by Janet Dailey
Enough.
After flinging back the sheet, Kristen rolled out of bed, then turned on the overhead light and picked through one of her bags for clean jeans and a T-shirt. It was time to shower and dress, thank Emmy for the great meal and a good night’s sleep, and move on. Whatever issues existed between Emmy and Mitch were their own—and certainly none of her business. And though her heart hurt for both of the kids at having lost their mother, she had no desire to be around them. After last night, she didn’t particularly care to become any more embroiled in the sticky situation at Hart’s Hollow than she already was—no matter how sympathetic she felt toward those children. . . or how attractive Mitch might be to her lonely libido.
She left the bedroom, leaving the door cracked to allow a bit of light into the hallway, then crept into the neighboring bathroom. The bathroom was large by anyone’s standards, though it was actually two smaller rooms. The room closest to the door featured a wide vanity with a deep sink, and the adjoining room had another vanity, a toilet, and a shower.
After slipping into the adjoining room, she shut the door, then retrieved a clean towel and a bar of soap from the vanity. She frowned, her hand hovering on the cabinet door. There were many economy-sized packages of bar soap—so many, they filled over half the storage space—all still sealed and stacked neatly in rows. It would take a family of four years to make it through all that.
Kristen shook her head and proceeded to shower. Twenty minutes later, clean and dressed, she slipped out of the bathroom and headed for the bedroom, only to stop abruptly in the hallway.
The sun was up, but its bright light struggled to penetrate a dingy window at the opposite end of the hallway. Grime caked the glass panes so thickly that the bare walls and the hardwood floor of the landing remained dark and gloomy.
Kristen moved to the smudged window, tossing her dirty clothes in the bedroom along the way. After locating the locks on the window, she snapped them open, then pulled up on the sash. But it didn’t budge. She tried again, pressing her shoulder to the glass and putting her back into it. Her arms strained with the renewed effort, and just when she was about to give up, the window creaked, groaned, then swooshed upward.
A cool breeze rushed in, weaving through her damp hair and sweeping through the hallway at her back. She inhaled, held the air down deep in her lungs, and closed her eyes. Her face warmed beneath the sun’s rays, and birds’ happy chirps peppered the clean air around her.
Opening her eyes, she looked down at the scenery below. The driveway, still damp from last night’s rain, wrapped around the green front lawn in a ribbon of red. Dew glistened on the thick grass and the leaves of the large oak trees, and the fields beyond were darker than yesterday, the soil rich with moisture.
Kristen’s smile returned. “Beautiful.”
Whatever its faults, Hart’s Hollow Farm still showed signs of life. They lingered on the fragrant sweetness of the air and were strong enough to penetrate the heavy atmosphere inside the house. Though it’d take a monumental effort to revive the place.
But Emmy had spirit and drive. The kind Kristen couldn’t help but admire. And despite the odds, if the situation here was less complicated, she’d be almost tempted to consider—
“Good morning.”
Startled, she opened her eyes and spun around.
Mitch stood outside his bedroom door, as tall, broad shouldered, and handsome as she remembered. He wore the same blue button-down shirt and khakis from last night. His chestnut-toned hair was slightly mussed, dark stubble lined his jaw, and a morning huskiness tinged his voice, stirring a delicious sensation low in her belly.
“G-good morning.” She shrugged slightly and gestured over her shoulder. “I’m sorry. The view . . . I wanted to get a better look. I hope I didn’t wake you, prying the window open.”
“No.” He shook his head. A wavy lock of hair tumbled over his forehead, and he pushed it back with a tanned hand. “I’m an early riser. Thought I’d get a head start on dragging my car out of the mud.”
Nodding, she shifted awkwardly on her feet. “I suppose I should—”
“How long do you plan to—”
They both stopped. Remaining silent, Kristen smiled and gestured for him to continue.
He mirrored the motion, the sensual curves of his mouth lifting in a grin. The action brightened his eyes, but a hint of sadness still hovered in the blue depths. Enough that a strange sensation moved through her arms, making her long to reach out, cradle him close and offer comfort.
“You and Kristen both up, Mitch?” Emmy’s call echoed up the wide staircase.
Mitch turned his head and looked down. “Yeah.”
“Then y’all come out to the porch,” Emmy said. “I got something to show you.”
Kristen left the window, gripped the dusty staircase rail and looked down, too. She caught a glimpse of Emmy’s back as she left, the screen door creaking open, then shut, on her departure.
“We’ve been summoned.” Smile wry, Mitch sighed, then stepped back, sweeping his arm toward the stairs. “After you.”
They walked downstairs and onto the porch, but there was no sign of Emmy. Just wet oak leaves scattered along the bare wood-planked floor.
“I’m over here.”
Mitch shrugged, then led the way toward Emmy’s voice. Kristen followed, keeping her eyes fixed firmly ahead and not on the strong swagger of Mitch’s lean hips and thick thighs as they walked along the wraparound porch to the side of the house.
Emmy, her jeans muddy and her gray hair escaping its bun, stood just around the corner, by a small white table, holding a stainless-steel coffeepot. An assortment of muffins filled one woven basket sitting at the end of the table; green grapes and sliced apples were piled high in a glass bowl next to it; and a plate of big, beautiful strawberries was positioned at the opposite end.
Lifting a mug from the table, Emmy asked, “Do you drink coffee, Kristen?”
Kristen nodded, her stomach growling at the aroma. “Yes, please.”
Emmy poured the rich brew generously, handed it to Kristen, then pointed at two glass jars with spoons nestled inside them. “Sugar and cream are there. Mitch?”
He frowned but nodded. As Emmy grabbed another mug, he asked, “How long have you been up, Emmy?”
Her lips pursed. “Oh, since about four. Kids aren’t up yet. Figured I’d go ahead and start breakfast anyway.”
“You should’ve woken me,” Kristen said, stirring in a bit of cream. “I’d have been happy to help.”
“Yeah?” Emmy smiled as she handed Mitch his coffee. “Well, I’m bribing you with breakfast, so that would’ve defeated the purpose.”
Kristen sipped the strong brew, and a hum of appreciation escaped her as the flavor filled her senses. “Bribing me for what?”
Emmy’s smile widened. “Look over there.”
She pointed to her left, toward the back side of the farmhouse, where rows upon rows of lush green plants sprouted from raised beds covered with black plastic. Sunlight glinted off puddles along the dirt paths between the beds, and from this distance, the plants’ dewy leaves sparkled like crystal.
“Strawberries.” Emmy’s chest lifted with pride. “The reddest, sweetest berries that ever grew out of the ground.” She set the coffeepot on the table, then nudged the plate of strawberries closer to Kristen. “Go on. Try one.”
Kristen hesitated, glancing at Mitch, whose frown deepened, and then she picked a strawberry from the plate. She took a small bite. Sweet juice spilled from the plump flesh, rolling over her tongue and trickling down her chin.
“Mmm.” Kristen wiped her face with the back of her hand and smiled. “It’s delicious.”
“Yeah, and if those four acres of land can produce fruit that perfect,” Emmy said, “imagine what the other three hundred acres can do.”
A spicy, masculine scent surrounded Kristen as Mitch reached around her, the rough dusting of hair on his brawny forearm brushing her smooth skin, and grabb
ed a strawberry. He squeezed the fruit gently, turned it over in his strong palm, then narrowed his eyes at Emmy.
“One decent patch of strawberries doesn’t guarantee a substantial crop of any kind on this farm,” Mitch said.
“Maybe not.” Emmy’s jaw stiffened. “But it proves it’s not dead and buried. I can do this. I’ve already done a lot of prep for early soybean production and better corn. I just need help. Someone with strong legs and plenty of energy.” She looked at Kristen. “That’s where you come in.”
Three hundred acres. And just the two of them? Kristen shook her head. “Emmy—”
“It’s a long shot, at best.” Mitch tossed the strawberry back on the table. It bounced against the coffeepot, rolled off, then hit the porch floor. “A waste of time and what little money you have left.”
“What’s a waste?” Emmy picked up the strawberry and dusted the dirt off with the hem of her shirt. “Fighting to hold on to our family’s land? Wanting to feed people? Our fields alone could fill the bellies of over a hundred and fifty people for a year.”
Mitch’s mouth twisted. “There are a lot of people who’d debate you on that. Most of the corn you grow goes into making fuel and—”
“Even so, every kernel is worth the effort,” Emmy said. “And if those fields produce only enough to keep one person from starving next year, they’re worth plowing.” Her cheeks reddened. “No one should have to go hungry. This land fed you your entire childhood, Mitch, so I don’t expect you to know how it feels to not have enough to eat. But I do. I know what it’s like to not know where your next meal is gonna come from, and it’s not a waste, as you put it, to try to keep that from happening.”
Kristen flinched, the reality of Emmy’s words hitting hard. She’d missed only two days’ worth of meals before arriving at Hart’s Hollow, but the resulting weakness in her limbs and gnawing hole in her gut had been enough to want to avoid repeating the painful predicament. And she couldn’t imagine how it would feel to go hungry on a permanent basis.
“Or maybe”—Emmy’s mouth shook as she stared at Mitch—“it’s not the land you lack faith in but me. Maybe you think that ’cuz I got a bit of age on me and move slower than I used to, I can’t do the job. Or maybe, ’cuz I speak slow and plain, you think I’m just an ignorant backwoods bumpkin who doesn’t have the smarts or wherewithal to pull it off.”
“I never said that, Emmy.” Mitch stepped back, his cheeks flushing. “Would never say that.”
“But you’re thinking it.” Emmy peered up at him. “You think I don’t know the other reason you finally deigned to come back here? You think I don’t know you came to take those two babies away from me, too?”
Kristen’s hands clenched around her mug, her attention shooting to Mitch. He avoided her eyes, but the guilty color blotching his neck and the tanned skin above the open collar of his shirt confirmed Emmy’s assertion.
“There’s a big world out there,” Mitch said. “Sadie and Dylan deserve a chance to live in it. They deserve the opportunity to grow and thrive in a stable home. To have choices and opportunities.”
“And I can’t give them that?” Emmy’s voice cracked. “I always fought for you, Mitch. Just like I’m fighting for them now. Can’t you see I’m trying to make things right?”
Mitch stared back at her, his face turning pale and a muscle clenching in his jaw. “It’s too late for that. Those kids deserve better, and you’ve earned a decent rest.”
Throat tightening, Kristen looked away and focused on the green rows of strawberry plants in the distance. The painful throb in Emmy’s voice brought tears to her eyes, blurring the view.
“I’ve rested enough in my life, and I’m not leaving my home or giving up the last bit of family I got left.” Emmy stood straighter. “I don’t use fancy phrases, because I only say what I mean. Ain’t nothing wrong with speaking plain. Like a plain yes or no. So be honest, Mitch. Do you think I’m capable of propping this place back on its feet?”
For a moment, only the birds’ chirps and the whisper of the spring breeze moved between them. Then Mitch answered, his tone hard.
“No.”
Kristen frowned at him, the angry set of his expression making her chest ache. The circumstances on this farm were dire, sure, but how could he be so cruel? How could he stand there and dismiss Emmy—his own family—as though she meant nothing to him? As though she were . . . no one?
“And you?” Emmy was facing her now, a look of helplessness on her face and suspicious wetness lining her lashes. “You think I got enough life left in me to fix this land?”
Alone? With two children to raise? No. Kristen closed her eyes against the thought, shame welling within her at the instinctual need to run. There were never guarantees in life. No controlled, predictable outcomes. No one knew that better than she.
“Yes.”
Her eyes sprang open, the lie that had left her lips as much a surprise to her as it seemed to be to Mitch and Emmy.
Shifting closer, Emmy wiped her cheeks with the back of her hand. The desperate hope underpinning her tremulous smile made Kristen ache to turn away. “And will you take the job?”
Kristen glanced at Mitch, the thin line of his mouth and disapproving plea in his expression sending a chill through her.
She faced Emmy, then forced herself to speak. “Yes.”
CHAPTER 3
Mitch dug his heels deeper into the farm’s sludge-filled driveway, then braced his hands against the rental car’s back bumper.
“That plank you lodged in the front isn’t tight enough to the tire. I can give it a kick, if you’d like?”
He cut his eyes to the left. Kristen’s guarded gaze and determined stance made his tongue press tighter against the back of his clenched teeth. After his conversation with Emmy, he’d trudged out here, intent on blowing off some steam by prying the car from the mud, but not long after Kristen had followed.
“It’s nice of you to offer to help,” he said, “but the plank’s plenty tight and I can handle this on my own.”
“I’m sure you can, but Emmy asked me to give you a hand while she gets the kids up. She’d like you to bring her truck around. Said she doesn’t drive as much, because of her knee. She wants you to take us to the neighbors’. Ruth Ann Hadden’s, I think she said.”
“For what?”
Kristen shrugged. “Said she has business to discuss, and I’m here to work, so . . .” She glanced at his staggered legs. “I can give that plank a kick, then get on the other side and help you rock it out. An extra hand never hurts, and that’s what I’m here for.”
He closed his eyes and stifled a groan. “Fine. But the plank’s good, and it’ll go better if you get in the car and give it a little gas instead.”
She hesitated, the breeze twirling wisps of her blond hair across the stubborn set of her jaw, then nodded and walked toward the driver’s side.
Mitch clenched his hands tighter around the bumper of the sedan, the sun-warmed metal heating his palms and temper. How—in the space of five minutes—had Emmy maneuvered pleasantries over morning coffee into a debate over the farm’s worth? And hers as a person? Then for Kristen to jump on the bandwagon—
“Why did you do it?” He leaned around the side of the car, then glared as she froze and looked back at him, one of her slim legs poised in the front floorboard of the driver’s seat. “Why did you say yes and give Emmy false hope like that?” He shook his head. “I’ve been nothing but honest with you, and you can see the state of the place for yourself. Why join a project you know will fail? Take a job I told you right off would be a dead end?”
A muscle in her jaw ticked. “Why is it guaranteed to be a dead end? Because you say so?” One blond brow rose. “Your word is gospel—is that it?”
“No.” He scoffed, glancing up at the ceaseless stretch of blue above. “We’ve got enough gospel out here. I’m just stating facts. Sensible, practical truths.”
“Is that why you’re taking the kids from
her? Because it’s the sensible thing to do regardless of how it’ll affect Emmy or the children?”
“You just met them. You don’t know enough about any of us to pass judgment—”
“You’re right. It’s not my place to judge, and that’s not my intention.” Her tone softened. “But I know what it feels like to lose something precious. I wouldn’t wish it on anyone.”
She stopped, then looked down, her gaze darting over the red clay oozing up around her white tennis shoes and then settling on the interior of the car.
He studied the defensive posture of her slender frame. The dark flush in her cheeks, the tight line of her mouth.
The angry buzz in his veins quieted as he slowly straightened. “What have you lost, Kristen?”
She turned away, staring over her shoulder at the low swoop of a red-tailed hawk floating on the current over the empty fields. Her pulse fluttered beneath the delicate skin of her exposed neck, just below her jaw. “Everyone’s lost something.” Her slim throat moved on a hard swallow; then she faced him, expression blank and eyes empty. “Haven’t you?”
“Yes, but—”
“Then let’s just say we both know how that feels.” A hint of desperation shook her steady words. “Can we agree on that at least?”
Mitch waited, holding her steady gaze, then watched the rapid rise and fall of her chest. “Okay. For now, we’ll agree on that.” He returned his attention to her face. “But believe me when I say there’s more to this than you think. This farm may be precious to Emmy, but it’s been nothing but mud and blood for me.”
Kristen’s mouth parted and the quick lift of her chest stilled as her eyes swept over his chest and thighs, then focused on his hands. A sharp sting hit the tender flesh of his palms, and he unfurled fists he hadn’t realized he’d formed, the press of his nails leaving throbbing impressions behind.