by Mia Ross
She really hated stacks of unfinished work.
Tapping her chin, she pondered whether there was a way to speed up the process and make it more efficient. She could try staggering the loads, or set the controls to run in the middle of the night. But then she’d have wet laundry first thing every morning, which wouldn’t solve the problem of how to dry things faster.
While she was mulling over this problem, her eyes drifted toward the clothesline she’d used the other day to avoid ruining the batting in John’s quilt. If she hung sheets out there, they could dry in the breeze while clothes and towels got the fluff treatment inside. That might work, she thought, lifting the basket of wet linens and heading out the side porch door.
In California, her yard had consisted of a ten-foot-square patio surrounded by walls and a smattering of potted plants that frequently died because she forgot to water them. Never mind hanging wash out on a line to soak up the fresh air.
Then again, she thought as she pinned the end of a fitted sheet to the line, Malibu’s salt air wasn’t the kind you’d want to bring inside. After she got the rest of the linens hung, she paused to look around. She’d caught herself doing that a lot, and she couldn’t understand why. She’d grown up in Harland, and spent a lot of time at the Sawyer farm. It wasn’t new to her, but for some reason it felt that way.
Maybe it was her perspective, she mused. Maybe it was the fact that her new job—thank you, Marianne—gave her time to stop and appreciate her surroundings. That thought made her smile when she noticed the dust cloud in a far-off field. John was out there, pounding big rocks into smaller rocks, he’d joked. It was only ten, and already the thermometer registered eighty-seven in the sun.
That field was all sun, she realized on her way inside. Matt and Ridge had been in earlier for a break, but not John. He was making up time after yesterday’s washout, and she wouldn’t be surprised if he worked right through lunch. If she let him.
She piled ham and cheese onto a sandwich then filled a large thermos with sweet tea and dropped some oatmeal cookies still warm from the oven into a bag. Just as her foot hit the bottom porch step, Tucker zoomed around the corner of the house, yapping and racing in circles.
He was so enthusiastic, she couldn’t keep back a laugh. “Oh, no. I’m not racing. You can come along, though.”
That seemed to be enough for him, and he ran ahead, checking over his shoulder several times to make sure she was still following. What a great dog, she thought with a grin. Every kid should have a pet like that.
It was a long walk out to where John was slaving away, and she figured there was no rush since he wasn’t expecting her. For the first time in forever, she didn’t hurry. While her days were busy, once the kids were off to school, she didn’t have a schedule to meet. There was always something that needed doing, but no one was standing over her, waiting for her to finish. Or emailing or texting or calling to find out when she’d be someplace or other. Or waiting to stab her in the back.
Instead, she strolled along the dusty field road, admiring the daisies and day lilies and dozens of other wildflowers that blended into the earthy scent of this sunny morning. Dragonflies and bumblebees zoomed around her, pausing for a second or two on their way to wherever they were going. At one point, a hummingbird hovered in front of her, as if checking her out.
As he raced off, Amanda realized she was smiling. She’d been anxious about making the transition from big city to sleepy hometown, thinking she’d miss all the excitement she’d come to enjoy so much. Turned out she’d been worrying over nothing. After only a few days in Harland, L.A. was quickly fading into the past.
When she reached the field John was working on, he didn’t notice her at first. With the tractor idling, he was using a long metal bar to pry a large rock from the ground. Grunting with the effort, he finally managed to loosen it. Bending down, he wrestled it free and tossed it far into the woods.
“Nice try,” he muttered, a little out of breath. When Amanda laughed, he turned with a surprised look that quickly became a sheepish grin. “Heard that, huh?”
“Yes.” Holding up the snack she’d brought, she asked, “Ready for a break?”
Squinting up at the sun, he sighed. “Ten already. I’m way behind and it’s like I haven’t even started.”
That he could nail the time without a watch impressed her. Just more evidence that she wasn’t in L.A. anymore.
“Can I help somehow?” she asked as they both sat on the ground.
After a long swallow of tea, he shook his head. “Marianne shouldn’t be by herself.”
“She’s not. She and Ridge were having a text argument about whether or not to paint the living room, so he finally came in to settle things.”
“Lemme guess,” John said with a knowing grin. “They’re debating colors and curtains and stuff.”
Amanda pointed at him as if he’d just won a game show. “Bingo. She’s climbing the walls, so he decided to stay and keep her company for a while.”
John gave her a long-suffering look. “That’s my big sister. When she gets bored, she starts redecorating. We try to keep her busy.”
“I’ll see if I can come up with something for her to do while she’s laid up.”
“That’d be great.”
Nibbling on a cookie, she glanced at the pile of rocks he’d built. “I could help for a while. If you want,” she added to avoid insulting him. Some guys didn’t like to admit they couldn’t handle a job all on their own, and for all she knew he was one of them.
“I never turn down an extra set of hands.” He motioned to the pile of rocks he’d tossed aside. “But they get kinda heavy.”
“I could drive the tractor, then.”
His laughter burst her little bubble, and she nearly gave up on the idea. But the old spirit she hadn’t felt in months came to life inside her, and she tilted her nose in the air. “Just show me what to do, plowboy. I’m a quick study.”
He quit laughing, but amusement still twinkled in his expressive eyes. “You’re serious.”
“How hard can it be?”
“The other night, you could barely hang on when I was driving.”
Standing, she folded her arms and glared down at him. She normally had to look up at him, so this was an interesting vantage point. It also gave her the sensation of having the upper hand for a change. “Do you want my help or not? Because, trust me, I have plenty of other things I could be doing.”
Shaking his head, he got to his feet and grinned at her. He didn’t say anything, and she started to feel weird. “What?”
“It’s nice to see that spunk of yours coming back is all.” Reaching out, he flipped her ponytail with a grimy finger. “These curls are real pretty.”
“I don’t have time to dry my hair before breakfast,” she said, suddenly very ill at ease. That was the teasing gesture she’d been hoping for when she arrived, but now that he’d done it, she felt strange.
“And all that war paint,” he continued in a gentle, approving tone. “You look much better without it.”
He hadn’t moved, but for some insane reason she felt as if he’d gotten closer. Maybe it was the warm current under his drawl, or the appreciation gleaming in his eyes.
Or maybe, she thought in disgust, it was her very vivid imagination inventing something that had never—and would never—exist between them. They were friends—plain and simple. She’d just begun to rebuild the bridge she’d burned, and she wasn’t about to do anything to send it crashing down again.
To cover her discomfort, she hopped onto the tractor seat and gripped the metal steering wheel in her hands. “Show me what to do.”
John demonstrated how to set the choke and adjust it to keep the cranky engine running. Having never driven anything other than an automatic transmission, she stalled it a few times before she got
the hang of it. After that, she was able to control the speed so the plow could bite through the top layer of soil without straining the motor.
Glancing frequently over her shoulder, she saw John following closely, just off to the side. Whenever she turned over a rock bigger than a grapefruit, he’d motion for her to pause so he could reach in and throw it aside.
When the sun was directly overhead, he made a slashing movement across his throat. Figuring that meant to kill the engine, she shut the tractor down and looked to him for directions.
Looking around, he rested his hands on his hips with a satisfied expression. “Great job, Panda. We got way more done together than I did on my own.”
His praise made her smile with pride. While it wasn’t the easiest thing she’d ever taken on, it felt wonderful to pay back some of the kindness he’d shown her.
“I’m curious,” she said as she stepped down and joined him. “Why are you out here doing this all by yourself?”
“Well, it’s my idea.”
“What is?”
Turning toward the house, he began walking. “Soybeans.”
Amanda’s father had been a doctor, her mother a librarian. As a kid, she’d enjoyed hanging out at the farm, but knew absolutely nothing about farming. His answer might as well have been in a foreign language. “I’m a townie, Sawyer. I need a little more detail than that.”
Chuckling, he explained. “We have to rotate our crops every few years, and I thought it might be good to get into something new. Over the winter, I went online to do some research about different things we could try here. Turns out soybeans are easy to grow and in demand all over the world.”
She couldn’t help smiling, and he scowled down at her. “What’s so funny?”
“Did you just say, ‘in demand’?”
“Yeah,” he admitted with a sheepish grin. “Weird, huh?”
“Just a little.” Linking arms with him, she gave a quick squeeze to let him know she was only razzing him. “So tell me what soybeans are used for.”
“Vegetarians eat ’em, they’re used in livestock feed, soy milk, even biofuel. There’s a great market for them right here in the States, and the distributor we use for our hay and corn told me he can’t ever get enough to fill all his orders. I figured it was worth a shot.”
“But Matt wasn’t sure about it.”
“You guessed it. But he was willing to let me try them, as long as they didn’t gobble up any of the acreage we use for our other crops.” He nodded at the rows they were strolling through. “I remembered this section out here and thought it’d be the perfect place to experiment.”
“John Sawyer, agricultural visionary,” she commented, only half teasing. When had her fun-loving buddy morphed into a risk-taking businessman? Then it hit her. “The farm’s in financial trouble, isn’t it?”
He sighed. “Always. We’re treading water these days, but we’ve got a big loan to pay off later this year. We need more cash for that, so I’m praying this works.”
In his tone, she heard more than a touch of concern, and she frowned. She’d endured her own slide into bankruptcy, but she’d only lost possessions, not a place. This farm meant so much to John and his family, she couldn’t imagine what they’d do if things really went wrong.
Even though she wasn’t sure she wanted to hear the answer, she asked, “What if it doesn’t?”
“We’ll have to sell off some acreage to make the payment. But that’s the beginning of the end for a lot of farms, so Matt, Ridge and I are gonna try everything else first.”
“Go, soybeans,” she called out in her old cheerleader’s voice, circling her arms into a V and ending with an impulsive deer jump.
That got her a bright laugh, and she congratulated herself on breaking him out of his uncharacteristic funk. As they went up the back porch steps, she asked, “What would you like for lunch?”
“Pancakes.”
“Figures.” Loony as his request was, she decided that as hard as he’d been working, he deserved a treat. “Blueberry or chocolate chip?”
Grinning like the boy she remembered so fondly, he opened the door for her. “Both.”
* * *
One thing was for sure, John thought as a fluffy bite all but melted in his mouth. The woman knew her pancakes.
“Where’d you learn to make these things?” he asked Amanda while she spooned more onto the griddle.
“From a French pastry chef in Malibu. He had a little café, and I ate there a lot. Since I was such a good customer, he offered to share one of his recipes with me. I picked these.”
“Good choice,” he said with a grin. “For me, anyway.”
“It’s nice to be able to make them again. I wasn’t sure I’d remember how.”
Reference to her recent troubles dimmed the mood a little, and he tried to brighten things up again. “Trust me, Panda. You didn’t forget a thing.”
She gave him an odd look, even opened her mouth for a moment. Shutting it quickly, she turned away to take the batter bowl to the sink.
“Amanda?”
“Yes?”
“Something wrong?”
“No.” Her back was still to him, and she ran water into the bowl. “Everything’s fine.”
John wasn’t a brain surgeon, but he’d known enough women to sense when one was avoiding him. And that Everything’s fine meant exactly the opposite.
He had no clue what was going on in that head of hers, but instinct told him it was important. Getting up from the table, he crossed the kitchen to stand behind her. When she still refused to face him, he gently spun her around.
The emotion flickering in her beautiful eyes was just a step shy of pain. That he might have done something to hurt her made his chest seize with regret, and he instinctively stepped closer. “What’s wrong?”
Shrugging, she glanced away, but he tipped her chin up so she had to meet his eyes. The sadness he’d glimpsed deepened, darkening her eyes to a miserable grayish-blue.
“You call me Panda,” she said, as if that explained everything.
Unfortunately, John was still lost. “Yeah, since we were kids. It’s the only thing I could think of that rhymed with Amanda,” he added, hoping to coax a smile from her.
Pulling her chin free from his grasp, she sighed. “I know.”
Hard as he tried, he just couldn’t follow her logic. “I don’t get it. You’re gonna have to draw me a map or something.”
After moving away a few steps, she spun and nailed him with a glare. “Every other girl, you call darlin’. Even that airhead Ginger, for goodness sake.”
Feeling a little airheaded himself, John strained to connect the dots. Then it hit him, and he reached out for her hand. When she scowled and yanked it away, he almost let it go. Something stopped him, though, and he took both her hands in his to draw her closer.
Smiling down at her, he asked, “Didn’t you ever wonder why I call you something different?”
“I’m just your friend.” The answer came quickly, proving that she’d thought about it more than once. “They’re the ones chasing after you.”
“Sorta.” Accustomed to doing things rather than talking about them, he searched for the proper words. Something told him it was crucial that he say this right. “There’ve been lots of girls, but only one Panda.”
She tilted her head in disbelief. “Are you serious?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She wanted to believe him, he could tell. But her disastrous last relationship was making it hard for her to trust him.
Finally, her expression softened, and she gave him a warm, grateful smile. “I’m your Panda.”
“Yup. The only one.”
Before he knew what was happening, John caught himself tracing the soft curve of her cheek wit
h his finger. Horrified, he pulled back and tapped her cute little nose. To cover his sudden panic, he picked up a dish towel and started in on the pans in the drainer. The quick move put a good arm’s length of distance between them, but suddenly that wasn’t enough.
The breeze coming through the window picked up the scent of her perfume, a sweet blend of vanilla and something fruity. While they washed and dried, she chattered on about how she’d conquered the washing machine and was brushing up on her American history so she could help Kyle with his upcoming test on the Revolutionary War.
The whole time, John was trying desperately to focus on something other than how dangerously close he’d come to kissing her. Again.
Chapter Five
Around six that evening, Tucker started his usual “someone’s here” routine. John glanced up from setting the table to see Matt’s huge blue pickup pull into the turnaround. When Amanda groaned, John looked over his shoulder at her. “What?”
“They’re early. Supper is at six-thirty.”
“So?”
“So I’m not ready,” she snapped. “I’ve got nothing to feed these people.”
“These people?” he repeated with a chuckle. “It’s just Matt and Caty. Y’know, family for our family supper. She probably wanted to get here ahead of time to give you a hand.”
Fury blazed in her eyes, and she snarled, “I’m perfectly capable of having supper ready for everyone. At six-thirty.”
He’d had just about enough of the uptight attitude that had followed her home from the West Coast. It was time to put a stop to it. “Oh, lighten up. It’s not a big deal.”
“This is my job, John,” she informed him primly. “If this meal doesn’t go well, it’ll be my fault.”
Since she was obviously set on making a simple meal into a problem, he decided to switch tactics. “Well, everything smells great, and nothing’s on fire. How bad could it be?”
