Elias In Love

by Grace Burrowes

  * * *

  If Violet hadn’t forced Elias to stop and drink, he’d have worked without a pause. He was damned fit, and it didn’t take him long to get the hang of stacking a wagon. In the barn, he insisted on handling the end of the job that meant tromping around in the hay mow, dealing with the worst of the heat, dust, and sheer effort.

  All Violet had to do was toss the hay bales onto the elevator, and that was exhausting enough. The crop was perfect though—lovely fodder, cut at the peak time, dried to perfection. The sheep would love it, and come winter, the horse owners would pay dearly for every bale.

  Wagonload after wagonload went into the mow, and with each one, an anxiety known only to hay farmers eased for Violet. So much depended on getting the hay in, and the first cutting was the largest and most valuable.

  “It’s a shame you’re selling your farm,” Violet said, when she’d backed the last wagon into the barn’s center aisle. “You have an aptitude for haying.”

  “Don’t badger me when every part of me itches like the devil, Violet Hughes. Aren’t you going to start the elevator?”

  “No. The last wagonload can just sit here in the barn, to be unloaded some fine day when you aren’t at risk for heat exhaustion. I’m in your debt, Elias. Thank you.”

  He climbed off the wagon, his movements lithe. For a Scottish earl, he did a mighty fine impression of a Maryland farm hand, right down to the way he slapped his gloves against his jeans.

  “Must you be so honorable?” he said, accepting a water bottle from Violet, and draining half the contents. “I said I’d help. How often do you do this?”

  “A third cutting isn’t unusual, though fall hay isn’t as valuable. I’ve made hay in December, when the conditions were right. Pretty stuff. Wasn’t worth much. I have one more first cutting field to do, but it sits low and the alfalfa has been a little slow. I’ll probably cut it next week, if the weather cooperates.”

  Or if it didn’t. Hay that grew old and stemmy was as hard to sell as hay that got rained on.

  Elias dumped the rest of the water over his face and head, shook, and slicked his hair back, then used the hem of his T-shirt to scrub his face.

  “Do you never rest, Violet?”

  She’d rested in his arms. “I’ll rest after the first hard frost. My dad used to say he’d rest when he was dead.”

  “You’ll have a lang sleep when ye’re deid,” Elias murmured. “I’m nearly dead. You must not tell Dunstan that a few hours on a wagon has me nearly undone.”

  He was rumpled, had chaff all over his T-shirt, and water ran in rivulets down his neck, but he wasn’t nearly undone enough.

  “Let’s refill the water bottles,” Violet said. “Do you have a clean T-shirt with you?”

  “In my worst nightmares, I could not imagine being this hot and dirty, but I have a clean T-shirt in my backpack because I came intending to do manual labor.”

  He’d come offering an olive branch. Violet let the distinction pass, because her barn was full of beautiful hay, among other reasons.

  “Are you expected anywhere for dinner?” she asked.

  “I am not. I left a note for Dunstan and Jane saying not to expect me. Jane made rather a grand meal last evening, and I didn’t want to put her to the trouble again.”

  What would Elias Brodie consider a grand meal? “I’m not cooking after the day I put in, but neither will I hit the shower in my present state. Meet me at the truck and bring your backpack.”

  She liked giving him orders—liked it plenty, because he took them. He didn’t give her lip or sass or mansplaining or reasoning, for God’s sake. He passed Violet the empty water bottle and sauntered off in the direction of the truck.

  He was downing more water when she met him there ten minutes later, and that was smart. Haying had to be the hottest, sweatiest, most dehydrating, back-breaking, satisfying work in the world, and Elias was new to it.

  “What’s in the hamper, Violet?”

  A jug of wine, a loaf of bread … She tossed him the truck keys. “Bug spray. Hop in, unless you want to leave hay mess all over that nice little car.”

  Elias hauled himself up into the truck, though of course, he had to adjust the steering wheel and the seat.

  “That nice little car is an abomination against all who take pleasure in driving. Where is the—?” He slid the key into the ignition. “Where are we going and why am I driving?”

  Violet simply wanted to see him behind the wheel of her truck. “I drove that tractor all afternoon. We’re going that-a-way.” Violet pointed off behind the barn, to the tree line along the hedgerow at the far end of the third field. Even that gesture twinged the ache in her arms from wrestling the tractor all afternoon. “No hot dogging, Elias. This truck is paid off, and we don’t have the health care system you guys do.”

  “Somebody keeps your vehicle tuned up,” he said, letting the truck idle for a moment. “Your tractor is another matter.” He drove down the lane, which was reasonably smooth. Raspberry bushes lined Violet’s side—no fruit yet, profuse blossoms, and the poison ivy beneath the raspberries was thriving, too.

  Elias drove the truck with none of the awkward misjudgment of people accustomed to smaller vehicles. Had Violet been asked, she might have said the truck liked him—or he liked the truck.

  I ’ve missed you, Elias Brodie. Violet couldn’t say that, but she could admit it to herself. Had she never seen Elias with hay in his hair, his arms burnished by the sun, and his jeans creased with dust, she might have missed him less.

  “Aim half way to the sycamore,” she said. “Groundhog hole on the right as we pass the wishing oak.”

  “Do you have fairy mounds?” Elias asked easing the truck past the groundhog burrow.

  I have memories of you. “Not that I know of. Try to get us some shade.”

  He tucked the truck under a spreading maple as sweetly as Bruno ensconced himself in a patch of sunlight.

  “I neglected to use the air conditioning,” Elias said, cutting the engine. “Perhaps I’m acclimating to Dunstan’s inferno.”

  “Perhaps you’re too tired to think. Haying does that. Second cutting is the worst. Ninety-five degrees, humidity you need a machete to cut, and bugs everywhere you least want bugs to be.”

  Elias climbed out of the truck, and while Violet rummaged for the wicker hamper, he came around to open her door.

  “I know this is home to you,” he said, “but can you entertain the notion that there are other places on earth more congenial to agricultural endeavors?”

  Violet looked past his shoulder, back the way they’d come, to her barn, snuggled up against the rise of the land. Animals could shelter below, feed and fodder were stored above.

  “My mother wanted to paint that barn,” she said. “Tremendous expense and effort, but she said a weathered barn was shabby.”

  Elias brushed his thumb over Violet’s brow. “A smudge,” he said, repeating the gesture then dropping his hand. “Your mother’s wishes didn’t prevail, I take it.”

  “My father did the research, and wouldn’t you know it, somebody has taken the time to compare what happens when raw wood weathers for twenty-five years versus when painted wood endures the same twenty-five years under the same conditions. The raw wood weathers better.”

  “So your father did the practical thing, and left his barn unpainted.”

  Violet wanted Elias to touch her again, and she wanted to shout at him that selling his farm would be an act of unforgivable betrayal.

  Which was unfair and inaccurate. She passed Elias the hamper and climbed out of the truck. “My mother called last night.”

  “Is all well with her?”

  The sound of water running over rocks should have been soothing. The sight of the barn so majestic and peaceful should have pleased Violet. The hay in the barn was like money in the bank, and yet, her heart was breaking.

  “Mom wants me to sell, Elias. She came right out and said so last night. My own mother wants me to se
ll this place, and she might be able to make me do it, too.”

  Elias set the hamper down, wrapped Violet in his arms, and cursed in a language she’d never heard before.

  Chapter Seven

  * * *

  Family was the most mixed of mixed blessings. Elias held Violet loosely in deference to the heat, but the sheer misery of her admission—to him, her virtual adversary—made him want to howl.

  “Violet Hughes,” he said softly, directly at her ear, “if I were to choose one person on the face of the earth who could not be coerced into behaving contrary to her principles, it’s you. Perhaps your mother was having a bad moment and needs a placatory visit.”

  Violet eased away and picked up the hamper. “I should not be dumping my woes on you.”

  Elias collected his pack and followed her beneath a tall row of trees to a stream flowing over pale rocks. The opposite bank was covered with ferns that gave way to woods, while on the near side the bank was grassy.

  “This is lovely,” he said, as Violet opened the hamper and extracted an old quilt. The material was a faded blue and white patchwork—the same colors as the Scottish saltire, as it happened.

  “Later in the season, the bugs can be a problem, especially at dusk, but for today, this is perfect. I come here when I’m too dirty to take a shower. Ever been skinny dipping?”

  Despite grinding fatigue, myriad aches, and stinging blisters, some of Elias’s exhaustion fell away. “I’m familiar with the concept, though the lochs in Scotland tend to be quite chilly.”

  Violet sat on the blanket and unlaced her boots. “I’ll go for a swim first. If I start with the cold beer, I’m often asleep before I know it on a day like this. I do enjoy hard work, but I enjoy getting clean too.”

  Cold beer? Elias peered into the hamper and on top of a folded towel, saw the answer to unspoken prayers.

  “Do I understand this libation is available for consumption?”

  Violet yanked off both boots and set them in the grass beside the blanket. “You are hilarious, Elias Brodie. Yes, you may have a beer. Sandwiches are on the bottom. Last one in the water is a rotten egg, and I can tell you, from personal and regrettable experience, you do not want to be a rotten egg.”

  She stood and pulled her T-shirt over her head, then shucked out of her jeans. She wore a two-piece bathing suit, deep pink, on the modest side, but still…

  Violet Hughes in a bathing suit was another answer to unspoken prayers.

  “The deepest water is in the center,” she said, striding to the bank. “There’s soap tucked inside the towel, if you’re so inclined.”

  Elias was inclined to watch Violet when she was driving a tractor, ranting about preserving farm land, or scolding her cat. To see her nearly naked, the perfect blend of curves, muscles and, hollows…

  He forgot the beer, he forgot he was filthy, he forgot ravenous hunger, he forgot—well, he didn’t forget his castle. Instead he pictured Violet there, looking just like this. Eager, determined, happily anticipating a simple pleasure.

  She waded in, shivered, splashed water on her arms and belly, and grinned at him over her shoulder.

  “You can swim, right?”

  The last time he’d gone swimming had been in Italy, and he’d mostly been obliging his hostess’s desire to add him to her collection of poolside decorations.

  “I’m competent in the water,” he said, pulling his T-shirt off. He turned it right-side out, and shook it hard. Boots, socks, and jeans followed, until he was wearing only wrinkled cotton boxers. He found the soap—not lavender, rosemary maybe, and peppermint—and crossed to the stream.

  “Water’s damned cold,” Violet said, wading out. “Mind you don’t get a cramp.”

  A cramp was the least of Elias’s worries. “Is it deep enough to dive?”

  “Eight feet or so in the middle,” Violet said, pushing off in a breaststroke. “Holy bejesus, this stream gets colder every year.”

  Elias scaled a likely rock, positioned the soap within reach, and dove for the center of the stream. The shock was ghastly and invigorating, a welcome torment to blistered hands, lacerated arms, and sore everything.

  The water was also cold enough to thwart nascent arousal—some.

  “Shall I use the soap first?” Elias asked. “You seem content to paddle about.”

  “I like to swim. Go ahead and get clean.”

  The water was too cold to truly enjoy for any length of time, so Elias scrubbed off, passed Violet the soap, and left her to her ablutions. By the time Violet climbed out, Elias was in a T-shirt and board shorts, and half a beer had met its fate. The moment was lovely, but like all lovely moments, it would pass.

  “You waited until my back was turned to change your clothes,” Violet said, appropriating a sip of his beer. “Not like I haven’t seen the goods before, Elias.”

  Elias passed her the towel. “You’re getting gooseflesh, and I’m opening another beer. You’re angry with me, remember? You should also be angry with your mother.”

  Elias was angry with Violet’s mother. Violet did not need betrayal from the only parent she had left. Not now.

  She wrapped the towel around her shoulders, and fortunately for Elias, it was a large towel.

  “Mama has her reasons. Husband number three isn’t much help. He’s the protective sort.”

  In defense of his ability to argue coherently, Elias settled on the blanket, beyond touching range.

  “Woe to any man who develops protective fancies where his womenfolk are concerned,” he said, fishing for the sandwiches. “My first fiancée explained that commandment to me a month before the wedding.”

  The three p’s, she’d termed it. Protective, paternalistic, and philanthropic. Any one of them was troublesome, but a prospective spouse who’d turned out to be three for three… Maria had had plans for the Brodie wealth that did not include looking after Elias’s extended family, or donating regularly to any charities. She’d been equally clear that paying the nonrefundable wedding expenses didn’t interest her either.

  Violet cracked open the second beer. “You’ve had more than one fiancée?”

  “Only two. The second numbers among my friends. Would you like a sandwich?” Ham and cheese on sourdough with yellow mustard—food for the gods, in Elias’s present mood.

  Violet’s expression suggested passing mention of former fiancées—plural—had not gone unremarked.

  “I’ll take a half,” she said, coming down beside him. “The water felt divine.”

  They ate in relative quiet, though not silence. The water lapped over the rocks, a sheep occasionally bleated from the direction of the barn, some small creature scurried through the ferns on the opposite bank.

  “What will you do about your mother?” Elias asked, when he’d demolished both halves of his sandwich.

  “Husband number three is protective of Mama, but that’s a polite way to say he’s protective of her money. I detect his guiding hand agitating her worries regarding the farm.”

  “Can you negotiate a buyout?”

  Violet tossed a bit of her bread crust into the bushes. “For the squirrels. I hadn’t thought about a buy-out, because I’m so busy trying not to show a profit so the tax man doesn’t put me out of business, not that there’s been much profit lately.”

  “I’m descended from one of the few Scottish families to claim some wealth,” he said, around a mouthful of sandwich. “The blood of a hundred generations of accountants flows in my veins. Here’s how you structure the buy-out. You make sure title passes to you as quickly and completely as possible, so that in effect, your mother is holding a private mortgage with the land as security. She escapes liability, you gain ownership. Have you a competent attorney?”

  “Yes, when I can afford him. I do send him business from my blog, too.”

  Elias’s second fiancée had become quite the blogger. “You make your mother pay the legal fees as part of the closing on the transaction. Does husband number three expect to inh
erit her portion of the farm?”

  Violet chewed the last of her sandwich. “He’s five years younger than she is, and takes care of himself, but I don’t like to think… Elias, I don’t know. He’s more or less a stranger to me. He seems devoted to Mama, but a little charm can hide a lot of self-interest.”

  Elias crushed his empty beer can and pitched it back into the hamper. Violet’s observation had not been casual.

  “Would it help if I apologized, Violet?”

  “For?”

  “For selling my property. Every time you look out your front window and see a development where fields were, your heart will break all over again.” Just as Elias’s heart broke to see the mortar crumbling from the castle walls, the lichens working their insidious damage year by year, the grounds left to errant sheep and nesting birds.

  Fatigue hit him on a beer-assisted wave. Everything ached, from his blistered palms, to his sunburned arms, to his lower back.

  To his heart. The lovely moment was over.

  “You have a castle to save,” Violet said, “or an earldom, or a legacy of some sort. I want to hate you, and I might yet see my way clear to a burning resentment, but my family has been on this property for five generations. I think about turning my back on this, and I can’t, which means I can’t judge you too harshly for defending your castle. This is my home. What I do here matters…”

  That Violet could be left in peace on her farm mattered to Elias, too, which was damned inconvenient. They’d spent a night together, and in a week or so, Elias would return to Scotland, there to stay for a good long while.

  Sometimes, life was unfair, sad, and lonely. He’d learned that as an eleven-year-old boy, the lesson held true two decades later.

  “So come up with that buy-out plan,” Elias said. “You will sleep better if you know your farm is in your hands, regardless of what transpires across the road.” Elias would sleep better as well. Because he’d had enough of problems, worries, and woes, he passed Violet the second half of her sandwich and put a question to her. “What is this blog you write?”