by Pen Name
“You have a really pretty smile,” she told me kindly before standing up. “Do you want some dessert? I made chocolate cake. Well, I made it from a mix because I’m not half the cook my mom was, but I think it’s still pretty good? I already had a piece...two pieces, to be honest” she confessed somewhat sheepishly. She brought over the pan and showed the cake to me.
“It looks delicious,” I told her.
She beamed at the compliment, clearly pleased that I appreciated her efforts. “Thanks! It’s best with ice cream. The ice cream is in the spare freezer downstairs – hang on, I’ll run down and get it. Be right back!”
Once I was alone, I sat at the kitchen table swinging my feet and looking around. It seemed like a house I could be comfortable in and, as Maggie had predicted, I got the sense that we would become fast friends. I could tell this room was the heart of the home. It seemed like Maggie was trying her best to fill her mother’s shoes. It must have been difficult to be thrust into that role at such a young age, I mused.
The slam of a door jolted me back to the present. I turned to look over my shoulder just as a young man strode into the kitchen. He looked every bit as surprised to see me as I was to see him. He stopped dead in his tracks and stared at me.
He was tall, with broad shoulders and unkempt hair that was badly in need of a trim. His ruggedly handsome face had a few days’ stubble and he appeared to be a few years older than Maggie. He wore ripped jeans and a flannel shirt with sleeves that were cut off. The muscles of his biceps rippled with every breath he took.
“Hi,” I said, rising to my feet. “I’m Amanda.”
“Okay,” he replied, tossing the denim jacket that was slung over his shoulder onto the kitchen counter. He walked right past me then, opened the fridge and began to chug milk straight from the carton. Once the carton was empty he tossed it into the sink and turned back around.
“You must be Nate?” I tried again, surprised that his personality was so unlike Maggie’s.
He grunted in affirmation and helped himself to a big chunk of the chocolate cake. Then he walked over to the table and plunked down right across from me. I waited for him to acknowledge me in some way but he kept his head down, his slightly-too-long hair hanging in his face. As I watched, he dug into the cake ravenously, eating like a man who hasn’t had a meal in days. There was something primal about him, testosterone-driven and caveman-like.
Just then Maggie returned to the kitchen, ice cream container in hand. “Oh really, Nate?” she chided with a scowl. “You couldn’t even wait for us, or at least serve Amanda some cake before you helped yourself? Rude!”
Nate shrugged and shoveled another forkful of cake into his mouth.
She shook her head in annoyance and then began to talk about Nate like he wasn’t even there. “Honestly, my brother can be such a Neanderthal sometimes. We weren’t raised like that,” she told me sheepishly as she dished up my cake and ice cream, clearly embarrassed by her brother’s boorish behavior.
“It’s okay,” I said quickly, not wanting to be the source of any tension in the home. “Thanks.”
“Nate,” Maggie said, sounding slightly nervous, “Amanda will be staying here with us...we hardly even use the basement which is shame since Dad worked so hard to finish it. It’s really nice,” she promised, redirecting her attention to me. “It has a four piece washroom, a big bedroom and a spacious living area. You’ll have your privacy down there, too. I’ll take you down and show you as soon as we’re done with dessert...if you don’t like it we can fix it up however you want, or we can move you into the spare room upstairs...”
“The basement sounds great,” I assured her. I wasn’t hard to please; as long as I had someplace safe, warm and clean to lay my head, I’d be content.
Nate raised his head then, looking right at me. “What’s she staying here for?” he demanded, demonstrating that yes, despite my initial impression of him he was capable of stringing words together to form a sentence after all.
With a sinking feeling, I realized Nate didn’t know Maggie had hired me. Uh oh...
“She’s going to be working for us,” Maggie explained, her face flushed. Then, talking a mile a minute, she elaborated, “I know you said we’re fine on our own, but Nate, we’re not fine. The farm is too much work for the two of us, especially since I’m taking a full college course load online. We need help if we’re going to keep the farm in the family and that’s where Amanda comes in.”
A shadow came over Nate’s face. “What do you know about farming?” he asked me accusingly.
“Uh...not much,” I admitted truthfully, squirming under his unforgiving gaze. “But I’m a quick learner and a hard worker,” I added, offering a small smile that was intended to serve as a peace offering. He didn’t smile back.
Nate stood then, and, glowering, grabbed Maggie’s shirt sleeve. It was a simple enough gesture but it brought up painful memories I’d have preferred to keep buried. Feeling my body tense, I looked at Maggie but she didn’t appear to be the least bit alarmed. She merely shot her brother a dirty look, which he quickly returned. In that moment the family resemblance was uncanny.
Wordlessly, Nate pulled Maggie into the next room. He was trying to take the conversation out of earshot, I guess, but I could still hear most of what they were saying despite their hushed tones. It was a conversation that wasn’t meant for my ears and I felt strange overhearing it, like I was doing something wrong.
“We can’t afford to hire her!” Nate fumed.
“That’s where the room and board comes in,” Maggie explained patiently. “It offsets the cost and gives her a place to stay. It’s a win-win situation and besides, Amanda and I have already worked out and agreed on everything. Stop worrying.”
“We don’t need help!” Nate hissed, still sounding furious. “I told you I can handle the farm so let me handle it. I’m your big brother. It’s my job to look out for you...to look after you – I don’t need you going behind my back and making business arrangements! Where did you even find her, anyway?”
“You can’t handle the farm!” Maggie insisted, standing up to her brother fearlessly, apparently undeterred by his temper. “I know that’s not what you want to hear but it’s the truth! It doesn’t make you less of a man to accept help, you know. Stop trying to do everything yourself. If you don’t hire someone I’m going to have to drop out of college so I can pitch in full-time!”
“You’re not doing that!” Nate roared, raising his voice in an impassioned way. “College is your dream and it was Mom and Dad’s dream for you. I’m not letting you give that up.”
“Then go back into the kitchen and apologize to Amanda,” Maggie ordered, clearly aware that she’d won the argument. “Tell her you’re a big dumb hothead – as if she hasn’t already noticed – and let her know the job is hers.”
“What does she even know about farming?” Nate grumbled, unconvinced.
“It doesn’t matter. She can help with the other stuff,” Maggie retorted, unfazed. “She can look after the animals so it doesn’t take your time away from being in the field. She can cook, run errands...it will all work out, you’ll see. This is going to be great. You should be thanking me, not scolding me. I’m like, the best sister ever.”
“We’ll see about that.”
Nate stomped back into the kitchen then, Maggie right on his heels. I pretended to be very busy eating my dessert and tried my best to act like I hadn’t heard a thing. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Maggie give Nate a nudge in the ribs.
“Sorry,” he muttered, looking at me briefly before averting his eyes.
“Nate will take you on a tour of the farm first thing in the morning,” Maggie chirped. “It’s too dark to see much now. But come on – if you’re done your cake then let me show you around the house! It’s your house now too, so I want you to feel at home...don’t feel like you have to stay in the basement! Maybe tonight if you’re not too tired we can hang out and watch a movie?” She linked her arm
through mine and led me out of the kitchen, happily chattering away like the blow-up with her brother hadn’t even happened.
I snuck a peek over my shoulder and saw Nate watching me, the expression on his handsome face unreadable. Biting my lower lip, I whirled back around, startled that we’d made eye contact.
I’d had a great feeling about this job and my new life until Nate had walked in the door. Now I wasn’t so sure. Brooding and sullen in his ripped jeans, he was every bit the tough, macho cowboy. I just hoped he wouldn’t be trouble.
After all, I’d come to Minnesota to escape trouble, not to find it.
Chapter 03
“Did you sleep okay?”
I jumped as Maggie’s voice startled me. “I didn’t know you’d be up already!” I exclaimed, startled. “I was just coming in here for a glass of water...” That was my routine: wake up in a cold sweat with a pounding heart and get up for a drink. I wasn’t even thirsty. The water was simply intended to distract me from my thoughts. Sometimes it even worked.
Maggie sat at the kitchen table wearing polka dot pajama pants and a pink t-shirt. A thick textbook was in front of her. She wrinkled her nose and closed it. “I have an online class at 8 a.m.” she explained. “You’d think that taking a class online would mean I could work at my leisure, right? But nooo, the prof likes to torture us and make us do weekly chats – ugh!”
“It must be nice to be able to study from home,” I ventured as I tentatively opened a kitchen cupboard in search of a glass. I’d wanted to go to college once. That dream had been snuffed out in a hurry, like a flame that’s threatening to light the world on fire.
“Other cupboard,” Maggie said helpfully as I searched for a drinking glass. “And I don’t know, so far college isn’t at all what I was expecting. I was supposed to take my first year on campus but then...”
She trailed off and glanced at the framed photo of her, Nate and their smiling parents that hung on the wall. Then she flipped her hair over her shoulder as though trying to brush the painful memories aside. “Maybe it will be different next year when I move to the city,” she said rather unconvincingly.
“What are you studying?”
“I want to be a veterinarian.”
“Wow, that’s ambitious!”
Maggie smiled. “I love animals. So did my mother. I guess I get it from her. You never said how you slept?” she said, changing the subject. “If you don’t like the mattress then we can –”
“The mattress was fine,” I told her. “And I slept...fine.” That wasn’t completely the truth but flipping the mattress or using a different pillow wouldn’t fix my sleep disturbances. There was no point in telling Maggie that I’d been plagued by nightmares for most of the night – it was unfortunate but it was something I’d simply learned to accept.
“Good. I’m just about to make some coffee if you’d like some,” Maggie offered. “And there are like, ten different kinds of cereal in that cupboard,” she said, pointing to the one above the fridge. “I got some coupons in the mail and kind of went overboard at the grocery store,” she blushed.
“Thanks, but I’m not much of a breakfast eater,” I replied, taking a sip of my water.
“Nate’s the same way – when we were kids our mom practically had to force him to stop for breakfast before heading out the door to catch the school bus. Speaking of Nate, I told him he needed to take you on a tour of the farm this morning,” Maggie said, climbing to her feet. “I’d do it myself if it wasn’t for the stupid class chat...anyway, I’ll go get him.”
“No!” I interjected, perhaps a bit more passionately than I’d intended. I already got the impression Nate didn’t like me being there so the last thing I wanted to do was give him actual reasons to dislike me. I didn’t need to be getting on the bad side of a guy with a fiery temper – been there, done that. “Don’t wake him on my account.”
“Wake him?” Maggie laughed, apparently amused by the idea that her brother would still be asleep in bed at a quarter to eight in the morning. “He’s been outside doing chores since before dawn,” she informed me. “He does it every morning...sometimes I don’t think he even sleeps. I don’t know how he does it. He doesn’t know when to rest, and it isn’t healthy. That,” she said, lowering her voice conspiratorially, “is why we need you! He might not know it yet, but you’re going to save him, Amanda.”
I flushed and looked down at my feet. “I don’t know about that,” I mumbled, feeling awkward. I hoped I wasn’t biting off more than I could chew. Maggie seemed every bit as confident in my ability to help save the family farm as Nate seemed cynical. The last thing I wanted to do was let her down – or prove him right.
Just then the door slammed and I heard Nate’s heavy footsteps on the hardwood. “Maggie!” he shouted as he clomped through the house. “I need you to – oh.” He stopped dead in his tracks when he saw me standing in the kitchen, water glass in hand.
It was hard not to notice how muscular Nate was beneath his clothes. Even though I knew better, he looked like a guy who spent hours a day obsessively working out at the gym. All those long days of hard labor in the field had made his body hard and chiseled like that of a bodybuilder.
Quickly, I averted my eyes, not wanting to stare. “Good morning,” I said softly, hoping that we could get off to a better start today than we had the previous night.
“Morning,” Nate mumbled, his tone mellowing just a little when he addressed me. “Maggie,” he said, turning his attention to his sister, “I need you to help me with Penny. She’s too spooked to let me near her today and her hooves need attention.”
“Can it wait?” Maggie asked from her seat at the kitchen table as she opened up a small, basic-looking laptop. “I can’t leave right now – I have a mandatory class discussion and I kind of need to keep my grades up if I’m going to get into the veterinary medicine program.”
Nate sighed. “We’re behind as it is. I need to get out into the field as soon as possible, but okay,” he relented. “Your education comes first. I guess I’ll just have to work extra late tonight if the rain holds off.”
“Is there something I can do?” I asked him, eager to make a good impression.
“No,” he said flatly.
Maggie looked up from her laptop. “Maybe Amanda can help,” she told her brother.
“Are you crazy? There’s no way she’s cut out to deal with Penny,” Nate insisted, talking about me like I wasn’t even there.
Immediately, I took offense to his assertion. Nate clearly had no faith in my abilities whatsoever, and it was pretty unfair of him to judge me without even giving me a chance to try to prove myself. He was kind of being a jerk. “Who’s Penny?” I asked, looking from him to Maggie.
“She’s a wild horse my mother took in shortly before the car accident,” Maggie explained to me. “Penny had been badly mistreated and was terrified of people when she got here. She’s calmed down somewhat over the past year, but is still very skittish. Neither of us have our mom’s touch when it comes to rehabilitating abused animals, so gaining Penny’s trust has been a slow process – she has good days and bad.”
I noticed that Nate visibly flinched when Maggie mentioned the accident. Then he crossed his arms and stood there with his biceps bulging, an angry scowl hiding whatever other emotions he was feeling.
“What do I need to do to help?” I asked, touched by Penny’s sad story.
“Well getting near enough to Penny to groom her or anything like that is basically a two-person job,” Maggie explained. “One person tends to her needs and the other one has to stroke her head, talk to her and try to keep her calm. Otherwise she panics. If you can keep Penny calm while Nate –”
“Maggie, we’re talking about a wild horse here, not some domesticated pet,” Nate interjected gruffly. “No offence,” he said to me, “but dealing with a horse like Penny isn’t for the faint of heart. It can be dangerous if she gets spooked and goes berserk.”
“I bet Amanda would be g
ood at keeping Penny calm,” Maggie insisted, refusing to back down despite her brother’s objections. “You have a nice soft voice,” Maggie told me. “That’s exactly what a horse like Penny needs – someone gentle and non-threatening to reassure her.”
“I still think it’s a bad idea,” Nate argued stubbornly.
Maggie held up a hand. “Shh,” she told him, her eyes focused on the screen of her laptop as she began to type something. “My class discussion has started, so I don’t have time to argue with you anymore. Just take Amanda out there and see how Penny responds to her,” she ordered. “And show Amanda around the farm while you’re at it.”
Nate sighed but said nothing. I was beginning to understand the dynamic between the siblings. Nate was the overprotective cowboy that was rough around the edges, and Maggie was the sweet, loveable little sister. But when it came down to it, she knew how to hold her own and get her way. She wasn’t deterred by Nate’s gruff demeanor, either. Interesting...
“Amanda,” Maggie said, looking up at me and shooting me a subtle wink, “don’t let Nate give you a hard time, okay? His bark is worse than his bite.”
Nate rolled his eyes and abruptly turned on his heel. “Come on then,” he growled at me over his shoulder. He walked out of the house with strides so long and fast-paced that I practically had to run to keep up with him. He certainly wasn’t going to win any awards for his charm, I thought to myself wryly as I scrambled after him. What a jerk!
Chapter 04
“You could at least wait for me!” I finally called out when I’d had enough of chasing Nate across the farmyard. At first I’d simply tried to keep up with him, but the longer he made me chase after him, the more annoyed I became. Even more infuriating, he was going about his regular chores without so much as even acknowledging me. How was I supposed to learn anything if he didn’t teach me?
Nate stopped dead in his tracks and turned on his heel then, practically making me crash into him. “What did you say?” he demanded.
