The Last One (The One Trilogy #1)

by Tawdra Kandle

  “Summer on a farm means all hard work. No let up, really. But yeah, I’ll be around a little more. I won’t have to run off after dinner every night.” He slanted me another glance. “Why, did you miss me?”

  “Don’t flatter yourself.” I smirked. “I don’t even really know you. But I was afraid maybe you were avoiding me. I don’t want to make things difficult for you.”

  Sam straightened and stretched his back. “Like you said, we don’t really know each other. We got off on the wrong foot, and I jumped to some conclusions. I’d have to be pretty stupid to let you push me out of my own house just because of that.”

  I smacked my forehead where a particularly aggressive mosquito was attacking. “Okay. Just checking. Because if I do make you uncomfortable, I can always see about living somewhere else this summer. There’s got to be another family who’d host me.”

  “Don’t you like living out here? What’s the matter, not exciting enough for you, city girl?”

  I dropped another onion in my basket. “See, that right there, that’s what’s wrong with you. You come over here, you’re nice to me, sort of, in your own special way, and then you say something like that. You don’t know anything about me, as I think we established that day at Boomer’s, but you make assumptions. For your information, I love it out here. I couldn’t think of a better place to spend the summer. The farm is beautiful, and I want to explore it. I want to paint the orchard at sunset and that empty side pasture at sunrise. Ali’s been sweet to me, and I love Bridget already. And I’m not a city girl. I go to school in Savannah, and yeah, it’s bigger than Burton, but it’s hardly New York City, is it? I grew up on the beach. Oh, and I might be slow at onion harvesting, but I’m a damned hard worker.”

  “Whoa, there.” We’d come to the end of the rows, and Sam held out one hand toward me. “Nobody said you don’t work hard. You’re the one who brought up moving.”

  “Only because I’m trying to be nice, dumbass!” I stamped my foot, which in the soft dirt had far less effect than I might have wanted. “I’m giving you an out. To say—yes, Meghan, you make me uncomfortable and I don’t like you, so take your stupid self off to another place.”

  He frowned and glanced over the field. “I didn’t say you were stupid.”

  I set my jaw and rolled my eyes. “Oh my God, you are the most irritating man. Fine. I’m not stupid, and I work hard.” It struck me what he hadn’t denied. “But I do make you uncomfortable? Why? Because of the drinking still? I promise you, I don’t make a habit of it. You don’t have to hide the vodka while I’m here.”

  “No, not because of the drinking. I told you, I realized I was wrong to say what I did that day. Your friend—Laura—she told me you didn’t get drunk very often.”

  “Then what is it?” My basket was getting heavy, and I set it on the ground, rolling my shoulders. Sam’s eyes dropped to my chest as the motion drew the cotton T-shirt tight over my boobs. I watched in fascination as his Adam’s apple bobbed and he licked his lips. Interesting.

  “I don’t know.” He closed his eyes and ran a grimy hand through his hair, leaving it standing on end.

  “If you don’t know why I make you uncomfortable, then I don’t know how to stop doing it.” I took one deliberate step closer to him, standing on the lumpy ground where the onion plants had been. His eyes widened slightly, and he stiffened.

  “Are you more uncomfortable now, Sam?” I realized this was the first time I’d called him by name. It gave me an odd thrill. “Does it make you nervous when I stand this close to you?”

  He looked down into my eyes as though he had no other choice. “Only because you smell like bug spray and onion juice.”

  I let a smile curve my lips, and I stood on my tip-toes so that my lips were even with his ear.

  “Liar.”

  I stepped back, still smiling, as Ali came over. “What’s going on?”

  “Nothing.” I picked up my basket again. “Sam was just giving me some pointers.”

  “Really?” Ali didn’t look convinced, but she only held out a hand to me. “Here, let me have your basket. I’m taking mine over to the truck. Just get a new one and you can start on the next row, if you want.”

  “No problem.” And because he was still standing there motionless, I made it a point to step close enough to Sam that my arm brushed him as I passed.

  Just because I could.

  I HELPED WITH THE onions again the next night and was there when Ali carefully loaded the last basket into the truck. A little cheer went up from the eight of us who’d been working.

  “Onion harvest is officially finished for another year.” Sam stood by the truck. “Thanks, everyone. I’m going to get these over to the barn.”

  “Sam, Bridge and I are going home so she can go to bed. Art class starts tomorrow, and I want her to get a good night’s sleep.” She slid her eyes in my direction. “Meghan, why don’t you ride over to the barn? You can see what happens to the onions in the next step and give Sam a hand with unloading.”

  If looks could kill, Ali would have been flat on her back in the soft dirt. Sam glared at her and opened the door to the truck cab. “I’m good. I have help over there already.” He glanced at me for a scant moment. “Besides, if class begins tomorrow, maybe the teacher needs her rest, too.”

  “Oh, I’m good. I don’t need much sleep.” I went to the other side of the truck. “And I really wanted to see what happens to all those onions I picked.” I climbed onto the wheel well so that I could see him over the truck bed. “Unless you’re not comfortable with me riding over with you, Sam?”

  Ali laughed. “I’ll leave you two to work this out. Bridget, get a move on, darlin’.”

  I looked down at Sam, one eyebrow raised. “Well? What’s it going to be? Are you man enough to handle a little ride to the barn with me?”

  He growled and swung up into the cab. “Get in the damn truck. I don’t have time for this.”

  I jumped to the ground, opened the passenger door and hoisted myself in to sit next to him. “See, that wasn’t so hard.”

  Sam turned the key in the ignition and shifted into gear. “I don’t know why you’re making this such a big deal. It’s onions. There’ll be people cutting tops and roots. It’s not that exciting.”

  “I just want to see the whole process.” I leaned back against the door and drew my knees up onto the seat. This was the old farm pick-up that they only used to transport things back and forth on the property. The paint was chipping on the exterior; in fact, in some places it was completely worn away. The inside smelled of cigarette smoke and sweat, and the seatbelts had been cut out years before. There was something about seeing Sam in the driver’s seat, with one elbow bent over the rolled down window and the other hand resting on the wheel, that really turned me on. I had a sudden vision of the two of us parked in some hidden corner of the farm, making out in this cab. The idea of Sam’s hands on me definitely made me hot and bothered. I shifted in the seat.

  Sam glanced at me, the dark expression still on his face. “If you wanted to see the whole process, you should’ve been here last winter when we planted. Or in the spring when we weeded. Or even last week when we started undercutting. You’re getting the tail end of it. I don’t get why it matters to you.”

  That was an easy one. “I like to learn. I want to know how everything works, and why. It makes me happy to think that the next time I pick up an onion in the grocery store, I’ll have a better idea of how it came to be there.”

  Sam grunted. “Wonderful. Glad we could help with your education.” He sounded anything but glad, and I smothered a sigh as we stopped at the barn.

  The sun had already set, leaving us in the dim twilight, but the interior of the big building was flooded with lights, and the wide doors were propped open. Three women stood at a long table, their hands moving so fast as they trimmed the onions that I nearly couldn’t see them work. They called greetings to us as Sam and I got out of the truck.

  We
unloaded the bed in silence. I liked to tease Sam, and I was enjoying seeing how far he’d let me push before he either gave in and admitted he felt some attraction to me or began to push back. But I didn’t mess with his work. I wanted to be helpful, so I did exactly as he told me and carried baskets to the end of the work table.

  When we’d delivered the last load, one of the women looked up at us, grinning. “Sam, you got yourself a new helper, eh? Pretty new girlfriend?”

  “Not my girlfriend.” Sam’s jaw was clenched. “She’s just a college student, staying with us for the summer to teach art.”

  The woman only shook her head and winked at me. I smiled back, even as I felt Sam’s obvious rebuff. Just a college student.

  “Maddy, you’ll finish up here and lock up? Turn everything off?” Sam addressed the woman who’d been teasing him.

  “Sure thing, Sam. Just like every night. I got it covered. You look like you’re dead asleep on your feet. Better go home and get some rest.”

  Sam nodded. “Yeah, last day of onion season’s a killer. Thanks, Maddy.” He waved to the other two women and headed back to the truck.

  I walked behind him and got back into the cab in silence. Sam started it up again without looking at me. I snuck glances at his profile and realized Maddy was right: he did look exhausted.

  “So was onion harvest everything you’d hoped it would be?” He was trying to be sarcastic, I knew, but I decided to pretend otherwise.

  “Yup. I now feel qualified to call myself an onion expert.”

  “Huh.” The side of Sam’s lip curled. “If that’s what it takes to make you think you’re an expert, I’m a little worried about these art classes you’re supposed to be teaching.”

  “Hey.” I sat up straighter in my seat. “You can make fun of me trying to help with onion harvest, you can say I’m immature or whatever because I got crazy drunk one night, but don’t mess with my art. I take my craft seriously. And I’m very, very good at it.”

  He had the good grace to look contrite. “Sorry, low blow. I’m tired. I don’t do well with tired.”

  “Yeah, I get that.” The house came into view, and I took a deep breath before I asked my next question. “Is that really all you think of me? Just a college student who’s staying at your house while I’m teaching art?”

  Sam parked the truck by the shed, but he didn’t open his door. I didn’t move either.

  “What else do you want me to say? That’s who you are.”

  “But ...” I wasn’t sure how to put into words what I wanted to express. “But from the other times. We met twice before I even got here.”

  “Yeah.” He nodded. “But the first time, you were too hammered to open your eyes, let alone talk. And the second time ...” He stared out the windshield into the dark. “I was yelling too much to get to know you. So even though I saw you before, I don’t know any more about you than I would if I’d met you for the first time the other day in my living room.”

  I played with a loose piece of plastic that had peeled up from the seat. “I guess that makes sense. I think—” I paused, trying to choose the right words. “I think I feel like you made an impression on me. Even though I really didn’t remember anything about the car breaking down that night, I still had a memory of you the next morning. Just a flash, but it was there. That’s why I got so hurt when you yelled at me at Boomer’s. I thought you were a nice guy, and then you weren’t. At least, not that day, to me.”

  Sam’s cheek twitched. “I can see that. But, well ...” He shrugged. “What does it matter?”

  I ran my tongue across my bottom lip. “Maybe because I think I’m kind of attracted to you. And I think maybe you are to me, too. That’s why you got all over me that day, and that’s why it upset me when you did.”

  He didn’t rush to deny it, as I thought he might. For a full minute, he didn’t respond at all. When he did, his voice was flat.

  “Listen, you don’t know me at all. I don’t know you. So any, um, attraction we might feel is probably just circumstantial, and we need to ignore it and move on. I’m much too old for you, and I can tell you for sure, I’m not interested in someone like you. So if you stick to your art lessons, which is why you’re here, and I concentrate on my work, the summer’ll be over fast enough.”

  I slid a little closer to him on the seat. “You said you’re not interested, but you didn’t say you weren’t attracted.”

  He finally looked at me, and the angry passion nearly made me shrink back. “Who the hell wouldn’t be attracted to you? You’re beautiful, you must know that. And you give off this vibe ... I don’t know what you’d call it, but it’s there. Doesn’t matter, though. Just because you feel something doesn’t mean you have to act on it. And trust me, I’m not.”

  He opened the door, got out of the truck and slammed it behind him. I watched him stalk into the house. He didn’t look back to see if I were following him inside.

  I sat for a long time in the dark cab, alone.

  I WAS USED TO living with women. My grandmother had lived with us until her death, so between her, my mom and Ali, Dad and I had been outnumbered. And even after she wasn’t around, it always felt like the females were predominant in our home. I was okay with that; they treated me well, fed me and kept me from making stupid mistakes most of the time.

  After Grandma and then my parents were gone, it was just Ali and me. She was young, but she’d picked up where Mom had left off, taking on the cooking and most of the housework. Her marriage to Craig was a little bit of a surprise, and it left me with a house that felt empty. I learned to get by on my own. When Ali and Bridget moved home, my sister’d picked up her role in my life as if she’d never left, and there was no doubt her little girl had me wrapped around her finger. I was used to being in the minority. I could deal with it.

  Or so I’d thought.

  In the two weeks she’d been living in our house, somehow Meghan had shifted the balance so that sometimes I felt like I was an interloper in my own home. I thought I knew what it must be like in a college sorority, thanks to the giggling, the private jokes and the chick flicks on TV in the evenings. My sister had morphed from the mature, responsible woman I’d known for the past seven years to a teasing, winking teeny-bopper.

  And Bridget wasn’t any better. She was thriving with the extra attention and was quick to tell me each night how much everyone at school loved the new art teacher. She brought home different projects each day, and even I had to admit that it was cool to see the improvements in her work when she pointed them out to me. But the breaking point came one late afternoon when I came in from the fields to find the three of them in the living room, with the carpet rolled up, dancing to some crazy music from Meghan’s iPod blaster.

  Seeing them jumping and gyrating around was the final straw. I needed to escape all the estrogen that was flowing through my house before it consumed me and I found myself doing the cha-cha slide or whatever the hell they called it. So as we finished dinner, I announced that I was going into town to run some errands.

  “Tonight?” Ali frowned at me. “Can’t it wait until tomorrow? I can pick up what you need. I’m helping Meghan at the school for a few hours in the afternoon.”

  “No, it really can’t.” I spoke more adamantly than I’d intended, and they all three looked at me in surprise. “I mean, I need this part for the tractor first thing in the morning. I’ve got to go round to Boomer’s and then to the hardware store and talk to Mitch. And I want to see if Mr. Harper’s around, so I can ask him about the bees.”

  “Okay.” Ali shrugged. “I was just trying to save you a trip.”

  “Yeah, thanks. I’m going to head out now. See y’all later.” I practically ran through the door, and I was pretty sure I heard giggling behind me as I got into the truck. The sound went right up my spine and bounced around in my head. God, did I need this break.

  I stopped at the hardware store first and picked up a few things I knew I was going to need in the coming weeks
. None of it was pressing, but Ali would grill me if I came home empty-handed. I spent a solid half-hour shooting the breeze with Larry, the store’s owner. I worked for him part-time in the winters to make ends meet when the stand was closed, and he was a decent guy. It was a relief to talk baseball, whatever bugs were trying to eat my cucumber plants and even a little town politics. He didn’t once mention art, pop culture or nail polish, and for that I was grateful.

  I swung by Boomer’s after that, catching him just before he closed up.

  “Hey, boy. Whatcha need?” He leaned back against his paper-strewn desk, keys in his hand.

  “Hey, Boomer. Do me a favor and take some part you have laying around that you don’t need and toss it in a paper bag for me.”

  The older man folded his arms across his broad chest and cocked his head. “Say what? Little early for drinking, isn’t it, Sam?”

  I shook my head. “Haven’t had a drop. But I told Ali I was coming out tonight to pick up a part I needed first thing tomorrow morning, and if I come home without a bag from you, she’ll know.”

  He shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “So you’re lying to your sister, huh? You got a girl out here in town, boy? Who’re you seeing?”

  “God almighty, no. Last thing I need is another girl. That’s why I had to get out.” I shuddered, and Boomer chuckled.

  “Ah, I see. You got that pretty little art teacher living out with you now, and the females are ganging up on you, huh?”

  “Not so much ganging up as ... giggling. Boomer, you don’t know. They talk about the stupidest things, and then they laugh like it’s hysterical ... they’re making me nuts. I just had to get away tonight.”

  “Hmm.” Boomer eyed me up and down. “Funny thing, wasn’t it, that girl getting the job here in Burton. You think that’s why she was here that night, scouting us out?”

  “Nah.” I shook my head. “It was just one of those things. Coincidence.”

  “Well, I wouldn’t have figured her to stay around once she knew it was your house she was living in. The day she came to pick up her car, I was afraid to leave the two of you alone. Wasn’t sure if I’d come back to see you in a knock-down brawl ... or on the floor doing some other kind of wrestling.” He smirked.