One weekend, he drove with her to Seattle to meet her family and see where she had grown up in the midst of all the cultural charms found only in a big city. Jenna embraced the excitement and hustle, the steady motion of moving crowds, the sounds of traffic, the smells wafting in from the waterfront. She was a city girl through and through.
On a warm Saturday in early fall, Josh asked Jenna to go for a drive and told her to dress casually. They headed out of Portland, enjoying the sunny day and one another’s company. Jenna assumed they were going to visit Josh’s family since that was the direction they were headed. They were nearly to the turn off to his sister’s house when he pulled off the highway onto a paved road and drove for a few miles before turning down a gravel road. He drove up to a dilapidated farmhouse and stopped the car.
Coming around to the passenger side, he opened her door and gave her his hand. She stepped out, grateful to be wearing jeans and tennis shoes. She looked around, curious as to what brought them out here. This was certainly not anywhere she would envision Josh taking her. He knew she had an aversion to dust and dirt, anything rural or remotely countrified.
Then again, Josh looked different today dressed in jeans and cowboy boots with a button down cotton shirt and a ball cap on his dark head. She tried to remember if she’d seen him wear cowboy boots before, especially the well-worn scuffed pair he had on, and realized she hadn’t. Thinking back, she could count on one hand the number of times he had worn jeans when they were together. He was always dressed like the quintessential urban gentleman.
“Josh, what are we doing here?” she asked, taking another look around at the derelict house and ramshackle barn in the background.
“I’ve got something I want to ask you, something I need to tell you,” he said, taking off his hat and running his hand through his thick black hair. Staring into her warm brown eyes, he tried to remember the speech he’d worked so hard to prepare and couldn’t bring to mind a single word. Putting his hat back on and taking her hands in his, he decided to speak from his heart.
“Jenna, you may or may not know how much I’ve come to dislike living in the city. I hate the crowds, the traffic, the noise, the superfluous trappings and activities. I feel like I can’t breathe any more. I knew all along I didn’t want to be a car salesman forever. It was just a means to an end. A way to save money until I knew for certain what it was I wanted to do with my life and now I know,” Josh said, looking at Jenna with a pleading expression that begged her to understand.
“I had no idea how much you hated your life in the city,” Jenna said, genuinely surprised. Had Josh ever mentioned his displeasure with city life? Recalling past conversations, Jenna realized he had tried to discuss it with her on many occasions. She hadn’t wanted to hear what he was saying. She liked things exactly as they were. The past months had been her perfect dream of a perfect romance.
Silencing the warning bells clanging in her head, she took a deep breath and tried to prepare herself for whatever it was Josh had to say. If this was his way of breaking up with her, he sure picked a pathetic place to do it. “Please, go on.”
“You’re a straight-shooter, you tell it like it is, so I’m going to do the same,” Josh said, willing his heart to stop pounding as he shared his dreams with this woman he had come to love. “I can’t keep living in the city. The one place in this world where I am happiest is outside in the country. I know this will come as a shock, but I want to farm. I want to live here, where it’s peaceful, where the air is clean, where I can hear myself think. I want to buy this land, this very piece of land we are standing on, build a house and a barn and farm.”
Jenna’s eyes had grown wide and her mouth formed a perfect “O” as she stood staring at Josh like he’d lost his mind.
“Does this have anything to do with the two weeks you came back here during the summer?” Jenna asked, referring to the time Josh took off to help his brother-in-law’s family during wheat harvest.
He took the time off every year to help and finally realized he enjoyed those two weeks of hard work more than anything else. Josh liked the physical labor, the smells, the sounds, everything about it. This year after harvest, when he returned to his job and life in Portland, he just couldn’t stop thinking about how much he really wanted to farm.
“Yes, Jenna, it does,” Josh said, praying that Jenna would understand. “It helped me figure out what I really want to do with my life is work the land, be out in the fresh air, soak in the peacefulness. But there is more than that.”
“More?” Jenna asked, having a difficult time processing the information. Josh had certainly gone off the deep end, planning to abandon a fruitful career to be a farmer of all things. What could he be thinking?
Knee deep and sinking fast, Josh knew he had to plunge ahead or he was going to lose Jenna.
“I not only want to buy this land, build a house and try my hand at farming, I want you here beside me,” Josh said, getting down on one knee as he pulled a ring box from his pocket. Opening the box, a beautiful diamond glittered up at Jenna. “Jenna, I love you. I love everything about you. I’m deeply and completely in love with you. Will you please marry me?”
Josh, still down on one knee, was waiting for Jenna to say something, anything. Instead she kept staring at him and the ring, tears gathering in her eyes.
Jenna, caught completely off-guard by Josh’s declaration and proposal, couldn’t think let alone speak. He wanted to marry her. That was the only part that was truly penetrating the fog in her brain. Nodding her head, she took Josh’s free hand in hers and gave it a tug. He stood and slipped the ring on her finger then gave her a kiss that made her forget everything but being held in his arms, the one place in the world where she knew without a doubt she belonged.
Releasing a sigh, Jenna realized she was about to learn to make peace with all things rural and become a farm wife. It looked like a country boy had won her city girl heart.
CHAPTER ONE
Six and a Half Years Later
Josh Carver watched the hay he was swathing feed into the front of the machine. He loved the smell of fresh cut hay, loved to watch a field fall into neat windrows as he went through an honest day’s work as a farmer. Buying this farm and leaving his job in Portland as a car salesman was the best thing he’d ever done. Well, second best.
The single best thing he’d ever done was convince Miss Jenna Keaton to become his bride. It had taken no small amount of effort on his part. Even though she agreed to marry him, she quickly decided she would never, ever adjust to being a farmer’s wife and called off their engagement three times before Josh convinced her she could continue to work in the city, that he would still take her to plays and concerts and would even refrain from burning his suits so he’d have something to wear when they attended one of her aunt and uncle’s famous parties.
Josh knew farming must have been in his blood all along. Before he left the car dealership, he traded in his sports car for a new extended cab pickup and a used flat bed truck. Pouring his savings into the land he purchased right after he proposed to Jenna, he first added a shop so he could start making repairs and progress on the land. That following spring, work began on the house, which was finished before fall, just a few months after their wedding. The next additions were a barn, a storage shed and hay shed.
When the fifteen acres at the end of their road came up for sale, he purchased it, giving them nearly four hundred acres of hay and wheat ground as well as pasture for the herd of registered Hereford cattle he was building.
Getting into the whole business of farming was more of an investment than Josh had anticipated. Although he owned the land and structures free and clear, it had taken a sizeable loan to purchase the basic farm equipment he needed and that was buying everything used. He started a custom haying business on the side and the income from that was quickly whittling away the debt.
When they wed, Jenna declared not one penny of her hard-earned money would go into the farm. She insisted
they maintain separate banking accounts and nearly separate lives. She kept her apartment, refusing to leave until the new house was completely finished. If Josh wanted to see her, he did so on her terms. So every night at the end of a long hard day, Josh made the hour-long drive to Portland just to be with his bride.
The day they moved into the spacious new home, almost a year after he proposed, Jenna’s resistance to the farm began to waver. As Josh started spring farm work and tried to find ways to involve her, she became more interested in the farm. The newborn Hereford calf Josh gave her for Easter a few weeks later finished off her resolve to stay out of the farming business. She merged their accounts and, in so doing, finally committed to fully entwining their hearts and lives.
Josh grinned thinking about his wife. She’d gone from her manicured nails, high heels and fear of all things rural to being able to drive the tractor, set irrigation water and get completely filthy wearing ugly rubber boots and a ball cap without having a meltdown.
Jenna, bless her heart, had learned to put up with the dust and dirt of country life and become a real help to him as he pursued his dreams.
Not that Jenna had given up her own dreams. She poured herself into her career and it was starting to pay off. Recently promoted to a training and development specialist for the state, Jenna would be traveling extensively in her new career, visiting various branch offices throughout the state while training individuals and offering support services. She’d been gone the last three weeks to Washington D.C. for her training before she assumed full duties of the new position. Although it nearly doubled her salary, Josh wasn’t sure he could get used to her being gone so much.
She was due back tomorrow afternoon and it couldn’t be too soon to suit him. He missed her immensely. Although she occasionally traveled with her former position and would be gone for a day or two at a time, he knew he would never get used to having her away for days on end. Three weeks was about twenty days more than wanted to think about her being gone. The house and farm seemed so lonesome without her.
Glancing across the road, Josh couldn’t help the feeling of pride that washed over him when he thought of the house he built for his bride. Light tan with dark red shutters and white trim, the Dutch-gabled farmhouse looked homey and inviting with a deep porch and wide front steps. An attached garage kept Jenna out of the weather and her car relatively clean.
Inside the front door, a foyer offered a welcoming bench and coat closet with a door to the left leading into Josh’s office, and a door to the right into a small sitting area Jenna liked to use when she had “the girls” over. A hallway straight back from the foyer went past a beautiful curved staircase into a large gathering room, dominated by a huge rock fireplace.
The kitchen was to the right of the living room where a long farm table in front of a bank of windows served as a dining area. At the end of the kitchen a short hallway led to a guest bathroom, as well as a joint utility and mud room that opened into the garage and offered a door outside to the backyard.
From the gathering room, a short hallway to the left led to a master bedroom that even Aunt Amelia had liked with its huge walk-in closet and spa-like bathroom as well as the bay windows with a window seat that looked out on the backyard. Upstairs were three bedrooms, a bathroom and a large storage closet.
When they moved in the house, Josh half-jokingly told Jenna he planned to fill every one of those upstairs bedrooms with babies and she looked at him as though he’d physically struck her.
“No kids, Josh. I can’t do kids and a career. I just can’t,” she said and walked off.
He supposed that might have been a good topic to discuss before they got married, but he figured when the time was right, Jenna would come around to his way of thinking. So he’d been patient, waiting for just the right time to delicately broach the subject again.
He hoped to make some headway soon since they were both in their mid-thirties now. Although Jenna’s new job could definitely put a damper on his baby-making plans.
Lost in his thoughts, Josh was pulled back to reality when the swather started making a noise indicating a problem. Shutting down the machine, he climbed out of the air-conditioned cab, carefully closing the door to keep the cool inside and got down to dig out a plug. Once he had it out, he looked to make sure nothing else needed attention.
Finding a piece of barbed wire wrapped around the sickle bar, he gently tugged it loose and wondered how many years it would take before all the junk the previous owners threw out randomly would finally be picked up.
One field on the backside of the original homestead had been full of golf balls. He was sure he didn’t want to know how they came to be there, but his nieces, Audrey and Emma, had a high time running around picking them up in baskets like Easter eggs. He still occasionally unearthed one when he was irrigating.
Another field had been filled with tin cans, metal scraps and old appliances. He hauled truck load after truck load off as scrap metal before the field was fit to be worked and planted. It was no wonder he got such a great price on the place.
His family had jumped right in and helped him clean up the unbelievable mess the former owners left behind. His sister Callan and her husband Clay had provided hours and hours of free labor along with equipment borrowed from Clay’s parents who owned one of the biggest ranches in the area. Clay’s young cousin Jake often came and lent a hand, as did Josh’s dad, Big Jim.
Josh didn’t give too much thought to the fact his older brother Bob had yet to set foot on the place. Bob was eighteen years older than Callan and nineteen years older than him. The less they both saw of Bob, the better. He and his wife Donna were not the most pleasant people to be around.
When Josh first brought Jenna around to meet the family, she and Callan hit it off immediately. Now they were close friends and often planned fun activities together. Clay and Josh had been friends for years and, as Josh learned about farming, he appreciated the experience and wisdom his brother-in-law offered.
Climbing out from under the machine, Josh took off his ball cap and gloves, setting them on the swather step. He tugged off his T-shirt and wiped at the sweat streaming down his back and chest. It was certainly warm for early May. With a mild winter and an early spring, the hay had been ready to cut much earlier this year than usual.
Hot and thirsty, Josh realized he should have brought something to drink along this afternoon. Rather than take a break, he would get back to work and get this field along with one at the end of their road finished today. He wanted to have plenty of time to spend with Jenna when she arrived home tomorrow.
Josh swiped his now soggy shirt across his face, and looked across the road. Flowers bloomed a bright welcome in baskets hanging from the porch and in beds in front of the house. He promised Jenna he would faithfully water her flowers while she was gone and so far had only forgotten to water them twice. Although he had farming in his blood, Jenna had gardening in hers. He willingly gave her full credit for doing all the work in the yard that made their house an inviting home.
Giving one last glance across the road, Josh thought he might be hallucinating from the heat as a familiar figure came walking across the lawn toward him. It couldn’t be Jenna. She wasn’t due home until tomorrow. Maybe he had lost a day somewhere. He frantically tried to remember if he’d left any major messes in the house and concluded only his lunch dishes in the sink and yesterday’s dirty clothes on the bedroom floor.
Unable to keep a smile from covering his face when he decided it really was his wife, he jumped over the fence and jogged across the road.
“Babe,” he said with warmth in his voice, sweeping Jenna into a tight hug and swinging her around. He breathed in her warm vanilla scent, soaking in the sight of her.
“I’m so happy to see you. You’ve been gone for half of forever.”
Jenna laughed as he held her close, enjoying the feel of being in his arms again. There was no place on earth she liked being more than in Josh’s strong and cap
able arms. Three weeks was a very long time to be gone.
“Oh, I bet you didn’t miss me at all,” she said with a teasing smile when Josh finally set her down.
“You have no idea how very much I missed you,” Josh said in a husky voice, bending to claim her lips in a kiss that assured her she was missed very much indeed. “I love you so much. Always have, always will.”
“Josh, what has gotten into you?” she said, as she took a step back and tried to catch her breath, her heart beginning to pick up tempo.
Her training finished up a day early and she couldn’t wait to see Josh. She flew in this morning, ran by the office to complete some required paperwork, stopped at the grocery store and hurried home. It was early afternoon when she drove down their road, just in time to see Josh climb under the swather. Unloading the groceries, she quickly traded her business suit for a T-shirt and shorts, made a pitcher of lemonade and started over to see if Josh would take a break.
When Jenna walked across the front yard, she was surprised to see him come bounding across the fence, shirtless and hatless. She didn’t think she’d ever grow tired of watching him move and work. Swarthy was the word she often thought best described him. If he had a flowing white shirt, sash at his waist and an eye patch, he could easily be mistaken for a swashbuckling pirate.
Tall and muscular with olive-toned skin, broad shoulders and narrow hips, she had mistakenly thought he was quite the urbanite when they were dating. Little did she know that beneath those expensive tailored suits, hid a finely sculpted body of someone accustomed to hard physical labor.
Josh was quite polished and refined when he dressed in his “city duds,” as he liked to call them. But Jenna long ago decided that her husband was most wickedly handsome when he was dressed just like he was today in snug jeans, shirtless, with scuffed boots.
Country Boy vs. City Girl Page 2