“Does this type of food exist in your house?” she asked.
“I figured I would make a few things I haven’t in a while,” I said. “Coffee?”
“Please,” Bridget said. “A gallon of it if at all possible.”
“Did you not sleep well?” I asked.
“Oh, I slept fine,” she said. “It just takes me a little while to wake myself up and get motivated in the morning.”
“So not much has changed since high school,” I said.
She made a face at me over the rim of the mug of coffee I handed her. “I’ll have you know I am fantastic at getting up early in the morning when I have something fun to do. You’ll remember I was the first one up and out of bed at the hotel in Vegas. Other than you, of course. But nobody wakes up earlier than you.”
“It’s just the prospect of going to work that keeps you from being able to wake up?” I asked.
“That’s my going theory,” Bridget said. “My brain doesn’t want me to have to go to work, so it tries as hard as it possibly can to keep me asleep. It figures if I stay asleep, then I don’t have to go to work.”
“I thought you liked your job,” I said.
“I do,” she said. “I just like to be not working more than I like to be working.”
I laughed. I didn’t say it, but that was one of those moments when I was so grateful for the farm. It might not have been what I envisioned as my future career, but it gave me a life I adored, even if it meant hard work and scraping together extra money with my writing.
And there was a part of me that always knew I would end up there. There was never any question that I would inherit the farm and would end up working on it throughout my life. It was just that for a time, I assumed I would have another career or follow some other path before my time there began.
That wasn’t what happened, and the longer I was home and the more separated I was from the days before I came back, the more glad I was that it ended up this way. I hated the thought of waking up every morning with a sense of dread about going into work for the rest of the day. Even on the mornings when it was cold or I wasn’t feeling my best, I still looked forward to walking out onto the farm.
After breakfast, Bridget got dressed. I put together a lunch for her and she smiled when I handed it to her.
“Thanks, honey,” she teased.
I gave her a hug. “Have a good day at work.”
“I will do my best,” she said. “And if you need anything, anything at all, call me. I’ll have my phone on all day and I’ll check my texts and emails regularly. After work, I’ll come back.”
“Thank you,” I said. “I think I’ll be okay. It’s not like I don’t have enough to do to keep my mind distracted.”
“That’s true,” she said. “How are you going to handle doing all of your chores and your father’s? Are you going to call one of the hired hands?”
“I haven’t really thought too much about it. I don’t want to call in any hired help if I can avoid that. It’s better not to have to pay for something I can do on my own, and I always prefer to take care of things myself if I can. I just feel like I know the land better and can get things done more efficiently if I’m not having to direct people around.”
“I can understand that,” Bridget said. “But you have to remember, they’re professionals. And a lot of them have been working on this farm for a good long time. They know what they’re doing. Don’t exhaust yourself just for the sake of not calling them.”
“I won’t. I promise. See you tonight.”
The truth was, thinking about taking on all of the tasks running the farm by myself was overwhelming. My father and I worked well together, and even though I was taking on more and more responsibility, I hadn’t had to do everything completely on my own. It wasn’t that I was afraid of the work. Hard work never intimidated me. I just worried I wouldn’t be able to keep up and something would go wrong.
Maybe I shouldn’t have worried. Something should have told me I wasn’t in this alone. Just like I didn’t have to spend the night in the house by myself, I wasn’t going to have to take on all the work by myself either.
Halfway through the morning, I was pushing through all the chores on the farm. I was only slightly behind the usual schedule, which felt good considering I was doing everything for both of us. Taking a quick break, I gulped down most of the water in my bottle and tried to tame the loose pieces of my hair that had escaped the braids. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw somebody coming toward me.
I looked over and couldn’t help the huge smile that crossed my face. It was Garrett.
“Hey there,” he said.
“Hi,” I said, letting out both the word and a breath in a gasp of air.
I took a few steps toward him and we met in the middle. He gathered me up into his arms and I let my eyes close as I rested my head on his shoulder and I just stood there, enjoying being surrounded by him again. When we stepped back, he touched a soft kiss to my lips.
“How are you doing?” he asked.
“Could be better,” I said. “But I could also be worse. So I guess I shouldn’t be complaining. What are you doing here?”
“I figured you’d be out here trying to do battle with these farm chores, so I came to lend a hand,” he said.
“Isn’t there enough to do on your own ranch?” I asked, a hint of teasing in my voice.
“Oh, I’m sure there’s plenty to do,” Garrett said. “But those boys over there are used to handling it all without me, aren’t they? They won’t even realize I’m not there. Especially with Colt being home, too. They have more hands than they know what to do with. You, on the other hand, seem to be down a couple. You need some help, and I want to be able to give it to you.”
“Thank you,” I said. “I feel like everybody is going so far out of their way for me.”
“Nobody’s going out of their way,” he said. “We all care about you and want to make sure that you’re okay through all this.”
I leaned back slightly to get a better look at him and noticed a cropping of new bruises on his face. When he rolled up his sleeves, there were more on his arms.
“What’s this all about?” I asked. “What are all these bruises?”
“Well,” he said, twisting his arms back and forth so he could examine the bruises for himself. “Half of them are from Roy Hayes.”
“Roy Hayes?” I asked, surprised by that revelation. “When were you brawling with the deputy?”
“Right after I had dinner over here with you and your father the other night,” he said. “I didn’t even make it all the way home. He pulled me over and had some bullshit excuse for roughing me up and hauling me in.”
“So that’s why you missed my phone call,” I said.
“That would be why,” Garrett said. “I was sitting in a jail cell waiting for one of my brothers to rescue my sorry ass.”
“All right, so that explains some of those bruises. What about the other half? Did you make one of your new jailhouse friends angry?”
Even as I asked the question, I knew that wasn’t the case. There was only one person I could think of who would give him a battering like that.
“Nope,” he said. “The other half of these bruises are courtesy of your best friend.”
“Sawyer did that to you?” I asked.
“Yes, he did,” Garrett said.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I really am. It was an accident that he found out what happened between us in Vegas. I didn’t say anything to him to start with. But you were the first person I called when my father went into the hospital. When he got there, he had forgotten his phone, so he picked up mine to call Wade and saw that I had called you. After that, I couldn’t really cover it up. The whole story just kind of came out.”
Garrett shrugged, looking unaffected. “I’m actually glad it’s out in the open.”
That definitely wasn’t the response I was expecting. Not that I thought he was going to be furious and fly into a ra
ge or anything. But I did think he might be a bit less casual about it. His choice of words also made me curious.
“You’re glad what’s out in the open?” I asked.
“Us,” Garrett said simply.
“Us?” I asked. “There’s an us?”
“Yeah,” he said. “At least, I think there is. I want to see where this goes.”
I smiled at him. “So do I.”
“Good,” he said, reaching out to put his hands around my waist and inch me closer to him. He kissed me softly, then stepped away from me. “Now, put me to work. I’m familiar enough with the workings of this farm to know there is plenty to do, so pick what needs to be done next and direct me to it.”
I laughed. “Well, if you insist.”
We spent the rest of the morning and the early afternoon working alongside each other in the deep orange autumn sun. The air around us was chilly, but the sun was warm enough for us to break into a sweat during the most intense activities.
Finally, it was time for a break.
“How does lunch sound?” I asked.
“Sounds amazing,” he said.
“Come on then,” I said.
We gathered up the tools we were using so we could put them away, then headed inside. Our first stop was to the sink to wash our hands and splash some cold water on our faces. Then we went into the kitchen and I opened the fridge. When I was done putting together a large stack of sandwiches, I got a container of pasta salad and a pitcher of sweet tea.
Garrett snagged a bag of potato chips from the pantry and I packed everything up into a picnic basket. He reached onto a shelf in the laundry room for one of the old, worn blankets we kept folded up there. We brought everything outside so we could enjoy a picnic lunch in the fresh air.
Chapter 29
Garrett
The sun was high overhead when we sat down for lunch. Rather than eating inside or going off to grab something, Annabelle had brought a cooler full of sandwiches and we sat in the grass by the barn. I marveled at the cooler and how many different types of sandwiches she seemed to have for a moment before she noticed me looking and reached inside for some ice for the giant jug of sweet tea she also brought out with us.
“What?” she asked.
“Nothing,” I said, smiling.
“No, what?”
“It’s just… why in the world do you have fifty sandwiches in this cooler?” I asked.
“Daddy likes to have sandwiches when he goes out in the field,” she said. “It’s easier to just make a whole bunch of the cold ones and stick them in the fridge with dates on them so he can’t eat all the deli chicken in two days like he is known to do.”
“Okay, that makes sense, I guess,” I said, unwrapping a turkey and ham sandwich from the plastic wrap. “And the four liters of sweet tea?”
She shrugged, taking a deep sip. “I get thirsty.”
We both laughed and I shook my head. “Annabelle Dixon,” I said. “You sure are silly.”
“Well, it’s not four liters,” she said, a wide, bright smile across her face. “It’s two. And a good portion of it is ice.”
“To which you add more ice to your cup,” I said.
“Well, I don’t want my drink getting hot once it’s out of the jug.”
I laughed and shook my head again, finishing my sandwich. We fell into a comfortable silence as we sat in the soft grass, enjoying the cooler autumn air and each other’s company.
“So, what are your plans this evening?” I asked as innocently as possible. Somewhere deep in the corners of my mind, I hoped she would say nothing. That she had that lonely house to be in all by herself and that she just couldn’t stand the idea of being so lonesome.
“Well, I plan on going up to see Daddy again, maybe bring him some dinner,” she said, and I scolded myself for thinking so selfishly.
“I could drive you,” I said.
“Oh, I wouldn’t want you to have to do that,” she said but in the way that she was letting me know she absolutely wanted me to do it. My chest swelled with a strange and frightening sensation I could only describe as happiness. I might have to call a doctor and get that checked out.
“It’s not putting me out to do it. I’d like to. I can help you make dinner here and then we can bring it over.”
She took a moment to sip her drink, like she was thinking really hard about the huge favor she was asking me to make, despite the fact that I clearly wanted to be around her every single second I had the chance.
“That would be good,” she said and then broke out into an even wider smile. “It would be really nice.” I could see the smile slowly turn, and a mist formed at the corners. My heart broke for her. I scooted a little closer to her and she reached up with one fingertip to wipe a tear away. “It’s just I can’t imagine trying to go up there alone. Seeing him like that, it’s just so hard.”
“I can imagine,” I said, and memories flooded back to me. Memories I thought I locked away a long time ago. “If it makes you feel any better, I know how that feeling is. That helplessness. The sadness. I know that feeling. Even if you know they will come back home, it’s hard. It reminds of what’s to come. How time comes for us all eventually.”
She nodded and then glanced over at me. “It is. It does. What if he doesn’t come home? What if he takes a turn for the worse?”
“It would be terrible. But you don’t have to think that way. He’s coming back, and he will be in fighting shape in no time. Your dad reminds me of mine.”
“How?” she said.
I didn’t want to talk about that subject, but the words were pouring out of me. I had no control over them anymore. Memories that were surprisingly still raw bubbled up to the surface and I formed words to describe them, despite my own objections.
“When Mom died, I was little. It happened fairly fast, as I recall. But Dad… well, Dad took death to town and made him work for it.” It got a little laugh from her, so I continued, even though the pain of the thoughts I was bringing up felt like someone squeezing my heart. “Dad was having a hard time with his mind near the end. But when he was there, he was there, you know? Like good old Dad. Full of fire and vinegar.”
I stopped to gather my thoughts before continuing on.
“He would wake up some mornings in the hospital for some fall he had or some episode or other, and would have one of the nurses call the house and just curse out whoever answered the phone until we came to pick him up. And we’d all go to the hospital trying to remind him he was there for his own good and they would let him out soon, but he would fight every step of the way. He didn’t want to be away from the ranch. He didn’t want to be away from his work. If there was something he could do, all the way up until the day before he passed, and it was outside on the ranch, he did it. He was driven. Your dad is like that too. It won’t be long before he’s back out in these fields with you instead of me. And you will be fussing at him like we did our dad about taking it easy. But they won’t. Because taking it hard is what life is for them. They are strong, good men, and they are going to make death work for it.”
I had been picking apart a weed as I spoke, and I tossed the remnant away, reaching for my tea. I didn’t know if I said all that really for her benefit or my own, but I felt a little weight off my shoulders when I was done. It was the first time I had spoken about him since the week of his funeral. Everyone that week had wanted to stop me and my brothers and tell us stories about our father. And every time, I just wanted to go down to The Junction and drink their words away. I never talked to anyone about my memories of him. I kept them inside, locked away, until just then.
I turned to look at Annabelle, and her face was turned toward mine, an expression of concern on it. It confused me until I realized I could feel a tear falling down my cheek. I wiped it away with a vengeance, then smiled at her.
“I think it might be about time to get back at it,” I said, gesturing to the fields. “Lots more to do before sundown.”
She no
dded and smiled back, and we finished our meals, making a considerable dent in the sweet tea and sandwiches.
“Bit of a lighter load this time,” I said as I carried them both inside for her.
“Well, I wouldn’t trust the sandwiches until Daddy’s back eating them again, so it’s good they aren’t going to waste,” she said as she opened the door of the fridge and I sat the cooler down on the counter next to it. She began to load them in and then put the jug of sweet tea inside as well.
“If it means keeping waste down, I will gladly offer to take a few of them off your hands for you,” I said.
She grinned and turned away from me like she was shy. Something about that look drove me mad, and I had to resist the urge to spin her around and press my lips against hers for the rest of the day.
“We should get on back outside,” she said, grabbing her work gloves from the kitchen table and walking away.
We went back out into the fields and started harvesting some of the vegetables. It was physical work but not overly hard. Growing up on the ranch, I was used to this type of work from years of it. But it had been some time since I had been in the habit, and my body was still aching like hell, so it got to me faster than I expected.
Still, it was so nice just to be outside, working with my hands by her side. I glanced up and caught her eye a few times and she gave me that smile that made my heart leap up in my throat. Something about her every movement made my stomach clench in a way that no other woman had ever done.
I didn’t just want to take her into the cornfields and lay her down to have my way with her, although I definitely did want to do that too. But I also saw myself doing this forever. Being out in the fields, working hip to hip with her or across a field. Anywhere that I could just look up and catch those eyes, that smile, and know that my hands were doing work that would help feed her. Protect her. Help her.
It was mighty weird to have those thoughts, but that didn’t stop them coming. Whatever was happening between me and Annabelle was different from anything I had ever experienced. It was different from anything I ever thought I would experience.
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