Darien had been in Wal-Mart enough over the years to know exactly where she was going. She grabbed a cart and headed towards electronics to get a large pack of batteries. Then, she went over to the home goods area to find a laundry basket, bed sheets, a couple of towels, a toaster oven, and a small coffee pot. From there, she passed by the clothing where she grabbed a couple of shirts along with socks and a package of underwear.
After she had the necessities, Darien walked across the store to the grocery side, grabbing a few things here and there, when she ran into Courtney, who eyeballed everything in her cart like a mother hen.
“You can take those off inside,” she scolded, pointing to Darien’s sunglasses.
“They’re prescription.” Darien shrugged.
Courtney turned away with her basket and called over her shoulder, “Don’t buy any vegetables. We have whatever you need fresh on the farm. If Beverly finds you eating veggies from a chain store, she’s liable to run you over with that old truck of yours.”
As she walked away, Darien watched her ass move under the cut-off shorts she seemed to always wear. Then, she rolled her eyes and took the vegetables out of her cart.
***
When they got home, Darien donned her hat and changed into a dark blue tank top with a black sports bra under it to go with the jeans and sneakers she was already wearing. Then, she turned her little battery-powered radio up loud on an old rock and roll station and spent the rest of the day out in the hot sun, working on her truck next to the barn.
By the end of the day, she’d changed the plugs, plug wires, oil, oil filter, and radiator fluid, and had also put a cleaning solution in the gas tank. She leaned against the side of the truck, pulling her shirt up to wipe the sweat from her face as she thought about all of the things she still had to do—change the distributor cap and points, clean the carburetor, then start sanding the rust spots on the bed so she could repair them. All of which she had planned for the next day.
***
“You’re steaming up the window,” Beverly teased when she saw Courtney looking out.
“What?” Courtney shook her head.
“I’m sure she’ll let you help if you ask.”
“The last thing I want to be doing is working on an old piece-of-shit truck.”
“What’s gotten into you lately?” Beverly asked.
“Me? What’s gotten into you? I’m starting to think we need to take you back to the doctor.”
“What for? I’m fine. I see him every three months like I’m supposed to. There are no new symptoms,” Beverly stated. “I’m not the one moping around like a grouchy cat in heat.”
Courtney’s eyes nearly bugged out of her head. She had no idea what to say to the older woman sitting on the couch. They’d grown close over the years and were as close as mother and daughter, but she felt a little uncomfortable discussing her sex life with her mother-in-law.
“By the way, I invited her to lunch tomorrow,” Beverly added.
“Is this turning into a weekly occurrence?” Courtney asked.
“I don’t know. What is she bothering you so much about her? I don’t think I’ve ever seen you this edgy.”
“I don’t know, Beverly. There’s something about her. I can’t quite put my finger on it.”
“I think you’re attracted to her and it’s sent your head into a tailspin. Honey, it’s okay to move on with your life.”
Courtney sighed. “That’s not it. She’s—”
“A fine-looking specimen, if I do say so myself. Don’t kid yourself or me.” Beverly winked.
“Is that why you hired her? You’re trying to set me up?” Courtney squeaked.
“Of course not,” Beverly laughed. “What you do with your life is your own thing. You needed help around here and she looked willing and able. I think something inside of her is broken and she’s come here to mend it. Cut her a little bit of slack and you might see she makes a great friend. We can always use friends in our life.”
Courtney nodded and looked back towards the window.
Chapter 9
Darien had finished with the distributor cap and points, plus cleaned the carburetor by lunchtime. She quickly washed up and headed over to the house for lunch with Beverly.
“Come on in,” Beverly called, seeing her in the doorway. “I know you’ve been working hard out there, so I told her to make something filling. I hope you like chicken and dumplings. Courtney’s getting better and better with my recipes, so lunch should be divine.”
Darien smiled and nodded at the older woman before following her into the kitchen.
“You know, I don’t think I’ve heard you take a break in hours,” Beverly added.
“I’m sorry if I’ve made too much noise,” Darien replied.
“Oh, nonsense. I think I’d like to go for a spin when you get that old thing running.” Beverly smiled.
“Sure,” Darien murmured with a nod. She kept her sunglasses on, but she still saw Courtney’s stare from across the room.
“Here you go, ladies. Enjoy,” Courtney said, setting two bowls on the table.
“Are you not eating?” Darien asked.
“No, not right now. I’m going to take some over to Jason while it’s hot. He was up all night with a cow that was giving birth.”
Darien grimaced.
***
After they finished their meal, Beverly asked Darien to help her up the stairs. Darien knew something was ailing the older woman, but she wasn’t exactly sure what is was. She’d noticed right away that Courtney was also living in the family house with Beverly and presumably, her caretaker.
“Would you mind telling me one of those stories?” Beverly asked as she began to get situated in her bed.
“Sure. What kind of story would you like?”
Darien moved to grab the small, wooden chair on the other side of the room. It literally felt like her heart had stopped breathing when she saw the framed photo on the dresser. She froze, looking into the same eyes that she saw everyday in the mirror. The picture was of a young woman with long blonde hair and a thin smile. She looked a little bit like a younger version of Beverly. There was no doubt in Darien’s mind that this was Beverly’s daughter, Janice, and her organ donor. The bright, bluish-green eyes of the woman in the photo were identical to hers. Darien quickly recovered and brought the chair over next to the bed.
“Oh, I don’t know. Tell me how you wound up in the military,” Beverly replied, finally getting herself comfortable enough to take a nap.
Darien pursed her lips. “I’m afraid that one is a little boring, actually.”
“I’ll be the judge of that.” Beverly smiled.
Darien stretched her legs out in front of her, crossing them at her ankles. “Well,” she began. “I was a modest student in school and when I graduated, I was offered a small academic scholarship. It paid for me to go to the local community college for two years, where I received an Associate in Applied Science degree in Criminal Justice.” Darien paused. “I wanted to be a cop, at least until Career Day. The college invited a large group of companies, corporations, municipalities, and the military, to an annual gathering for students to help them choose a career path. I walked around each of the booths, paying close attention to what the local and state police had to offer. Then, on my way out, I passed by the military booths where a man in a Marine Corps uniform stepped in front of me. He asked my name and my major. Then he began telling me about the Marines and what they could do for me. I was already physically fit from playing sports and being generally active most of my life, and I was an only child who grew up with strict discipline from a father who’d work hard all of his life to provide for his family.
Darien uncrossed her legs and shrugged. “At the end of the day, the Marines sounded a hell of a lot better than the Phoenix Police Department. So, I started learning everything I could about the Marines, and when I graduated six months later, I enlisted.”
“Wow, so you were a Marine! That’
s impressive, Darien. What did your parents think?” Beverly asked.
“Neither of them were happy at first, but they’d known for years that I was looking for a well-structured and disciplined career path. I was different from most kids and they accepted who I was from the very beginning. When I graduated from boot camp, they both said it was the proudest day in their lives, which meant a lot to me since being a Marine meant so much more to me than my high school diploma or the college degree that I’d earned,” Darien answered as she watched Beverly’s eyes slowly close.
She waited a few minutes before pulling the thin blanket up a little higher on the sleeping woman, then headed towards the stairs.
“Can we talk for a second,” Courtney said from her position in the doorway of another bedroom down the hall, startling Darien since she hadn’t seen the woman in her peripheral vision.
“Sure,” Darien sighed. She thought she was getting used to the missing portion of her sight, but she was still caught off guard almost daily.
“I know Beverly’s a curious person, but please don’t tell her horrible stories about the war. They will give her nightmares.”
Darien stiffened. “I’d never do that,” she exclaimed. “No one should know what it’s truly like over there,” she murmured as she walked away.
***
Courtney watched her go down the stairs and out of the house. Then, she moved to the window, following Darien with her eyes until she disappeared into the apartment. Courtney had no idea what it was about the mysterious woman that both aroused and irritated her. She’d been listening at the door during Darien’s story and was equally surprised that she’d been a Marine. Her work ethic and general nature were starting to make more sense.
Courtney closed the curtain and went to Beverly’s room to check on her. She found the older woman sound asleep with her throw blanket pulled up. She seemed comfortable, so Courtney turned away, leaving her to nap. She saw the picture on the dresser and paused for a minute, letting her eyes linger over the face staring back at her, before going back downstairs.
Chapter 10
The next two weeks had slipped by in a blur. Darien had finally finished the dreadful fence painting and had been instructed to paint the barn, another daunting task that would take a couple of weeks to complete. She was starting to wonder if the manual labor was worth it. She was fairly certain that Beverly was sick and if Janice truly was her daughter, she wondered if telling her the truth was the right thing to do. There was no way she could ask what was wrong with the ailing woman. In a way, she didn’t want to know. Seeing the picture of Janice on her dresser had made everything real, reminding her of the reason she was there to begin with.
Darien was at a crossroads and thought of packing her bags in the middle of the night more than once. Courtney had continued to keep her distance, while also keeping a watchful eye on the farm hand, something Darien was very much aware of. She couldn’t figure out what Courtney’s problem was with her. She tried to think of something she may have done to rub her the wrong way, but they’d never really had a confrontation, so she was at a loss as to why the young woman didn’t like her.
***
At the end of her third week on the farm, Darien wanted to do nothing, except rest. Leading a battalion unit through the desert in the middle of a war zone hadn’t required this much physical labor. She was in impeccable shape, but completely unaccustomed to moving all of her muscles at once until she was dead on her feet every day.
She slept nearly two hours past the sunrise on Saturday morning and stretched languidly before getting up to make a cup of coffee. Her stomach began to growl when the smell of dark roasted beans permeated the air. She turned on the burner of an old camping stove she’d found in the barn the week before and prepared a couple of eggs to scramble as she popped some precooked sausage into the microwave.
The sun was shining brightly in the cloudless sky when she looked out the window. She was about to turn back to her food when she saw Courtney walk out of the house with two large, black garbage bags, which she loaded into the back of her truck. She disappeared into the house and returned a minute later with a third bag, which she added to the others before driving away. Darien cocked her head to the side, wondering what the irritable woman was up to, before going back to her breakfast.
As soon as Darien finished eating, she moseyed over to the house with her second cup of coffee in her hand and knocked on the front door. It took Beverly a little longer than normal to answer the door, which meant she’d probably been upstairs.
“I didn’t wake you, did I?” Darien asked.
“Nah. This old bird is up with sun on most days. Come on in.” Beverly smiled.
“It’s turning into a beautiful day, so I came over to see if you’d like to take that ride,” Darien stated, before taking a sip of her coffee and stepping inside.
“Oh, I’d love to.” Beverly smiled. “You have impeccable timing. This day didn’t start out very bright, but you’ve definitely turned it around.”
“Wonderful.” Darien grinned.
***
The old truck sputtered to life a few minutes later and they drove away. Beverly pointed out all of the old farmhouses that were still around from when she was a kid as they rumbled down the country roads. As they moved away from the farmland, towards town, she pointed out the places where she’d gone to school and what had once been the house she’d grown up in, which was now a church. She told Darien the story about how the church had purchased her family’s plot of land and dinky little house when her parents passed away a number of years ago. That property was now home to the largest church in Tipton.
After circling town, they stopped off for an ice cream cone at a small mom and pop parlor that purchased all of their dairy products from the Hoffman Farm and had been doing so every since the farm opened in the ‘40s.
“Were you ever married?” Darien asked when they got back into the truck.
“Boyd Hoffman was the best looking boy in my high school, in my opinion anyway. He had sandy blonde hair and incredible blue eyes. His family owned and operated Hoffman Farm. The summer before our junior year of high school, I got a job out at the farm working with the cattle. Boyd and I had already known each other from school, but we spent a lot of hours together that summer, working side-by-side from sun up to sun down. We fell in love and were pretty much inseparable after that.” She smiled. “We had two wonderful kids together, before he died in a hunting accident.”
“He sounds like a wonderful man. I’m sorry to hear that he passed.”
“Life goes on as they say. What about you?” Beverly asked. “I won’t insult you by asking if you have a husband. It is the twenty-first century after all, and I’m up with the times.”
Darien smiled. “I’ve been single for as long as I can remember. I’m afraid the military life doesn’t fit everyone,” she replied.
“What about now, since you’re retired?”
“I haven’t been retired long, and I’ve sort of been taking the time to learn to how be just Darien, not Darien the Marine.”
“That’s understandable.”
When Darien turned the truck into the long driveway, she noticed a large red pickup parked near Courtney’s smaller white one. She’d barely rolled to a stop in her parking space near the barn when Courtney bolted from the house with a slightly taller man behind her.
“Oh, my God!” Courtney yelled. “I’ve been running around frantic, trying to find you!”
“Mom, where have you been?” the man said angrily. “And who is this?”
“Calm down, both of you. Jason, this is Darien Hollister, the farmhand I told you about. It’s a beautiful day, so we took a drive,” Beverly stated.
“You can’t just take off without telling someone,” Courtney snapped, biting back the tears. “I was worried to death that something happened to you.”
“I don’t like you going off with some stranger, mom. We don’t know this woman. What if someth
ing had happened?” he said, eyeing Darien with a cold stare.
“I’m fine,” she replied, sounding slightly winded.
“Come on, let’s get you into the house where it’s cool.” Courtney grabbed Beverly’s arm and helped her inside.
“I don’t know who the hell you think you are, but you stay away from my mother. By the way, Courtney’s my girl, don’t you forget that,” Jason spat before getting into his truck and driving away quickly, sending gravel flying.
Darien shook her head at the catastrophe the day turned out to be. She thought about packing her stuff and leaving without saying another word. She’d even taken her suitcase out and sprawled it open on the bed, but she felt too strong of a connection to the farm, to Beverly…and to Courtney. She couldn’t simply cut ties and leave. She sat on the sofa and kicked her feet up on the rickety coffee table as Jason’s words bounced around inside of her head. She knew he was married to Courtney, so she didn’t understand why he felt the need to add in the additional warning.
***
Darien avoided the house for the next couple of days. Ernie instructed her on everything else that needed to be added to her to-do list, meaning Courtney had been avoiding her as well.
On Wednesday morning, Beverly spotted Darien coming out of her apartment and quickly opened the front door, calling her over. Darien obliged and crossed the short distance from the barn to the house, where Beverly asked her to come over for lunch and perhaps tell her another story.
Darien spent the rest of the morning listening to the music blasting from her small radio, while replacing the double belts on the walk-behind seeder. She had to take the thing apart completely to put the new belts on, then figure out how it went back together. There was no wonder why Ernie had left her with the task. She’d proven to be more mechanically inclined than anyone else on the farm so far, which meant she was given the difficult jobs on top of the mundane handyman work she’d been doing since she’d arrived.
Second Chance Page 5
