Country Boy vs. City Girl

by Shanna Hatfield

She sat back and watched Clay carrying his two girls around, Audrey hanging on his back and Emma in his arms. It was a miracle to see him walk at all.

  Two years ago, they had all been out at Bobbi and Steve’s working cattle when the herd stampeded and Clay was severely injured. So badly, they weren’t sure he would make it. After two weeks in a coma, he spent months in therapy. A hoof-shaped scar on his head and a plate in his leg were the only visible reminders of the accident. Jenna breathed a prayer of thanks again not only for Clay’s continued health but also in gratitude that Josh hadn’t been injured as well since he was in the pen with Clay when it happened.

  Jenna noticed the accident seemed to change both Callan and Clay. They lived each day with a deep and underlying sense of gratitude. Maybe that was why they both seemed to love their new roles as parents. Having known Clay for quite a few years now, she would never have pictured him taking to fatherhood like he did.

  Clay was a huge man, barrel-chested, taller even than Josh, with thick muscled arms and legs, but he had a deep dimpled grin, warm blue eyes and one of the biggest hearts she had ever come across. The fact that his sun rose and set with his wife just endeared him all the more to those who knew and loved them.

  From what Jenna understood, he was an excellent teacher in his position as dean of the agricultural department at the community college. She knew from personal experience he was a big tease, but also compassionate. It was no wonder he had turned out to be excellent father material.

  Callan was motherhood personified. She seemed to love everything about being a mother. Once Callan quit her job as the creative director at the local convention center last year and focused only on her event planning business, she had much more time to devote to the girls and fully take on the role of parenting. She was a natural at nurturing and encouraging with just the right amount of discipline.

  Sighing, Jenna knew she would make a miserable parent. The thought of being stuck at home with little people demanding her attention made her chest tighten and stomach ache. She knew to the very depths of her being that she was just not motherhood material. As much as Josh wanted a family, children were the one thing she refused to give him. She had career goals and raising babies didn’t fit in her plans at all.

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  On the drive home from the party, Josh and Jenna chatted about conversations they had, news they heard and how much they enjoyed the evening.

  “Did you save me a piece of chocolate cake?” Josh asked, suddenly realizing it may have been all gone.

  “You already had a piece, you oinker,” Jenna teased. When Josh looked truly stricken at the thought of not getting another piece, she relieved his misery. “Yes, I saved back a piece for you. Good grief, Buck, its only cake.”

  Grabbing Jenna’s hand and kissing it in gratitude, Josh smiled at her. “It isn’t just cake. It’s your chocolate cake and I absolutely need another piece.”

  “What am I going to do with you?” Jenna laughed.

  “I have a few ideas,” Josh said, his voice growing husky.

  Jenna felt herself blush and decided to change the subject.

  “So, is Jake home for the summer or just here for the weekend?” she asked of Clay’s younger cousin. Also an only child, Jake was finishing up classes at Portland State University and would soon graduate with a degree in biology. He came home most weekends to work with the herd of registered quarter horses he was raising and helped out on his parent’s small farm as well as Steve and Bobbi’s sprawling ranch when he had time.

  “He said he has two more weeks until graduation then he’ll be home for the summer or at least until he finds a job,” Josh said, letting Jenna change the subject because it was one he wanted to discuss. “We are really going to need a hired hand this summer and I was thinking about offering the job to Jake. What do you think? If he wanted, he could live in the Harold house or he could drive out from Maggie and Tom’s.”

  “I think that is a great idea,” Jenna said. She knew she wasn’t going to be much help to Josh on the farm all summer with her travel schedule and had worried about how he would do all the work by himself. Having a hired hand for the summer months made perfect sense. They both liked Jake and from experience knew he was honest and a hard worker.

  “Why don’t you call him tomorrow and see if he’d be interested. If he wants to live in the house, we could fix it up a bit. I’m sure it has been overrun with rodents and creepy crawlies.”

  As Jenna said the last she shuddered. Mice, snakes and spiders were things she had yet to become accustomed to. Josh worked hard to make sure their house remained rodent and reptile free but he couldn’t control the barn, shop or even the yard. Whenever Jenna came across a snake, Josh was pretty sure anyone living on their end of the county knew about it from her frantic screaming.

  The first time she’d screamed like that, Josh had been working in the shop on a piece of equipment. Dropping it, he narrowly missed maiming his foot as he ran full-tilt toward the house to see what horrendous tragedy had befallen his wife. When he arrived in the yard, winded and afraid of what he would find, Jenna was standing on the porch steps, clutching a shovel and pointing in the direction of a flower bed. He thought maybe there was a rattlesnake coiled up there for all her pointing and gasping, but upon investigation, he found a tiny little garter snake. After that, he didn’t get quite so excited when he heard her scream. He always ran to the rescue, just not quite as fast and furiously as he did that first time.

  “Great. I’ll give Jake a call tomorrow. I’d ask him after church, but I somehow doubt we’ll see him there,” Josh said with a grin. Jake’s flagrant disregard for his Christian upbringing was a source of great contention with his family. He was a good kid, polite, responsible and thoughtful, but he refused to attend church with his parents and was often seen hanging out with a crowd of questionable reputation.

  Josh remembered what it was like to be twenty-one, popular with the girls and have the world by a string. He couldn’t say he blamed Jake one bit. But then again, he wouldn’t trade his current life for anything. Jenna was perfect for him and he absolutely loved the life they were building together.

  CHAPTER THREE

  A quick call to Jake the next day confirmed he not only would enjoy working for them for the summer but would also take them up on the offer of a place to live. He wasn’t looking forward to living with his parents and he didn’t have too many choices since he planned to continue paying rent during the summer for the apartment he shared with three other guys in Portland.

  Callan and the girls arrived early the next Saturday to help spruce up the Harold house. Jenna loaded her vacuum and a variety of cleaning supplies as well as rags and garbage bags in the trunk of her car. She drove the couple of miles down the road to the house, fully engaged in the chatter of Audrey and Emma coming from the back seat.

  Pulling up in front of the house, Jenna realized she and Josh should have done a better job of maintaining the place. The yard was overgrown and weeds were everywhere. Getting all the cleaning supplies out of the trunk, they trudged to the front door, brushing at the cobwebs that seemed to be everywhere.

  Opening the door, a blast of smelly, hot air greeted them and Jenna gave Callan a look of dismay. “This may be worse than I expected.”

  Pushing the front door fully open, Jenna took a step inside, followed by Callan. They were greeted by a bullsnake slithering across the front room, in pursuit of a mouse. Both of them screamed and backed out the door, still screaming. Emma and Audrey began screaming, too, since they didn’t know what else to do. Callan picked up Emma and ran to the car while Jenna tugged Audrey along.

  Sitting in the car, Callan and Jenna eyed each other and started to giggle. “Well, that was an interesting start to our cleaning,” Callan said with a smile. “I think we are going to need some reinforcements before we can do anything in there.”

  Jenna pulled out her cell phone and called Josh, who was over helping the Matthews men this morning. Josh an
swered on the second ring.

  “Hey, Babe. You can’t be all done cleaning are you?” he teased, knowing she, Callan and the girls barely had time to get started.

  “Actually, we’ve got a bit of a problem and are going to require your assistance,” Jenna said, not giving away any details.

  “What kind of problem,” Josh asked, sounding distracted.

  “A big enough problem the four of us are trapped in the car for reasons of personal safety,” Jenna said. “Would you please get over here as quickly as possible and bring some weaponry with you?”

  “Are you joking with me, Babe? We are kind of in the middle of things and I can’t be running over there to brush down a spider web for you,” Josh cautioned, knowing his wife’s idea of a big problem and his idea could be entirely different.

  “I assure you, we have already brushed down the cobwebs and the problem we are facing isn’t something Callan and I can take care of,” Jenna said, then added a sincere plea for help. “Josh, please, you’ve got to come help us. Please?”

  She heard Josh say something muffled then he was back on the line, “I’m on my way. Don’t move.”

  Jenna didn’t want to know how fast Josh was driving, but within fifteen minutes, he was pulling up behind her car. Both pickup doors opened and Clay got out along with Josh. Walking up to the car windows, the guys stuck their heads inside.

  “So, what has got you four hiding out in the car?” Josh asked, giving Audrey and Emma a wink.

  “Uncle Josh, it was awful. It made us all scream,” Emma said before Audrey slapped her hand over her sister’s mouth.

  “Auntie Callan said to let them see for themselves, remember Emma?” Audrey hissed at her little sister, who was sometimes known for having a big mouth.

  “I forgot. Sorry. Yep, go see for yourself. It’s scary!” Emma said, bouncing in her seat.

  “I’m sure it is frightening,” Clay said, smirking as he stepped away from the car and followed Josh inside the house.

  The guys were gone just a few minutes when they both came hustling out the door. The sarcastic smiles they’d entered with had been replaced by looks of sheer horror on their tanned faces.

  “Why didn’t you mention the infestation?” Josh asked, catching his breath. “There are nests upon nests in there.”

  “Nests?” both Jenna and Callan yelled, which caused the girls to start screaming again.

  “We only saw one mouse being chased by one very large snake,” Callan said as Clay leaned against the car.

  “Oh,” Clay said, looking across the top of the car at Josh. His place, his duty to inform the women what they found inside. When Josh kept staring at him, he nodded toward the women and gave Josh a look that said he had to be the one to break the news to them.

  “Well, girls, it um… it appears that maybe we should not have left the house unattended for quite so long. There seems to be a few dozen mice in residence along with several snakes, three wasp nests and I’m pretty sure we saw a bat in the bathroom.”

  Jenna and Callan both turned white and looked at each other.

  “Well, get a torch and let’s burn it to the ground,” Jenna said, meaning every word. There was no way she would ever set foot in the house again and she sure didn’t know how anyone could live in it.

  “Now, Babe, calm down. We can take care of the problem. It’s just going to take a bit of time. This is an older house, so we’ll have to clear it out, seal any cracks and holes, set traps and make sure they stay empty and then you girls can clean. So it might be next weekend before you can get any work done here.”

  “I don’t think so,” Jenna stated, getting out of the car long enough to shake her finger under Josh’s nose. “You are completely insane if you think I will ever in a million years set foot in there again. That snake nearly ran over my foot.” She shuddered just remembering it and had to swallow down the urge to scream again.

  “Really, we can get it cleaned out, and then it will be fine. No problem,” Clay said, trying to reassure Jenna and Callan as well as himself. He wasn’t so fond of snakes and he and Josh both had a fright when they came across the bat. They nearly pushed each other down in their haste to get out of the house.

  Pointing toward her cleaning supplies and vacuum, Jenna asked the guys to kindly load them back in her trunk, which they did. Starting her car, she gave Josh a look of warning. “When you can promise me there isn’t one creepy anything left in that house, we’ll talk about me coming to clean it. Deal?”

  “Deal,” Josh said, hoping Clay would be game to help him. He sure didn’t want to tackle the job ahead on his own. “Why don’t you girls do something fun today while Clay and I work on this little project.”

  “That sounds like a great idea,” Callan said. “We’ll see you boys later.” With that, Jenna turned the car around and headed home.

  After the girls left them, Josh and Clay went into town and bought a dozen mouse traps of varying sizes and styles, a couple gallons of bug spray along with bug bombs and asked at the feed store for ideas on catching snakes and bats. While giving them odd looks, the old timers that tended to gather there on Saturdays were full of wisdom and gave them no less than thirteen ways to catch snakes and remove bats. They settled on a dozen snake traps instead. Gathering up bags full of supplies, they ventured back to the house, armed with their rodent and snake destroying arsenal.

  Cautiously stepping inside, the front room seemed still and quiet so they started laying out mouse traps. Two traps were the mouse hotel style which could hold several mice at a time. They emptied those two traps numerous times throughout the day and each time they did, they both had all they could do not to be sick. They found an old burning barrel and dumped the traps in it, setting fire to the contents as they worked on this heinous project.

  The snakes took a bit more work to catch. By noon, they had evicted nine of them. Neither one of them felt like they could eat anything, so they came up with a game plan to get rid of the wasp nests. Using a long rod and a gunnysack, they decided the fastest way to get the nests out of the house would be to knock the nests into the sack, twist it closed and haul it outside where they would douse the whole thing in bug spray. Their plan was a success with the first nest. Clay had just knocked the second nest into the sack and Josh was twisting it closed when the bat came flapping out of the bathroom and flogged Josh’s ball cap covered head. He dropped the sack in an attempt to shield himself from the bat and the wasps came pouring out.

  He and Clay ran pell-mell out in the yard and took refuge in the pickup until the wasps went away. Going back inside, Clay used the rod to carry the bag outside and dunk it into a bucket of the bug spray. They quickly repeated the process with the third nest and now would not be dodging wasps along the snakes, mice and bat. Turning to check the mouse traps again, Josh and Clay watched in mesmerized revulsion as a snake slithered into the mouse hotel then got stuck.

  “You better take that outside now,” Clay said, giving Josh a push toward the trap.

  “Me?” Josh said, looking at Clay like he had lost his mind. “You are so much better at dumping that thing out than I am. Why don’t you take it?”

  “I don’t think so, man. This is your place, your mess and your snake-filled mouse trap,” Clay said, giving Josh another nudge.

  Josh ended up retrieving their wasp nest rod and scooting the trap outside. He couldn’t even look when he dumped the trap, knowing he wouldn’t want to see what came out of it.

  He was walking back in the door when Clay nearly bowled him over, flapping his arms around his head as the bat came in hot pursuit. Josh ducked as the bat winged through the door and flew off.

  “Well, at least we don’t have to figure out a way to evict it now,” Josh said, looking at Clay who was still shuddering in disgust and brushing at his hat-covered head.

  They knew there were still mice and snakes running amuck in the house, but they had endured about all they could for one day. So they set off three times the recomme
nded amount of bug bombs for the square footage, including bombs in the chimney, attic and the crawl space beneath the house, closed the door and sat on the pickup tailgate trying to muster the energy to go home and get cleaned up. Callan dropped Clay at the ranch that morning and he was certain she would not let him in her car as filthy and smelly as he was. He couldn’t get the stench of mice out of his nose and from the way Josh kept breathing through his mouth, he was pretty sure he was having the same problem.

  “We’ve got to pull ourselves together and go home, you know,” Clay said to Josh as they both sat unmoving, trying to forget every single thing they had seen and experienced today.

  “I know,” Josh said. “I just need a few more minutes before I face the girls. Do you suppose this is what they feel like when they see one mouse or snake?”

  “I don’t know,” Clay mused. Callan wasn’t afraid of too many things, but she absolutely couldn’t handle seeing a mouse. She jumped for the highest object and screamed bloody murder. “If so I won’t ever make fun of them again.”

  “Me either,” Josh said, looking up to see Jenna’s car pulling in the drive.

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  Deciding to have a spa day, the girls returned to Jenna’s house where they soaked their feet in dishpans filled with fizzy peppermint foot soak, painted their finger and toenails, and ate quiche for lunch.

  Jenna and Callan gave each other neck massages and they now sported a cucumber slice on each eye and oozing facial cream that would eventually dry and peel off. Sipping lemonade through straws, they relaxed in the living room to the sounds of the Audrey and Emma watching Mary Poppins.

  “We should feel a little guilty, shouldn’t we Callan, for enjoying such a relaxing day while the guys are down there mucking out that mess?” Jenna said, not feeling guilty enough to go see how their husbands were doing.

  “I suppose we should, yet I’m having a hard time mustering any guilt,” Callan said with a teasing lilt to her voice. “Maybe because of all the times they’ve made fun of us for having a fit over a mouse or a snake. But I guess if we haven’t heard a peep from them in, say, another hour, we can go see how they are doing.”