The Farmer's Wife

by Lori Handeland

  She nodded, amazed at the rush of words, as much as the words themselves.

  “In this family I was the black sheep.” He gave a hollow laugh. “Which explains why I like Brian’s sheepdog so much.”

  “You were the black sheep? I thought the black sheep was me.”

  “Right, Princess. You never fit in.”

  “I didn’t. Not here.” She opened her arms wide. “I was the girl. The princess. You guys never let me play with you. You were always doing chores, laughing and roughhousing together. No one would let me take a step off the porch.”

  “We’d have crushed you flat, and Dad would have skinned our hides.”

  He had her there. “Where did you get the idea that you were dumb?”

  “I barely made it through school. You were destined for college from day one.”

  “You wanted to go to college?”

  “No. All I ever wanted was this.” He rested a hand on a bony, bovine rump. “Farming is what I was born to do, and I love it.”

  Kim was confused. “Then what are you mad about?”

  “Hell if I know.” He ran his fingers through his hair. “I feel like I’ve been mad all my life. Aaron was calm and quiet. He was God’s chosen, for crying out loud. How do you compete with that?”

  “Why did you have to compete?”

  “You try being boy number four in a crowd of five. Compete or get trampled.”

  Kim had always thought they were just having fun without her, when in fact they’d been trying to wrestle into the lead in some competition she hadn’t even known about.

  “Then we have Bobby and Colin. They’re fricking action figures come to life. Evan is . . .” He shrugged, spread his big, hard hands. “He’s a . . . What is he?”

  “Babe magnet. Eye candy. Just a gigolo.”

  Dean’s lips twitched. “You always did have a way with words.” He sobered almost instantly. “So Evan is a charter member of the Gainsville Stud Club, and I can barely talk to a woman without stuttering. Do you know I’ve never met one who didn’t ask me about another Luchetti brother within two minutes of our first hello?”

  “Then you haven’t met the right woman.”

  He rolled his eyes. “Animals don’t know how to lie or cheat. They don’t compare one man with another because of how he looks or talks or walks. The only thing that lasts forever is the land.”

  “What about love?”

  “You and Brian were in love. How long did that last?”

  She flinched. Dean didn’t notice. He was staring out the single, tiny window of the milking parlor in the direction of the setting sun. The expression on his face made her curious. There was pain there, memories, too.

  “Did someone break your heart?” she asked.

  He scowled. “I’ve got no heart, Kim, or haven’t you noticed?”

  “That’s what you want everyone to think, but I’m starting to wonder.”

  “Don’t. What you see is what you get. I’m an asshole.”

  “Hmm. I always thought so. But now I’m not so sure.

  Dean faced her, and any softness that had been in his eyes was gone now. “Bite me, Princess. I’ve bared my soul enough for one day.”

  “You’ve got no soul.”

  “Now you’re catching on.”

  He released the cows and continued to work, ignoring her again. But she’d learned more about Dean in the past few minutes than she’d known her entire life.

  “Do you want to talk about it?”

  “About what?” he shouted, making the cows skitter.

  “Whatever’s making you miserable.”

  “Are you going to talk to Brian? Are you going to work it all out?”

  “No.”

  “Why not? Explain to me how you and Brian could have it all, then you could walk away without a backward glance.”

  She didn’t answer, because she couldn’t. Some confessions were better left unsaid; some secrets were not only hers to tell.

  Dean tossed the washcloth into the bucket so hard the water sloshed over his boots. “How, Kim?” The cows shifted and lowed uneasily at the tone and volume of his voice. “Did you ever love him at all?”

  He wasn’t just asking about Brian. Something else was wrong here. Kim stepped toward him, hand outstretched. “Dean, I—”

  “Leave me alone.” He turned away, running his palm over one of the cows that danced nervously and mooed. The animal calmed immediately. Dean had always had that gift.

  Kim slipped out, but not before she heard him murmur, “I do better alone.”

  As she drove back to Brian’s, she ached for the brother who couldn’t seem to find any good in himself.

  The Luchetti family curse.

  Ba and Precious fell asleep on the porch at Brian’s feet as darkness spread over the farm. He could hear the cows in the near pasture, the sheep on the hill; the pigs snored, so did Ba. He wasn’t alone, yet he felt lonelier than he had for a very long time.

  He should have known that having Kim back in his life, even for a little while, would make him ache for her every minute she was away. Nevertheless, he was preparing to do something that would no doubt make her run back to Georgia before the sun even rose on tomorrow.

  The chill of an autumn evening skated over Brian’s bare arms. The days of sitting on the porch until bedtime were done until summer. He stood, scooped a warm, limp Precious off Ba’s back and went inside, where he left the sleeping kitten on the couch. She looked so cute and cuddly lying there that he hurried upstairs before he decided to let her sleep on his bed.

  Kim had returned with the groceries, bubbly, happy. Seeing her like that had reminded him of the reason he had fallen in love with her. Kim was life and laughter against the darkness. She always had been.

  She’d only had time to say she and her mother had talked before Dean had tromped in and demanded she take him home so he could milk his cows. He’d been fit to be tied when he’d come out of Brian’s barn to discover his dad had made off with his truck. Since John had never caught up to Kim and her mother, it was anyone’s guess where he’d ended up. Brian hoped Kim wasn’t out searching for the man half the night.

  Because tonight was the night.

  They could no longer dance around what had happened in the past. He’d been wrong to agree to keep quiet. They were both broken inside, and the only way to heal was to face what they’d lost.

  He’d just stepped into his parents’ room when the crunch of gravel and the sweep of headlights across the front of the house announced a visitor. Brian glanced out the window and recognized Kim’s car.

  She parked next to his truck and climbed out, stiffening as Ba trotted down the steps. But for the first time the ewe ignored her, heading for the back porch and the bed he had made for her there. Kim didn’t know it, but Ba had just given her a huge compliment by ignoring her. The sheep had accepted Kim as family. Would Kim ever accept that, too?

  Downstairs the door opened, then closed. “Hey, Precious, baby. Open your mouth. That’s a good girl. No mice for an entire day. Maybe you got them all, hmm?”

  Brian smiled. Little did Kim know he’d tossed five furry friends outside since she’d left that morning. Precious was a mouser to be reckoned with—farm-cat gold, though he doubted Kim would agree.

  Kim jogged upstairs, paused just outside his room. “Brian?” she whispered.

  “I’m here.”

  Her startled gasp caught at his gut. She’d sounded just like that—surprised, shocked, excited—the first time his palm had touched her skin where no one else’s ever had.

  She appeared in the doorway, silhouetted by the harsh, bare lightbulb in the hall. “What are you doing in the dark?”

  “Don’t,” he said as she reached for the light.

  “Why not?” she asked, but her hand fell back to her side.

  He hoped that the semidarkness would entice secrets, confessions, a sense of what they’d once shared. But he couldn’t tell her that.

  “My ey
es ache.” he said, and that was true, too.

  She crossed the room quickly. The light from the hall gave just enough illumination for him to see her face. The face he’d dreamed of a thousand times before.

  She put her hand to his forehead. Her fingers were cool, but then, he was hot.

  “You don’t have a fever.”

  Her hand lowered. He snatched her fingers and held on as best he could.

  “Not that kind, anyway,” he murmured.

  She smiled, uncertain. “What’s that matter?”

  “Nothing. Everything.” He shrugged. “The usual.”

  She tried to tug free, but he wasn’t letting go that easily. Not this time.

  “I suppose you want to hash over what I told you this morning,” she said.

  “What was that?”

  Her eyes widened. “You know.”

  He thought back. “Oh! Your search for someone.” She opened her mouth; he jumped right in. “Anyone. I remember. What else is there to say?”

  “You don’t want to ask me anything?”

  “No. Wait a minute. Yes.”

  He still held her hand, so he felt the tremor run through her. She stared at the floor and not at him. Did she think he was going to be as harsh with her as she no doubt had been with herself? He put his fingertips on her shoulders, and she glanced up, startled and wary.

  “Did it help?” he murmured, repeating the question she’d never answered. “Did they make you forget that we lost our baby?”

  She jerked her head back as if he’d slapped her and struggled to get away. Brian’s fingertips slipped free, and he caught her around the waist, pressing his cast into her back and pulling her body flush with his.

  “Let me go!” She pushed on his chest. “Let me go. You promised you wouldn’t talk about that.”

  “I did. But then you promised to love me forever.”

  She stopped struggling and stared into his face. Hers was white and strained.

  “Did you ever love me at all?” he whispered.

  She blinked, but she no longer tried to get free. “My brother just asked me that. What is it with you two?”

  “Since when does Dean care if you love him?”

  “Not me.” She shook her head. “Never mind. I’m not talking about this with you, Brian. It won’t do a damn bit of good.”

  “Nothing else does any good, either. We’ve both proved that. And you didn’t answer my question.”

  “Did I ever love you? How can you ask that?”

  “Leaving isn’t love.”

  “It was for me. I couldn’t be what you needed. Not then and not now.”

  “You have no idea what I need. Not then, not now,” he repeated. “Just answer the question.”

  “Do you think I’d have let you touch me if I didn’t love you?”

  “Sex isn’t love. I think we’ve proved that, too.”

  She pushed against his chest again, but less emphatically than earlier. “Let me go Brian. Please.”

  “No. I let you go once and I shouldn’t have. I should have chased you down and dragged you back.”

  “By my hair?” she sneered.

  “What would you have done?”

  “I’d have run again. And again and again. I couldn’t stay.”

  “Because you didn’t want to be a farmer’s wife?”

  She paused, then shook her head. “No. Because every time I looked at you I saw her.”

  He sighed. “And you don’t see her still? Every time you close your eyes?”

  “Not if I’m drunk enough.” She flung the words at him defiantly. “Not if I’m never alone.”

  He rested his forehead against hers. “Oh, baby, why? Why didn’t you stay and let me help you? Why didn’t you stay and help me?”

  She hesitated; then, as if against her will, she leaned into him, and he gathered her close. “I couldn’t help anyone. It was all I could do to breathe, and sometimes that was hard.”

  “You think I could breathe after I lost her, then I lost you? Wouldn’t it have been better to grieve together? Face it and go on. Maybe if we’d had another baby—”

  She tore herself from his arms and turned away. “Nothing can replace her.” She hugged herself as if she were cold, and Brian saw that her hands were trembling. “No one.”

  “I didn’t say replace.”

  The silence pulsed with sadness, despair, tension. Brian faltered, uncertain if he should press her now but afraid that if he didn’t he’d never get another chance to learn the truth.

  “You’ve never talked about it, have you?”

  She stilled. “It? It?” Dropping her arms, she spun around. “You say that like we misplaced a shirt. We lost it,” she mimicked as she advanced on him. “It was a baby. She died! My. Baby. Died.” She punctuated each word with a poke to his chest.

  He grabbed her hand, stared fiercely into her anguished face. “So. Did. Mine.”

  The truth hung between them. Brian held his breath. She either came back to him, or it was over forever.

  Her eyes shone in the half light. A tear dropped onto the back of his hand.

  “Brian,” she whispered. “Brian.”

  Then she touched him and forever became now.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Kim laid her palm along Brian’s waist and a second later she was in his arms. Her mouth reached for his. The salt of tears mingled on their lips.

  His? Hers? She didn’t know. She didn’t care.

  What they had shared once had torn them apart; tonight it brought them together. The need to feel his skin against hers was overwhelming. She shouldn’t touch him, but she was no longer able to reason or think beyond the moment.

  Her hands slid beneath the hem of his T-shirt, and she ran her fingertips along the firm, solid ridge of his belly. Her thumbs dove beneath the waistband of his sweatpants and dipped into the hollow at his hipbone. His breath caught; so did hers.

  She wanted to put her mouth where her hands roamed. Taste him where she’d tasted him before.

  She tugged his shirt upward, broke off their kiss just long enough to yank it over his head, but the material got caught on his casts. She let him struggle while she ran her hands over his chest. The contortions made his skin ripple; his struggles were more erotic than anything she’d ever known.

  Years of hard work had turned his lean muscles large, and time had honed him into a different man than she remembered. But he was still Brian, and no matter what had happened or would happen, he would always be hers.

  She knew that he liked to be kissed on the throat, savored the sensation of fingertips at the base of his spine. If she put her lips to his chest he would gasp; if she flicked her tongue across his nipple he would moan.

  Kim slid down his body. And if she pressed her open mouth to his belly and suckled he would—

  Go still beneath her touch and whisper her name.

  His skin quivered against her lips. The sound of his breath warred with her own. She lifted her head, looked into his eyes and let him see that all she wanted was this.

  He reached for her and his casts scraped her arms. She jumped at the unexpected sensation.

  Cursing, he yanked them back. His fingers curled in upon themselves, nails clicking against the hardened plaster.

  He made a sound of self-derision. “I want to touch you so badly I’m shaking. But I’m afraid I’ll scrape you or bang you or hurt you.”

  His hands had always excited her. They were big, rough and strong, yet right now they were nearly useless. An odd surge of tenderness consumed her.

  She lifted the heavy casts, kissed the tips of his fingers, then lowered them back to his sides. “Let me touch you,” she whispered. “You won’t have to do a thing.”

  He lifted a brow. “Nothing?”

  “Well, one thing. But you won’t need your hands.”

  He laughed; she joined him. Why did she feel as if everything was going to be all right?

  Kim pushed aside the foolish thought. No
thing would ever be all right again. She’d learned that much. But she could have this, right now, with him.

  How many times had she awakened with tears on her face, memories flickering, images of him and her, together, fresh in her mind? Too many to count, too many to allow her the strength to say no when he led her to the bed.

  She sat down, but he didn’t join her. Afraid he’d change his mind, she reached for him.

  “No,” he murmured, and took a quick step back.

  Her heart thudded harder; her stomach jittered faster. “Brian, if you say don’t touch me again I’ll—”

  “What?” His startled gaze met hers. “Oh. He shook his head, took her hand and urged her to stand. “Don’t.” Kissing her forehead, he placed her palm against his chest. “Touch me,” he breathed into her hair.

  “Very funny,” she said, but she smiled. How could he make her laugh, twice now, in the middle of the most frightening yet exciting night of her life.

  She lifted her mouth, but he stepped back once more. “Not here.” He jerked his head at the bed. “I can’t.”

  Suddenly, she remembered. This was his parents’ room. Well, hell, now she couldn’t, either.

  She followed him across the hall. Moonlight spilled through the window and across his bed. The covers were tousled; the pillow still bore the outline of his head. She wanted to lie there with him; she wanted to sleep there, too. But not yet.

  He crossed the room, looped his forefinger in the dresser drawer and yanked it open. “We should have used one of these before.” He glanced at her, shrugged. “I’ll need some help using one now.”

  She nodded. One mistake was foolish; two could only be termed moronic.

  Brian reclined against the pillows. His eyes, no longer blue but silver, reflected the moon as he watched her. “I used to lie here and dream of the two of us together. Even if I’d just left you, and I could still smell your skin on mine, there was never time enough for me, for us. You remember how we were always hiding, sneaking?”