by Anne Calhoun
It was stupid for her to daydream about Ben Harris while she walked back up to the farm stand, stupid and naïve, something she tried hard not to be. He wouldn’t tell her anything about who he was outside his bedroom. Based on his reaction last Sunday morning, there was far more to being a cop than black-humored stories about taking drunk men to a shelter. He’d been out on a SWAT call Saturday night. He’d been up for probably thirty hours, and on duty for most of it, by the time she showed up at his apartment. What happened between them was raw, intense, and to her, exceedingly intimate, and yet he wouldn’t tell her what his hobbies were.
Jess stopped by the cash register to slip a check under the drawer. “I think I’ve figured out where you’re going on Sundays,” she said.
Rachel made a noncommittal noise and scanned the shaded stand for a customer who might need help. It was truly shocking how many suburban women came out to the stand, then had no idea what to do with the array of produce offered.
“You’re seeing Officer Harris,” Jess said.
With Jess the teasing edge to her voice could tip into friendly girl banter or serious snark. She might be relieved Rachel wasn’t interested in Rob, or there might be something to ridicule about dating a cop Rachel didn’t know about. “What makes you think that?”
“You shower before you leave, and you shower when you get home. That usually means sex happened in between. But you don’t wash your hair, which smells like his cologne.”
“He doesn’t wear cologne,” Rachel pointed out as she wove through the customers to a woman staring at the carrots, no more than two hours out of the ground, laid out in bunches in a flat. “Can I help you find something?”
“I’m looking for baby carrots,” the woman said uncertainly.
Behind her Rachel heard the irritated sniff that went with Jess’s patented eye roll, and stepped in front of her fellow apprentice so the customer wouldn’t see the derision. “Baby carrots are made from regular carrots,” she explained gently. “The processing company shaves off most of the carrot and uses the gratings in bagged salads. What’s left are those little baby carrots. Our carrots are fresh from the field today,” she said.
She helped the woman choose a small selection of different vegetables to try, then added a sheet of paper with basic recipes, and sent her on her way.
“Can you believe how distanced the average American is from her food?” Jess said. “I mean, come on. She has to know that food grows in dirt.”
Making the customer feel stupid wouldn’t help. “Knowing isn’t the same as understanding. We’re all distanced from something basic,” she said. For the customer, getting food from a stand, not a sanitized store with pretty packaging was a disconnect. For her, sex. For Ben . . . emotions. How could a man that intensely alive be so out of touch with himself?
“He wears something,” Jess said, as if she knew what Rachel was thinking about. “I smelled it when he walked by me at the auction.”
Rachel tried to remember what was on top of the dresser in Ben’s bedroom and came up with nothing more than loose change, receipts, and pens. Something uniquely Ben lingered in her mind. Soap. His skin. Sweat. Maybe detergent from one of those faded western shirts he favored, and opened so easily when she wanted a good look at his torso. Memory sent a rush of heat through her body.
Wasn’t smell the most potent sense of all?
“I’m kind of surprised,” Jess said. She straightened the remaining rows of beans and peas, moving opposite from Rachel, who did the same on the other side of the table. “He doesn’t seem like your type.”
“I’m kind of surprised, because I don’t seem like his,” Rachel replied.
Maybe sex was his hobby. Maybe he spent what little downtime he had doing exactly what he’d done with Rachel. “What is my type?” she asked.
“Rob,” Jess said flatly. “You’re perfect for each other. You’re into the same things. You’re so good, and you’d slip right into the farm’s operation.”
“I’m good?”
“You never yell or argue or even get impatient and bad tempered.” Jess eyed her across the mounded sweet corn. “I’ve never known anyone like you.”
She didn’t yell because she’d never been permitted to raise her voice in anger or frustration or impatience. Those emotions were seen as signs of disobedience and disrespect to her father, her elders, and God. In the days after she left, the social worker at the shelter pointed out that there was a wide range of human emotional experience, and expecting a person to only feel joy and gratitude was a form of abuse. Rachel was now allowed to feel everything. Anger at what had been expected of her, taken from her. Sadness over what she’d risked and lost. Fear for her future. Humiliation at the sidelong looks when she wore the wrong clothes, or said the wrong thing. But while the farm felt like a refuge to Jess, it felt too much like home to Rachel.
“I like and admire Rob, but I don’t want to help him run Silent Circle Farm,” Rachel said.
“If you get into vet tech school, you’d be more valuable to the farm,” Jess pointed out.
Rachel shook her head. “Rob has a vet. A good one. A farm like this doesn’t need a full-time person on staff, just someone with decent knowledge about animal care, and you can get most of that with a season or two of experience and a good book.”
Jess had arrived at the farm two months after Rachel. She’d graduated from college but rather than getting a job she’d come straight to the farm, searching for a meaningful way of life, yet not hesitating to call her parents when her laptop broke. “Where did you grow up?” Jess asked, as if the thought had just occurred to her. In all likelihood, it had.
She was saved from answering when Rob crested the slight rise, George by his side, panting from the heat. Like water flowing downhill, Jess drifted along the rows of tables in Rob’s direction. Rachel went back to the faucet and ran a bowl of water for George, who lapped at it, then immersed his whole snout in the bowl and snorted, splashing water everywhere. Rachel laughed and rocked back on her heels, away from the playful dog. When she looked up, Rob and Jess were both watching her.
Feeling awkward, she patted George and shooed him back to Rob, tucked a loose strand of hair back into her braid, then picked up a flat of strawberries to carry to a customer’s car. With the groceries safely stored in the back of the car, the woman pulled away and revealed a minivan Rachel knew very, very well. It belonged to Reverend Carlton Bayles, her pastor.
Her former pastor.
A complex swirl of emotion rooted Rachel in the dust as men got out of the vehicle. Four, no five of them, all leaders in the Elysian Fields church hierarchy, all dressed in khaki slacks and button-down shirts. All wearing identical expressions of horror when they saw her form-fitting T-shirt, the neck scooping low to reveal her collarbones, and her jeans. Tight tops and pants were expressly forbidden to women at Elysian Fields, for fear they would enflame men and encourage women to act like them.
In all her hours with Ben, his naked body against hers, inside hers, she’d never felt as dirty and ashamed as she did when the men who used to rule her world judged her in the Silent Circle Farm parking lot.
“Good Lord have mercy,” the deacon intoned.
“At least you haven’t cut your hair, Rachel Elizabeth,” Reverend Bayles said, shocked.
She almost laughed. Instead, she stopped herself from crossing her arms over her torso, standing straight and tall. “What are you doing here?”
“Our duty. We’ve come to bring you home, Rachel Elizabeth.”
“I’m not going back,” she replied, at the last second changing home to back. But even in her defiance, she stayed out of arm’s reach.
“Your father misses you,” Reverend Bayles said.
“He is welcome to come see me anytime,” she said.
“He cannot countenance your disobedience. T
he commandments admonish us to honor thy father and thy mother. Exodus chapter twenty verse twelve,” he added automatically. “Your actions disgrace your father and shame us all in God’s eyes.”
Her heart pounded in her throat. “I disagree,” Rachel said carefully. “I prayed for months about what I felt called to do. I believe I’m living out my life as God intended.”
“By tricking your accountability partner into thinking you were reading at a Christian bookstore, then running away? You should not have been allowed to remain unmarried,” Reverend Bayles said. “A woman needs a husband and babies to keep her mind focused on her role. He was sentimental, keeping his only daughter close.”
“My father respected my wishes, and I’m grateful to him for that,” Rachel said, trying to find common ground.
“And this is how you repay him?” He gestured at her clothes, the farm. “He’s seen the error of his ways, and prays daily for God to forgive him for this lapse.”
He wouldn’t answer her letters, telling her without words that his love depended on her meeting the community’s approval.
“Your eternal soul is at stake. God judges every thought, word, and deed on this earth, Rachel Elizabeth. Based on what I see in front of me, you are in grave, grave danger.”
She was shaking too hard not to wrap her arms around herself. She’d fly apart if she didn’t. Her stomach surged up her throat, because if God watched her with Ben Harris, wearing jeans and a T-shirt were the least of her concerns now.
“It’s my soul to risk,” she said, her throat tightening. “Mine. Not yours, not my father’s. Mine.”
“Until you marry, you are your father’s responsibility. If your father dies and you are still unmarried, you are the Church’s responsibility. We’ll wait while you pack whatever things you have left that will be appropriate for your return to our community.”
“I’m not leaving with you. Not now, not ever.”
He straightened and thrust out his chin. “Rachel Elizabeth, I hoped it wouldn’t come to this, but if you don’t pack your bags and get in the car, I’ll be forced to report you to the police for stealing your father’s money.”
It was an empty threat, as the community rarely invited outside authorities into their concerns, but anger flowed hot and acid in her veins. Thank God for the lawyers who volunteered at the shelter where she’d lived. “I spoke to a lawyer after I left. That was a joint bank account,” she said. “I worked on the farm as many hours as my father. I’d earned half that money. I took one-third for fifteen years of work. I left him the rest, including my mother’s family land, which was deeded to both of us. So you go ahead and call the police. I’ve done nothing wrong.”
Rage suffused Reverend Bayles’s face, then all five men switched their focus from Rachel to someone behind her. She turned to see Rob standing just off her right shoulder, with Jess lingering a little distance away. Embarrassment crawled along her nape. This was the last thing she’d wanted anyone to see. Other than Ben, she’d told no one where she’d come from, and she’d told only Ben because when he showed up in the parking lot demanding an answer, she figured he deserved to know.
“What’s wrong, Rachel?” Rob asked.
“Who are you?” Reverend Bayles demanded.
“Rob Strong. I own this farm,” Rob said, but he didn’t offer his hand.
The men looked at Rob’s left hand, then at Rachel’s. No rings. Then they looked at Rachel, wide-eyed disbelief and horror on their faces.
“What is your relationship to this girl?”
It seemed like a reasonable question. Rob opened his mouth.
“Don’t answer that, Rob,” Rachel said.
He closed it again. Her tone and Rob’s obedience weren’t lost on the five men from her former life. No woman of any age or experience spoke to a man in the tone of voice she just used.
“My relationships are none of your business,” she said clearly. “I am not a girl. I am not your responsibility. I am not leaving with you. Now, or ever.”
Rob looked at the five men arrayed in a semicircle in front of Rachel, and jumped to the right conclusion. “Leave. Now.” Beside him, George let out a low growl.
She’d never heard that tone of voice from Rob, or a growl from George.
“This isn’t your concern, young man,” Reverend Bayles started.
Rob cut him off. “You have sixty seconds to get in your car and get off my property or I’ll call the State Patrol, give them your license plate and tell them you were harassing one of my employees.”
Reverend Bayles stared steadily at Rachel, who stared right back. “Your rebellion is killing your father. Body and soul. He believes he’s failed as a father, as a Christian, as a man.”
Rachel’s diaphragm stopped working, leaving her not breathless but entirely without air. When she could speak again, she said, “I can’t be his salvation. I love him, but I can’t be what saves him.”
“Pray on that, Rachel Elizabeth.”
She was shaking when the minivan circled the rest of the cars in the parking lot and pulled out onto the dirt road leading to the highway. Beside her, Jess let out a low wow.
“Rachel,” Rob said quietly.
She was shaking, her stomach in acid-coated knots, with fury and shame and humiliation. She looked at him and shook her head. “Not now.”
I am not a victim. I am not pitiable.
“I should get back to the stand,” she said.
“Take the rest of the night off,” Rob said quietly.
“I’m fine.”
Rob reached out, very slowly and carefully, and lifted her hand from her waist and held it palm down in his. Her fingers trembled in his big, callused palm, mirroring the muscles spasming up and down her entire body. Her heart raced, and she felt embarrassingly close to tears. In the raw, vulnerable wound all her old training raced back. Anything other than happiness and gratitude was rebellion, and a sin.
She was a sinner. An ungrateful, disobedient sinner.
No.
Her head spun, and she swallowed hard. “It’s the Friday night rush,” she said.
“You’re in no condition to work,” Rob said. “We’ve got this, me and Jess.”
A spot on the team assured, Jess nodded eagerly. “No problem. Treat yourself. Eat a big scoop of ice cream or a slice of the gluten-free cake I made yesterday.”
“Okay. All right. I will,” she said, because she had to get away. She hurried toward the path leading from the farm stand to the employees bunkhouse, nestled at the bottom of the hill near the creek, but once she got inside, she couldn’t stop shaking.
What did it mean to be whole? She had no problem with surrendering herself into a relationship, even secretly longed for that. But she drew the line at willingly giving herself to a man who used her to shore up his identity.
She paced through the bunkhouse. The air inside held all the warmth of the day and wouldn’t cool off until after dark when the outside air temperature dropped. In the kitchen she opened the freezer, but one of the A&M boys must have finished off the ice cream because the carton was gone. The cake sat on the counter, but Rachel knew she didn’t want cake. She wanted to rage and scream and clench her fists. Doing that in the communal environment of Silent Circle Farm, in front of Rob’s customers, was impossible.
A long walk beside the creek to the back pasture currently housing Rob’s sheep herd would settle her down. She’d taken many, many long walks in the months before she left Elysian Fields, trying to reconcile what she felt with who she was. When she burst through the screen door and saw her car, another thought bloomed in her mind.
You aren’t limited to long walks anymore. You’ve got options. Specifically, one very hard, very edgy option who knows exactly how this feels and what you need.
Ben’s busy. He’s getting of
f work at his first job and heading to his second.
So what? If he’s not home, you’ll enjoy the drive.
She snagged her keys from the hook by the front door, jerked open the car door, and got in. Seconds later she was spewing dust and gravel behind her on her way to the paved county road, toward Galveston.
Chapter Eleven
Ben’s truck was in his parking space. Rachel took a deep breath and closed her eyes, searching for that bright inner space she used to live within. All she found was darkness, heated by desire, rich and loamy, like the fields after Rob plowed them. She got out of the car and hurried up the stairs to Ben’s door. She knocked, heard footsteps, then a pause while she assumed he peered through the peephole. The door opened to reveal him shirtless and barefoot, wearing only his uniform pants. Two lines etched into the skin on either side of his mouth. When she dragged her gaze up from his broad, bare chest to his face, he quirked one eyebrow at her.
“Are you busy?”
“Just got off work,” he drawled. “I’ve got an hour to shower, eat, get to No Limits.”
His guard was up, his face tight with tension that didn’t ease when he saw her standing there. He didn’t ask why she was here, and this was a mistake. Sundays only, that’s all he agreed to. “Never mind,” she said, and turned to go.
He braced his shoulder against the doorframe. “You here to talk about hobbies, Rachel?”
She flushed at the teasing tone, but looked back over her shoulder anyway. “You know I’m not.”
With a tip of his head he gestured her inside. The apartment was warm, the air-conditioning working to cool the space after he’d been at work all day; between the sunshine and the heat threatening to set the air on fire, heat crept along her nerves.
She already felt better.
“What do you want?”
Her gaze drifted from his sweat-dampened hair to his bare feet. “Let’s take a shower.”
He gestured her down the hall, into the bathroom. While she watched, he reached past her to slide open the shower’s glass door and turn on the water. One dark gray towel hung from the rack on the door. He opened the linen closet built into the wall behind the bathroom door, flicked a glance at her hair and got out two more, then worked his fingers under her T-shirt’s hem. The warm skin of his fingers brushed ribs and breasts as he drew the T-shirt up and off, and she got the message. He didn’t want to know what was wrong, what brought her here.