“It’s not all your fault you didn’t consult me. I haven’t made it easy.”
Those eyes were so deep with all of her feminine power and softness that he wanted to get lost in them. Instead, he slapped himself a little bit too hard with the dripping towel. He wasn’t going to get lost. Not anymore. Not now that maybe he was finally finding himself. He was a changed man. “You’ve done the right thing all along. Now I’m going to help you instead of working against you. I’m going to listen and learn.”
She leaned over to rest one callused hand on his forehead, testing his skin temperature. He wondered if she was checking for a fever because his being so decent to her came off as delirium.
And after just a bit more fussing and advice, she went. All the while she was smiling so sweetly he knew he could get another pie without any trouble at all.
Fifteen
The morning after Jake’s brush with heatstroke, an insistent rapping on the door woke him at 8:00 a.m.
Every muscle in his body ached as he thrust himself out of bed and into his jeans and blue chambray shirt.
Stumbling to his front door barefoot, he reminded himself he was going to be friendly.
He had made a steadfast civility oath and he was going to keep it or die trying. Right now, with her irritating habit of waking him up, seemed like a good time to start. He breathed in a long patient breath and opened the door. “Good morning.” There was no need to fake sincerity, he was too sincerely delighted. “You brought me a cow?”
Emily held a lead rope connected to a small black and white cow and carried a large box under her arm that emitted ominous squeaking sounds. “A cow and some baby chicks.”
“Are you okay this morning?” Stephie stood behind her with a little red wagon overflowing with two big paper bags and a small cooler.
“I’m sorry if we woke you. You had a hard day yesterday.” Emily didn’t seem to have any real remorse.
But Jake didn’t complain as they fussed pleasantly over his sunburn and his general health until he was thoroughly ashamed of his irritation. He silently vowed they’d never catch him sleeping again. Jake started down the veranda steps.
Emily tied the cow to the corner railing. “Go get your boots on, cowboy, while the womenfolk make breakfast.”
Jake tipped an imaginary Stetson, noting Emily’s real one. He needed a cowboy hat, too, now that he had a cow. “Much obliged, ma’am.” He hurried back inside, eager to start this day.
Using only Emily’s little camping stove and ingredients they brought along, they made him a huge breakfast of bacon and eggs and pancakes in the time it took him to brush his teeth and pull on his boots. Emily insisted he sit long enough to drink a second cup of coffee out of her thermos before they took him outside to display their purchases.
The cow chewed her cud placidly as Emily stroked her back. “This is the gentlest cow I could find. I know the boy who raised her. She was his 4-H project and he took her to the fair last year, so she’s been handled a lot. Never milked by hand though.”
Fear chilled Jake’s overcooked skin. How gentle was gentle? “Do we milk her right now?”
Stephie grinned as she tipped the sacks out of her wagon. “She’s gonna have a baby. You can’t milk her till it’s born.”
“A baby. . .really? Don’t cows have their babies in the spring? You said yours did.” Jake, reprieved from climbing under the cow, looked forward to the calf.
Emily nodded as she set the noisy box on the grass, well away from the heifer’s hooves. “Beef cattle do, but not Holsteins. A dairy farmer calves year round. This will be her first calf. Holsteins give enough milk for a baby with plenty to share with you. She’s been handled a lot, so we ought to be able to milk her.” Emily managed to look doubtful and determined at the same time.
Jake loved the way Emily said “we.”
Stephie set off back into the trees with the wagon. Jake wanted to ask her what she needed to get and maybe help her. The feed had been a pretty heavy load, but the conspiratorial look that passed between Stephie and Emily kept him still. Stephie obviously wanted to surprise him, so he’d let her.
“See that weird little roof over there?” Emily pointed to something he’d dismissed as a collapsed shed. Weeds were grown up around it. “It’s a brooder house. We need to drag it out of the tall grass and patch it.”
It was about two feet tall, including a foot of gradually sloping roof. She helped him pull it across the ground to a grassy spot. With a tact that delighted him, she plunked down a sack full of small boards, a hammer, and nails, then gave him the respect of offering no direction. Instead she carried the feed sacks to the barn.
She stayed a long time in the barn, and when she returned, she opened the top of the squeaking box.
Suddenly the air was full of the tiny high-pitched cheeps. He laid his tools aside and looked in at dozens of baby chicks. They looked like bright yellow cotton balls with legs. Legs and vocal cords. He reached into the box and jumped back when all of them tried to peck him at once.
Emily laughed and picked one up.
To restore his manly pride, he boldly took a chick of his own and soon realized that the pecking and scratching tickled more than it hurt. Up close he could see the yellow fuzz was thinning in spots and little white feathers were growing in place of the fluff.
Emily took out a little flat tray, opened a section of the brooder house roof that was hinged, set the tray in, and then knelt by the brooder house to pour a jar full of water into the tray.
“They’re white leghorns. They’ll be good egg layers. Here, watch. We need to give each of them a drink before we let them go.” She picked up a chick and dipped its beak in the water, then tipped the chick upward as if the water could only get down its throat using gravity.
“Why?”
Emily straightened away from the water, still holding the chick. “I don’t know. I just remember my mom and grandma doing it.” She grinned, then set the chick in the brooder house, caught another one, and dipped its beak.
Before she set the second chick down, the first had escaped through a hole. “Now you know where to patch.” She smiled again.
He had to scramble to get the building patched. Some escape routes were so tiny he’d have never considered them.
When the chicks were all settled and drinking and safely trapped inside, Emily led the cow to a fenced-in yard around another old building that was almost swallowed up by the trees. He’d been so busy with the house, he hadn’t spared any thought to the half dozen little shacks scattered around his place. He’d explored the hulking old barn a bit, but Emily seemed delighted with the existence of every building.
Stephie came back down the forest path.
Jake was startled to see a wriggling brown creature in her wagon that he couldn’t identify. It looked like a fifty-pound worm.
When she got closer, he couldn’t look at the wagon because he was so overwhelmed by the angelic smile on Stephie’s face. She pulled the wagon with tender care, and he could tell she was dying to show him her cargo, so her caution was all the more impressive. She stopped next to him. “Are the chicks safe? Can they get out anymore?” She asked the question with terrible seriousness.
He forced down his curiosity and checked the little building again. “I have it sealed up now.”
Stephie closed the door that swung up out of the brooder house roof, then she quickly opened what Jake now recognized as a gunny sack, and produced two half-grown kittens. “Aren’t they cute?” She hugged each of them close, then handed them to Jake.
He took only one because he could tell she couldn’t bear to give up both. He heard the loud purring coming from the yellow-and-white-striped kitten in Stephie’s arms and was honored that his little gray one started in with the same contented rumbling against his chest.
Emily came up behind Stephie and watched the whole proceeding with a big smile. “Always feed them in the barn. Then they’ll live out there. Feed them one time, just one si
ngle time,” she warned ominously, “outside your back door, and you’ve got house cats. And then you have to get more cats for the outside and they’ll all want to be house cats, too.”
“Where can we put them, Em?” Stephie’s question told Jake there was more to come.
“There’s going to be fireworks no matter what we do, so I guess just put them down on the ground. We might as well get it over with.” Emily gave the brooder house a quick once-over as Stephie set her kitten on the rough grass like it was a china figurine and turned to untie another sack on the wagon. “You’d better put yours down, too, Jake. You might get scratched.”
He obeyed her because he had promised himself he would let her be boss. He was glad he’d turned it loose when Stephie withdrew her hands from the bag holding a squirming puppy.
He greeted freedom with sharp little yips that pierced the air and sent the kittens flying across the lawn in a frenzy to get away from the noisy little pup. Eventually the gray one ended up in the branches of Emily’s American elm tree and the tiger kitten disappeared into the shed with his cow. His cow. His chickens. His cats. His puppy. Jake couldn’t stop smiling.
Stephie struggled with the hyperactive little creature, and Jake laughed out loud at the antics as the brown-and-white fur ball alternately licked Stephie’s giggling mouth and tried desperately to get away.
“Puppies are trouble, Jake. I almost regret getting you one. But they’re so cute you forgive them, and he’ll keep the varmints away. Don’t leave anything outside you don’t want chewed up and buried. Especially boots.” Emily, despite her hard words, couldn’t keep the smile off her face.
Stephie sat down on the grass and let the puppy jump all over her.
Jake was surprised at his pleasure over the puppy. He’d never had a dog. Until this moment he’d never wanted one. “He’s great. I want to hear all about everything. I can’t believe you got so much done so quickly.”
“Well, puppies and kittens come easily, although I think I got you good ones. The kittens come from a great mouser on the farm where I got the cow. The puppy was advertised in the Hot Springs paper. He’s the result of an unfortunate encounter between a purebred bloodhound and an Airedale. So he’ll either be the world’s calmest rodent-hating dog, which would be fantastic, or he’ll be a bundle of nerves who bays at the moon all night and sleeps all day—that could get old. One thing’s for sure, he’s going to be big, and even if it’s just the noise he’ll make, he ought to keep raccoons and possums away from the chicks.”
“I thought it was rats and weasels,” Jake interjected.
Emily smiled and shrugged. “Them, too. The trouble is the puppy may want to eat the chicks himself at first, and if we ever let him get one, it’ll be really hard to break him of the habit. So it’s important to keep the chicks locked up in the brooder house. The kittens will be happy to snack on them, too. Six weeks from now the chicks will be full grown, but the pup and kittens will still be babies, and the chickens will be able to push them around. Until then we have to be on guard.
“The chicks were in a farm supply store in Hot Springs. Stephie always wants to play with them when we’re there, so today was a thrill.”
“You’ve done all this before I ever got out of bed.” Jake had thought he was a slacker when they caught him sleeping. Now he knew it.
“You had a tough day yesterday. You needed to rest.” Emily went on talking with no sign of the censure he knew he deserved. “The family that raised your heifer lives close to Hot Springs. That’s why I went there. I took a field road that doesn’t pass any homes to get back to my place, so none of the neighbors saw me drive by with the heifer in my truck. Chances are the word won’t get around that I bought her. You should still be a secret.”
Jake wondered how difficult it had been for her to pick a route home so she wouldn’t be seen. He was asking too much of her. And what about money? “This must have cost a fortune.”
“Don’t worry. I’m planning to let you repay me. Although if you have more eggs than you need in a few months, we’ll help you eat them, so I don’t mind splitting the cost of the chickens. The cow cost the most. That kid really valued his cow.” Emily raised her eyebrows in mock fear. “She can never give enough milk to pay for herself.”
“That’s okay. I’m not going to try to squeeze a bargain out of a little boy.” Jake noticed that Emily was concerned over spending too much of his money without his approval. That was a totally unique experience for him with a woman.
“We have cat food and dog food and I’ll bring the mash over for the chicks in a minute.” Emily ticked purchases off on her fingers.
Stephie jumped up from her frolicking and thrust the puppy into Jake’s hands. “I’ll get the next load.”
He had been dying to pet the little fellow, but he hadn’t wanted to ask Stephie to part with him. Now he was thrilled as his hands sank into the soft fur while the puppy panted and yipped, and in the background, fifty tiny peeps amounted to a roar.
Stephie walked off pulling the rattling little wagon.
Over the din was Emily’s steady instruction. He looked at her and saw intelligence and grace as she shared with him the life she loved.
He had to lift the puppy in front of his face. His behavior was going to be exemplary, but Emily the helpful teacher was even more compelling than Emily the crabby neighbor. And he’d been dangerously attracted to the crabby version, so he was in trouble.
He held the pup under its rotund tummy and hooked his thumbs around its front legs. Then he looked eye to eye with his new companion, its tongue hanging out. Jake even let the little wiggler lick his cheek just to get his mind on something besides how lovely Emily looked in her work boots and braid. And how, with no makeup or expensive clothing, she enhanced the natural beauty he found all around him and became the center of it.
Her fingers brushed against his hands and he wondered if she could possibly be experiencing all that he was. Her hands seemed to slip over his, and as she touched him he gave serious thought to forgetting all his noble promises, especially if she wasn’t interested in behaving.
“Quit hogging the puppy.” She slid her hands past his and around the dog.
Jake was as jealous as he’d ever been in his life. But he released his hold on the squirming little hound.
“The chicks will eat the grass from under the brooder house. You’ll need to move it every day so they’re always on clean ground. Stephie’s bringing a waterer. The store even sold them to me for a bargain because people usually want the younger chicks. Since they’re a little older and the forecast sounds warm, they’ll probably be okay without a heat lamp.”
Jake watched Emily let the puppy win his struggle to be free. It scampered away and immediately began happily terrorizing the chicks by jumping against the side of the brooder house, barking in pure frenzy.
Emily grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and deflected his attention by kneeling beside him and rolling him over to tickle his tummy. “I’m sorry about all this. I don’t know how you’ll manage. I shouldn’t have brought everything at once.”
Jake wanted to roll her over and tickle her tummy. He wanted to laugh and touch the softness of the chicks and wrestle with his pup. He wanted to find out what was involved in delivering a baby calf. “I don’t know how I’m going to do it either, but I can’t wait to try. I’m really living off the land now.”
Jake was used to menacing cracks sagging over his head and buckling under his feet as he assessed damage from some natural disaster or, in a few terrible cases, bombs. He was used to people—pleading people, suffering people, dying people. He was used to his heart pounding with the pressure and peril and despair.
The country life was solitary and quiet. Progress was as slow as watching a seed come up or an animal grow. He noticed the absence of the pounding heart and rubbed his hand over his chest as he thought about the price his father had paid for making work the center of his life. He hoped he’d finally made a break from
the trail his father had blazed.
“Yes, I think maybe you’re a pioneer now, hotshot.”
Their eyes met and, for Jake, it was a perfect moment. The young life all around him. The sweetness of Stephie’s little voice as she made her way back to them, singing. And the beautiful, teasing woman who couldn’t keep from caressing a puppy even as she listed off the dire trouble the little sprout would cause.
His eyes rose to the branches of the American elm tree that swayed over his head, and he thanked God that Emily had stopped him before he could chop it down.
He thanked God.
In that perfect moment, a thousand random twists and turns that had led him to this place all locked together. What had once seemed like a life lived randomly was in fact just pieces of a jigsaw puzzle that now came together. He hadn’t just been wandering aimlessly all this time. He’d been traveling to here and now. The sum of his experience had prepared him to appreciate where he was with a full heart. A full, healthy heart.
“You know something?” With all the easy camaraderie that had typified this morning, he could tell when she looked up at him that she knew it was important.
“What?”
“God led me here. God put me right here.”
“And that surprises you?”
Jake almost laughed. He expected her to be awed. Instead, she accepted it easily. Of course God put him here. It was just another thing to love about this life—the “of course” about God.
“I hadn’t thought of it in years, but I remember now, after my mom left and I realized how alone I was, I used to pray. I’d lie in bed at night and know my father wouldn’t be home before I went to sleep. And he’d be gone when I woke up. I’d pray for someone to come in and care about me.”
Emily started to stand from where she sat cross-legged on the grass, but he raised a hand to stop her. He wanted to finish and he knew if he let her, she’d hold him, and he was too vulnerable to keep his resolutions if she was in his arms.
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