“Of course.”
“I’ll come over later.”
“No need, dear. I’m perfectly all right now that I know you are.”
He ended the call, started the pickup, and drove toward home. The first thing he saw when he got there was Alycia and Miss Trouble. By the time he’d parked the truck, he could see Brooklyn, too, scattering feed to the chickens. The sound of his arrival had drawn her gaze in his direction.
“Mom! It’s Mr. Johnson.”
“I see.” Brooklyn tossed the last of the feed to the poultry. Moments later, she was walking toward him. There was hay in her dark hair and clinging to her summer top.
“It’s over?” she asked when she drew close.
“It wasn’t anything like it sounded. There wasn’t any danger.”
“There wasn’t?”
“By the time I got there, it was mostly paperwork.” He relayed the same short version he’d told his grandmother.
Brooklyn studied him with her eyes, as if to see if he told the truth.
“I’d like to catch the person who got the rumors started,” he said. “From what Gran told me, the whole town was thinking the worst.”
Brooklyn nodded.
He reached out and plucked a piece of hay from her hair, showing it to her as he drew back his hand. “Thanks for taking care of the animals for me.”
“We didn’t know how long you would be,” she said, just above a whisper.
“They wouldn’t have starved, but I’m grateful anyway.”
“I called the feed store, and they told me what to do.”
He smiled. Seems he hadn’t needed to wonder how she would know what to feed and how much. She was smart enough to ask for advice when she needed it. She might not be a farm girl now, but maybe she had the makings of one. That thought made him want to smile all the more.
Alycia arrived with the dog in her arms. “Miss Trouble made a mess in the house, but I cleaned it up.”
It was difficult, but he managed to look away from Brooklyn. “I appreciate it, kiddo. I guess it’s time for me to put in a pet door so Trouble can fend for herself when I’m busy.”
The girl grinned up at him. “You’re gonna keep her?”
“Yeah. I guess I am.”
“That’s great, Mr. Johnson. That’s really great.”
It seemed great to Derek, too, but the way he felt had little to do with his decision to keep the pint-sized dog.
Chapter 21
By the end of her shift at the diner on Thursday, Brooklyn had heard at least a half dozen different versions of what had happened at the vineyard. Like a good fishing tale, the details grew bigger and more harrowing with every telling. It made her thankful she’d heard the real story from Derek, and she said what she could to stop the more outrageous rumors.
Since the grocery shopping had been interrupted yesterday, Brooklyn went from the diner straight to the store. She didn’t dawdle in the narrow aisles. All was going well until she rounded the end into the last aisle between frozen foods and produce. That’s where she smacked into another shopper’s cart.
“Oh, I’m sorry.” She looked up from the slip of paper in her hand. “I—” The words died in her throat.
Her dad scowled at her as he jerked his shopping cart backward, as if she’d run into him on purpose.
Brooklyn took a quick breath. “Hey, Dad.” She hadn’t seen him since he’d stomped out of the diner her first week on the job. She wasn’t certain how she felt about seeing him now.
He grunted.
She decided to be thankful he hadn’t sworn at her, the way he had the last time.
Her dad’s eyes narrowed. “I heard you plan to turn the Hallston house into a bed-and-breakfast.”
“Yes.” Perhaps it was silly, but it encouraged her that he’d bothered to learn something about her future plans. Maybe he—
“Something like that takes business sense. You’ll be bankrupt in a year.”
The encouragement drained away. “I’m smarter than you think, Dad.”
“You never even finished high school.”
“Not because I couldn’t have. And I got my GED a number of years ago.”
“Worthless piece of paper.” He grunted again.
Brooklyn had had enough, and she didn’t need Derek to defend her this time. “You know what, Dad? I’m really sorry you dislike me so much. I’m sorry I’m such a disappointment to you. That I always was a disappointment in your eyes. But I’m not going to let you bully me anymore. Not in private and not in public. Alycia and I are here to stay, so you’re going to have to figure out what to do when we accidentally see each other.” She leveled her shoulders. “Because this is our home now, and you can like it or lump it.” She grabbed the cart and wheeled it around him.
She half expected to cry, if not before she finished checking out, then at least by the time she had the groceries in the trunk and was seated behind the wheel of the car. Only she didn’t cry. Her eyes didn’t even grow misty. The wound of his rejection was still there. It still hurt. Maybe it always would. But it wasn’t going to hold her back ever again.
As she had the first day she went to see her dad, she whispered, “I can do all things through Him who strengthens me.”
Only this time she knew it was true.
Next year, Derek thought as he leaned on the fence and gazed over his land, the July evening warm on his back, he would try planting a different variety of vegetables. If he made a few changes in the layout of the northeast quadrant of his property, he could add at least another couple of crops to his harvest. And he wouldn’t wait to plant those additional fruit trees either. He had the space for them. Also it was time he built a modest-sized greenhouse and added some beehives to his small farm. Bees were always good to help with garden pollination, not to mention the honey he could sell as a by-product.
There was more he could do to improve his three acres and increase his profits. He had the savings he’d intended to use for a down payment on the Hallston property. He would invest it in new equipment and modifications. Should Brooklyn ever decide to sell some of her acreage to him, he could make the down payment from the additional income he would derive from the changes he made now.
Realizing he could still make plans, still move forward with his dream, even if not by the path he’d originally intended, eased a tightness in his chest he hadn’t really wanted to address.
“You’re lost in thought.”
The soft sound of Brooklyn’s voice drew him around. It was as if she’d come in answer to his thoughts.
“Yeah.” He ran a hand through his hair. “I guess I was.”
She held something out in her palm. “I believe this belongs to Miss Trouble.” It was the name tag from the dog’s collar. “Alycia found it in our backyard.”
“So much for my powers of observation. I hadn’t noticed it was missing.” He took the tag and slipped it into the pocket of his jeans.
She moved to stand beside him at the fence. “Have you heard the stories that are circulating in town?”
“More outlandish than yesterday?”
She answered with a soft laugh.
He groaned. “Spare me the details. Glad I’ve been too busy to hear any of it. We were harvesting today.”
“We?”
“I hire help whenever I harvest. Tough to always be a one-man operation, even on a place as small as this one.”
As he’d done moments before, she stared across the fields. “It’s a lovely evening.”
“My favorite time of day on the farm, when the heat eases a bit and the light gets . . . hazy.” He rested his forearms on the top rail. “I like the sounds of evening too. Like the earth is humming.”
She was silent for a while. Listening, he supposed. Then she said, “Derek?”
“Hmm.”
“I saw my dad tonight. After I got off work.”
He looked at her. “Where? What happened?”
“We were at the market, shopping,
and ended up in the same aisle. He wasn’t awful to me. Not like he was in the diner.”
Derek wasn’t sure he believed her. He knew what Reggie Myers could be like.
“I didn’t give him a chance to be unkind.”
He felt a strange sense of pride when she said that.
Now she looked at him. “The thing is, I’ve felt so alone and uncared for most of my life. For a while I thought Chad would take away that loneliness, would help me feel loved, but we were both kids and he was running away too. Of course, I didn’t understand that when I was seventeen. Then I had Alycia, and I expected my baby, my sweet little girl, to plug that empty hole in my heart. She did, too, in many ways. Only that’s asking a lot of a child. Isn’t it?”
A lump had formed in his throat. Unexpected emotions flooded his chest.
“You’re right.” She took a slightly shaky breath, then smiled at him. “The earth does hum.”
By instinct rather than forethought, he reached for her, drawing her close. His eyes asked a question he was unable to speak aloud. Her eyes gave him permission. He leaned down and kissed her on the mouth. Long and deep, slow and sweet.
Derek was no monk. He’d kissed his share of girls and women in his lifetime. But this kiss was different. It was something . . . more. And he didn’t want it to end. The last of his reasons to avoid romantic involvement were carried away on the soft evening breeze. Even if they still made sense—and he wasn’t sure they did—he didn’t care any longer.
At last he broke the kiss, lifting his head so he could look into her eyes. He saw himself reflected for an instant before she stepped out of his embrace, lifting one hand to touch her lips.
After a moment, she said, “I haven’t been kissed in a long, long time.”
The male population in Nevada had to be blind or crazy. Maybe both.
“I haven’t wanted to be kissed.”
Well, that made more sense to him.
“This could complicate things, Derek. Between us.”
He wanted to draw her close again. He made himself stand still. “Let’s not let it.”
“Is it that easy?”
“I don’t know.”
She was silent for what seemed a very long time. “Derek, what if I never agree to sell you any of my land?”
It was his turn to be silent. First he was surprised, then he felt irritated. At last he answered. “That isn’t why I kissed you.”
“No. I didn’t think so. But what if I don’t?”
“What if . . .” The two words seemed to reverberate in his chest. “What if . . .”
Her smile, when it came, was tinged with sadness. “Think about it. Before we take it any further.”
This time she kissed him, but it was so brief he barely felt her lips brush against his. As she walked away in the gloaming, he wondered if it was the kisses they’d shared or her question that he would lie awake thinking about for most of the night.
Chapter 22
Ruth straightened on the stool she used when gardening and peered at the wisps of clouds that covered the sky. It was late in the afternoon. Her Sunday dinner guests had long since gone home. The dishes were washed, the house back in order. And since the predicted high temperature for today was only seventy-one degrees—unusually cool for this time of year—it had seemed a good idea to get some weeding out of the way.
As she worked, she prayed for each member of her family—for her sons and daughter and for their spouses, and then for her grandchildren. Eventually, she moved on to prayers for her grandchildren’s future spouses. She had no idea who those life partners would be, but God knew.
A smile played across her mouth. Perhaps she did know who one of them would be. If she wasn’t mistaken, Derek had a growing interest in Brooklyn Myers. Not that he had said as much to his grandmother, but she was convinced it was true all the same. Whenever she’d seen the two of them together—on the Fourth of July, this very morning at church, out at Derek’s farm a couple of times—they simply looked as if they belonged that way, as if they were meant to be a couple.
A butterfly flew up from the flower bed, almost colliding with her, making her smile and reminding her of something. Not long ago, she’d told Sandra Dooley that the butterflies-in-the-stomach kind of love wasn’t enough to make a marriage successful.
Had Sandra come to some sort of decision about her two suitors? If so, she hadn’t let on to Ruth anytime they’d seen each other.
She shook her head, her smile broadening. Her advice to Sandra had been sound, but the truth was Ruth had loved that crazy, fluttery sensation. Oh my. The butterflies Walter used to set off inside of her with his slow smile or that particular twinkle in his eyes . . . From almost the first day they met right up until the end of his life, her husband had been able to curl her toes with such ease.
She would wish the same sort of fluttery, whirling feelings for Derek and for Brooklyn. Even if she was wrong and they didn’t feel that way around each other. But for some reason, she was convinced she wasn’t wrong, and she dearly hoped the butterflies would go crazy inside them.
With a sweet sigh, she bent over and began weeding once again.
Beneath the ancient shade tree in her backyard, Brooklyn straightened away from the old dresser she’d been sanding for the past half hour. The day was pleasant, the sky overcast, although not threatening rain. Perfect for this type of labor. And tomorrow the dresser would be ready to stain or paint. She hadn’t decided which she wanted to do with it. But she couldn’t do either until she did the last of the sanding. She leaned forward and got back to work.
“Hey, Mom.” Alycia pushed with her feet, setting the rope swing on a different tree in motion.
“Hmm?”
“This morning my friends in Sunday school told me there’s gonna be a camping trip next month. Before school starts. I’d kinda like to go.”
“Camping?” Brooklyn had only slept outside in a tent once in her life. Alycia had never been camping. “You mean with tents and sleeping bags and all that?”
“Yeah.”
“I suppose we could do it. We’d have to borrow all the gear, but I guess we could do it.”
“Well, that’s just it, Mom. I . . . it’s a trip for dads and daughters.”
Brooklyn’s hand stilled against the wood of the dresser, and she looked at Alycia. “Dads?” Her stomach sank.
“Well, if there isn’t a dad, then the girl can bring somebody else. Like a grandpa or an uncle or a friend or something.” Alycia brought the swing to an abrupt halt. “I was thinking . . .” She looked up at the sky. “I was thinking, maybe Mr. Johnson could go with me.” Her voice was soft, wishful, and full of hope.
“Mr. Johnson?” She felt stupid, repeating her daughter’s words, like an echo in a canyon, but that’s all she seemed able to do.
“Well, you know, he likes me. I think he likes me.” She met Brooklyn’s gaze again. “And I’m thinkin’ he probably knows about camping. I’ve never been before, but I’ll bet he has.”
Brooklyn hadn’t told Alycia about Chad’s request. Had Derek? No. She was certain he hadn’t. This idea was coming straight from her daughter. Suddenly she remembered what Alycia had said at the ball game, about her friend Wendy being lucky to have a dad. It made her heart ache again, remembering. Was this Alycia’s way of trying to fill that empty space? Did Brooklyn mind if that’s what it was?
“Can I ask him if he’ll do it, Mom?”
She blinked, then focused her attention on her daughter again. “I don’t know. I’ll have to think about it.”
Alycia sat back down on the swing and gave herself another push with her feet. Another push and another. Higher and higher. Faster and faster. Apparently satisfied now that her mom had promised to think about her request.
Brooklyn got up from the ground and went inside, where she filled a drinking glass with cold water from the refrigerator door. Then she stepped to the window to watch Alycia on the swing. The nerves in her stomach kept time with he
r daughter, swinging with wild abandon, up and back, up and back.
Derek and Alycia on a camping trip together. Was that the kind of thing Chad had wanted from his old friend? Was it what she wanted? And what about that kiss? Days later, and her lips still seemed to tremble whenever she thought about it. And she thought about it all the time, even though she’d scarcely seen Derek since that night.
She sighed as she set the glass in the sink. “Is this part of Your plan for me, God? Your plan for Alycia? How am I supposed to know?”
As if in answer, she heard a soft whisper in her heart: Let go.
She looked down at her hands, saw that they were clenched into fists that pressed her knuckles against the counter.
Let go. Trust.
Her breathing slowed. “I’ll try, God. I want You to be in control, but it’s hard not to hold on tight to those things that matter. To Alycia.”
Let go. Trust. Receive.
She closed her eyes for a few moments, then opened them again. “I don’t know what I’m doing, but here goes.” Then she unfurled her hands, turning them palms up.
Hands empty and open. And suddenly she understood that open hands were the only way she could receive anything new.
Derek passed a Diet Coke, moisture dripping down the sides of the bottle, to Hank, then sat in a nearby chair on the porch. The two friends sipped their drinks in silence for a time.
Hank finally spoke. “Your dog likes her new little yard.”
“Yeah.” Derek’s gaze followed Hank’s to the grassy area he’d fenced near the house. “She took to her pet door with no training. Maybe she had one before.”
“You never found out who hurt her?”
“No. Ethan did everything he could. He doesn’t think the owner was local. Neither do I. Besides, I don’t like to think anybody I know would be that cruel.”
Hank nodded, took a breath, and released it slowly. “Speaking of knowing somebody who would hurt something—or someone—more helpless, things are getting worse for Fran.”
Derek’s stomach tightened as he waited for his friend to continue.
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