Where It All Began

by Lucy Score

  Murdock bulleted toward the side door of the house and scratched at the screen, and John set off in the same direction at a more leisurely pace. Phoebe hefted her typewriter case and followed along behind him.

  The kitchen was small and dark and hadn’t been redone since the 1950s. The refrigerator was original. The stove was a little newer, definitely an early 70s model in the same pea green as her suitcase. Orange and white linoleum tiles peeled up at the corners. The Formica dining table was a hand-me-down with rusty metal legs and a scarred top. Its four chairs boasted mismatched vinyl patterns of flowers, birds, and checkers.

  “It’s a, uh, work in progress,” John said, looking around as if seeing his own kitchen for the first time.

  “It’s nice,” she told him and meant it. The space was clean, and it was in better shape than her apartment off campus. Phoebe spent most of her time in the library, the lab, or the fields. Her shabby studio apartment was reserved for sleeping... and the occasional bottle of wine. This place felt like a home. An outdated home in desperate need of some sprucing up, but a home nonetheless.

  Phoebe peered into one of the front rooms and discovered a dining room with peeling brown-on-brown graphic wallpaper that probably made dinner guests dizzy. Though judging by the fact that the room housed a table and no chairs, Phoebe assumed John didn’t do much entertaining. Opposite was a small living room with requisite couch and recliner. “How long have you lived here?”

  “Bought the place a year ago. Should have seen it then. It was a real wreck.”

  Before she could clarify if he was joking, John disappeared down the hallway toward the front of the house. She followed and grinned wistfully at the wallpaper here, black with orange and yellow flowers. It was a twin of the paper that had been in her grandmother’s laundry room on the family farm. She’d have to dig her Polaroid out of her bag and snap a picture to send to her grandparents.

  She followed John’s remarkable denim-clad ass up the staircase and into a bedroom at the front of the house. It was small but cozy. There was a twin bed with a wrought iron headboard and no sheets near a dusty dresser that was missing four knobs, and she imagined the skinny door with the glass knob was a closet.

  John stared at the bed for a long minute. “I don’t have sheets.” He sounded baffled as if bedding hadn’t occurred to him when he’d agreed to house a guest.

  So, he was going to let her stay the night at least, she thought, relieved. “That’s okay. I’ve got my sleeping bag in the car.” Phoebe prided herself on being a low-maintenance woman. She wore her long hair straight so she didn’t need to deal with the case of Aqua Net most of her friends went through in a month. Her clothes were mostly variations on a theme: denim and cotton. And she was perfectly comfortable sleeping on a bare mattress or the floor of a tent.

  “Bathroom’s back that way.” John jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “I’m across the hall. I’m going to grab a shower, and then maybe we’ll figure out what to do with you. If you need anything just holler.” He was gone before she could respond.

  She smirked at his choice of words. Holler. Yep, she was definitely in farm country and with a farmer of few words. It was fine with her. Phoebe had more than enough words to make up for John’s lack.

  The springs sang as she sank down on the mattress. She plumped the lone pillow and flopped back against it and wondered if John really believed he had a choice about her staying.

  Chapter Three

  What in the hell had he gotten himself into? John shook his head under the lukewarm water that trickled from the showerhead. He added “give the water heater another kick” to his list of immediate fixes.

  He’d been mentally prepared to share his summer with Allen the grad student. Allen the man. He’d talk to him about the ins and outs of a small family farm. And in return, Allen would lend a much-needed hand in the fields. It was a simple, mutually beneficial arrangement that had just gone to hell.

  Phoebe Allen, with her pretty bottle green eyes and long hair the color of deer hide, was not what he’d signed up for. And he knew exactly who had set him up. John was familiar with the mutterings from Blue Moon Bend’s older generation. They were concerned about his well-being. Twenty-eight, living alone on two hundred ramshackle acres, unmarried? He scrubbed the grit and grime off his knuckles with more violence than necessary.

  He liked his life. His quiet life on his very own plot of land. Here, it was one step at a time, moving with nature. He wasn’t boxed up in some cubicle being a yes man and shuffling mounds of paperwork, worshipping a clock, and praying for vacation days. Here he had the greens of the grass, the whisper of the breeze through the leaves, skies that went on forever. Every day in nature was a vacation. And for company, John had Murdock and the frogs in the creek.

  In fact, John thought bitterly as he swiped shampoo through his mop of hair that he’d been meaning to cut, he wasn’t quite sure what had him agreeing to house a grad student for a few weeks in the first place. He could have gotten the help he needed just as easily in trade with another farmer.

  He was just the latest victim of Blue Moon’s mojo.

  “Must be tough out there all by yourself on that farm. You could probably use some help, couldn’t you?”

  He’d thought at the time that she was referring to a farm hand. But it was clear as day now that she’d meant a wife. It was a known fact that if anyone was single in Blue Moon long enough, they’d be fixed up and married off before they knew what hit them.

  And Mrs. Nordemann had pulled the trigger on him.

  Grabbing for the soap again, he went over their conversation in his head.

  “An excellent student—strong, smart, good head for numbers,” Jillian Nordemann, who had married at nineteen and made it her mission in life to shove everyone else into the same wedded bliss, had practically glowed while reciting the assets of her second cousin’s kid in grad school. “You could use some help around the farm. An extra pair of hands. You won’t regret it. That I guarantee,” she’d insisted.

  He couldn’t recall her using the very important pronoun that would have tipped him off to the fact that “he” was a “she.”

  It wasn’t that John had anything against dating or marriage or even the very attractive woman in his guest bedroom. He just wasn’t ready. He didn’t need a girlfriend or a wife right now. He needed a capable pair of hands to get him through the summer on the farm. The water sputtered once, signaling the end of the hot water supply, and he twisted the knobs. This house wasn’t much of a home, and when he was ready to find Mrs. Pierce, he’d damn well want to present her with something more than a shitty farm house, a falling down barn full of rusty equipment, and a meager crop yield.

  He had plans. Goals. He wasn’t about to drag someone in on the ground floor. And if he were ready, that woman would not be Phoebe Allen. She was too smart-mouthed, too opinionated, too busy. She would turn his quiet, comfortable life into chaos.

  He wanted to use his two hands to build his future and didn’t need anyone else interfering with the decision-making. John hated being maneuvered into a decision he’d rather not make, and it looked like Mrs. Nordemann and Phoebe had accomplished just that.

  He ran a threadbare towel over his hair and across his chest and caught the grimness in his own expression in the mirror.

  He’d known it was only a matter of time before someone meddled in his life. He shouldn’t be surprised. He was a lifelong Blue Mooner. And if he were inclined to act like it, he’d just scheme right back. He felt the upward turn in the corner of his mouth as he scrubbed a hand over the stubble he hadn’t gotten around to shaving for the last few days.

  Maybe he’d give them exactly what they wanted?

  He’d give Phoebe the unforgettable, hands-on farm experience she demanded, and the second she cried uncle, he’d send her packing to Mrs. Nordemann’s front door. If he ruined Mrs. Nordemann’s attempts at a fix-up, he could buy himself at least a year before sh
e wrangled another candidate for the future Mrs. Pierce.

  He’d be back to his solitude in no time.

  --------

  John changed into his last pair of clean Levi’s and a t-shirt he found on his bedroom floor that smelled vaguely fresh and headed downstairs where he found Phoebe making herself right at home. Her fancy electric typewriter took up half the kitchen table. She wiggled out from under the table on her hands and knees. Her denim skirt rose higher and higher on the curve of her rear end as she made her way out. She didn’t wiggle far enough and cracked the top of her head on the underside of the table.

  “Shit!”

  He smirked from the doorway and watched as she sat down in the chair, rubbing her head. She flicked a switch, and the typewriter hummed to life.

  “Ahh,” she sighed, satisfaction blooming on her face.

  Great. Not only was she a woman. She was a nerd. John had landed himself the least helpful farm hand in the history of the industry.

  “You hungry?” he asked abruptly.

  Phoebe must not have heard him come in. She responded with a shriek and a jerk that sent papers flying.

  John silently bid farewell to the temple-like quiet of his home.

  “You scared the hell out of me!” She slapped a hand over her heart.

  “Did you assume I’d never come back downstairs?”

  “No. I…” She was glaring at him and seemed to have lost her thread of the conversation.

  He glanced down wondering what distracted her. He was indeed wearing pants, and he couldn’t see any gruesome stains that would hold a woman captivated. “What?” he demanded.

  Phoebe blinked and closed her mouth. “Nothing. You were saying something about… something?”

  “I was asking if you were hungry. Normally I just have a sandwich for supper, but I could be talked into pizza tonight.”

  “Pizza?” There was a hopeful quality in her tone.

  “Pizza, and we can talk about this… arrangement.”

  The smug look on her face told him that Phoebe assumed she’d won.

  Chapter Four

  Phoebe eased her butt onto the ripped upholstery of the passenger seat in John’s elderly pick-up truck. She was trying to keep her knees glued together beneath the restrictive denim skirt so John wouldn’t get an unnecessary view of her underwear. Of course, he’d insisted on opening her door for her. That’s what 1950s etiquette dictated.

  He shut her door soundly before she could remind him that she was perfectly capable of opening and closing her own doors. It was probably for the best. She needed to keep her lectures to herself until she was sure he was going to let her stay. He may have shown her a bedroom, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t going to show her the door in the morning.

  She should have changed into jeans first, but she’d felt that might have been too presumptuous of her. She wasn’t opposed to presumption when it played in her favor, but she couldn’t get a read on the man. And any action she took could result in him sending her packing, putting her thesis in danger.

  So, she’d settled for sending a subtler message, staking her claim by setting up her typewriter on John’s kitchen table.

  He slid behind the wheel, and in the enclosed space, she caught a pleasing whiff of his soap. The ends of his hair were still damp from his shower, curling at the back of his neck. Physically, he ranked right up there with Hollywood’s finest hunks. Broad shoulders, tight jeans, a sexy face with chiseled lines, and a glorious crop of stubble. His eyes were serious, searching.

  John Pierce was enough to make any woman pause to take in the view—as she had when he’d strolled into the kitchen—but Phoebe wasn’t quite ready to rule him the sexiest man she’d ever laid eyes on. Her level of attraction to a man depended heavily on character and intelligence, both of which had yet to be determined.

  “Are we going into the town that time forgot?” Phoebe asked, securing her seatbelt.

  The corner of John’s mouth turned up as he turned the key and shifted into reverse. “I take it you drove through Blue Moon on your way here.”

  “What’s the story there?”

  “Story?” he asked, as they bumped along down the lane.

  She rolled her eyes skyward. “A place like that doesn’t not have a story behind it.”

  “You ever hear of Woodstock?” John asked.

  She shot him a cool look. “It sounds vaguely familiar.” There was that quirk in his lips again. Jerk.

  “Well, after Woodstock wrapped, everyone headed home. But not everyone made it. A dozen or more partakers got lost on their way back and ended up setting up camp in the town square. They liked the place so much they decided to stay.”

  “Just like that? They never went home?”

  John shrugged his big shoulders. “Probably baked out of their gourds. I was twelve when they showed up, pitching tents, camping in VWs. The whole town smelled like grass.” His laugh was warm with the memory.

  “You’re pulling my leg.” She could see the edge of town up ahead and was anxious for it to reveal itself.

  John shook his head and grinned at her. And Phoebe felt her stomach turn itself into knots. Wow. The man had a smile that could melt her Maidenforms right off her. She’d have to watch out for that. She was here for professional reasons, not to dip a toe into the local dating pool.

  “I kid you not. They were so good-natured and ‘make love not war’ and ‘free lovey’ that no one in town minded them. We had a town meeting and decided to help them all resettle here. Most of them and their families still live here today. Blue Moon assumed the hippies would adapt to us, but as you can see,” he said, pointing to a sprawling Victorian decked out in purple and pink. There were dozens of wind chimes hanging from both porches and a paint splattered school bus parked in the front lawn. “We were wrong.”

  “Is that decoration?”

  “The Fitzsimmons think so,” John said, with the lift of a shoulder. There was no judgment behind his tone. Just a casual acceptance of oddity.

  It was too bad that he couldn’t extend that acceptance to her, Phoebe thought.

  “And everyone just went along with it?” she asked.

  “We were just a tiny farming community before 1969. Now, we’re practically a commune. You won’t ever find a tighter knit town,” he predicted.

  She frowned as John slowed the truck and abruptly pulled over to the side of the road. Phoebe Allen was no one’s fool, and they were not out of gas. But she kept her comments to herself when John slid out from behind the wheel and ambled around the front of the truck. She saw it then. Something slim and black on the road. A hose?

  “Oh gross!” The hose moved as John approached.

  She stuck her head out her window as John crouched down within what looked like striking distance. “What are you doing?” she demanded.

  “Moving him off the road.” John’s voice was beyond calm. It bordered on bored.

  “You’re not going to touch it, are you?”

  “Can you please stop shrieking? He doesn’t like it.” John stood up and Phoebe’s eyes bugged out at the five feet of snake he held in his hands as casually as a garden hose.

  “Don’t let it bite you!”

  “Harmless black snake,” he called over his shoulder as he walked it across the street to the wooded gully. Phoebe wriggled out of her seat and sat on the window ledge to watch John over the top of the truck’s cab.

  She saw the hideous thing swing what was most likely its head in John’s direction. He side-stepped it and deposited the snake in the tall grass.

  “Harmless?” Phoebe asked.

  “Won’t kill you if it bites you,” he clarified.

  “But it would still bite.”

  He shrugged. John’s equivalent of a retort.

  He climbed behind the wheel again, and Phoebe slid back into her seat, her pulse still racing. “You just picked up a snake.” She shook her head at the image. Her fa
rmer was an idiot.

  “He just needed a little help. They sun themselves on the road, and if someone came around too fast he’d have gotten hit.” John shifted back into gear and the truck rumbled down the road.

  A ha! The misguided hero type, Phoebe decided, studying his profile. He certainly looked the part. That was something she could work with.

  Satisfied, she looked out her window at the town. And then her skin began to crawl. She checked both of her feet and under the seat, knowing full well it was just psychological. She didn’t miss the smirk on John’s lips when she was finally satisfied there was no snake ready to take a bite out of her.

  At least he was smart enough not to comment, she noted. Instead, he pointed out a sweet little cottage tucked into a wooded lot on her right with the word PEACE painted across its front in a rainbow.

  “That’s insane.”

  John leveled a look at her. “You haven’t seen anything yet.”

  --------

  Named in recognition of the endearing wandering hippies, One Love Park took up a whole block in the very center of town. There were signs staked into the ground at varying intervals.

  Have you hugged a tree today?

  Don’t worry. Be hippie.

  Clothing no longer optional.

  Phoebe kept her nose glued to the window, afraid she would miss something, as John cruised down the block. He pulled into a slot on the end of the park between a movie theater and a pizzeria.

  Peace of Pizza was impossible to miss with its bright purple awning. The windows were decorated with colorful bubble-lettered posters describing specials. She could see lava lamps burbling away inside.

  “No. Way.”

  “No way to pizza?” John asked.

  “Huh? No. I mean yes. I definitely want pizza. I just can’t believe a place like this exists.”

  “Good, because our choices are limited. There’s a custard place across the street, a diner on the other side of town, and a Wag’s about ten miles south of here.”