The Farmer's Wife

by Lori Handeland

  Why did the past creep up on her when she least expected it . . . while performing commonplace tasks that had little to do with the past at all?

  His breath brushed her knuckles. He opened his mouth, took a bite, swallowed. His throat convulsed, drawing her gaze to his neck, his collarbone. A single memory was replaced by a hundred others. The spike of that bone against her mouth, the taste of his skin on her tongue, the sound of her name on his lips.

  Heavy with PB and J, the sandwich sagged in her hand. Without thought, she tore it in two and placed one half on the plate, then returned the other to his mouth.

  The sweet scent of jelly, the tang of yeast, the salt of skin, filled her senses. The response of her body to his was soothingly familiar, yet enticingly new.

  There had never been anyone for her but him—in theory, anyway. In practice, she’d tried to prove that what they’d had was just great sex, and that could be had with anyone. She’d only failed miserably, over and over again.

  Seemingly unaffected by the intimacy of their situation, Brian took another bite, then another. His teeth grazed her thumb and his lip slid along her finger. A shudder bolted through her body.

  She gasped, dropping the sandwich into his lap. He jerked his head back, leaped to his feet, and the bread landed on the floor with a wet plop, an instant before his chair fell over with a clatter.

  Their eyes met. He no longer appeared indifferent. She took one step toward him.

  “I’m going to bed,” he said abruptly.

  “I—uh—” She paused, confused. There was something she had to do.

  Touch him, kiss him, hold him.

  “No!” Her voice was too loud. She took a deep breath, tried again and made a bigger mess of things. “I mean . . . your shirt—uh—the buttons. Your pants . . .”

  “The zipper?”

  She rubbed her forehead. “Let me help you get undressed.”

  “As tempting an offer as that is, no.”

  “You can’t sleep in your clothes.”

  “Sure I can.” He strode toward the stairs that led from the front hall to the bedrooms above.

  Kim scurried after him. “At least let me take off your shoes.”

  He ignored her and started up.

  “Please, Brian. Let me do something.”

  Maybe it was the please. Maybe he really wanted his shoes off. Whatever it was, he stopped, turned and sat on the third step.

  Eagerly she rushed forward, knelt and tugged at the laces of his ankle-high boots. She’d done this many times before for her father, but right now her fingers shook, and several minutes passed before she worked the laces free; then she had to tug and tug to get the boots off his feet. When the second one came loose she stumbled backward, nearly fell.

  For an instant, Brian’s lips quirked. Until she began to smile back and he froze, scowled, stood.

  Kim straightened. Even if he hadn’t been standing on the third step and she on the floor, Brian would have towered over her. His height, his strength, his gentleness had always made her feel protected.

  The considerable breadth he’d added to that height in the past eight years, combined with his new stoic demeanor, ensured that she no longer felt protected, yet still she did not feel endangered. Because she knew instinctively that no matter what she had done, no matter what she might do, Brian would never hurt her physically.

  He didn’t have to. Just looking at him cut into her soul.

  Her eyes lowered to the pulse that fluttered at the hollow of his throat. She wanted to taste him there, open his shirt and discover if his chest was still silky smooth, or if a fine down of hair trailed across his belly and disappeared into his jeans.

  She’d known him intimately in the past. She would touch him forever in her dreams. But the man he had become was far different from the boy he had been and resembled not at all the person he’d once hoped to be.

  Brian turned and disappeared upstairs without a good-night. Kim sat on the steps and held his boots in her lap and wondered how she could still want him when she no longer knew him at all.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  “They tell me your heart attack didn’t affect your brain, but I have to wonder.”

  Thinking he must have fallen asleep during a rerun of ER, John opened blurry eyes and frowned at the television, which flickered blue light across the ceiling of his darkened hospital room.

  No, not ER, his guilty little pleasure. Instead a news channel spewed disasters from both the mouth of an anchorwoman who wore more makeup than Bozo the Clown and from a continuous line of blather across the bottom of the screen. Where had the news media come up with the brilliant deduction that the public needed to listen to and read the news at the same time? Wasn’t life complicated enough already?

  “I woke you.”

  The door to his room was open, spilling artificial light across the floor and framing his Ellie in the doorway like an angel.

  “What time is it?” he asked.

  “Six-thirty.”

  The flood of the overhead lights made him curse. She crossed the room and jabbed the television remote at the screen until it went blessedly black and silent.

  “Is something wrong?” he asked. “Shouldn’t you be home fixing supper?”

  She gave him a narrow glare. “There’s no one to fix it for. Aaron went to some foot-in-mouth meeting.”

  “Foot and mouth.”

  “Whatever.”

  “There isn’t any in this country.” He frowned. “So what’s the meeting about?”

  “Helping other countries that do have the problem.”

  Considering Aaron, that figured.

  “Where’s Evan?”

  She shrugged. Evan did what Evan wanted. He always had. As long as he wasn’t in jail, they considered themselves lucky.

  “Dean milked at the Rileys’,” she answered before he could ask. “Then he did ours, then he explained why my daughter has already moved out, before he disappeared, too.”

  “Brian needs help,” John said quickly.

  “So I hear. I also hear you’re the one who suggested Kim help him.” She leaned over and felt his forehead.

  John jerked away. He was so tired of being poked and prodded, tested and touched. “What’s that for?”

  “I have to assume you’re running a high fever to suggest something like that.”

  “What are you talking about? I found a perfectly logical solution to the problem.”

  “It’s logical to send a woman who knows nothing about farming or housework or cooking to tend a man who can’t do anything for himself?”

  “Are you worried about Kim or Brian?”

  She didn’t answer right away; instead, tucked the already skintight corner of his sheet more tightly against the mattress, then smoothed the covers and plumped his pillows. John ground his teeth.

  “Both of them,” she said at last. “You know what happened last time.”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “He broke her heart and she ran away.”

  “You think?”

  “I don’t know what to think. I never knew. If she was going to talk to anyone, it would have been you.” She took a deep breath. “Not me.”

  And that preyed on her mind, but just as John couldn’t force the relationship he wanted with any one of his sons, Ellie couldn’t make Kim into the best friend she’d always wanted.

  He reached for her hand, but she turned to straighten the jumble of pills, plastic, books and cards strewn on his nightstand, and he let his arm fall back on top of the now pin straight bedclothes.

  Ellie was always in motion, doing two things at once, all the while behind on something else that needed to be done. She was a good farmwife, a great housekeeper and cook and a top-notch mother. But to be honest, her nonstop energy was starting to get on his nerves.

  “Knock-knock,” he murmured.

  She didn’t even look his way. “Not now.”

  “You’ll like this one. I thought of it just for you.�
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  She glanced at him then, rolled her eyes, but her hands kept straightening even as she asked, “Who’s there?”

  “Ellie.”

  “Ellie who?”

  “Ellie-phants never forget.”

  She didn’t even smile. Instead she slapped his books into a stack, one by one, with a little too much force. What did a guy have to do to get a laugh around here?

  “Can’t you just relax a minute?” he snapped. “Sit still. Quit touching everything. Quit touching me.”

  She flinched and he heard what he’d said. “Ellie, I didn’t mean—”

  Her fingers clenched, crushing the plastic cup in her hand. Then she turned to him, bright spots of color high on her cheeks. “Don’t call me Ellie,” she shouted. “I’m not an elephant or a cow.”

  Shocked as much by the fact that she’d yelled as by her words—he’d been calling her Ellie for over thirty years—John blurted the first thing that came to his mind. “But I like cows.”

  “Really? That might explain why you’ve spent the majority of our marriage with them.”

  He frowned. What was she talking about? He’d tended the animals and the farm; she’d tended the children and the house. That was what they did.

  “Is it hot in here?” she muttered, yanking at the collar of her pink floral T-shirt.

  The sight of that shirt—short sleeves, light cotton— made John frown some more. Ellie—excuse me, Eleanor—was always cold. In the early days of their marriage—hell, for most of their marriage, just not lately—he’d spent many enjoyable hours warming her up, if not thinking about it.

  If the ticker tape on the news had been correct, the temperature outside was thirty degrees. Yet here she stood in a summer shirt and no coat, complaining that she was hot. What was going on?

  John was at a loss what to say, what to do. He’d felt like that a lot since waking up in here. When a man’s heart failed him, it seemed that pretty much everything else did, too. John had to admit he was a bit nervous to discover what was going to go bad next.

  “You feel okay?” he asked.

  She growled at him. There was no other word for it. His cool, calm, capable Ellie growled. And John’s certain world shook beneath his hospital bed.

  “No, I don’t feel okay. I feel as if squirrels are running around in my head. Like mice are running all over my skin. I itch. I ache. I feel as though my whole universe is falling apart while my husband thinks up knock-knock jokes about ellie-phants. Does that answer your question?”

  “Not really.”

  Her cheeks were flushed; her eyes, bright blue and wild; her hair, silky, long and white. He might have no idea what was the matter with her, but she was still the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. Because she was his Ellie.

  Make that Eleanor.

  “Stop worrying,” he ventured. “Take a rest. This hasn’t been easy on either one of us. But it’s almost over.”

  “This is far from over, and I can’t rest. You need help. Kim needs help. The boys—”

  The panic of a woman who never panicked was not a pretty sight. That was the only reason John spoke foolishly and rashly. He was scared.

  “Leave her be,” he ordered. “Leave me be. Just leave everyone be.”

  She blinked and all the color drained from her face as she backed slowly away from him.

  “But then what will I be?” she whispered, and ran from the room.

  The pain pills mercifully knocked Brian out for most of the night. But long before dawn he rolled onto his wrists and woke both the pain and himself.

  He was alone. No surprise there. He always slept alone. No dogs, no cats, no Ba in the house. That way he never awoke in the middle of the night, warm body pressed to his side while sleepy confusion brought hope to his heart, only to have reality dash it dead.

  Even if his wrists hadn’t howled and his head hadn’t ached, the fact that the hard-on he’d been trying to hide from Kim last night was still glaringly present only made Brian certain he would not get back to sleep this morning.

  All she’d done was take off his shoes and look at him, and he’d wanted to lay her down on the stairs, bury his face in her hair and his body in hers.

  He knew the texture of her skin, the scent of her neck, the secrets in her heart—because her secrets were his. Secrets they’d buried, secrets they’d discussed with no one, so they’d festered and bled. He could talk about those things with Kim and no one else. That possibility was nearly as seductive as the temptation of her body.

  It shamed him to want her after she’d shown him so plainly, so publicly, so painfully that she no longer wanted him. Would the desire ever go away?

  There was an alternative method to relieve desire— unfortunately, he was fresh out of hands. Perhaps a shower, preferably ice-cold, would do the trick. But even if he could manage the removal of his clothes and the mechanism on the shower, he wasn’t supposed to get his splints wet.

  Hell, he was lucky he didn’t have to pee, though that would not be the case forever. The enormity of what he could not do swamped him.

  That was the only reason he’d agreed to let Kim stay. As soon as he was on the mend, he’d get rid of her. It wouldn’t be difficult. Getting rid of Kim had never been the problem.

  The distant low of a cow, the bleat of a sheep, the murmur of a man’s voice tugged Brian out of bed and to the window. Lights sprang to life in the barn, their yellow glow spreading through the windows and across the hood of Dean’s truck.

  Brian let out a sigh of relief. Help had arrived.

  A bang followed by a muffled curse woke Kim out of a sound sleep. From the slant of the sun through the window, she’d overslept. Some farmer’s wife she made.

  Kim groaned and pulled the quilt over her head. She had not fallen asleep easily, and once asleep, her dreams had not let her rest.

  What did she expect? To lie in Brian’s house and know peace and understanding even from herself? That would be more of a fantasy than any of the others she’d been having.

  Resolute, she threw back the covers. She’d slept in flannel man-style pajamas, nothing sexy or revealing there, so she stuffed her feet into her slippers and padded to the bedroom door. A glance in the kitchen showed Brian using his bare foot and a paper towel to mop up spilled milk.

  “Need a hand?”

  His head came up like a pointer that had scented a grouse. His eyes were wary; his shirt, sopping wet.

  Kim tilted her head. That shirt wasn’t the one he’d gone to bed in. The pants were new, too. Sweatpants instead of jeans. Good idea. In those he should be able to manage personal tasks with the use of his fingertips and thumb.

  She scowled. His arms were not in the sling, instead they hung at his sides, where they ought not to be. She stepped out of her room and into the kitchen. His hair was damp. What was going on here?

  “How did you get a shower and clean clothes?”

  “No shower.” He held out his splints. “Can’t get these wet. But Dean helped me wash and change before he left.”

  Trust her Dudley Do-Right brother to show up at dawn and make her look bad.

  “What time is it?” she asked

  “Eight.” Brian continued to mix the milk and the paper towel with his toe.

  “In the morning?” Kim peered at the clock. Why did it feel so much later?

  “Sun’s out. Yep. Morning.”

  She chose to let the sarcasm slide. She wasn’t up to banter at 8:00 a.m. Instead, Kim bent and swiped up the remaining milk. Cloudy white droplets sparkled on the pale arch of Brian’s foot. Reaching out, she smoothed them away with her thumb.

  “Shit.” He jumped back, bumped the counter with his tailbone and cursed some more.

  She didn’t recall him being so sensitive. She’d once spent hours learning every inch of his body. His feet, his palms, the back of his neck, the crease of his elbows, the bow of his knee, the ridges of his stomach. She’d explored every sensitive juncture with her hands and her mouth, marve
ling at the way his skin rippled beneath her touch.

  Kim crossed the room to place the paper towel in the trash. Would she ever quit thinking about his body? It didn’t appear promising.

  “What were you trying to do when you spilled the milk?”

  “Make cereal.” Brian wiggled the tips of his fingers. “They don’t quite work like they used to, and when I picked up the milk, my wrists hurt so bad—” he shrugged “—I dropped it.”

  “Why did you bother?”

  “Hunger?”

  “You could have woken

  “Figured you must be tired to sleep half the morning.”

  “Half the morning? It’s 8:00 a.m.!”

  “City girl,” he muttered.

  “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

  “Around here, it is.” He sighed. “Just like this is a bad idea.”

  “This?”

  “Your being here.”

  “Last night we agreed there wasn’t much choice.”

  “There’s always a choice.”

  She didn’t think they were talking about the same thing anymore. But she hadn’t the courage to say so.

  Lack of courage about the past made Kim determined to show courage in the present. She resolved to make Brian, Dean and everyone who doubted she could take care of the Riley farm and Brian Riley himself eat their words. She’d faced harder challenges than this and survived. In fact, she had thrived.

  “Fine. There’s always a choice and mine is to stay.” All business now, she brushed her palms together and eyed his milk-sopped shirt. “First things first. Let’s get this off.”

  She reached for the buttons and he knocked her hands away. “It’s all right.”

  “You spilled milk, Brian. Even I know that in a few hours you’re going to smell like unwashed feet.”

  He raised a brow. “You smell a lot of unwashed feet?”

  “Not if I can help it.”

  His reluctant smile charmed her. Brian might be different, dark and sad, but his smile could still reach into her heart and squeeze just a little.

  And because her heart hurt and her stomach danced, she didn’t smile back. Instead she did what she did best. She analyzed; she categorized; she reduced what hummed in the air to a list she could manage.