by P. C. Zick
The men laughed.
“You’ve been thinking about this,” Stan said. “I don’t think it’s going to take much. There’s a well already in place, and we’ll need to upgrade the electric. The other things are superficial. I’ve gone over the floors, walls, and roof and everything was built to last. We might need to put on new shingles, but that’s no big deal.”
“One other thing,” Leah said. “Could the roof over the front doors be expanded so we could place a couple of picnic tables under it? The river folks like being outside, but the roof would give them protection from the sun and rain.”
“I think that can be arranged,” Dean said as he smiled down at her. “Your demands aren’t too steep unless you want marble countertops in the kitchen.”
“I want sturdy and functional in the kitchen. Nothing fancy,” she said. “We can decorate the walls in the main room to give it atmosphere.”
“What about air conditioning?” Stan asked.
“I think it’s an absolute must,” Dean said. “The place needs to be airtight, and we might as well put in a heat pump so they can be cool in summer and warm in winter. She wants to use this as a shelter from the weather, too.”
“I want them to feel free to come here whenever they need it,” Leah said. “I’ve talked to Joshua, and we agree that the main camp will continue on the river bank. But I will be cooking and serving food here every day. And they’ll have a place to shower and get ready for appointments. Now that they’ll have a permanent address and a phone number, some of them will find jobs.”
“Let’s get moving then,” Dean said. “No time to waste.”
“OK, I’ll draw up a proposal for the work this week,” Stan said.
“Stan, I’m going to be pulling an RV here, so I’ll be on site during the project,” Dean said. “And the Deer River folks want to be involved.”
“There’ll be lots of ways we can use them,” Stan said. “They can clean up every day, and when it’s time, they can paint.”
After Stan left, Dean and Leah sat on the lawn chairs Leah had brought from Susie’s the day before.
“It’s really going to come true,” Leah said. “It’s hard to believe.”
“Have you talked to Jacob since yesterday?” Dean asked.
“I saw him this morning at the church. He said Geraldine threw clothes in her car and left last night. He doesn’t know where she went.”
“Is he worried about her?”
“He didn’t seem to be. If anything, he seemed relieved. He’s still trying to sort out the will and what Big Jim said.”
“What about you?” Dean asked.
Leah stared at the line of trees. She didn’t know how to answer him. Her feelings hadn’t changed since the weekend, and since the day when he walked into the church hall and looked at her with his blue eyes twinkling in amusement. She was so attracted to him, she found it hard to look at him. She wanted to crawl right up inside him and stay forever. Yet, when she thought about Jacob, her heart went out to him, and she couldn’t imagine breaking his heart. He hadn’t mentioned Dean’s declaration of love yet, but she knew they’d soon have that conversation.
“I don’t know. I’m still as confused as I was the last time we talked. So much has happened that I haven’t had much time to sort things out about how I feel. I’m sorry I can’t give you a better answer.”
“I understand. No pressure. I’m supposed to pick up the motor home tonight, so I’ll be back here tomorrow to start cleaning things out of the barn and setting up my new home.”
“What about your tattoo shop?” Leah asked.
“I’ve got plenty of employees who are trained in the ‘Harold Grant’ method. If someone wants a Harold Grant original, for right now, they’re out of luck. Being back here on the land has me wishing for a different kind of life.”
“What kind?”
“Where I lived closer to nature. Just a simpler life where folks aren’t so complicated and superficial. You wouldn’t believe the folks I know in South Beach.”
“You could start all over again here,” Leah said. She wondered if this new life included a wife and children but found herself too shy to ask. She could picture a two-story log cabin at the edge of the woods and herself in it with Dean. She forced her daydream to leave.
“See you tomorrow,” Dean said as he stood. He leaned down and gently patted her knees. “Take care of yourself, Leah. Sit here and listen. Maybe your answer will come to you.”
She watched him walk over to his bike and get on. She knew in her soul the answer; her mind was the thing getting in the way. It became clear to her earlier when she imagined living with Dean here on the land. She’d never been able to imagine her life as Jacob’s wife, but in a matter of minutes, she placed herself in a log cabin with children running around the yard, and Dean sitting by her side holding her hand.
How was she going to tell Jacob, she wondered as she headed for the car.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Dean parked the motor home next to the barn. He set up a hose to run from the well where an old pump still worked, at least for his purposes. For now, he used a generator for his minor needs, just until electricity was updated and a pole placed next to the RV. The first night he stayed there, he walked the line of the woods, which served as the property line. The state owned from there down to the river’s edge.
He decided to take his mind off Leah by marking off the garden. He’d never obsessed over anything as much as he had that woman he’d met less than a week ago. The feelings were new, and he didn’t understand them. He only knew he’d never wanted to be with anyone as much as he did her. When thoughts of living with her in a house by the river entered his mind, he pounded a stake into the ground marking one corner of the garden. He thought they should start on a small scale with room to expand. He walked toward the barn counting off forty feet, and then turned perpendicular and counted another forty feet. A 40x40 foot garden should provide enough food for salads and side dishes for twenty folks easily.
He clumped the soil together in his hands, and it stayed in a ball. His father told him that soil ready for planting should fall apart. He’d have lots of work to get the ground in shape for planting in September. After putting up a few more stakes to mark the area, he went inside the barn with his tape measure and starting writing down measurements. He went up into the loft and noted that while the floor still seemed sturdy, some of the boards were loose. He took the hammer hanging from his back pocket and pounded some of the nails sticking up. These still need some work, he thought. If Leah wants cots up here, it needed to be safe.
As the light faded, he went into the motor home, but left the screen door open so he could hear the sounds of the night coming to the land. The plaintive cry of “chuck-will’s-widow” by the bird of the same name reminded him of his childhood before Geraldine stole it. Then a bullfrog rumbled and others followed suit, beginning the nightly cacophony of frog songs from the river. He’d never felt so much at home anywhere. He sat on the small sofa and drank in the feeling of peace. He never should have let Geraldine chase him off all those years ago.
He slept well, and never woke once to thoughts of Leah. Maybe he’d break this spell once he worked with her and saw her sweat and groan with the weight of hauling lumber around the barn. The exhaustion of physical labor would help. His life as Harold Grant didn’t require much physical effort. He saved that for the gym and his nightly parade of South Beach beauties trampling through his apartment.
As he combed his hair, he wondered how he’d ever lived that life for so long. That wasn’t him. He pulled a t-shirt over his head, and poured a cup of coffee. When he stepped outside, he found the table and all the tools he’d left out the night before covered in dew. A golden-silk spider spun a web between a tree and the barn door, and he used a stick to break the strong thread of the web letting the gray and black spider with its one-inch body move down the stick. He threw it aside and opened the barn doors. Time to let in some fre
sh air, he thought. As he stood in the opening, he heard a car approach. He wasn’t expecting anyone until the afternoon when Leah came back after serving lunch, but before he turned around a slight feeling of hope came that Leah might be coming early.
He looked with dread at the Lincoln driving toward the barn as if it wasn’t going to stop. He didn’t budge. If Geraldine wanted to take him out this way, then she’d have to ruin that pretty brown car to do it. She slammed on the brakes, and the car lurched when she threw the gear into park.
“What do you want, Geraldine?” Dean asked as she tumbled out of the car.
She walked toward him with her bleached blonde hair perfectly in place, lacquered with a can of hair spray. She wore three-inch royal blue heels to match her blouse. She stumbled as she walked toward him. Her black slacks hugged her ample hips. To Dean, she was a disgusting specimen of a woman.
“You think you’ve won something big here,” Geraldine said as she hobbled on the heels over the sand of the barn’s driveway. “I’ve got news for you. You’ve lost a whole lot more than you’ve gained.”
“What would that be?” Dean asked. He leaned up against the side of the door and sipped his coffee. “I’d offer you a cup, but I don’t have any arsenic to put in it. I’d hate to waste a perfectly good cup of coffee.”
“Don’t act so smug,” she said. “I’ve got some news for you.”
“I can’t wait.”
“You remember Mable Cornish, I’m sure.”
“Yes, the poor girl you told everyone I raped.”
“I talked to her mother yesterday about you,” Geraldine said. “She’s got notes you wrote to Mable and photos of the two of you together right before you left town. She also has a journal that says you often forced yourself on her.”
“You are so full of shit, Geraldine, and you know it. Didn’t you hear Big Jim’s will yesterday? If you try in any way to make trouble about it, there’s information you won’t want released. Why are you risking that?”
“I’m not going to do a thing,” Geraldine said. “I merely wanted to come over here and tell you what might happen next. Carleen Cornish is more than eager to release that information to the police, along with some other things I’m not going to tell you about right now. That poor woman has never gotten over those allegations Mable made in her suicide note. She knows it simply isn’t true. You were the culprit all along, just like I said.”
“I don’t care. Besides, what’s it going to accomplish?”
“All I want from you is the money Big Jim gave you. You can have this worthless property, but I want that million dollars he gave you. You don’t deserve it, and you know it.”
“And you do deserve it? You don’t deserve Jack shit, Geraldine. Now get off my property before I get the gun I hid in the barn last night.”
“You’ll be sorry, if you don’t give me what I want. Real sorry.”
He watched her drive away, spinning up dust as the back tires of the Lincoln fishtailed in the sand. He made a note to get a gun out here in case there was more trouble. Fortunately, today she didn’t call his bluff because she would have won. He walked back to his motor home to fill up his coffee cup and wished he had a bottle of whiskey to splash into his morning brew.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Leah cleaned up from the day’s lunch in the church hall and went to find Jacob in his office. The door to his office was partially open so she knocked lightly and waited for a response. When she pushed it open, she found him as he usually was mid-week, sitting at the desk and reading the various magazines from other districts to find an idea for Sunday’s sermon.
“How are you?” Leah asked as she sat down in the chair in front of his desk.
“All right, just searching for a topic for Sunday,” he said. “How are things with you?”
“Good. Dean and I met yesterday with the man who’s going to head up the renovations at the barn. He seems like he understands what I envision. It’s going to be wonderful, Jacob.”
“That’s good news. I’m happy to hear it.” He smiled. “Can you work with Dean? After his confession the other day?”
“Everything’s fine, but we need to talk. Do you want to ask me anything about what he said?”
“If you want to tell me anything, go ahead.”
“All right,” Leah said. “I’d like to tell you about it. He says he’s in love with me, as you know. I don’t know how I feel. I still feel the same way about you, but being around Dean confuses me.”
“In what way?”
“I’m not sure I can tell you,” Leah said. She turned her face away from Jacob. How did she tell the man she was supposed to marry that she wanted to sleep with his brother? It was more than that, but the truth was she wanted Dean. “He’s an attractive man, but so are you.”
“He’s different from me; he’s always been different. The girls always chose him over me when we were growing up. Even Geraldine preferred him to me, until he left home.”
“Do you know what your father might have left in that sealed envelope?” Leah held her breath as she waited for Jacob to answer.
“I have no idea,” Jacob said, but he began moving papers around on his desk, not looking at Leah. “But I think Mother knows and doesn’t want it revealed. She left right afterwards, and I still haven’t heard from her. It’s not like her to just disappear.”
“I hope she’s all right and doesn’t cause any trouble for either Dean or you.”
“Me, too. It’s been quite a week, and I’m not sure what to do next.”
“Have you thought about the will?” Leah asked. “Are you going to do what Big Jim said you should do?”
“I’ve been thinking about that,” Jacob said as he sat back in his chair and relaxed his shoulders for the first time since Leah walked in the door. “He’s right that I took over the church to please him, but Mother mostly. She pushed for it just like she pushed for us to become engaged.”
“You didn’t want those things?” Leah asked.
“I didn’t not want them; there’s a difference. It didn’t matter one way or another because I didn’t see any other possibilities.”
“Is there someone else you’re interested in?”
“No, that’s not the point. I never had a say in anything that’s happened in my life so far. Mother has directed it all. Daddy was right when he said that I need to figure out what I want.”
“How are you going to do that?” Leah asked as she sat forward in her chair.
“I don’t know, but I have a suggestion. You’re confused; I’m confused. I’ve never done much of anything without Mother there behind me, and now she’s gone, at least for now. I think we should take this time to figure out what we want. You’ve already moved to Susie’s. You’re going to be very busy with Soup’s On and the barn. I couldn’t leave the church without someone ready to take my place.”
“That’s all true. What’s your suggestion?”
“Let’s spend the summer figuring out what we both want.”
“That sounds reasonable,” Leah said.
“If we decide we really do love one another, we’ll get married sometime in the next year. Maybe you’ll find out you love Dean instead. Either way, the important thing in all of this is that we both end up happy.”
“You’re a pretty smart dude for a minister,” she said as she came around the desk to give him a kiss on the top of his head. “Or maybe I’ll discover that I’m just not ready for a commitment to anyone.”
“You might. Leah, I think you’re one of the best people I’ve ever known. You’re beautiful even in your shorts and tank top, despite what Mother always said. I’d be honored to be your husband, but I need to figure out if I love you enough to be a good husband.”
“I understand,” Leah said. “I feel the same way. I’d be honored, but I’m not sure if that’s enough to make a good marriage.”
“Just be careful when it comes to Dean. He may look the part of a man you’d want, but I still have m
y doubts. I find it hard to believe he’d change so much from when he was a teenager.”
“Sometimes people can change, Jacob. If you don’t believe that then perhaps you do need to find something else besides the ministry.”
Jacob looked at Leah and shook his head. “It’s hard to believe in much of anything sometimes.”
“I’m going to get out of here so you can get the sermon finished. I think taking a break from one another is the right thing to do right now.”
“Why don’t you use the van for the summer,” Jacob said. “You can’t keep using Susie’s car, and I know you have things to haul, especially with the barn undergoing such a massive overhaul.”
“Thank you. I’m sure Susie would appreciate that, although she’s been a sweetheart about letting me use it.”
“She’s a good friend,” Jacob said. “Now I better get the sermon started, not finished.”
“Maybe you could do something about redemption?” Leah smiled. “It might help you as much as the congregation.”
“I should have thought of that. Thanks. I’m going to miss you, Leah.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Within a few days of the first meeting with Stan, the work on the barn began. Leah’s life took on a certain rhythm that she enjoyed. No longer hounded by Geraldine on the proper behavior of a minister’s wife, she reveled in the freedom of acting in her own natural way. She’d always been so grateful to Geraldine that she didn’t realize how much she resented the intrusion into her life.
In the mornings, she worked at Soup’s On, collecting food from Reggie and Clara, preparing and re-heating the food, and serving from 11-1 p.m. every day. Then she cleaned up and was on site at the barn by 3 p.m. She worked until she couldn’t move one more muscle, and then she headed back to Susie’s where she fell into a deep sleep until the alarm woke her at 7 a.m. The only exception was Sunday when she attended church. Joshua and Carol made sure the river folks had food on Sunday, so Leah could have a day off. But she still managed to put in an hour or two on Sunday afternoons after Jacob and she had dinner together at the parsonage. He knew how hard she was working so he made sure the dinner was either ready to put in the oven, or it was a simple meal of sandwiches and a salad. Despite taking a break, they maintained their friendship.