A Place to Call Home (Harlequin Heartwarming)

by Reese, Cynthia

  “But you don’t have any packing sheds.” She frowned. “Do they even grow here in the winter?”

  “You can plant them until mid-October, which means I’ll have to get my butt in gear. I won’t be packing and shipping them. It would be a pick-your-own kind of deal.”

  “Twenty-five acres of pick-your-own strawberries? You guys must really like them.”

  Brandon shook his head again. “I’ll only plant part of it in strawberries, just enough to test out the idea. The rest I’ll plant in winter wheat.”

  “Wait a minute. You’re going to plant a pick-your-own-strawberry patch back here? But how will people access it?” Comprehension dawned in her face. “Oh, no. No, no, no. You are not going to have people trekking by my house with their buckets and baskets, asking me how to get strawberry stains out of T-shirts. No way. How on earth can I work with—”

  “Hey. Harvest time isn’t until spring. By then...” Brandon shrugged his shoulders. “Anything can happen.” He fired up the engine and let the tractor gently chug past her.

  By then, maybe you’ll be long gone.

  That’s what he wanted, right? So why didn’t the idea appeal to him as much as it used to?

  * * *

  PENELOPE STOMPED back up the porch steps and walked in the back door. Of all the presumptuous, arrogant—

  “Hey, Penny-girl.”

  She froze. Grandpa Murphy sat, a newspaper spread out on her dinette table, cup of coffee in hand.

  Penelope put a hand to her chest. “You gave me a heart attack, Grandpa! How’d you—”

  “Well, down here, we just help ourselves. Door was unlocked. Didn’t think you’d mind. Good coffee, by the way.”

  “Thanks,” she replied uncertainly. She closed the door behind her and made her way to the cupboard for a mug.

  “I see that Brandon Wilkes is on the property. Where were you? Telling him to get off?”

  “Uh, yes.” Somehow she didn’t feel like getting into it with him over Brandon, not after the unsettling morning she’d just had.

  “That barn sure does look good.”

  “Yes, it does, doesn’t it.” Penelope pulled out the chair across from Grandpa and sank into it. She hadn’t eaten breakfast, maybe that’s why her knees were so wobbly. She plucked a banana from the bowl of fruit in the center of the table,

  Grandpa Murphy glanced up over the paper. “What’s got you all shaken up?”

  “Hmm.” She concentrated on peeling the banana. “Mom called this morning.”

  Grandpa winced. “That’s the way to start off a morning, Marlene chewing on your ear.”

  She didn’t feel her usual sense of solidarity, me-and-you-against-your-mother. She blew out a breath. “Grandpa. Why did you tell Mom I’d lost my commission?”

  “Ah, no. I told her to keep that to herself. Can’t any woman keep her trap shut?”

  Penelope tried hard not to be offended at his sexist remark. After all, he’d grown up in a different world. “That she told me is not the point. The point is you shared something I would have rather told her about on my own.”

  “Penny-girl...I was just worried about you. I mean, look at me, broke, in legal trouble, not even able to help you build a simple pole barn. I shouldn’t have said anything. Next time I won’t.”

  “So why did you? Why did you even call Mom? I didn’t think you guys talked all that much.”

  “We don’t. Every time we do, she manages to get my dander up, telling what everything I’ve done wrong, getting on that self-righteous holier-than-thou pedestal of hers. Says my troubles are my own doing. Ha! But you know, I got worried, thought about you.” He flicked through the paper. “I figured she already knew about it. Didn’t know I was spilling any beans. You didn’t tell me to keep it from her.”

  “I didn’t think I had to tell you. You of all people know how Mom can be.”

  “Oh, yeah, I know your mother. Nag, nag, nag. Just like her mother. Don’t know how I stood that woman—”

  “And now Mom’s hot under the collar.” Penelope knew better than to let him get going about her grandmother. “Thinks I’m going to sell to these solid-waste people.”

  That got his attention. He laid the paper down and stared at her. “But you are. Aren’t you?”

  “Grandpa, I said I would consider meeting with them. How did you hear that and think I was considering selling to them?”

  He worked his jaw. “But, Penny-girl, you don’t want to miss this opportunity. I worked for three years trying to convince these guys that this was—”

  “Three years? Grandpa, you’ve only had this land for, what, two years?”

  She couldn’t read his expression, but he wagged a finger in her direction. “Now listen, young lady. Don’t go distracting me. You’ll be making a big mistake if you let this offer slip through your fingers. These people are serious, and they’re willing to put their money where their mouth is.”

  With that, Grandpa shoved his chair back and jerked to his feet. “I can tell when my company’s not welcome. I thought it was everybody here yesterday, and you not wanting to scare them off when they were volunteering labor. But now I’m seeing a different picture.”

  “No, Grandpa. Don’t get all mad like this.” She stood up as well. “Of course you’re welcome here. And I’m sorry if yesterday hurt your feelings. I didn’t mean to make you feel unwanted.”

  “Well, you did.” His bottom lip quivered ever so slightly before he set his jaw. “I couldn’t decide whether it was your mother telling you more of that hogwash about me leaving your grandmother. She left me, Penny-girl, she left me.” Agitated, he ran a hand through his hair.

  “I know, I know,” she soothed. “You’ve told me. And no, Mom isn’t the reason. There was no—look, I’m sorry. Okay?”

  “I thought we had a chance to catch up on all the time we missed. Your mama dragged you off to Oregon, and I never got to see you or that brother of yours. And here you are, old enough to make up your own mind about me, and I figured we could do this deal together, and it would be you and me.”

  Grandpa’s eyes misted over. Penelope touched his shoulder. “Grandpa, don’t do this to yourself. I am here. And of course I want you around. I’m just—I haven’t said no to talking with these landfill people.”

  “It’s not a landfill. It’s solid waste. Recycling, Penny-girl. Recycling. And it would help the both of us out, you and me. You could lend me some of the money you’d get so I could pay those blood-sucking lawyers. And don’t you want to stay here? You can’t if you don’t make a go of your sculpting. You don’t want to fail with that, now do you?”

  Penelope closed her eyes. “No, Grandpa. You know I don’t.”

  “Well, then. Okay, okay, so you’re not that fired up about it. I’ll back off. You don’t know these guys like I do. But when you meet ’em, you’ll like ’em.” He winked. “Trust me. You do trust me, don’t you?”

  She glanced past him out the window and saw Brandon’s tractor as it plowed across her field. Remembered his hand on hers as he guided her to the right lever. Could she really sell the land out from under a man who loved it so much?

  “Hey, I’m not hearing that you trust me,” Grandpa Murphy said.

  She took in his eager face, thought about the financial jam he was in. Next to his, her financial picture looked positively rosy.

  How could she say no to him when he had a slam-dunk way to get the money he needed? How could she turn down any opportunity to keep him from behind bars?

  Penelope managed a weak smile. “I trust you, Grandpa. Just let me have some time to get used to this land-selling idea, okay?”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  THE CHUG of a tractor wormed its way into Penelope’s consciousness as she read back over her latest proposal. Brandon started, bl
ast him, at five o’clock in the morning, every day, and she didn’t get any peace and quiet until nearly noon.

  Irritated, she clicked Save on her laptop and stood to look out the kitchen window. There he was, closer than ever, a dusty wake billowing up behind his plows.

  Her backyard. And he wanted to have droves of strawberry pickers back there. How was she supposed to concentrate on her sculpture if she had that much noise and people plodding around, looking at her while she worked?

  Face it. You’ve had no bites on any of these proposals. The smart thing to do would not be tying up such expensive materials and your time into a project you can’t find a buyer for.

  That didn’t mean she had slowed her spending of the borrowed money in her account. Since the barn had been completed, the balance had dropped considerably. Materials, the electrician’s costs, the plumber’s costs and the shelves she’d rigged.

  But she now had a working studio, something that comforted her if she could put out of her mind how much pricey equipment she had in there.

  It was hard to do that when she only had her own worried thoughts—and those of her grandpa and her mom—for company. During the past week, the only thing she’d heard from Brandon was the aggravating noise of the tractor waking her up entirely too early.

  He hasn’t called you. He hasn’t even knocked on your back door on his way to the field.

  She’d thought of a hundred different reasons to call him. Know any cheaper electricians? or My welder needs shoving over a little. Can you help? But as the phone refused to ring, all her reasons dwindled to mere excuses, and transparent ones at that.

  So Penelope had shoved the welder over herself and looked in the yellow pages for electricians. It was just as well. She could not for the life of her figure out why she couldn’t get a handle on this attraction she felt for a man who despised her grandfather.

  The tractor had stopped, Penelope saw, and Brandon was on the ground beside it. Kicking it? Yes, he was repeatedly kicking the back tire.

  She exchanged a look with Theo, curled up on one of the dinette chairs. “Well, he’s certainly not cool and calm today. Think I’ll go check it out.”

  As she closed the distance between the house and Brandon’s tractor, the uneven ground reminded her that she still had a lot of work to do to transform this place from a field to a lawn. She’d started. The petunias she’d planted along the edge of the back porch definitely cheered the place up. But she wouldn’t be at a loss to fill her time.

  The closer she got to Brandon, the more clearly she could hear him berating the tractor.

  “Good morning.” Penelope stopped just short of the edge of the raw earth he’d churned up.

  Brandon whirled around. “How long have you been standing here?”

  She thought about keeping him squirming, payback for his smarmy words about her inadvertent flashing the week before. “Just walked up. I saw that you were having trouble with the tractor.”

  “Yeah.” He glowered at it. “The third link stripped out.”

  “And this is bad?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Because?” she prompted when he didn’t offer anything further.

  “When the eye on the third link strips out, I can’t lift the plows. I could buy another one, if there was another in stock, but I called, and they won’t have another one that will work with my hunk of junk for a week. A week!”

  “Stripped out? Can you show me?”

  He looked more inclined to snap her head off. “Do you happen to have a chain?”

  “A chain?”

  “Yeah. I’ve got to get this set of plows out of the field and to the welding shop in town to get it fixed. If I hurry, I can still get back in time to catch me a nap before I have to clock in at the sheriff’s department at three.”

  She crossed over to stand next to the plows and started analyzing the way they interacted with the tractor. Penelope put a hand out and touched a long cylinder of paint-chipped cast iron with two steel eyes at each end. “Is this the third link?”

  “I don’t have time. Did you not hear what I was saying? I need to get this out of the field. Fine, I’ll go to Uncle Jake’s and get my own chain.” He started toward the fence that separated her land from his uncle’s.

  “Wait! Cool your jets for two seconds, and let me think—”

  “About what? There’s nothing for you to think about!” he hollered over his shoulder.

  “I might be able to fix this.”

  Brandon stopped in his tracks.

  “I said, I might be able to—”

  Brandon turned around to face her. “I heard you. But you don’t know a thing about tractors.”

  “I know about welding. And how things work. And just because I don’t know much about farming doesn’t mean I’m a complete idiot. If you tell me what you need me to do, I’ll bet I can use my tiny brain to figure it out.”

  Something in his posture relaxed. He started taking slow, halting steps toward her. “You really think...”

  Penelope shrugged. “Worth a try. Unless you want to wait that week.” She gestured toward her shop. “Have welder, will weld.”

  For the first time since she’d seen him that morning, a smile broke out on his face. “You’d do that for me?”

  “Yeah. Is that such a surprise?”

  He dropped his gaze to the toes of his dusty boots for a moment before meeting hers again. “Well, yeah. I’m not used to a helping hand from a Murphy.”

  “I’m a Langston, and furthermore, a decent human being. Yes, my grandfather is Richard Murphy, and I wish you’d get over that. You think my grandfather would turn his back on you in this situation?”

  Brandon scoffed. “Oh, yeah. He’s done worse.”

  “Look, do you want my help or not? I’m beginning to regret I offered it.”

  She heard him exhale sharply. “Okay. I’m sorry. Yes, if you can fix this, it would save me a lot of aggravation. I just need you to patch it for now.”

  Penelope leaned back over the plows, careful not to bang her ankles on the sharp points. She assessed how the eye and the sleeve went together, tried to estimate the time it would take her. “This is cast iron, right?”

  “The sleeve is—the part that holds the eyes in. The eyes themselves are steel.”

  “That’s what I thought.” She straightened back up to find him standing beside her. “Well, it will take me an hour or so to weld it, and then I’ll have to put blankets on it and let it cool. Cast iron can be tricky, and you don’t need to rush it. I won’t have this done in time for you today, but it will be ready first thing in the morning.”

  “You’d be saving me a week, because the shop in town would take at least that long to do the same thing. That’s why I was trying to buy a new part.” Brandon smiled slowly, his eyebrows knit together. “I can’t believe you’re doing this.”

  “Hey. We’re neighbors. You helped me with a barn. The least I can do is weld your plow.”

  He chewed on his lip. “I’ll pay you.”

  “No. No. You’ve done a lot for me, Brandon. Consider it my pleasure. And hey, if the welding shop guy is that backed up, maybe you’ll advertise my services. That might keep the wolf from the door.”

  Brandon got that conflicted look on his face again, but all he said was, “Yeah. Sure. I’ll be glad to do that. Good to keep the wolf from the door, right? Let me go get that chain.”

  * * *

  WHY SHOULD HE TRUST a Murphy?

  Okay, so she was, as she pointed out, a Langston, but she was still also a Murphy. And he didn’t trust a Murphy as far as he could throw the moon.

  Brandon jerked open the toolshed door. A storm of dust motes swirled in the ray of sunshine piercing the dim interior of the shed. He reached up for the string that operated the li
ght, only to see, as he yanked it, the telltale flash of light signaling a blown bulb.

  Great. Just great. This day was fabulous already. In the darkness, he fumbled for the chain on its hook on the wall and rustled through drawers and chests to get the tools he needed.

  “Brandon? That you? ’Cause if it isn’t, I got a big ol’ sledgehammer in my hand and the intent to use it.”

  Brandon stopped short in his hunt for a wrench. “Uncle Jake, it’s me. The third link broke and I’m trying to get the plows out of the field so I can get it fixed.”

  “Might as well buy a new one, because that Shuman ain’t gonna get to it until next week sometime. Saw him at the barbershop on Monday, and he said he was backed up something awful.”

  “Yeah, well.” Brandon hefted up the last of the tools he needed and swung the loop of chain on his shoulder. “Lucky for me we’ve got a sculptor next door.”

  “That Penelope’s gonna weld it for you? Well, now. Good thinking.” Uncle Jake stepped back from the doorway to let Brandon by.

  “I didn’t ask,” he ground out. “She offered.”

  “Nice of her. But it sounds like you’re running a quart low on gratitude, son.”

  Brandon discarded the words simmering in his brain and struggled for something Uncle Jake might not fuss about. “I’m grateful. But...”

  “Hard to take help from a person you’re trying to run off, eh?”

  “I built her a barn, Uncle Jake!”

  “Yeah. For the wrong reasons.”

  “It’s still there. And look, see, it’s paying off for me. The tractor broke down within an easy walk to it.”

  “Lucky you.” Uncle Jake followed Brandon back out into the sunlight.

  “What do you expect, anyway?” Brandon protested. “Me to just let it go? Me to be happy about it?”

  Uncle Jake jammed his hands into the pockets of his overalls and kicked at a rock. “See, now, that’s what most folks would advise. Get over it. Move on. But I know you. And you are not the type to do that. It gnaws at you—no, no, don’t think I don’t see it.”

  Brandon adjusted the chain so it didn’t bite into his shoulder. “Can we save this lecture for later? I have to go in at three today, and I want to get some sleep first, but I also want to make sure Penelope doesn’t make a hash out of that repair. I don’t want to be late for work. At a job, I might add, I had to go to full-time after Murphy stole your land. It’s a lot easier to farm when you work part-time as a deputy rather than full-time.”