by Karen Rock
“Here I am.” She appeared beside him, her curls bouncing across her shoulders, her wide smile revealing perfect white teeth. “How are you, Mr. Gleason?”
Daniel unfolded a walker and helped Pop to his feet.
“Better now that you’re here.” His tremulous smile and shaking head seemed to make no visible impression on Jodi. She gave him a quick hug.
Daniel blew out a long, quiet breath, relieved that Jodi hadn’t made Pop feel self-conscious about his worsened Parkinson’s. Considerate. It was another layer to the woman who’d returned to buy out his hometown, but might leave with his heart instead. For a moment he imagined what it’d be like if she’d come back for different reasons. They’d line dance at The Lounge and row out onto Lake Champlain and watch shooting stars.
“I’m starving.” She wrapped her arm around Pop and squeezed without letting go. “Let’s eat.” And with that, she guided him into the kitchen.
Daniel trailed, amazed as his father pushed his walker faster than ever, his gait a bit steadier, his head held higher. Jodi might be here to destroy his community, but she did a world of good for his father.
At the table, Sue set out the warm dishes.
“It’s been a long time, Jodi,” Pop said once Daniel pushed his chair closer to the table. “How are your mother and father?”
Jodi’s face seemed to tense at the question. She unfolded the navy-and-white-patterned napkin and smoothed it on her lap before answering.
“They’re doing well. My grandmother needed some help, so they moved in with her for now.”
“Be sure to tell them I said hello.” His father’s hands shook too hard to grasp the serving spoon for the glazed carrots and Sue swiped his plate. She loaded it with food, then placed it back in front of him, oblivious to the red staining his hollow cheeks.
“Oh, thanks, Sue.” Jodi handed her plate to his sister. “I never know how much to take, either.”
Daniel stared at Jodi in surprise, but then he saw his father’s smile. Her maneuver had restored his dad’s pride. It’d made him feel less embarrassed about depending on his children.
“Does this look good?” Sue handed over Jodi’s plate at her nod. He held Jodi’s gaze and smiled in thanks. Warmth filled him when she smiled back.
Once Sue sat, Pop spoke up. “Let’s join hands tonight when we say grace.”
Daniel stretched across the table and felt Jodi’s soft hand unfold inside his.
“Thank you for this food you’ve blessed,” Pop began. “Thank you for the friends we’ve missed. Thank you for our family, too. Thank you for all you’ve helped us through.”
Daniel’s fingers tightened around Jodi’s, and when her eyes lifted they were luminous, her lashes damp. For a long moment they stared at one another until Sue cleared her throat and they let go. When he picked up his fork, his palm felt empty.
“Saw you and your little boy a few times. Is your ex around much?” Pop lifted a quivering forkful of potato to his mouth and gulped the bite.
Jodi’s face paled. “Not since he left us.”
Daniel’s hands fisted beneath the table. Only a creep would completely abandon his family, especially when Tyler needed both of his parents. The sting of waking up to find his mother’s closet emptied, her car gone, returned.
Pop tried passing Jodi a piece of banana bread but half broke off before it reached her plate. “You’re better off without someone like that.”
She made a fierce little movement with her head, but it was hard to tell if it was in agreement or denial. “Some days I wonder.”
Daniel stared until he caught her eye. How could she want a jerk like that around? Then he remembered her struggle with Tyler in the airport. At times, he imagined she’d welcome any help at all.
“I got a divorce, too. The missus took off when the bank rep showed up threatening to foreclose.” Pop waved his fork, silencing Jodi’s sympathetic response like a conductor. “I should have sold this farm a long time ago. Now Daniel’s trapped on it and he’s going to end up old and alone like me.”
The despair in his father’s voice took Daniel aback. He’d thought Pop was over the divorce, and he’d never known he was worried about Daniel’s future. And suddenly, a nagging thought took hold. What if his father was right? What if, after sending Jodi back to Chicago and forming the co-op, he would never again have a moment like he’d had on the strawberry fields, holding a boy he was growing attached to, the woman he cared for—despite their differences—riding with him.
It was a lonely thought. Sending Jodi packing felt more like a win-lose than a win-win. He’d win the battle, but lose the girl. He peered at her over the rim of his glass before taking a drink. It was crazy to think this way. Her goals couldn’t be further from his own. But what if he could make her feelings for this place, and him, return?
“I guess some people just aren’t meant to be together,” he heard Sue say. When he looked up from his plate he caught Jodi’s gaze on him before she lowered her eyes and took another bite of potato. Did she think they fell into that category? Even if he could get her to care about farming, would she ever care for him again? He swallowed another tasteless bite of chicken.
“My sympathies are with you, raising your son all by yourself like that.” Pop leaned down to sip milk from a clear straw. “That’s got to be tough. You should move home. Be with Grace and your neighbors. We’d help you.”
Jodi looked up from her plate, her eyes awash in tears, and excused herself.
“Pop. Stop. You’re making her upset,” Sue whispered as Jodi’s heels clicked away. “Let’s talk about something lighter.”
“Like the weather?” Pop peered out at the water running down the kitchen windowpanes. “Still raining. How about the price of tea in China?”
“She’s right, Pop.” Daniel glanced up at the empty kitchen archway and lowered his voice. “Jodi came here to see you and have fun, not to talk about serious things.”
“That’s the problem with your generation,” his father grumbled. “Always looking for easy times instead of dealing with the hard ones.”
Daniel gaped at his father. “And you think saving the farm from bankruptcy, putting Sue through graduate school and trying to keep our community together is me not handling hard times?” Despite his words, he kept the heat out of his tone. He knew Pop would have done the same if his Parkinson’s hadn’t worsened.
“Not if it means that co-op idea of yours, son.” His father grabbed a roll and, with effort, passed it to Daniel, the gesture taking the sting out of his words. “Every man should choose for himself. It’s what I fought for in ’Nam. You can’t force people to see things the way you do.”
Daniel tore the bread apart and buttered it. Why couldn’t Pop appreciate his efforts? “But what if it’s the right way to think?”
“How do you know?” A coughing fit took hold of his father and instantly Daniel regretted his outburst. “How do you know how people should feel? You can’t control the world, son, and the sooner you understand that the better.”
A throat cleared from the kitchen archway and Daniel caught Jodi’s eye. How much had she heard? More important, did she agree with him or his father? If anything, she was as guilty as he at deciding others’ fates.
“Dessert?” asked Sue when Jodi pulled back her chair and sat.
“Sounds good, sweetheart.” Pop polished off the last of his potatoes and smiled. “What do we have?”
“We have cheesecake, and Jodi brought homemade strawberry jam. We’ll put it on top.” Sue strode to the fridge while Daniel stacked dishes in the sink, his mind occupied and his heart heavy. He worked hard to keep his home and town together, and his dad didn’t approve.
When he’d cleared the table, Sue put slices on small plates with a dollop of Jodi’s preserves.
“Now, t
hat’s good jam.” His father’s fork scraped against the china. “Thank you for the treat, Jodi.”
She smiled over at his father. “This is a treat, Mr. Gleason. I’m glad I came.”
His father stopped chewing and fumbled his hand across the table to rest on Jodi’s.
“I’m glad you did, too. I always appreciated that letter you sent me after you left.”
Daniel felt as if the lightning flickering behind the barns had struck him instead. What letter?
“I wanted you to know how much your help that summer meant to me.” She gave his father a warm smile and replaced the napkin that’d slid off his lap.
Meant to her? It’d meant a lot to him, too. Daniel forced himself to swallow the bite lodged in his throat. Knowing Jodi had reached out to his family made the floor seem to rise up and drop again. Or maybe that was his stomach. All this time, he’d thought of her complete dismissal of him and his family as callous. Now he needed to rethink not only the new Jodi, but the old.
“I was glad you didn’t blame me for the accident.” Pop’s double chin appeared when his head drooped.
Jodi laced her fingers in his father’s. “It was the skid loader, not you. That’s why I love buying farms for Midland. Only an industrial farming company like that can make farming safe.”
Her words stemmed the tide of sentiment Daniel had felt tonight. She sounded like a corporate mouthpiece. He opened his mouth to insist a co-op could guarantee the same safety features, but his father spoke first.
“No one mentioned that was your line of work.” His father’s gaze flitted toward Daniel. “Seems like that puts you two on opposite sides of the fence.”
Daniel met Jodi’s stare, neither of them willing to look away.
“I suppose it does,” she said at last, her expression firm, blue eyes unwavering.
“We couldn’t be further apart,” he agreed, though his heart said otherwise.
“Kind of like the old days, then,” Pop chuckled. “Only this time it isn’t some childhood game, is it?”
Jodi’s gaze bored into his. “No. It’s much more.”
After a tense silence, Sue spoke up.
“Scrabble, anyone?”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
A FEW DAYS later, Daniel waved goodbye to a wind turbine representative and turned at a plaintive lowing from a small pasture off the back of his barn. One of his heifers was calving today. Fear raised the hairs on his arms. Was she struggling?
Another keening moo sounded and Daniel glanced sharply into the pen. He hustled over, unlatched the gate and strode through the knee-high grass, the area not as shorn as his other pastures since most of his cows had birthed a month ago and grazed with their calves in his other fields. Sandra Dee, however, hadn’t gotten pregnant on the first attempt so now she tromped, restless in the field alone, her tail up and neck arched as she called.
In the furnace of midday, he waited for her to turn, then spotted the amniotic sac where it’d been hours ago. A rushing sensation swept through in his gut. She hadn’t progressed. For her first pregnancy, he’d expected her to have the calf out in a couple hours, but four... That gave him pause. And where was Colton? His farmhand had been instructed to get him from the turbine meeting if Sandra Dee showed signs of complications.
In the golden light, her body looked massive yet vulnerable, a sheen of sweat along her heaving sides. There’d been a fair share of calves he’d hand delivered through the years, and some lost lives. He hoped today wasn’t one of them.
Sandra Dee dropped to her knees and let out another long moo that ended when her head fell against the ground. His pulse pounded hard enough to feel it in his toes. When he pivoted to race to the barn, he pulled up short at the sight of Jodi. After their tense parting on Scrabble night, he was surprised to see her.
She cupped her hands around her mouth. “Is she having trouble?” The wind flung her hair around her pretty, flushed face as she leaned against the fence wearing a dress and heels. “I heard the cow and stopped by to look before getting Tyler.”
His nerves grew taut as he took in her business outfit and recalled how she’d shared her pride in working for Midland with Pop the other night. The old Jodi juxtaposed over the new. Which one was she today?
“Looks like. Would you get Colton?”
Without a word, she kicked off her high heels and sprinted through the rear door of his newest barn. A faint smile ghosted across his face. It was the old Jodi, then. He had to hand it to her, she’d always been good under pressure and had never played the damsel in distress. Better yet, she hadn’t let their uneasy parting last Friday keep her from jumping in and helping out. There was a lot to like about Jodi when he wasn’t busy fighting her every move.
He eyed Sandra Dee as she pushed to her feet again and did a half walk, half jog along the fence perimeter, her head swinging from side to side, her belly moving independent of her feet. When the air stopped flowing, the summer bit again, the heat so humid it felt as if his flesh melted. He had to get Sandra Dee in quick before the burning temperature and her extended labor exhausted her. If she went down and stayed down, there’d be no moving her. He peered into the shadowed barn and wondered how long before Jodi located Colton. He’d give her five minutes and then he’d handle the fractious cow himself.
He stretched his arms overhead and bounced on the balls of his feet. It’d been a long week. While he’d met with and convinced twenty farmers to sign on for his co-op, he’d heard Jodi had been just as busy acquiring property for Midland. He wasn’t sure how many farms she’d purchased, but even one was too many. He glanced across the pasture. Strategizing would have to wait for now, however. One of his animals depended on him.
He stalked closer to Sandra Dee, careful not to startle the now-pacing cow. Colton was taking too long and he needed her inside. When the gate creaked behind him, he whirled, relieved. But Jodi stood where his farmhand should have been, clutching her sides, bent at the waist.
“I. Can’t. Find. Him,” she gasped out, then straightened and strode his way. “I’ll help you get her in.” He nearly chuckled when she lifted a leg to reveal knee-high barn boots beneath her peach-colored dress. She wasn’t serious.
But the set of her chin and her swinging arms said she was. Jodi had helped plenty of times during the summer she’d worked with him, but that was a long time ago. How much would she remember?
“When I drive Sandra Dee close enough, open the latch and use the plywood board over there to direct her toward the barn. I’ll be right behind to guide her past you. She’s going to charge, but not straight at you. And whatever you do, don’t act nervous.”
Jodi scrunched her upturned nose. “This isn’t my first rodeo, cowboy.”
Her challenging expression made him smile. “Then prove it.”
He reached Sandra Dee in a few strides but she trotted away. Another few steps had her heading for the gate. Before she overshot it, he dashed past her. He gave Jodi the signal to open the gate, then waved his arms as the cow approached. Just when he expected the storming heifer to mow him over, she swerved through the opening and up toward the barn, thanks to the large wooden board Jodi brandished.
He blew out a long breath and raced after Sandra Dee.
“Nice work,” he called as he passed Jodi, the glimpse of her relieved smile staying with him as he plunged inside the dim barn. The cow headed up the corridor and he suspected she sought out her own stall—a little familiar comfort on a painful day.
But he needed her in the birthing pen rigged out with padded walls and a stabilizing headlock. If he got in front of her again, he’d open the gate and force her inside. But with her moving at a fast clip and the corridors not wide enough for him to pass her, he needed a plan B. The timing had to be exact or she’d miss the space and they’d lose precious minutes needed to save the calf. Where
on earth was Colton?
Just as they neared the oversize stall, a bellowing Sandra Dee picked up speed. From a connecting corridor, Jodi suddenly lunged in front of one thousand pounds of agonized animal, her plywood board held in front of her, her face set in firm lines. His heart lodged in his throat at the fragile picture she made, her small form directly in Sandra Dee’s path, her slender arms holding up a useless shield. It’d shatter, like her, on impact. It’d been risky for her to stand on the sidelines and guide the cow toward the barn. Trying to stop the mother-to-be altogether was suicide.
He leaped forward and yanked open the gate as Jodi herded the cow inside. Success! The animal blew out a long breath and he slumped against the railing as the door clicked shut behind her.
“That was a stupid thing to do, Jodi Lynn. You could have gotten killed.” He couldn’t keep the anger out of his voice, or blot out the mental picture of her broken and bloodied on the ground. Why would she take such a foolish risk?
“I know what I’m doing, or have you forgotten?” She brushed back a loose curl and he saw that she was as pale as the white post she leaned against. Despite her brave words, she’d been frightened, and he realized he had been, too—for her sake.
“I thought you’d forgotten.” For a moment they studied one another until Sandra Dee bellowed. Daniel went to the front of the stall and lowered the head hold around the cow’s neck, locking her in place. There. No further threat to Jodi as long as she stayed outside the pen.
“Is Dr. Coryer still the vet?” She held up her phone.
Daniel shook his head. “We lost her last year when she moved to Oklahoma.” He gave her the new vet’s number and headed into the stall.
“Whoa, now, Sandra Dee. It’s going to be okay.”
The cow twisted her head around at his gentle tone, her large brown eyes showing white all around. He lathered on hand sanitizer from a nearby dispenser and, when the cleansing foam reached past his elbows, he pulled on long rubber gloves.
He sidestepped to avoid Sandra Dee’s moving hindquarters and inserted his hand. While stroking her quivering flank, he felt for the calf’s position.