I shared the first part of this chapter yesterday. You can find the rest of the chapters HERE.

And, guys (ladies mostly), let me tell you something! I just noticed on Amazon that I got my first negative review on my first book! It’s like a right of passage. I have a feeling I’ll get more because, well, I’m not the best writer ever, but I don’t even care. I know, you’re thinking: “What is wrong with this woman? She’s happy she got a negative review???”

Well, not necessarily, no, but I’m happy that it doesn’t bother me like it used to. In the last few years (especially since I lost my aunt in 2017) I have realized what is most important in life and what others think of me isn’t one of those things. I see the fact I’m not too worried about it and laughed while reading it as progress in my life.

As I read his words out loud to my son I just kept laughing: “It was free and it still cost too much.” I should be crushed, but everyone has different tastes and I’m just learning about all this writing stuff so I’m good with it. So thanks, Anthony, I needed that and the rest of your review (which went on a bit too long, if you ask me.) The fact I drove someone to sit and write a review, even a negative one, makes me smile. I do wish he’d given me a little more constructive criticism than it wasn’t worth his time, but, oh well, I’ll hope for a more passionate negative review in the future.

---

Alex breathed in deep the smell of hay and the musty smell of female cow as he leaned his head against the cow’s side while he hooked up the milking machine the morning after the rummage sale. Growing up in an urban area outside of Baltimore, he never thought he’d enjoy the comfort of a cow, the warmth of a barn on a crisp spring morning.

He didn’t have to look up to know Molly had walked in behind him. He clearly recognized her footsteps, something he had memorized, much like the way her nose crinkled slightly when she laughed and the way she blew her bangs out of her face when they fell across her forehead while she was working in the barn.

Her footsteps stopped behind him.

“So,” she said and he heard a tinge of aggression in just that one word. “What was that with Ben yesterday?”

Alex shrugged, keeping his eyes on his work.

“I was just harassing him.”

He stood, rubbed some dust off Daisy’s side, his back still to Molly.

“He seemed like a real jerk so I wanted to mess with him.”

Molly cleared her throat. “Well, yes, he is a little jerky – sometimes. I guess.”

She stopped short of asking him why he had acted as if they were dating. She felt the conversation they were having was awkward enough.

“Okay,” she said. “I need to start the milking on the other side, so . . .okay. And thanks for fixing the truck and driving it back to the house.”

Alex reached for the udder cream, not looking at her as he treated Daisy. “Yup. No problem.”

Molly turned away from him and rolled her eyes to the ceiling, silently mocking her anti-climatic exchange with Alex. She had intended to find out not only what the deal with Ben had been but what the recent change in his behavior toward her was about, especially since Liz had been pestering her with questions about it since yesterday during the rummage sale.

“Was he trying to act like you two were dating?”

“I don’t know.”

“Are you two dating?”

“No!”

“You would tell me if you were dating right?”

“Liz . . .”

“Well, would you?”

“Yes, Liz, but we’re not dating.”

“So, what was —”

“I have no idea, Liz.”

“You’re going to ask him, right?”

Molly had slapped her forehead against her hand while Liz watched her with wide eyes. “Yes. I will.”

And she had asked him.

He’d given her his answer and now she was going back to work in the barn. She was letting it go. She wasn’t going to push the issue.

Pausing at the bottom of the hayloft she leaned back against the ladder and let out a long breath.

She knew no matter how hard she tried she wasn’t going to be able to let it go, at least in her mind. She knew she’d keep wondering what was changing between her and Alex and if he noticed it too.