Copyright © 2020 Jenifer Jenkins
All rights reserved.
No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission from the author, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law.
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
First Edition
Cover design by Wes Jenkins
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Acknowledgements
About the Author
CHAPTER ONE
The humidity was stifling as I walked down the rickety metal stairs that had been rolled up to my puddle jumper of a plane. I was relieved to finally be back on land after four hours on a commercial airplane and another hour on this death trap. In my life, I had traveled frequently but had never experienced such extreme turbulence. Of course, I was accustomed to traveling in jumbo jets, lapping it up in first-class luxury. This was the first time I could remember flying without pills or at least some booze to calm my nerves and knock me out for most of the voyage.
This type of de-boarding was something I’d only seen in black-and-white movies. It seemed a tremendous safety hazard as the stairs creaked and rocked back and forth with each step I took. My hands burned as I gripped the sunbaked railing to steady myself. What was even more unusual about the experience was that the alleged airport was nothing more than dirt runways and a grassy field connected to a large barn-like building. In fact, I suspected that it had been a barn at one time. I expected to find chickens and cows roaming around the red-roofed wooden structure, not pilots and engineers. The Midwest was certainly taking the repurposing spaces movement to heart.
As I scraped toward the aero-barn in my poorly chosen suede wedge boots, I surveyed the field of dirt and dead grass that taunted me with each step. My aunt and uncle were nowhere in sight. I hadn’t seen them in a while, but I was sure I’d still recognize her curly locks and his boisterous laugh in any crowd. I must have looked absolutely ridiculous, and possibly suspicious, wandering the field in my fancy boots, oversized sweater, Jackie O sunglasses, and ratty trucker hat. Did people still wear trucker hats? Apart from the boots—which were my favorite—my clothing was chosen to avoid recognition, and I was getting the feeling I'd chosen correctly. The few bystanders on the field were wearing overalls, trucker hats, and flannel. Flannel? In this heat? One man was even wearing a legit cowboy hat. The fact that he wasn’t chewing on a long piece of straw or spitting tobacco as he leaned against his ancient-looking truck amazed me.
The cowboy stared at me expectantly, and it made me uncomfortable. It was like he knew me. I concentrated on walking the unsteady terrain to avoid making direct eye contact with him but attempted a peek over my shoulder to see if he was still looking. He was. I winced and flung my head back around, my naturally wavy auburn hair sticking to the dampness on my face. The mugginess was unbearable, and my clothes and boots had already pasted themselves to my skin just moments after stepping away from the plane’s re-circulated climate. I was embarrassed to be caught looking at him. Continuing toward the makeshift airport, I refrained from taking another glance.
When I entered the building, I was dismayed to find that the renovation did not include a high-tech air conditioning system. I saw a window unit near the door, and there were a few ceiling fans and box fans surrounding a small lobby. Six once-plush chairs encircled a wooden table covered with magazines and newspapers. I went to peruse the selection then thought better of it. I wasn’t sure I was ready to see some of the headlines and photos that might be adorning the covers.
The intoxicating smell of coffee breezed past me as a man who looked like he could be a pilot walked by. Eyeing the direction he came from, I spotted a table with coffee-making odds and ends. I rushed over to it, thanking my lucky stars that something was going well today. I had a minor coffee addiction. Once, I drank three ventis in a day. On the table before me was not the fancy $6 a cup stuff I was used to, however. This was just a Keurig—I was amazed they were current enough to have one of those—with an assortment of coffee flavors, creamers, and sugars. My coffee order typically included coconut milk and agave. Sugar was not in my diet; neither was any of the artificial stuff they used in those chemical-laden creamers. I was going to have to settle for a cup of the most natural-seeming product in the bunch, black French roast.
I reached for a Styrofoam cup and silently wept. Talk about unnatural. Then I popped the K-cup into position and selected the medium option. I would’ve gone for the large, but there was a sticker covering it that read: “Cup will overflow.” Chuckling to myself, I considered the phrase. Cup will overflow. Wasn’t that supposed to be a good thing? When the machine finally sputtered out the last drop of steamy caffeinated bliss, I grabbed the cup and continued the search for my relatives. Not caring that my tongue would burn, I took a sip of the hot coffee. Ah, I’d missed it. It had been two weeks since I was allowed to touch the stuff. I wasn’t entirely sure I was supposed to be drinking it, but I figured that was the least of my concerns. The problem was that a hot drink on a smoldering day was going to raise my internal temperature, and I already felt overheated. Also, I hadn’t eaten anything but a granola bar on the plane. I was definitely going to have the coffee shakes after this. I didn’t care. My body hadn’t felt normal in a long time.
I decided to stand directly in front of a fan while I waited. There was nobody around to be offended by it. Patting my fingers on the foam cup, I wondered where my aunt and uncle could be and if they were coming at all. They were aware of the situation, right? They knew I was coming and that it was today, didn’t they? I hadn’t been a party to any of the plans that brought me here, so I didn’t know the answers to these questions. What if they weren’t coming, and I was stuck here alone? I shook off the idea and headed back out to the field. The instant the sunlight touched my face, I knew my coffee was a goner. There was no way I could manage finishing it now. I tossed the remains into the grass and threw the cup into a trash bin beside the entrance. Sweat was now dripping down the center of my back, and my sunglasses burned the bridge of my nose.
The cowboy from before was still there. Damn. And he was walking toward me. Double damn. He flashed a set of surprisingly white teeth in my direction. Creeper. It took every ounce of maturity I could muster not to stick my tongue out at him as a response. You are nineteen years old, I scolded myself. Get it together. Why should a strange man’s attention spark such a childish reaction in me?
“Chastity?” he asked when he was within earshot.
I cringed. It was the usual
reaction I had to a stranger calling my name. Even though I was familiar with the constant attention and scrutiny I received from random people, I was never comfortable with it. Anxiety coursed through my head like it always did in these situations. It was an odd feeling—like I could literally feel the stress chemicals moving around in the space between my brain and skull. The sensation always unnerved me and consequently added to my anxiety. Scenarios began playing out in my head. Would I have to run? Was my cover blown? Had this whole covert relocation been for nothing? I was close to having a full-blown panic attack, so I started my one hundred breaths. One. Two. Three. Four...
“I’m sorry. It’s Sissy, isn’t it?”
I stopped abruptly. My body was ice—which should have been a welcome change. Sissy? Why would he call me Sissy? Only three people in my entire life had ever called me that: my mother and my Aunt Martha and Uncle Kenny.
“What... what did you say?” I stammered.
He seemed to be enjoying my confusion because his grin broadened beneath the wide brim of his hat. As a matter of fact, that’s all I could see—that grin. The only visible feature of his face was his mouth.
“I forgot. They said you might respond better to Sissy.”
“They? Who?”
“Ken and Martha,” the mouth said.
Again, my imagination went to dark places—a result of working in the story-telling industry almost my entire life. How did he know about my aunt and uncle? Had he kidnapped them? Were they being held for ransom? Was I the ransom? Was that why he knew my nickname? Was that why they weren’t here to greet me? What was going on? Five. Six. Seven.
My voice cracked as I asked, “How do you know them?”
“I’m John.” He held out his hand as if this information should suffice. I stared without moving, unwilling to make contact with the ranch hand.
Slowly I inched backward toward the building. To my stunned brain, it made perfect sense to move at a snail’s pace as if he wouldn’t notice.
“Wait.” Clearly, my movements weren’t inconspicuous enough. “I didn’t mean to scare or confuse you. Your aunt and uncle sent me to come get you. There was a problem on the farm and—”
“Problem? What kind of problem?” Now I was worried that something could be wrong with Kenny and Martha. My mind was on overdrive today. What was this guy doing? Trying to give me a heart condition? “I need to sit down.” I circled in that spot a couple of times, looking like a dog trying to nest, and decided I couldn’t possibly bring myself to sit in the dirt and grass. Eight. Nine. Ten.
I frowned up at him, realizing that we were only about a foot apart now. As I strained my neck to view his hidden face, I felt dwarfed by his height. Granted, my five feet two inches always cowered beneath individuals of normal height. Peering at his face more closely, I noted that he didn’t seem like much of a man at all. He had a young face with crystal blue eyes and dimples and the tiniest bit of scruff on his jawline. From the look of it, that was the most hair he could produce on his face. He was probably around my age. His face was tanned from too much sun exposure. Had he never heard of sunscreen? Did he know that his flawlessly smooth skin was more susceptible to wrinkles in direct sunlight? If he continued in this manner, we wouldn’t look the same age for long, or at least I hoped that was the case. I made a vow to slather my anti-aging masks, serums, and creams liberally over my face and décolletage when I arrived at my aunt and uncle’s house.
“They asked me to pick you up because they had a few technical glitches with some new equipment and had to take care of some things,” he spoke soothingly. Too soothingly. It was borderline condescending.
“Who are you exactly?”
“John.”
“No, no.” I was annoyed. Obviously, he was going out of his way to make this situation insufferable. “Who are you to my aunt and uncle? Why would they send a stranger to get me?”
His eyebrows wrinkled until they almost touched. “They warned me that you’d be a handful.”
“Wha... They did?”
“They didn’t say it was a bad thing,” he offered, noticing my horror.
We then stared awkwardly at one another, waiting for the other person to speak next. It appeared he wanted to say something. His mouth opened and closed a couple of times, but he remained silent. I was the queen of the silent treatment and had never met anyone superior on that score. This could have lasted for hours, and I wouldn’t have minded—apart from melting in the heat and humidity.
He finally broke the silence, as I knew he eventually would. “Ken and Martha are friends of my family. I help them at the farm most days.”
Ugh. The farm. Why did he keep mentioning the farm? It was as though he was rubbing it in. Hey city girl, you’re going to live on a farm. The idea of living in the Midwest for an unknown length of time had been looming over me for the last week, taunting me. This visit was not for pleasure. My mother was basically forcing me to stay with her half-brother and his wife. If I had any say in the matter, I would be on a deserted island with a couple of sexy cabana boys waving palm leaves in my face, hand-feeding me grapes. Or maybe I’d skip the grapes and have them turned into wine instead. Unfortunately, that would be what everyone expected, and I needed to do something totally unexpected to stay under the radar.
When I was very young, I enjoyed holidaying at my aunt and uncle’s Missouri farm. It was like something right out of the movies, but real. Back then, I had a hard time differentiating between real and make-believe since I worked in a fantasy world daily. Here, I was the real-life Shirley Temple in Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm. Sans pin curls, of course. The farm was the one place I could go to for sanctuary. I could taste and touch tangible things that wouldn’t disappear the next day when the set changed for a new episode. There was not much constancy in my childhood, but that farm was always there. When I visited, I could be sure that my aunt and uncle would greet me cheerily, and so would the chickens and dogs. I could count on Martha serving her homemade apple pie and Kenny constructing a makeshift hayride just for me. What could have been more fun to a child?
As I got older, it became less fun. The quaintness of it all started to fade. I didn’t like to get dirty, so the hayrides were definitely out. There was nothing to do in the house or in the minuscule town, which felt hours away. Eventually, I stopped visiting altogether. I had no time in my hectic work schedule to be bothered or to enjoy anything. Ten years at least had passed since I’d been to this place.
Suddenly I realized I hadn’t responded to what this John guy had said. How long had I been standing there, daydreaming? How embarrassing. “So you expect me to just hop into that truck with you? A complete stranger who supposedly knows my aunt and uncle? I’ve seen plenty of Lifetime movies.” And starred in them, I thought. “I am not some naïve young girl you can lure so easily. Where’s your proof?”
Earlier, he seemed amused by me; that was clearly fading now. He crossed his arms over his broad chest and stared me down. “I don’t expect you to do anything, and I have no proof other than the proof I thought I’d already given. You can hop into this truck and ride back to Ken and Martha’s with me or stay here on this airfield until you have a better idea. It’s no matter to me, but I do have business to attend to today. Best make your decision quickly.”
Best? Oh yeah, this guy was one-hundred-percent country. I now detected a slight drawl in his words. I’d been too disturbed before to notice his voice. It was smooth yet earthy—like maybe if you’d dropped honey in the dirt. His attitude toward me now was irritating. Was this the guy that had been oddly smiling and staring at me—all but winking, really—only moments before? Why was he so rude now? Strangers didn’t usually talk to me this way. Typically, they greeted me with awe and admiration. This guy had no reason to be snippy with me. It made me doubt his motives even more.
“Well then,” he continued after I hadn’t responded, “I’ll let Ken and Martha know you’re here waiting for them.”
Then he started wa
lking toward his driver’s side door as if he would just leave me there. The nerve!
“Jwold on,” I blurted. My mind hadn’t decided between just, wait, or hold on, and all three spilled out simultaneously. He stopped, and I searched for the proper response. “I have bags. My bags were on the plane, and I need them. I can’t leave without them.”
I sounded ridiculous as I stammered through the words. He wouldn’t really leave me here if they’d sent him, would he? I was more terrified of being left there alone than I was of getting into a strange man’s vehicle. I was sure my therapist would have a good deal to say about that. If I ever told her.
“Your bags? Yeah. I already got them. They’re in the back of the truck.”
“In the back of the truck?” I waited for a laugh or smirk or something to let on that this was some sick joke. “You put my things in the back of that disgusting, old pick-up truck?”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa. Disgusting?”
“Yes. Disgusting,” I fumed. The tan truck could have been an antique. It was rusty and covered in dirt, the wheels caked with mud, and the windshield permanently dusted with pollen. I had a pretty good idea as to the cleanliness of the truck bed. “Do you know how much those suitcases are worth? Not to mention that my entire life lies within the contents of those ‘bags.’” I mimicked his accent with that last word.
His face was now crimson, and he was struggling to maintain his composure through my verbal attack. I wondered if he was more irritated by my mockery of his accent or his ride.
“Look, I am only here as a favor to Ken and Martha. So to put this as nicely as possible, I don’t give a horse’s ass about the spotlessness of your stuff. My job is to come here and take you back to them. That’s it. I am not your valet or your chauffeur or your shrink. You can leave your bags here for all I care.”
Again the frightening thought that I might be left alone in this field gnawed at me. It would get dark, and I didn’t have a cell phone—an unfortunate casualty of recent events. If I did not comply, I would be abandoned for the foreseeable future.
Be It Ever So Humble Page 1
