Homestead

by Radclyffe

  “No, I’m fine, thanks,” Tess said again and sat in one of the casual chairs arranged in a small seating area in front of the windows. Watching people walking by, she tried to remember the last time she’d been in the city. Two years? Three? In the last few years, more and more of the farm work had fallen to her, which provided a convenient excuse for her progressively hermitlike life. She hadn’t dated anyone after a few casual relationships during college that were more friendly than passionate, and though she detected some interest in a few women she bumped into regularly in the village and at Grange meetings, she always managed to sidestep any possibility of intimacy. She was tired of disappointing the ones who hoped for something more—something she seemed unable to give and had forgotten how to feel. She told herself she was too busy for a relationship, and that was partly true. The other part she didn’t want to look at too closely.

  A door opened behind her and she turned, grateful for the sound of footsteps dispelling her self-analysis. Leslie looked exactly the same, a more sophisticated version of the girl Tess remembered. About Tess’s height, Les was blond and willowy, with ocean-blue eyes, a classic heart-shaped face, and arching cheekbones. Dressed in charcoal pinstriped pants with low black heels and a crisp open-collared blue shirt, she managed to look totally professional and incredibly attractive at the same time.

  Tess stood and held out her hand, refusing to think about how she appeared in her yellow cotton shirt, brown pants, and loafers. “Leslie, I—”

  “Tess!” Leslie folded her into a hug and squeezed. “It’s great to see you.”

  Leslie smelled like almonds and vanilla, just like always, and her slightly husky voice was as warm and friendly as Tess remembered. A lump formed in Tess’s throat, and for a second she had trouble getting the words out. “You smell the same.”

  “And you look terrific.”

  “I’m so sorry I waited so long,” Tess whispered.

  Leslie held on to her shoulders and leaned back, her eyes glowing. “That doesn’t matter. You’re here now and I’m so glad. Are you hungry?”

  “I’m starved,” Tess said, laughing.

  Leslie looped her arm through Tess’s and tugged her toward the door. “Come on, then. Me too. Estelle, I’ll be back in a couple of hours.”

  “All’s quiet here.” Estelle waved a hand. “Have a good time.”

  Leslie took her to a small, unassuming bistro around the corner where they were seated right away at a round table for two near the front window.

  “It’s not fancy,” Leslie said, “but they bake their own bread and their sandwiches are great. Salads are good too, if you’d prefer.”

  “I’ll follow your lead,” Tess said.

  While they waited for the food Leslie ordered, Leslie said, “Before we get too far into things, let me explain a little bit about what I do. You might want to talk to someone else.”

  “When I said I wanted to consult you,” Tess said, “I don’t actually know if I need legal representation. Mostly I need an informed opinion, and I wanted one from someone who I could trust to give me straight answers. And confidential ones.”

  “Good enough,” Leslie said. “My practice mostly deals with corporate development issues, particularly when environmental regulations and questions of compliance come up.”

  Tess nodded. “So how much do you know about fracking?”

  “A lot more than you might think.” Leslie waited while the waitress placed enormous sandwiches in front of them. “Dev is a researcher for the state Environmental Conservation Department, and her specialty, more or less, is water. Well, water and everything that’s in it, especially fish.” Leslie smiled as if thinking of some secret joke. “Believe me, that’s made for some interesting conversations around our house.”

  Tess laughed. “I can imagine.”

  “Dev has testified at a number of state hearings concerning the impact of deep hydraulic drilling and has compiled reports on the impact of fracking on the water table, aquatic life, and a lot of other things.” Leslie stopped, shook her head. “In fact, you probably should be talking to her and not me.”

  “I might want to,” Tess agreed. “But they’re about to start drilling close to my farm, and I’m worried. I’m not the only one. Quite a few farmers in the area are opposed to the drilling, and I’m not sure anyone really has enough information to make an informed decision.”

  “What did the representatives from the gas company say? They can generally project how deep they have to go, the proximity to the aquifer in your area, the composition of the propellant they’ll be infusing—and how all that could potentially affect surrounding terrain.”

  “Clay just got into town yesterday,” Tess said, “and we haven’t really heard anything yet.”

  Leslie tilted her head. “Clay. Not the Clay from the lake?”

  “Yes,” Tess said.

  “Wow. Talk about coincidences.”

  Tess felt her face warm and looked down at her plate. “A surprise to me too.”

  “So what do you want to do?”

  That was the question Tess had been turning over in her mind since she’d learned about NorthAm. She took a breath. “Is there a way to at least delay them until those of us who might be affected can get a clear picture of what’s going to happen?”

  “Probably. An emergency injunction could be obtained fairly quickly. It wouldn’t stop things indefinitely, but it would buy some time and give everyone the opportunity to discuss the issues. Perhaps there are alternatives to where they plan to drill or some information they can provide to help allay concerns.”

  Tess nodded. “How would we go about that?”

  “You need an attorney to represent you—or a number of landowners, if possible.” Leslie explained while they finished their meal. “Now, I’m simplifying some here, but a case can be made that the drilling presents possible harm to humans through water or other environmental hazards, and on that basis we could request a prohibitive injunction.”

  “Doesn’t that require some kind of evidence?”

  “Not necessarily,” Leslie said. “That’s the power of this kind of argument.”

  “It all sounds so complicated,” Tess said.

  “It’s possible that none of it will be necessary, and a few conversations will help put everyone’s mind at ease.” Leslie leaned back with a sigh. “That’s generally the best outcome—legal action can be long and costly and is often not necessary.”

  “I hope you’re right.”

  “So,” Leslie said, sipping the espresso she’d ordered, “tell me about Clay. You haven’t seen her since that summer at the lake?”

  “No,” Tess said softly. “We…lost touch.”

  “But back then, you were…?” Leslie’s brows rose questioningly.

  “Yes, for a while,” Tess said. “You know, summer fling.”

  “Sometimes those flings are the beginning of something a lot more serious,” Leslie murmured.

  “You and Dev,” Tess said. “I knew you went to school together, but I didn’t realize you were involved.”

  Leslie smiled. “For the longest time I didn’t know what was happening between us. I only knew I wanted to be with her more than anyone else. And then when I did finally understand, everything got so complicated, and…” She sighed. “Well, we both made some mistakes. But we figured it out.”

  “You were lucky,” Tess said quietly. Second chances made good stories, but there was no way to turn back time. Once love was lost, it stayed lost.

  Chapter Seven

  A knock sounded on the metal door of the trailer, and a second later Ella stepped inside.

  “Hey,” she said. “You’ve been locked up in here almost all day. You want something to eat?”

  Clay pushed back from the workbench bolted to the long wall of the thirty-foot trailer where she’d spread out the survey maps of the surrounding counties. A big satellite dish sat on the roof, providing Internet access for the laptop she’d set up to review doc
uments related to the job. If the wind didn’t blow too much, she had a pretty decent signal.

  “What time is it?” Clay asked. Someone in marketing had labeled the current job the Adirondack Pilot Project. The specs called for forty drill sites within a hundred square miles of where she sat. From the air, the rolling hills would resemble a porcupine of tower-quills.

  “Almost four.”

  Clay rubbed her face and sipped some of the cold coffee from the thermos Ella had left for her early in the day. The thermos was about as empty as her stomach, and her stomach was sending out distress signals. “Did you eat?”

  “Some of the guys got pizza a while ago—I saved you some.”

  “Thanks. Sorry, the day kind of got away from me.”

  Ella leaned a hip against the counter. “It’s a pretty place. I found a spot in the shade.” She indicated the iPad mini she carried everywhere with her, outlined in her jacket pocket. “I’m used to waiting. Problems?”

  “I’m starting to think so.” Clay grimaced. “I haven’t had a chance to review all Ali’s filings yet, but we’ve got more than a few uncrossed t’s. Acquisitions have been scattershot. Whole tracts of land right in the middle of our projected drill fields are under active use, and we don’t have clear right-of-way. Getting permits could be a problem.”

  “Have those owners been approached?”

  Ella was more than just Clay’s guard and assistant. She was smart and quick and had been around long enough to have learned a lot about the business. Oftentimes when it was just the two of them traveling from one project to the next, Clay talked things over with her. Ella’s insights, unmotivated by personal gain and uninfluenced by corporate politics, often gave Clay valuable perspective. This time, she was going to need it.

  “That’s the big question.” Clay tapped the survey map. “If we don’t secure rights from a couple of places, we could be in trouble. From the looks of the geological analysis, we’re going to be drilling under them if not through them.”

  “Well, the underground drilling rights will be easy to get, don’t you think? If we’re not putting derricks on the property, the acceptance will be higher.”

  “Ordinarily, I’d say yes, but the farming industry up here is a little different than what we’re used to in Texas or even the Midwest. These aren’t big corporate farms with thousands of heads of beef cattle being bred for market. In this area especially, we’re looking at dairy farms. Not only that”—she tapped the map again, her pen bouncing on the words Rolling Hills Farm—“organic ones to boot.”

  “Well, that throws a spanner in the works,” Ella muttered. “Operations like that tend to be paranoid about anything that even smells of chemicals.”

  “Tell me about it.” Clay rolled back the desk chair, stood, and stretched the tight muscles in her lower back. She squinted out through the slatted windows of the trailer into the yard, a hundred square feet of packed earth that had once been a pasture. Men and women were off-loading eighteen-wheelers filled with machinery—front-loaders, bulldozers, drills, and derrick parts. Flatbeds carried prefab walls and roofs for temporary housing. Swarms of construction workers had already erected a cluster of barracks with sleeping quarters for eight, and rudimentary bathrooms with chem toilets and stall showers near the bordering woods. Tanker trucks pumped in water, time-rationed with automatic cutoffs, encouraging fast showers. The spectacle was so common she barely noticed it most of the time. NorthAm built mini-villages like this on every job site—mobile communities that could be erected or struck at a moment’s notice. To the locals, NorthAm probably looked like a marauding raider laying waste to the countryside. And this was only the beginning of the siege.

  In the next few weeks, the cranes and drill towers would arrive, and once that happened, the project would gain a momentum of its own, impossible to redirect. Before then, Clay had to assuage the community’s concerns and secure the rights NorthAm needed to tap the underground fuel in the quickest, most cost-effective way. Without endangering the land or the water.

  “So what’s your next move?” Ella said.

  “Time to go a-visiting,” Clay said with equal parts uncertainty and anticipation. She’d been hoping for an excuse to see Tess again, but Tess wasn’t going to be happy about what she had to say.

  *

  Tess turned into the driveway a little after four. She and Leslie had talked long after lunch ended, catching up as they ambled through Washington Park past people sprawled in the grass with backpacks and laptops scattered around them, or walking dogs, or pushing strollers with children sleeping in the late-afternoon heat. Finally Tess couldn’t put off the inevitable.

  “I have to head back—afternoon chores.”

  “I guess I should go back to the office and wrap up too,” Leslie had said, “but I really don’t want to.”

  Leslie had dropped onto a bench overlooking one of the small ponds that marked the heart of the large park. A flagstone walkway, shaded by trees and shrubs, circled it.

  Tess sank down beside her. “It’s been great seeing you.”

  Leslie turned on the bench, one arm stretched out along the top, and smiled. “It has. I don’t want to lose touch again.”

  “Neither do I,” Tess said softly. “I’d love to see Dev again too.”

  “Then we have to get together soon.” Leslie had smiled that smile she got whenever she seemed to be thinking about Dev. As if some secret pleasure had been brought to mind that eclipsed everything else.

  Tess had wondered then what that would be like, to love someone whose mere presence was more important than anything else, and to be loved by them in return.

  She’d still been thinking about it all the way home. Turning into the long dirt drive to the house, she shook off the musings and pulled her truck around the side of the barn and under the lean-to. She’d promised Leslie she would get together with her and Dev at their house on the lake, but she wasn’t sure now she ever would.

  The thought of visiting the lake sent a twinge of pain flaring around her heart. Silly. She couldn’t avoid a place just because once upon a time she’d thought it was a fairyland filled with endless possibility and limitless promise. Just because she’d thought she’d found the future there and learned she had been wrong. She’d been taken with the fantasies of youth and hadn’t realized until now she hadn’t quite been able to let them go. She really should thank Clay for showing up and forcing her to face her own foolishness.

  Feeling a little more settled, she stopped in the barn to check the mother cat who’d wandered in from the fields during a rainstorm and promptly deposited five newborn kittens in a bed of straw she’d carefully built on a wide, deep windowsill. Tess had been feeding the mother ever since, and every day the mother let her get a little closer to the sanctuary before hissing to warn her off. Tess made it to within three feet of the litter today and counted that all five kittens were still there and growing well. Two orange ones like their mama, a tortoise, a gray striped, and a black with a white blaze on its chest. She knelt down and held out her hand, and the mother cat ambled over to allow Tess to scratch behind her ears. Tess hadn’t tried to pick her up and doubted the cat would like it, being as she was the independent sort. But no matter how independent she might be, she liked the attention.

  “You’re going to have to let me pick them up, you know,” Tess murmured, stroking the cat’s soft fur. “Otherwise, we’re going to have a pack of wild kittens running around, and before long we’ll have an entire country of them right here on the farm.” The mother arched her back and looked unperturbed by the notion of a new generation of felines on her adopted territory. “But we’ve got time, don’t we?”

  The mother cat didn’t answer, just purred to announce that she would consider Tess’s concerns and let her know how she felt about trusting her kittens to a human.

  Tess laughed and walked out to the barnyard. She stopped before she’d gone ten feet. A black SUV was parked by her front porch. She didn’t know the vehicl
e, a shiny, new oversized monster designed more for carting people around than goods and equipment. Not a farmer’s car. A corporate car. Her spine stiffened. She could only think of one person who might be driving a car like that around here, and she’d made it clear that person did not have an open invitation to drop in. She strode forward, her jaws clenched tight, formulating her verbal assault, just as the driver’s door opened and a gorgeous blonde stepped out.

  Tess slowed, surveyed the woman. She looked…Nordic, somehow. Her blond hair was so pure gold it almost seemed white. Even from twenty feet, the woman’s deep-blue eyes, as crystal clear as a high mountain lake, were captivating. Tess had a hard time looking away as the stranger walked to the front of the car and stopped, waiting, her gaze holding Tess’s. Another door opened and her passenger stepped out. Clay.

  Tess didn’t need to look to know. The heat-laden air shimmered, as if a pulse of energy coursed through it. Her skin tingled. Imagination, of course. Who else would it be? Tess steeled herself and pulled away from the blonde’s hypnotic aura.

  “I don’t remember making an appointment,” Tess said.

  Clay smiled, the lopsided half-rueful, half-apologetic grin that once had Tess’s heart melting a little. But it would take more than a smile to melt the ice that encased her heart now. She waited.

  “Tess, sorry to barge in, and I promise not to make a habit of it,” Clay said, the grin disappearing. “But I called and didn’t get an answer, so I thought I’d take a chance you’d be out working somewhere.” Clay gestured to the blonde. “This is Ella Sorenson, my assistant.”

  Assistant. Tess tried to square the memory of the rebellious teenager on the big black motorcycle with the present businesswoman who looked polished even in casual clothes, accompanied by an equally polished assistant. She couldn’t.

  “Hello,” Tess said, trying to sound at least a little bit civil. She didn’t know the blonde, after all, and her relationship to Clay really didn’t matter. Shouldn’t matter, anyhow.

  “Please to meet you, Ms. Rogers,” Ella said in a mellifluous alto that sounded cultured and confident and sexy. All the things Tess was not feeling right now.