by Merry Farmer
Hope and Joy exchanged looks, nodding and considering.
“You know, that just might work,” Joy said.
“We’d have to give it a trial day first,” Hope added.
“No problem.” Chastity spread her arms like it was a done deal. “If it helps, I can talk to Myrna and her friends at the salon in a few days to see if they want to come out and be our trial.”
“Okay,” Hope said. “I say we give it a go.”
“The worst that can happen is that we decide not to do it again,” Joy agreed.
“Excellent.” Chastity swiped Faith’s pregnancy test off the counter. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to try to go find our loopy sister and break the good news to her.”
Just because his mom had turned her house into a daycare center didn’t mean Chris and his brothers stopped coming there for lunch now and then. While a dozen or so kids napped in the other room, Chris sat at the kitchen table with a sandwich and chips in front of him.
“Here’s some milk to go with that,” Linda said, placing a glass on the table, then returned to the counter to make more sandwiches.
“Milk?” Chris glanced up. “Am I one of the daycare kids now?”
Linda chuckled. “It’s what we have on hand. But yes, you’ll always be my little boy.”
Chris smiled and winked at her. His mom was the best. She could tease him all she wanted, she’d earned that right.
He turned a page in the catalog for the University of Wyoming that had just come in the mail, poring over the options for master’s degrees in the sciences, searching to see what prerequisites he should have if he was going to apply to a program.
Which is a ridiculous notion, that voice in his head said. Why was he torturing himself by looking at master’s programs when the ranch was in jeopardy, when he had a brand new wife that would probably want to start popping out babies soon, when his brothers would probably tease him within an inch of his life?
Sure enough, as he took a bite out of his sandwich, Karlan and Kolby strode into the room.
“What are you looking at?” Kolby asked, nodding to the catalog.
“None of your business,” Chris replied, mouth half full.
“You leave your brother alone.” Linda brought a plate of sandwiches to the table as Karlan and Kolby sat. “It’s none of your business if he wants to better himself.”
Chris winced, even though it was a compliment. Sometimes his mom didn’t know what she was starting with innocent little comments like—
“Chris is trying to better himself?” Karlan smirked, reaching for a sandwich. “Doesn’t he think he’s good enough already?”
“I dunno.” Kolby shrugged and took two sandwiches from the plate. “I always thought he figured he was better than the rest of us.”
Yep, there it was. There was nothing but manly affection in his brothers’ eyes, but that didn’t mean they wouldn’t rag on him until he couldn’t take it anymore.
“I’m just trying to eat my lunch so I can go back to work,” he said and focused on reading.
Karlan leaned over to scan the page, chewing loudly. His brow went up. “What are you reading a school catalog for? Are those classes you can take? Quantum Mechanics? Space Systems Engineering? What the heck?”
Kolby grinned. “Still trying to be an astronaut?”
“I never wanted to be an astronaut,” Chris replied, then muttered under his breath, “I wanted to design spaceships.”
“Remember back when he was twelve and mom got him that telescope for Christmas?” Karlan went on.
“I spent a lot of money on that telescope,” Linda commented as she brought glasses of milk to the table for Karlan and Kolby.
“Yeah, and this nerd took it out every clear night, no matter how freezing it was,” Karlan said. “Didn’t you almost freeze your eyeball to the thingie that you look in one night?”
“No, I did not.” Chris slapped the course catalog closed and leaned back in his seat. “I did nearly get frostbite, though.”
“I had to drag you back into the house before you lost half your toes.” Linda laughed as she remembered. “What ever happened to that telescope?”
Chris kept his lips and teeth clamped shut. Karlan and Kolby snorted and chuckled over their lunch.
“It, uh, might have met with an accident,” Karlan said.
“What?” Linda turned back to the table, planting a hand on her hip.
“Yeah, some of us may or may not have decided to duct tape it to the roof of the stable,” Kolby went on. “You know, to see if Chris would climb up there to observe the stars.”
“He did, too.” Karlan nodded.
“Best view I ever had.” Chris smiled and pressed his hands into fists. “Remember that blizzard we had that blew all those shingles off one corner of the stable roof?” He picked up the story in a tight growl. “It wasn’t just bad luck. The wind ripped the telescope right off, taking a bunch of shingles with it.”
“And breaking the telescope,” Linda guessed. She shook her head at Karlan and Kolby as though they were the obnoxious teenagers they’d been back then. “That telescope was expensive.”
“Sorry, Mom,” both Karlan and Kolby muttered, bowing their heads and eating their lunch.
Linda pivoted to frown at Chris. “And why didn’t you tell me what happened?”
Chris shrugged. “The telescope was already broken. What was the point?”
Linda let out a breath, then came over to pat Chris’s shoulders. “You didn’t want to get your brothers in trouble. Good boy.” She kissed his cheek.
In fact, Chris knew that even if he had said something, there would just be more teasing, his brothers would have gotten on his case for tattling, and he still wouldn’t have a telescope. Oh, the things he’d learned as a kid that had nothing to do with school! He sent a narrow-eyed look across the table to Kolby.
Kolby caught that look and winced. “Sorry,” he muttered. It was fifteen years late, but it was something. He sat straighter and nodded to the catalog. “So, uh, you thinking of going back to school for all that science stuff now?”
He seemed genuinely interested, so Chris said, “Maybe. I was telling Chastity about being accepted to MIT the other day—”
“You’re such an idiot for not going,” Karlan interrupted.
It took every bit of self-control that Chris had not to punch his big brother in the nose right then and there. Karlan was one third of the reason he hadn’t gone. Instead, he squirmed in his seat, cleared his throat, and pulled the course catalog closer to him.
“I actually got this for Chastity,” he revealed the half-truth. “She was telling me that she really wanted to major in nursing in school, but her parents wouldn’t let her.”
Karlan, Kolby, and Linda all hummed and nodded.
“It would be useful to have a nurse in the family,” Linda said. “The two of you could go back to school together.”
“Chris isn’t going back to school,” Karlan laughed. “He’s already got a job and a wife and the ranch.”
“I don’t know,” Kolby replied, surprising Chris. “I always felt bad about you not going to MIT. Like maybe we teased you a little too much and you changed your mind.”
“Come on,” Karlan argued. “Chris is too smart to change his mind about something like that just because we teased him.”
Chris held his breath. Was that a compliment or an insult? Did his big brother really have no idea how much he’d looked up to him all those years ago?
Evidently not, because Karlan’s smarmy grin dropped when he turned to look at Chris. “You didn’t turn down one of the best colleges in the country because of us, did you?”
Chris swiped the catalog all the way off the table, rolling it into his clenched fists, and stood. “Excuse me,” he said, more hoarse than he wanted to be. He stepped away from the table and headed toward the door.
“Chris,” Karlan called after him. “You didn’t, did you? MIT?”
�
�Hush.” Chris heard Linda silence him as he marched down the hall. “You’ll wake the kids.”
What good would it do to admit the truth, that yes, he had given up on his dream because he idolized his older brothers more than he believed in himself? That was all years ago. You couldn’t change the past any more than you could duct tape an expensive telescope back together and still have it work. He’d tried.
“Whoa!”
Halfway down the hall, Chris barreled straight into Chastity as she stepped out of his mother’s room, a plastic stick in her hands. They bashed into each other with enough force to cause a few bruises. On instinct, Chris caught Chastity in his arms to keep both of them from losing their balance, but as soon as that balance was restored, he realized he didn’t want to let go. Instead, he drew her into a tight hug, burying his face in her hair.
She reacted instantly, squeezing him in return.
“Aw, sweetie. What’s wrong?”
A swell of unmanly tears threatened to overtake him, but he squashed it down as hard as he could.
“Nothing now that I’ve got my sexy wife in my arms,” he said. He really, really didn’t want to let go, but he also really, really wanted to get out of the house. So he loosened his hug, grabbed Chastity’s hand with his free one, and rushed out of the house and onto the porch with her.
As soon as they were outside in the heat and the sunlight, Chris felt a hundred times better. He smiled at Chastity, noticing exactly what she carried.
“Hey, congratulations. Who’s the father?” he joked. He knew enough about female biology from teaching to know that she was just finishing up a case of the girly-ickies, and trusted her enough not to feel a blip of jealousy.
“Some pickle salesman I met on the way here,” she replied without hesitation.
His heart swelled and flipped in his chest. Ickies or no, he kind of wanted to unzip the both of them and bang her up against the side of the house.
“So what’s wrong?” she asked again, deflating that desire like a pin in a balloon.
Chris sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “Old wounds. I’m getting over them, though.”
“Family.” It was all Chastity had to say. She knew. She understood. There was no need for the two of them to plop it all out in the open.
She also knew what he needed right then, and the two of them set out across the green lawn of the ranch for an impromptu walk. He had an hour before he had to head into town, so it was perfect.
“Oh!” Chastity exclaimed before they had gone ten yards. “Hope and Joy are totally into the idea of bringing some oldies out to the daycare.”
“Are they?” It felt good—seriously good—to have something productive to latch on to.
“Yeah. Although they think we should give it a trial run with Myrna and her friends first.”
“Works for me. And I bet Mrs. Bonneville would be all for it.”
“That’s what I thought too.” Chasity smiled, swinging their clasped hands as though they were two kids on a walk. “I can’t come with you to the salon this afternoon because I have to find Faith and tell her about this.”
“What’s this?”
She held up the pregnancy test. It was positive, but he wanted a better look, so he handed Chastity the course catalog so that he could take the stick. It was pretty anticlimactic. Just a plastic stick with a plus sign in a little window.
“This is cool,” Chastity said.
Chris glanced back at her to find her thumbing through the catalog.
“Oh, neat. Look at all these courses. My college didn’t have half—no, more than half—of these classes.”
She’d flipped straight to the nursing courses. If that wasn’t a sign, Chris didn’t know what was. Her attention was so focused on what she was reading that Chris had to grab her arm to steer her around a big rock to keep her from ramming right into it. She didn’t even blink.
“Wow, there’s more than one geriatric-specific course. That’s so awesome.” There was more than a little wistfulness in her voice.
Chris recognized it. Far more than he wanted to admit. He’d had the same feeling when he looked at the astronomy and physics courses.
Deep in his chest, something a lot like hope began to stir. As many times as he’d fiddled with the idea of reaching back and grabbing hold of his dream again, he’d never had the strength to do it. But now he had a partner in crime, and if he wasn’t mistaken, she’d left behind a dream as well. It was hard to reclaim a dream on your own, but maybe it would be a lot easier if the two of them reached for the stars together.
8
Two things impressed Chastity about the catalog from the University of Wyoming that Chris had gotten for her. The first was how broad the nursing offerings were and how many prerequisites she’d already earned back home. But that wasn’t half as interesting as the fact that all the pages in the physics and astronomy section of the catalog were smudged and dog-eared. Chris had obviously been just as interested in looking at things as she was.
It set Chastity to thinking. It was true, the ranch needed money, but what if she and Chris were somehow able to earn even more on top of that? She thumbed back through the catalog as she leaned against the counter in her and Chris’s kitchen, waiting for him to finish putting his school stuff together. For the millionth time, she reread the page that talked all about online classes. What if the two of them could somehow scrape together enough to take just one or two classes a term online? Maybe Chris could teach science classes to adults in Culpepper or run some sort of sky-watching club? Or what if this idea with oldies at the daycare took off? Maybe she could run some kind of senior daycare to earn a few extra bucks. Or even hire herself out as a companion for the elderly. Did anyone use the classroom at the back of the salon in the mornings? Maybe she could convince Denise to let her lead craft classes for seniors there.
Ugh. No way. Denise hated her. Chastity slapped the catalog shut and tossed it on the counter. Well, at least Denise hated her now. Maybe if she was super nice to the woman, figured out a way to win her over…
“What’s that look for?” Chris asked as he strode into the kitchen, hiking his schoolbag over his shoulder.
“What look?”
“Like you bit into an oatmeal raisin cookie when you expected it to be chocolate chip.”
Chastity winced. “That’s the worst.”
Chris laughed and walked right up to her, tugging her into his arms for a kiss. Chastity shivered down to her toes. They still hadn’t done the deed, but Chris’s kisses were almost as good. They made her want to wrap herself around him and just bone until the two of them broke something. Which with them would be about three minutes.
“You, uh, still being visited by your Aunt Flo?” Chris leaned back enough to ask.
Chastity giggled. “Nope. I sent her packing.”
“Good,” Chris hummed, low and sultry. “Then maybe Mr. Pickle can spend the night?”
“Oh my gosh, yes.” She already had her arms wrapped around his shoulders, so for fun, she lifted her leg up to his hip.
Not to be outdone, Chris caught her leg, sliding his hand along her thigh to lift her leg higher, and moved in for another soul-stealing kiss. Conditions began to get a little slippery in the south. Chastity moaned softly, threading her fingers through his hair.
Chris let his schoolbag drop from his shoulder. He lifted her so that she could wrap both legs around his waist while her backside wedged against the counter.
“Five minutes,” Chris murmured. “We can spare five minutes to drill for gold, can’t we?”
Chastity laughed in her throat and gave him one last, long kiss. “Can’t. I’ve got to get to the salon and play nice with Denise.”
All at once, every last bit of sexual tension drained away from Chris. He went limp as a noodle, set her down, and took a step back.
“Nice, Chastity. Nothing kills an erection like the mention of Denise Bonneville.”
“Sorry.” Chastity giggled as she st
raightened her shirt and picked Chris’s bag up off the floor. She handed it to him and they started for the door. “It’s just that I was thinking it would be nice to convince her to let me use that classroom in the salon to teach craft classes to oldies.”
“What a sweet idea,” he said, giving her backside a thorough goose as they crossed over the threshold and out into the afternoon sun. Chastity yelped in surprise, wanting more. Chris instantly pretended like nothing out of the ordinary had happened. “Of course, she’s never going to let you do it. In case you hadn’t noticed, she doesn’t exactly like you.”
“That’s why I have to be nice to her.”
But that was far easier said than done. As soon as Chastity stepped into the Curly-Whirly right behind Chris, Denise lay into her.
“Oh, what now?” Denise threw up her hands as she worked cutting an older man’s hair. She had clippers buzzing in her right hand and nearly took a chunk out of the man’s head. He flinched and ducked, looking at Chastity with wide eyes through the mirror.
Chastity gritted her teeth, hoping it looked like a smile. “Hey, Denise,” she said with all the sing-song gladness of a middle school girl running into her best friend at the mall. “How are you today?”
“Rotten, now that you’re here.” Denise glared at Chastity in the mirror, diving back into work cutting the old guy’s hair.
“It’s great to see you too.” Chastity went right on with her cheerful act. This was going to be harder than she’d anticipated.
“Is that Mr. and Mrs. Culpepper I hear?” Myrna asked, stepping out of the salon’s back hallway. “I’ve been waiting for you.”
Being super happy with Myrna was far easier than cozying up to Denise. “Hi, Myrna.”
Chastity rushed across the salon and gave Myrna a big hug. She then turned to the row of dryers, where Birdie, Mary Lou, and Barbara sat with rollers in their hair. The dryers were on, making it hard for them to hear what was going on in the salon, but they noticed and waved all the same.