Betting on Love

by Alyssa Linn Palmer

  “You don’t know that it would be,” she replied, her voice shaky. “And he’d have to get approval, anyway.”

  Jack scoffed. “You think he doesn’t have politicians and bureaucrats in his pocket? Approval will be the easiest part.” He turned and headed for his truck, shaking his head. Elly watched him go, standing in the doorway of the farmhouse.

  She returned to the kitchen and sat down with the agreement, determined to read it all the way through. It took several cups of tea and the use of a highlighter, but she eventually finished. It was true, it didn’t say what they’d use the land for, but maybe she could finagle something before she sold.

  Elly glanced at the clock. Almost five. Damn. She wanted to call Alex and tell her the news, but she’d be at work by now. Should she call Parry’s? She was on her feet and at the phone before she could stop herself. Surely Derek wouldn’t mind, if she kept it short. She dialed the number.

  “Parry’s, Charity speaking.”

  “Char, it’s Elly. Is Alex around?”

  “Hey, El, I thought you’d be working.” Charity sounded cheerful as always, and Elly could hear the clatter of dishes in the background.

  “Not for the next few days. I had to come home to take care of some stuff. Is Alex there?”

  “Yeah, I’ll grab her for you. She’s just changing up a keg before Eric heads out. Gimme a sec.” Charity put her on hold and Elly listened to a local radio station for several minutes. Her gaze went back to the agreement. Half a million dollars.

  “El?” Alex’s voice rang in her ear.

  “Hey, Alex.”

  “So, what’s happening with the farm? Are you planning on ways to spend all that cash?”

  “I had a purchase agreement to read,” Elly said. “I’m not quite there yet.”

  “So you’ve signed it? It’s almost done?” Alex sounded eager.

  “Almost. Haven’t signed yet. I need to make sure I know what I’m doing.”

  “Of course you know. Half a million, El.”

  “I know.” Elly frowned. Not once had Alex said anything about keeping the farm. She seemed fixated on the money.

  “Get that done and come back, and we can race out on the bike to the mountains. I know a nice little hotel, we can have a night off together. What do you say?”

  “I’m not sure when I’ll be back,” she hedged.

  “Whenever. El, I gotta go. Eric’s shift’s done, so I have to get in there.”

  “I’ll talk to you later, then.”

  “Don’t call too early, if it’s tomorrow,” Alex reminded her. “I have the closing shift tonight.”

  “I’ll remember that. Don’t work too hard.”

  “I won’t. Take care, babe.” Alex hung up.

  Elly set the phone back in its cradle. She eyed the paperwork on the kitchen table, then opened the fridge. It was bare but for a couple of cans of pop. She hadn’t thought about what she was going to eat. Time to go into town.

  *

  Alex wiped down the bar, her mind on Elly. She was so close to selling the farm, and when she did, she’d come to stay in the city full-time. Of course, she wouldn’t work at Parry’s forever, but that’d probably be a good thing. There was no one she needed to see on a daily basis, but she was starting to think she could make an exception for Elly. Elly wasn’t clingy like Heather had been, not insistent and needy, bitching about how little they saw each other, or who else Alex was hanging around with. She rinsed the cloth in the sink and hung it over the faucet to dry, then glanced at her watch. Only a few more hours. If Elly were in town, she’d zip over to the apartment, surprise her with a late meal, and then make love to her.

  Love? No, that wasn’t right. Alex shook her head.

  She straightened the bottles of booze on the shelf behind the bar, then organized the coolers. When she straightened and turned back to the bar, Will was there, leaning on his hand.

  “Sorry, didn’t hear you come in,” she said. “Drink?”

  “A Coke,” Will said, sounding rueful.

  “Still hurting after the other night?”

  “The hangover’s gone, but I think I’ll just take it easy. Where’s Elly? I didn’t see her in the restaurant.”

  “She’s at the farm for a couple of days.”

  “Derek didn’t need her to work?”

  Alex shrugged. “She took time off. She’s trying to sell it, so she had to go see the Realtor and deal with the possible buyer.”

  “Ah.” Will took a sip of the Coke she set in front of him. “That means we can go riding tomorrow. It’s supposed to be a beautiful day. It’d be a shame to miss it.”

  “Where to?” It didn’t really matter, as she’d ride anywhere, but she felt like at least making an attempt at negotiation of their trip destination.

  “Out to the mountains, Lake Louise or something.” Will slurped his pop. “Or farther, if you want to. You working tomorrow?”

  “I close tonight. Let me check the schedule. Keep an eye on the bar, will you?”

  “And do what? Pour drinks?” Will laughed.

  Alex rolled her eyes. She zipped into the back and up the stairs to the office. The schedules hung outside Derek’s door, and she skimmed down to her name. Not working tomorrow night, just as she’d thought. Nor the night after, surprisingly. She grinned and went back downstairs, taking the steps two at a time.

  “Not tomorrow,” she announced when she came back into the bar.

  Will pumped his fist. “Brilliant. Let’s go to Revelstoke, then, or farther. Maybe Nelson.”

  “There are some pretty rides around there.”

  “The stretch through Kaslo, for sure. And the ride out’s good anyway.”

  “What time do you want to leave?” Alex hoped he wouldn’t be too eager to get away early; she did need some sleep, after all.

  “Nine?”

  Alex grimaced.

  “What? That’s not the crack of dawn.”

  “It might as well be, when I’m closing. How about ten thirty?”

  “You’re getting to be an old lady,” Will teased. “Make it ten, and you’re on. I’ll call that place in New Denver, see if they have a room going spare. They should, I’d hope.”

  “Two beds,” Alex said, and Will gave her a strange look.

  “Since when?”

  “Since I said so,” she retorted, surprised at her own vehemence. It had never mattered before.

  “She has you whipped, eh?” Will asked, his tone light. The words rankled.

  “Hardly.”

  “So did Heather, remember?”

  “She’s not like that. Christ, Will.” Alex noticed a customer at the end of the bar and she left Will there, going to get their order. She pulled a pint of beer, and by the time she came back, her anger had mellowed somewhat.

  “Sorry, Bellerose,” Will said. “I just remember you after Heather, that’s all, and you were gutted. I don’t want to see that happen again.”

  “It won’t,” Alex said. “Elly’s not like that.” She hoped. Everything had gone all right so far, after all, even if Elly only rarely wanted to be intimate. She’d change that, hopefully. And Elly was reliable, sensible, on an even keel, as her grandmother used to say. Nothing at all like Heather.

  “Good.” Will finished his Coke and stood up. “What do I owe you?”

  “On the house. It’s just pop.”

  Will pulled a five-dollar bill from his pocket and smoothed it out on the bar. “For my favorite biker babe.”

  “Awww, you shouldn’t have.” Alex picked up the tip and folded it, tucking it into the pocket of her black trousers.

  “For you, Bellerose, always.” He blew her a kiss as he headed out the door, pausing to shout, “Ten o’clock, and don’t forget to set your alarm.”

  *

  Elly walked into the diner, and all conversation stopped. Every head turned, and it was as if she was a stranger, an oddity to be stared at and gossiped about. She’d grown up here, among every one of the people sitt
ing at the tables, but she’d never felt so out of place. What she’d feared, even though she hadn’t even sold the farm yet, had happened. She swallowed hard and took a seat at the counter.

  “Coffee?” Leigh, the diner’s longtime waitress, asked.

  “Please. And a BLT, please, with fries.” Elly couldn’t remember the last time she’d looked at a menu here. She knew it by heart.

  “Sure thing.” Leigh poured her a cup, leaning forward slightly as she did. “Don’t mind them. They’ve all got their panties in a bunch. They never thought you’d sell, or move away.”

  Elly smiled at her, though it was a tight smile, an attempt at being jovial.

  “Eleanor, how nice to see you.”

  Elly turned to see Mrs. Calderwood coming across the diner, moving steadily and carefully with her cane, her gnarled hand resting on the rubber grip. Elly’s palms went damp, and she braced herself for the expected talking-to.

  “It’s nice to see you too,” Elly replied, trying to keep her voice steady.

  “I hear from my Jack that you’re selling to Hamilton Farms,” Mrs. Calderwood said, getting right to the point, as Elly knew she would. She always had been a straight shooter.

  “I’m considering it,” Elly replied truthfully. She hadn’t signed the agreement yet, after all.

  “Your father would be rolling in his grave to know that you’d sell it to an outfit like Hamilton’s. He didn’t maintain that land just so it could be turned into a feedlot.” She shook her finger at Elly. “It’ll wreck the property, having hundreds of head of cattle or horses there.”

  “Plus it’s barbaric, feedlots,” someone else chimed in, though Elly wasn’t sure who had said it. The entire diner seemed riveted to their conversation.

  “He didn’t say anything about feedlots to me,” Elly said, raising her voice a fraction so that it would travel to the entirety of the diner.

  “Of course he wouldn’t. That man knows what he’s doing.” Mrs. Calderwood’s voice hadn’t gotten any louder, but it felt like she was yelling. “You should keep the land, dear,” Mrs. Calderwood said. “It’s what your parents would have wanted.”

  “I can’t afford to keep the land,” Elly retorted, letting frustration get the better of her. Her mother would have tsked, hearing the tone she used.

  “My Jack would help,” Mrs. Calderwood replied, calm and collected, as if her statement were obvious.

  “You mean he’d marry me, don’t you?” Elly said, and Mrs. Calderwood’s face brightened.

  “It makes sense,” she said. “Your farms adjoin, and he could work the land. It’d work out perfectly.”

  Elly wanted to laugh, but she didn’t dare. She wasn’t sure she could explain it. Mrs. Calderwood meant well, but it was impossible. No doubt she and Jack were meant to have a marriage of convenience, maybe turning to love. The widow read too many romance novels.

  “It would never work,” Elly said.

  “Why not?”

  Elly didn’t want to explain it. Everyone should know by now; it wasn’t like she’d kept to herself all these years, but she supposed some people just didn’t want to see. Leigh saved her by bringing over her meal.

  “Your BLT, hon,” she said, setting it down on the counter. “Best eat while it’s fresh.”

  “You should consider it,” Mrs. Calderwood said, even as she turned to go back to her seat. “Jack likes you an awful lot.”

  “She’s never gone with any of the boys round here,” a voice said. Elly kept her focus on her meal.

  “We’ll just have to make a fuss if she sells,” another said. “A big community protest might help convince Hamilton to stay away.” The voices dissolved into an excited murmur, and Elly decided she didn’t want to stick around.

  She set down her BLT. “Leigh, could I get this to go?” she asked, quietly.

  “Of course, hon,” Leigh said, bringing over a Styrofoam container. “Lots to do, I bet.”

  “Lots of paperwork,” Elly agreed. She took out her wallet and paid Leigh, leaving a good tip. “I should get back to it. I haven’t made a decision yet, after all.”

  “Take care, and don’t be a stranger,” Leigh said, scooping up the money.

  Elly picked up the takeout container. “I’ll be around,” she said. “Thanks.”

  *

  The phone jangled shrilly the next morning, startling Elly awake. She’d stayed up late, going through the rooms of the old farmhouse, making lists of what to pack and what to donate. There was so much clutter in the house, she knew it would take her ages to clear it all.

  “Hello?”

  “Ms. Cole? Bernard Hamilton.” His voice was gruff, angry. “Seems someone went to the local member of the legislature, made a big stink. I’ve just heard that any development I have on your property won’t be approved.”

  “What?” Elly rubbed her eyes, trying to make sense of it all.

  “He told me he’d make certain that my applications failed,” Hamilton said. “Bastard. He doesn’t want any economic development in his riding, then fine. I won’t create any jobs there.”

  “You never told me you were going to make this place a feedlot,” Elly replied.

  “It had always been a consideration,” Hamilton said, “but I had an offer from a possible supplier and it all came together. So what? Feedlots are allowed.”

  “But they’re awful,” Elly retorted, coming fully awake.

  “How do you think you get your meat at the supermarket? You should know better than most. You’re a farm girl, aren’t you?”

  The venom in his voice shocked her, and she stood there with her mouth open.

  “Bloody hippies, the lot of them,” Hamilton muttered. “Ms. Cole, our deal’s off. I’ve got a better place to buy, anyway. Where they’re not so damn picky.” He hung up, and the slam of the receiver made her wince. She hung up her phone far more gently.

  In a daze, she wandered over to the stove, taking up the kettle and filling it with water, then putting it on to boil. Now what would she do?

  She turned off the stove and left the kettle sitting there. Sitting around having another cup of tea wouldn’t help her think. A walk, however, would. It had been a while since she’d been to the end of the property and back; she was curious to see how Jack’s farming was doing, and her mother had always said that a walk was good for what ails you. Not that she likely would have expected a potential sale to a giant farm corporation to be the ailment.

  After going back upstairs and pulling on a pair of jeans and a sweater, Elly shoved her feet into her old sneakers and left the farmhouse, heading west. There was part of a quarter section that bordered the river, and it had been left fallow for almost as long as she could remember. She walked along the shoulder of the road, mindful of cars, not that there were many, crossing over the intersecting road and heading for the gate in the fence. Unhooking the latch, she slid through and rehooked it, and started toward the river. The ground sloped gently downward, and she angled south, knowing that this part of the quarter section ended in a sharp cutoff and drop to the water.

  She knew the property like the back of her hand, but she still kept flicking her gaze down to be sure she didn’t stick her foot into a gopher hole and break her ankle. In spots the prairie grasses grew so long that she had to push through them, and she was glad to finally hit the old rutted road that ran down to the river.

  Partway down, she paused and looked back. Though it wasn’t visible from the gate, now she could see the sandstone cliff gaping from the hillside, a warren of holes and hollows. When she was a kid, she’d spotted a marmot living there, in one of the hollows, and she’d been fascinated.

  “Do you think he has a family?” her mother had asked as they watched him pop in and out. She’d held Elly’s hand.

  “I bet there’s a Mrs. Marmot,” Elly remembered saying. “And baby marmots.”

  “What do you think they do all day?”

  “Swim. Marmots swim, don’t they?”

  “They sur
e do.”

  Elly remembered her mother smiling down at her, the sun shining through her curly strawberry-blond hair.

  “Then they’d have to have swimming lessons,” she’d said.

  Elly looked up at the cliff, but she didn’t see any movement. Maybe the marmots had moved on. She kept walking, reaching the riverside. She took off her sneakers and rolled up the legs of her jeans and found a log to sit on that jutted out into the water. The water was cold but refreshing, since the sun had risen farther and the day was becoming warm. As she looked out across the river at the opposite bank, heavy with grass and wildflowers, she was glad Hamilton Farms had decided to go elsewhere. To see this land ruined by a feedlot would have been awful, but the chance of finding a farming family to buy it would be slim to none.

  A farming family.

  Elly straightened in surprise. When had she started to think about selling, for real? She couldn’t pinpoint when, but now that she thought about it, her thoughts had begun to change. As much as she wanted to stay, she knew it wasn’t going to be realistic. She couldn’t work the land herself, and leasing it wouldn’t help the empty farmhouse from being neglected and unloved. It needed a family: determined parents, maybe a little girl who would love the room under the eaves with its slanted ceiling and the secret places in the barn that the cats would find to have their kittens, or a little boy who’d explore every nook and cranny of the property like she had.

  When she got back to the house, she’d talk to Noreen, and tell her what she was thinking. Hopefully Noreen knew of a family looking for a home.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Alex opened the throttle and pushed the bike almost to its limit, racing down the highway. She could hear Will behind her on his R6 and knew he’d catch her soon. The bend up ahead drew nearer and she slowed, though she still took it faster than she ought to have done. She’d never admit it to Will, but her heart leapt into her throat, sliding back down when she made it through the bend and onto the next straightaway. She slowed further as the speed signs indicated a drop in the posted limit. A sign for the ferry flashed by and she sighed. Her speedometer dropped to fifty and Will cruised up beside her, his visor open. He stuck out his tongue. She cracked her own visor and did the same, waving him off.