she’s got a lot to prove, but she certainly knows more than I do—not that it would be hard—and we’ve got Christopher as a backup if we get stuck on something. It’ll be a new experience, at least. I’ve never done anything like this.”
    A month ago she had been planning to look for a job in municipal finance while getting the house ready to sell, and it hadn’t been easy to wrap her head around the idea of not only keeping the house and living in it, but also managing an orchard and trying to make a profit at it. Scary stuff, but exciting. She realized now that maybe she had been naïve, but she was learning fast, auditing a course on orchard management at UMass and reading everything she could lay her hands on. Thank goodness Christopher had found Briona to help her.
    Seth stood up, folding the napkin drawing neatly and putting it in his pocket. “You sure you’ll be all right alone tonight?”
    “Don’t worry, I’ll be fine. See you tomorrow, then.”
    Meg watched as Seth took one more look at the barn, then climbed into his van and drove off. As he drove out of site, Meg carefully locked the back door and went to check the front door as well. Maybe the dead man in the orchard had nothing to do with her, but she didn’t want to take any