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Fiction Friday: Gladwynn Grant Gets Her Footing Chapter 2

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 5 Comments

I thought I’d share another chapter today from my cozy mystery Gladwynn Grant Gets Her Footing which releases on July 18.

I’m posting this very late today because I’ve been running around most of today, cooking dinner, putting away groceries, etc. I’m posting so late today it’s almost not Friday any longer.

You can catch up on Chapter 1 by clicking here.

If you would like to receive an Advanced Reader Copy of the book in exchange for a review and letting your friends and family know about it, please sign up here:

https://forms.gle/sGrW46XBPViAvzRz7

This does not require you to be on a launch team or do anything other than read and review the book.

Chapter 2

Glawynn woke with a start the next morning, heart pounding.

A horrible grinding noise had jolted her from a dream. It stopped almost as quickly as it started and now she wondered if it had been part of the dream, which she could remember very little of. There’d been a court jester and a young Frank Sinatra. The rest had faded into oblivion.

 The room she was looking at reminded her of something someone might see on the set of a regency film. She let out a breath, blowing hair out of her face and struggled to remember where she was.

A solemn woman with her hair high on her head in a tight bun scowled at her from a gold-framed picture on the wall above a full-length mirror opposite her. To the woman’s right there was a full-bearded man wearing a Quaker-style hat staring at her from out of another framed picture. Both photographs were black and white.

It was all coming back to her now.

Grandma’s house in Brookville. Her home for the foreseeable future.

She winced as she moved her legs, stinging pain shuddering through the bottom of her feet, reminding her of her stupid decision to wear high-heeled boots to work.

Downstairs the noise that had woken her up had started up again. Some kind of grinding and squealing, like maybe a cat caught in a wood chipper.

What was her grandmother doing?

Or maybe it wasn’t her grandmother. She hadn’t actually seen her grandmother when she’d come home last night. Lucinda’s bedroom door had been closed.  Gladwynn had tiptoed past it and crawled into bed without even changing into her night clothes.

Now fully awake, she tossed the thick quilt off her and reached for the flashlight next to the bed, weighing it in her hand.

Yeah, that would work if there was a chainsaw wielding maniac downstairs instead of her spunky grandmother.

She inched her way into the hallway, then slowly to the top of the stairs, ancestors watching her with stoic stares from ornate and vintage frames along the flower wallpapered walls.

Making her way down the wooden staircase with one hand on a banister that dated sometime in the early 1900s, she winced as the grinding noise grew louder. It was clear now that the sound was coming from the kitchen.

Amidst the grinding she could hear Dean Martin crooning away and just as loud, Lucinda’s voice joining in.

Gladwynn set the flashlight on a small table against the wall next to the staircase , under a framed image of the Grant coat of arms that a distant relative had brought back from a trip to Scotland.

She paused to look through the kitchen doorway, unable to keep from smiling at the sight.

Lucinda, wearing a silky, bright pink bathrobe, had her back to her. Her light gray hair was swept back in a messy bun and her plump hips swayed from side to side as she sang while pouring something bright green from a blender into tall glasses.

Gladwynn stepped up into the doorway just as her grandmother looked over her shoulder.

Lucinda smiled, belted out the end of the song, and then flicked off the CD player.

“Hey there, girl! There you are! You were passed right out when I got home. That must have been some crazy second day.”

When she got home? Where had her grandmother been last night at 8 p.m. if not curled up in bed asleep?

Gladwynn flopped in a chair at the kitchen table. “Yeah. It was a little crazy.”

“Different than library work, huh?”

 “That’s an understatement. It’s like walking from Brigadoon into Saigon.”

Lucinda sat a glass of the green concoction in front of Gladwynn and winked. “Glad to hear you referencing a classic movie we used to watch together.”

Gladwynn smirked. “Brigadoon or Platoon?”

“Very funny, kid.” Lucinda winked. “You know we never watched Brigadoon together.” She sat at the table across from her granddaughter, taking a sip from the glass. She smacked her lips. “Oh yeah. That’s the good stuff.”

She sighed and folded her arms on top of the table. “It’s been nice having you here, you know. I’d honestly been considering moving to Willowbrook before you called. This place is too big for one person.”

Gladwynn studied the green substance with suspicion. “You? In a retirement community? Can’t really imagine that.”

Lucinda shrugged. “I’m there enough as it is and almost all my friends are there now so it probably wouldn’t be a huge adjustment. Plus, it’s not easy for this old lady to take care of this big house anymore.”

“What were you going to do with the house?”

“Sell it, probably.”

She couldn’t be serious. This house had been in the family for over a hundred years. “Sell it? Why? Wouldn’t dad or mom or Aunt Margaret or Uncle Phil and Aunt Harriet have wanted it?”

Lucinda shrugged again and took a swig from her glass.

“None of them are interested in keeping up this old place. They’ve all got their own lives and responsibilities. Your cousins are too wrapped up in their own worlds to care about it.” She smirked. “Except for Trudy. I overheard her at Christmas last year tell her friend, or whatever he is, that she would love to turn this house into a bed and breakfast one day.”

Yeah, that sounded like Trudy.

Gladwynn scoffed. “She would have abandoned that idea as soon as she realized it would require her to actually do work.”

Lucinda revealed a faint smile over the rim of her glass but quickly let it fade again.

Gladwynn twirled the glass around in her hands and made a face. “What is this stuff anyhow?”

“It’s a green smoothie. All the rage and very good for you. ”

Gladwynn sniffed the glass and set it down again. “Green things aren’t really something I eat. Or drink. Ever. But especially in the morning.”

Lucinda lifted an eyebrow. “Being healthy doesn’t interest you? Well, then, by all means go ahead and pour yourself some cereal that resembles cardboard or throw some heart attack causing butter on a piece of toast and toss a piece of cholesterol raising pig in the frying pan.”

Gladwynn stood. “Don’t mind if I do. Bacon sounds amazing right now. Also, I think it is the butter that raises cholesterol and the pork that can lead to the heart attack. Not sure about that, though, since I really don’t care.”

She felt her grandmother’s eyes on her as she walked to the fridge, but the woman luckily changed the subject. “So, how did your first couple of days go?”

Gladwynn shrugged. “They were okay. The job is just different than I expected.” She slapped a pack of bacon on the counter. “I caught a couple of the staff gossiping about me yesterday. I don’t think they like me very much.”

Lucinda turned in her chair. “Gladwynn are you listening to yourself? You’re not in high school. ‘They don’t like me.’ Who cares! You don’t have to be best friends with these people. It’s a job. Work the job and come home. You young people today are too stuck on thinking you have to like your job or the people you work with. That’s not what it’s about. It’s about making money to pay your bills and put food on the table.”

The bacon sizzled in the pan. “Yeah, I know, but it would be nice if my co-workers at least liked me.”

“Did your co-workers at your last job like you?”

“Well, yeah, but we were all similar. A bunch of weirdos spending half of our lives with our noses in a book.”

Lucinda chuckled. “You’re so much like your dad. That boy always had a book in his hands.”

Gladwynn tensed at the comparison. She was nothing like William Alexander Grant or her mother, Penelope Fitzwalter-Grant, which was probably why she was always butting heads with them.

Lucinda reached for Gladwynn’s glass over and poured half of the mixture into her own glass. “I’m going to the community center tonight to play Pitch. You want to come along?”

“No, my shift starts at three today. I have to go to a meeting with one of the other reporters.”

“Oh, yeah, which meeting?”

“Some little township about a half an hour away. Beachwood or something.”

Lucinda finished the smoothie in her glass. “Oh Birchwood. Good luck with that. Those people are always arguing.”

“About what?”

“About anything and everything. Sometimes it’s about zoning, sometimes about the shape of the roads. Sometimes someone looked at someone else funny. Who even knows. Lately the paper had been writing about some beef going on with the volunteer fire department and the township board or a resident of something. I don’t know. I really don’t have time to read the paper these days.” She put her glass in the sink. “I certainly don’t envy you, young lady. Now, before you go, I’ll need you to help me pick out my outfit for tonight. It’s so wonderful having someone here that can help me choose.”

“What about Doris?”

“I love Doris, honey, but you know she has no taste. No taste in music. No taste in men and definitely no taste in clothes.”

Gladwynn shook her head, placing a couple slices of cooked bacon onto a plate. “Now, Grandma, is that any way to speak about your best friend? And her husband for that matter? Bill is a good guy.”

“Doris isn’t my best friend. She’s just a friend. My best friend was your grandfather and he’s not here anymore.”

Gladwynn flipped a piece of bacon. “So, Doris will have to do.”

Lucinda sighed. “Yes, I guess so. She is a very good friend so I guess she can be my almost best friend. As for Bill – well, that’s another conversation for another day.” She snatched a piece of bacon off the plate. “Now you finish that bit of smoothie I left for you. It’s good for you. I’ve got to get to the post office and then I’m heading up to the Y for a swim. I’m going to swing by Judy’s Market on the way home. Can I get you anything?”

“Grandma, don’t you ever slow down? I want to know how your date went last night. More importantly, I want to know who it was with.”

Lucinda bumped her hip into Gladwynn’s and winked. “There will be plenty of time for that conversation, little lady.” She took another bite of the piece of bacon. “You just get yourself some food and relax until you have to go to work.”

Heading toward the doorway, Lucinda started to hum another Dean Martin tune.

Gladwynn placed a hand to her hip and scowled at Lucinda’s retreating form. “I thought you said bacon wasn’t healthy.”

Lucinda glanced over her shoulder waving the bacon above her head. “It isn’t but it sure does taste good.”

After breakfast was finished and her grandmother had left to run her errands, Gladwynn made her way to her grandfather’s office, which was also a library with floor to ceiling cherrywood bookcases built into the walls.

Little had been changed in the room since Sidney William Grant had passed away six years ago. The top of his mahogany desk had been cleared of papers, but family photos still remained.  Rows of books from a variety of eras filled the bookshelves and oil paintings of scenes from the area along with various photographs from his 50 years as a minister lining the walls.

Gladwynn paused and breathed in deep. She was amazed the room still smelled so much like her grandfather’s aftershave. It was as if the day he died her grandmother had closed up the room to lock in all the smells, feelings and memories. It was clear, though, that Lucinda, or someone else, had been in the room since then by the lack of dust on the desk and shelves.

She sat in her grandfather’s chair and rubbed her hands along the black leather of the armrests. An old-style radio she’d been told was her grandfather’s when he was young sat across the room on a small table. It was probably built in the early 1950s, maybe earlier. She remembered sitting on her grandfather’s lap as a child in this office, listening to the oldies radio station.

The songs from the 1940s and 1950s had always been her favorite. She still listened to them when driving in her car or while reading.

Though there was a time that sitting in this office had made her feel sad and acutely aware of her loss, she felt an odd sense of joy and peace sitting here today, grateful for the memories of him.

She stood and looked at the books on the shelves, choosing one her grandfather had read to her when she’d used to visit in the summer.

The Hobbit.

She sat back at the desk with it and opened it, the crack of the spine sending a delightful shiver up her spine. She’d always loved the hand-drawn illustrations inside.

An hour later she looked up at the clock and yawned. She didn’t want to leave the refuge of the room, but she should probably get a shower and start putting her clothes away in the wardrobe in her room, something she hadn’t yet done since moving in last week. She laughed softly, thinking of the first time she’d stayed in that room and how she’d felt all the way to the back of that wardrobe to see if it felt cold, as if it might really be a portal to Narnia, which she had been reading about at the time.

Walking back toward the staircase, she marveled, once again, at the size of the house. To get to the main staircase to go upstairs she walked past two parlors, a living room, a sunroom that included a mini library filled with her grandmother’s classic book collection, a dining room that was bigger than her first apartment, and a full-size bathroom. Inside the living room was a stone fireplace her grandfather had built.

Upstairs there were four bedrooms, a room that used to be a nursery but was now a den, two porch balconies outside two of the rooms, a full bathroom that Lucinda had installed a hot tub in three years ago and an attic on the third floor.

Outside, massive granite stairs with grapevine mortar sidewalls lead up to a wrap-around porch and porte-cochere that led to a three-car garage at the side of the house, at the end of the drive, that had once been a carriage house.

The home, built in 1894, had originally belonged to her grandfather’s grandfather, a prestigious county lawyer and then judge. The woodwork inside was original and Gladwynn ran her hand along it as she walked to her room at the end of the long hallway, which was lit by lanterns that resembled those from the early 1900s but had actually been installed in the 1960s.

This home had always fit her personality more than the modern two story house she’d grown up in with her parents, two older sisters and older brother in upstate New York.  

Unlike her older sisters she’d somehow never felt like a modern girl. Instead, deep down she felt as if she’d been meant for a different decade – anywhere from the late 1940s to the mid-1960s. She loved the music and movies of the 1940s and 50s especially, and had even set aside modern clothing for more vintage outfits since high school.

“You’re a girl with an old name and an even older soul,” Lucinda had once told her as they sat on the metal bench in the middle of her grandmother’s overflowing flower garden.

Gladwynn heard her cellphone ringing as she reached the end of the hall. She took her time getting to it, knowing who it would be.

She glanced at his name on the lock screen, pushed the call to voicemail, and once again questioned why she hadn’t yet blocked his number, knowing deep down it was because she hated leaving anything unresolved. Someday she’d have to resolve that situation, but for now, she was going to enjoy a long bath before work.

***

Gladwynn wasn’t thrilled that Liam had assigned her to shadow Laurel Benton, the reporter she’d heard talking about her with the copy editor the night before, but she was the only one free to show Gladywn the ropes, so to speak, when it came to covering municipal meetings.

Standing in front of the bathroom mirror, Gladwynn examined her dark brown curls and reapplied her signature bright red lipstick. She pulled the hem of the canary yellow sweater she’d had since college down to the top edge of her black slacks and took a deep breath before giving herself a pep talk.

“Come on, Grant. Suck it up. You can do this.”

Laurel was waiting for her in the hallway, arms crossed across her chest. She had tucked her hair under a blue, knitted cap, but one strand – light brown with light-gray streaks – had fallen loose. She’d already zipped her black winter coat up to under her chin. Small lines crinkled the skin along the corners of her eyes as she offered a tense smile.

“Ready to go? We need to leave now if we want to get a good seat.”

Gladwynn reached for her coat, a hot pink tumbler filled with hot coffee, and a reporter’s notebook that she’d sat on a chair outside the bathroom door. She zipped her coat up to her chin and flipped up the gray-faux fur lined hood. It was less stylish, but warmer, than the one she’d been wearing the day before. She’d decided she needed to be ready for the conditions since she’d be out in them more than her last job, even if the coat clearly clashed with her style.

She gestured toward the door. “Lead the way.”

As she walked, she wrapped the bright red scarf her grandmother had handed her earlier that day around her neck and pulled it up across her mouth and nose.

Snow crunched under her winter boots, reminding her how glad she was that she’d stopped by the local shoe store on her way to work to pick out a pair of cute, yet still practical, winter boots.

Laurel’s steps weren’t as long as Liam’s, thankfully, and it was much easier to keep up with her. Her blue Honda was parked in a church parking lot two blocks from the newspaper office. The car was definitely a lot older than Liam’s BMW. Dents along the passenger side of the car hinted at some sort of collision at some point – possibly with a guiderail or tree limb.

The door groaned as it opened, and the ripped seat definitely wasn’t heated.

Laurel slammed the driver’s side door shut. “Sorry about the car. It’s pretty beat up but gets me where I need to go.” She smirked. “Working for a smalltown newspaper isn’t exactly a lucrative gig, if you haven’t realized that already.”

A smile tugged at Gladwynn’s mouth. “I’ve started to figure that out, yes.” Her breath turned the air in front of her white and she hoped the car at least had heat.

The engine rolled over with a reluctant growl. Shifting it into reverse resulted in a loud grinding noise. Laurel grimaced and squeezed her eyes shut. “Stupid car.” She shook her head briefly. “Anyhow, Birchwood is about 20 minutes away and in the middle of nowhere so you can help me watch for deer.”

Laurel slowly edged the car out of the parking lot and onto Main Street. The sun hadn’t yet set, and the drive gave Gladwynn a moment to take in the town, as little as there was to take in. Brookville had probably been a bustling center of activity at some point, but these days many of the buildings were shuttered up or housing businesses that probably wouldn’t survive the year. There were more “used” signs than she could count. Used clothes, used books, and used video games just to name a few.

The one standout gem of Main Street was the old Cornerstone Theatre, which her grandmother had told her had once been an opera house, built in 1875. She remembered many trips there as a child and teen when she’d spent summers with her grandparents.

Gladwynn watched two churches slide by. One church was a Catholic Church with light brown stone and a tall bell tower. This must be the bell that rang four times a day, including 6 a.m., waking her up this morning way before she’d wanted to.

“How you settling in?”

Laurel’s question pulled her gaze from the impressive brick façade of the Covenant Heart Church her grandfather had used to pastor at and that her grandmother still attended. “Okay, I guess. I mean, do you mean at the office or at my grandmother’s, which is where I’m staying for now?”

Laurel shrugged and smiled briefly. “Both I guess.”

“I would say I’m settling in with Grandma better than I am at the office, honestly.” The business district of town began to fade into a series of lovely homes, many of them Victorian like her grandmothers. That was one thing about Brookville. Part of it demonstrated that the area had fallen into disrepair and poverty, while the other half showcased the wealth that had once ruled the town and, in some cases, still did.

Gladwynn glanced at Laurel. “By the way the word is coif not quaff.”

Laurel looked over at her with one eyebrow raised. “Excuse me?”

“The word you were looking for yesterday was coif. Coif is a hairdo. I was wearing a 40s coif in your opinion. Quaff means to drink heavily, which I don’t do.”

Red crept into Laurel’s cheeks. She frowned briefly. “Sorry about that.”

The town disappeared into a less sparsely populated area with only a few houses, a gas station and a mechanic shop passing by.

Gladwynn sighed. “Maybe it is a silly hairdo.”

“No. Really. It isn’t.” Laurel glanced at her. “We were just being petty. It happens in a small office. Especially among the women. Not to run our sex down but we do tend to get caddy when we are in small groups. Maybe it’s because our hormones sync and we’re all having PMS at the same time.”

Glawyn laughed softly. “Yeah, that actually happened at the library too.”

The gears in the car groaned again as Laurel shifted. “If you don’t mind me asking – I mean, maybe I shouldn’t ask — but what brought you here? Have you worked in papers before?”

Gladwynn kept her gaze on the road in front of them, groves of trees, interspersed with small farmhouses and farms. “Only at my college newspaper almost six years ago now. I do write. I don’t know if I would call myself a writer, though. I write short stories sometimes.” She slid her gloves off as the heat in the car started to kick in. “I was laid off at my last job. It was at the college library in a town near where I grew up. I loved the job, but enrollment has been down at the college for a couple of years now and they finally started making cuts. I was one of those cuts.”

Laurel winced. “Ouch. Sorry to hear that.”

“I’m actually surprised Liam hired me. Grateful but surprised.”

Laurel snorted a laugh. “Of course, he hired you. Liam is a sucker for cute brunettes. His last three girlfriends were brunettes. He also needed a warm body to fill the seat and get Lee off his back.”

“Lee?”

“The publisher. You’ll meet him eventually. He and his wife spend most of the winter in Florida with his kids and grandkids.”

Gladwynn glanced at her reflection in the passenger side window. Cute? She’d always thought of herself as plain. She’d never really described herself as skinny even when others did. She was just boney and awkward, though she sometimes wished she could be tall and lanky instead.

She’d definitely taken after most of the women on Grandma Lucinda’s side of the family in the height department. Her short stature had always been an irritant to her, though she was glad she at least had grown past the 5 foot 3 inches of Lucinda. Only by an inch, but still. It was an inch she’d prayed hard for over the years.

She took a sip from her tumbler, closing her eyes briefly at the sweet taste of coffee her grandmother had made her earlier. “So, what about you? Are you from here originally?”

Laurel gave a quick nod. “Yep. Born and raised.”

“Have you been at the paper long?”

Laurel rolled her eyes. “Too long. Twelve years next month.”

“Is this what you thought you’d always do? Like, did you go to school for journalism?”

“I did, but always imagined I’d be at a much bigger paper. I came back here after college to help my parents on the farm. They retired and sold it last year and moved down South to live with my grandmother, but here I am, still stuck in good ole’ Marson County.”

Gladwynn thought she heard a twinge of resentment in Laurel’s voice. “Is the job the only thing keeping you here?”

Laurel pressed her mouth into a thin line for a few seconds before answering. “It is now.”

She didn’t elaborate and Gladwynn didn’t ask her to.

“The job’s not that bad of a gig really,” Laurel said after a few seconds of silence. “The hours stink, and I feel like I’m always on, ready to cover something even when I’m supposed to have a day off, but I like the people, the writing, and most of the time I like my co-workers. Except that little upstart who thinks he’s God’s gift to journalism. I’d like to give him a real swift kick in the butt.” She snorted a quick laugh. “Maybe when I decide to quit and get out of this county once and for all, that will be my last act.”

She turned her car onto a road to her right and the conversation faded for the rest of the drive.

Fiction Friday: Gladwynn Grant Gets Her Footing Excerpt

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 11 Comments

Okay, guy, seriously, I actually thought I was going to only show paid subscribers to my newsletter chapters of my new book — like I was famous or something.

Please, have a good laugh with me.

What was I thinking?

I’m just a mom writing books mainly for fun and tossing them up on Kindle and Amazon. I am not someone people are going to pay a monthly subscription to read and that is totally okay. I am not there yet and may never be. All good.

It doesn’t bother me. All that being said, though, if you want regular updates on my writing (like twice a month updates), you can sign up for my Substack newsletter and you might want to do it now to enter a giveaway I am running. The giveaway is for a book called Meant to Bee by Storm Shultz.

You don’t have to be a paid subscriber to enter the giveaway. Honestly? I don’t think I’m going to offer paid subscriptions right now. What do I have to offer that someone would pay regularly for? Nothing — yet anyhow. *wink*

You can sign up for my Substack account and find out about the newsletter here:

https://lisarhoweler.substack.com/p/april-newsletter-a-giveaway-book

And now, if you’d like a sneak peek of Gladwynn Grant Gets Her Footing, you can find it here today in this post. Without further ado – the first chapter of my next book. Will I share more? I don’t know yet. We shall see. *wink*



Chapter 1

“Hey new girl. Grab a notebook and let’s go. We’ve got a one vehicle MVA on Darby Hill.”

Gladwynn Grant heard the voice but when she looked over her shoulder her new boss had already disappeared back into the hallway.

MVA?

Wait. What did MVA stand for again?

Gladwynn Grant racked her brain, trying to remember the meaning of the acronym.

The M wasn’t murder, was it?

Mayhem?

She fumbled through her top desk drawer for a reporter’s notebook and pen, wincing when the edge of a paper sliced into the skin of her index finger.

“New girl, come on.”

She looked, but, once again, he disappeared.

“Be right there.”

Messy? No. That wasn’t it.

She stood, slammed her knee off the metal drawer of the desk and bit her lower lip to keep from crying out. Outside the window to her right, snow flurries swirled against a dark gray sky.

It came to her as she reached for her winter coat on the back of her chair.

M was for motor.

MVA. Motor Vehicle Accident. That was it.

“Chop. Chop. This will be good training for you.”

Right. Good training for the job she hadn’t even wanted but needed since she’d been laid off from her last job.

“Beggars can’t be choosers,” her mother always said, a line she hated hearing growing up and hated even more as an adult.

Training for her new job in the middle of a snowstorm on a rural highway at dusk wasn’t exactly what she’d expected when she’d accepted the job as a reporter at the Brookville Beacon. She thought she’d be shown the ropes slowly, overtime – maybe handed a few lightweight stories to write first. Instead, it was clear she was to be thrown into the fire right off the bat.

She quickly yanked on her coat, a red vintage-style one she’d found at a thrift shop a couple of years ago, flipped up the hood, and shoved the pen and notebook in the large inside pocket. Snatching a pair of red leather gloves off the top of the bare desk, she rushed to follow editor Liam Finley down the dimly lit hallway toward the back door. A gust of frigid wind smacked her in the face as it opened.

She hoped rushing outside in raging snowstorms wouldn’t be something she’d have to do often.

Biting the inside of her cheek, she stepped out into the cold.

She took two steps at a time to keep up with the long strides of the man in front of her.

He looked over his shoulder as snow whipped around them. “We’ll take my car. Did you grab a camera?”

“Oh. No. I’ll —”

“Go back and grab one. I’ll meet you up front.”

Darting back through the snow she pulled the hood tight in front of her face, icy flakes still managing to bite at her skin. She was out of breath when she rushed back into the office, weaving through the cubicles to retrieve the camera she’d been given the day before. She didn’t make eye contact with her co-workers as she rushed back out the back door.

“Good luck, newbie,” a man’s voice called after her.

She was even more out of breath by the time she reached the parking lot, the camera clutched against her chest. Snow fell in sheets around her. Opening the passenger door of the tan BMW she flopped into the front seat, breathing hard as melting snow dripped from her hair into her eyes. The windshield was a blur of white.

Liam shifted the car into gear and yanked it out onto the empty street. “I hope it’s a fatal. We need a centerpiece.”

Wiping snow from her face she looked at her new boss with wide eyes. His unshaven appearance made him look older than he probably was. Dark hair hung long across his forehead, just above dark brown eyes framed by dark, and remarkably long, eyelashes. Small lines creased the skin next to his eyes.

He glanced at her and lifted a shoulder. “What? We don’t have any art for page one.”

“Art?”

He shifted the car into a lower gear as snow piled up on the road. “A photo or graphic for the centerpiece.”

“Centerpiece?”

He sighed. “The main story on the front page. What are they teaching in colleges these days? I thought you’d have learned this stuff at the college newspaper.”

He seemed to have forgotten she hadn’t worked at a college newspaper for almost seven years at this point.

Liam was driving at what she felt was an unsafe speed considering the conditions and the fact they were on their way to an accident caused by those same conditions. He reached over and tapped a couple buttons on the dashboard. Warmth rushed up under her and she let out a small gasp, then realized the seats were heated. She hadn’t picked that feature when she’d purchased her car two years ago.

“You okay over there?”

Her cheeks burned with embarrassment. “Yep. Totally fine.”

Liam flicked the high beams on. Even though the sun hadn’t set yet, the snow was making it seem darker out. “When we get there, you take the photos and I’ll do the talking. Watch what I do so you’ll know what to do next time.”

She nodded.

Next time.

On her own.

That should be interesting.

She didn’t know what she’d been thinking taking this job. It was nothing like she’d expected.

She’d applied for it after the college had laid her off from her job at the library. She’d needed the money to pay off her college loans.

Well, that and the cute red Miata she’d bought when she thought the library job was going to be long term. Good thing she hadn’t opted for the heated seats.

The ad on the job site had caught her eye, not really because of the job itself, but because of where it was located.

Brookville, Pennsylvania – where her grandmother lived alone in a massive Victorian house. Two hundred miles away from where she’d grown up with her parents and, more importantly, 200 miles away from Bennett Steele.

“You’re a quiet one, Grant.” Liam’s voice broke through her thoughts. “What’d you do before you came here again?”

Clearly, he had not read her resume at all. She had a feeling all he’d wanted was a warm body to fill the vacancy.

She rubbed her gloved hands together and blew into them. “Library assistant for Brock College. They laid me off a couple months ago.”

“From librarian to a reporter. This must be cultural shock to you.”

She glanced at him then back at the steadily whiter road in front of them. “Yeah, a little. I’m sure I’ll get used to it.”

She doubted her own words.

In the last week every idea she’d had of what a reporter actually did had been shattered beyond recognition. Sure, she knew she’d be expected to attend municipal meetings and community gatherings and write a story about them, but now she knew she was also expected to take the photographs, proof her co-workers stories, and sometimes answer the phones at the front desk if the receptionist needed to leave for lunch or to pick up her kids from school. Smalltown newspapers were nothing like the larger ones portrayed in movies and books.

She hadn’t interacted much with Liam yet, other than her brief interview and a brief staff meeting the day before, but she’d already pegged him as someone who lived mainly for his job and wasn’t afraid to push the envelope when it came to succeeding at it.

Flashing red and blue lights cut through the fog and snow up ahead. Emergency vehicles were parked in the middle of the road and off to the side near the guardrails.

Liam smoothly pulled his car behind a black truck with a blue flashing light on top. Through a space between a fire truck and an ambulance she could see a bright red car on its roof and behind it a blue SUV dented in the front and part way off the road.

A state trooper turned as they approached the scene, hands at his waist. “You need to stay back.”

His voice was deep and made Gladwynn, who had never considered herself timid, want to say “yes, sir” and dash back to Liam’s car.

Liam, however, didn’t seem bothered. He tipped his head in a curt nod. “Of course. My reporter here just needs some photos. She can stand back here to get them. Can you provide a few details on the accident? I heard entrapment on the scanner. Can you confirm that?”

The trooper merely held up his hand. “You’ll need to step back there, sir. Only emergency responders past this point.”

Liam ignored the trooper and raised his hand to greet one of the firemen walking toward them. “Justin! Hey! How you doing? Bad night out here, huh?”

The firefighter nodded solemnly, and Gladwynn noticed the word chief emblazoned on the yellow helmet on his head. “It is. I can’t talk now but call me later and I can give you some details. One injury so far.”

“And I’m sure I can call the barracks later for a report?” Liam smiled at the trooper as he walked around him toward the ambulance.

The trooper’s eyes narrowed, jaw tightening, but he didn’t move to stop Liam. “Sure.”

Liam raised an imaginary camera to his eye. Glawynn nodded and began taking photographs, glad she’d kept up her photography hobby over the years. When her foot slipped after a few shots, she thought she was going down but a hand under her elbow steadied her. She looked up at a firefighter with bright blue eyes and a broad, friendly smile.

He let go of her elbow and looked at her feet. “Not the best shoes for this weather.”

His accent was thick. Clearly Irish. What was an Irishmen doing in Brookville?

She glanced at her high-heeled boots. Her grandmother had said the same thing. “Yeah, I need to start carrying winter boots with me.”

The firefighter winked as he turned to walk away. “It’d be a good idea.”

Liam stood next to the ambulance talking to another firefighter. Radio chatter and the purr of engines served as background noise to the voices of the responders and eventually a call for a backboard. Gladwynn stepped back, lifting the Cannon to snap a few shots as the firemen kneeled next to the car.

A dark green glove blocked her view. “No photos of victims.”

A different, less friendly, and less attractive, firefighter stood before her with a scowl.

She swallowed hard. “Yeah. Sure. No problem.”

He turned his back toward her, standing more squarely in front of her as if to get his point across. Lowering the camera, she stepped to her right and looked over his shoulder in time to see Liam walking toward her, hands shoved in his coat pockets.

He nodded his head toward his car and walked past her. She assumed that meant he wanted her to follow her. At this point she’d rather be at home curled up under a blanket with a book and a cup of blueberry tea sweetened with a healthy helping of honey.

“No fatality but still good art with that car on its hood,” he said as she fell in step with him. “Did you get some good shots?”

“Um, yeah, I think so.”

“Bart tried to stop you, didn’t you?”

“Well, yes, but I —”

“Big buffoon thinks he can tell us how to do our jobs. Those state police don’t help matters either. They cover all the little towns and townships without a police force, which is most of the county these days, and act like they are the gatekeepers of all information at an emergency scene.”

He slid into the driver side and slammed the door closed.

She pulled the passenger side door closed gently and blew into her hands again. The gloves were stylish, but definitely not warm. “Does Brookville still have a police department?”

He nodded. “A small one, yes. A chief and two officers. They handle mainly small crimes like break ins or jaywalking right in town. The staties get called in for everything else.” He leaned over and ran his fingers over the heater buttons again. This time Gladwynn was ready. “First, lesson, Grant. We work for our readers. It’s our job to get the story, even if you have to push a little to do it. If we have to go through a couple arrogant volunteer fire fighters or cops to do our jobs, then so be it.” He looked at her. “Got it?”

She nodded slowly, wishing she felt the confidence he obviously had.

He took the camera from her and flipped through the photos on the screen. “Not bad. We’ve got at least four good shots.”

Handing the camera back, he backed the car up until he could turn it around and head back toward the office. He held his phone to his ear as he drove, but didn’t slow down, despite the fact even more snow had fallen since they’d arrived on scene.

“Ed, hey. We’ve got a centerpiece shot for the front. Horizontal, four columns.”

He slid his finger over the end button and tossed the phone into the center console. “We should be able to craft a story together when we get back. I’ll have you contact the state police in about half an hour and see if they have some information for us. You can send me what you find out and I’ll add it to the story.”

He moved the car into the opposite lane, shifted the car into a higher gear and passed a car moving slowly along the snow-covered highway. Gladwynn gripped the door handle and pressed herself back into the seat.  In that moment, wondering if she’d be the next person being pulled from an upside down vehicle, she desperately missed her previous job where she’d spent most days inside a building, searching the online catalogue for books for college students.

Her legs threatened to give out from under her when she stepped out of the BMW and made her way to the office.

Pulling her gloves off she flopped into the black padded office chair sitting in front of a computer on a gray counter acting as a desk within the restricting confines of a cubicle with light-red walls.

Hushed voices hummed on the other side of cubicle, an occasional laugh filtering through.

“Do you think she wears her hair like that all the time?”

“You mean the 1940s quaff? What year does she think it is anyhow?”

“Quaff? Where did you even get that word?”

“I have no idea. I probably read it in a book somewhere.”

“You read books?”

“Stuff it, Dibble.”

“What? I thought all you had time for was walking the old ball and chain’s dogs.”

“Rick isn’t my ball and chain. He’s –”

“Just a friend. I know. That’s what you say anyhow.”

The ring of a phone interrupted the banter. Gladwynn touched a hand to her hair.

Quaff? First off, that word didn’t mean what that woman thought it meant. The word the woman had been looking for was coif. Second, Gladwynn had been wearing her hair this way for years. She thought it was unique, something that harkened back to the 40s or 50s, two decades she could imagine herself living in. It was a style that was actually coming back in in the college town she’d been living in.

A ding notified her she had a text message and a look at the lock screen made her forget about how she’d been being talked about behind her back.

“Glad, love: Won’t be home for din. Have a date. There’s a casserole in the fridge. Love, Gram.”

A date?

Gladwynn couldn’t help but let out a small laugh.

She really shouldn’t be surprised that Lucinda Florence Grant had a date at the age of 70. The woman had always been full of spunk.

While Gladwynn ’s grandfather had been the love of Lucinda’s life, the chance for Lucinda to find new love, of a different kind, was one even he would have welcomed.

Gladwynn looked at the small clock on the wall above her cubicle. Two more hours and her shift would be over. She couldn’t wait. A small pain had started pulsating behind her right eye on the drive back and hadn’t let up yet. Her feet were also begging for a break from her impractical boots.

“Hey, new girl. Where’s the card for your camera? I need that photo.”

A man with dark-rimmed glasses, dark hair and eyes and a round face appeared around the edge her cubicle.

Liam had introduced him the day before as Tom Fitzgerald, the photography expert, layout person and all around tech guy. She jumped slightly at the unexpected sound of his voice.

“Sheesh. You’re a little jumpy aren’t you?”

She opened the compartment for the camera card with shaky hands and handed it to him. “Yeah, I guess. Sorry about that.”

He grinned as he took the card. “Don’t worry. You’ll get used to the craziness around here pretty quick.”

He disappeared again and she was left in silence, other than the click of fingers on keyboards drifting from the other cubicles in the office.

Above her, a fluorescent light blared white-blue light onto her and made her wish she had a pair of sunglasses. In front of her, a phone that looked like it belonged in a museum made her question if she’d walked into a time warp by moving to this town.

She dialed the number Liam had given her for the state police barracks, summoning up the confidence she’d possessed in her job at the library.

“State Police Brookville, Corporal Baxter speaking.”

The woman’s voice was stern and void of any friendliness.

“Yes, hello. I’m looking for a –” Gladwynn shuffled hurriedly through her notes for the name of the officer at the scene of the accident. “Officer Kinney to ask about an accident on Route 88 tonight.”

“Trooper.”

“Excuse me?”

“This is the state police. Their titles are troopers not officer.” Corporal Baxter put strong emphasis on the words “not” and “officer”.

Gladwynn took a deep breath and rolled her eyes. “Excuse me. Is Trooper Kinney in?”

“He is not.”

“Will he be in later so I can ask him a few questions about the – “

“His shift ended ten minutes ago. He’ll be back tomorrow around 2.”

“Oh. Okay, well, is there anyone else I could ask about the accident?”

“We’ll send a brief out when the investigation is complete.”

“Oh. Well, th—”

The click was loud in Gladwynn ’s ear and she held the phone back from her head with a wince.

“New girl. What’s the verdict? You have some info from the staties for me?”

Was it normal for everyone in this office to simply appear out of nowhere around the wall of her cubicle? And did any of them know her real name?

She turned in her chair to face Liam. “No. They said the trooper had left for the day and would be back tomorrow.”

Liam rolled his eyes. “Typical.” He handed her a slip of paper. “I figured that would happen so here’s the fire chief’s number. His name is Justin. Give him a call and see what details he can give you, then come in my office and will hammer this out together.”

He disappeared again.

The fire chief wasn’t home, according to a woman who Gladwynn guessed to be his wife. Gladwynn gave the woman the number taped to the ancient telephone and turned her attention to the police briefs Liam had assigned her to work on earlier in the day. Most of them seemed routine – a couple drinking and driving arrests, a few minor car accidents, but then there was one that made her snort a quick laugh.

Subject arrested driving a John Deere lawn mower along Drew Avenue. When pulled over, the officer noticed a strong odor of alcohol emanating from the subject. Subject was asked to step off the lawn mower and subsequently failed a sobriety test. Subject stated his license had been suspended for DUI two months earlier. Subject relayed he was on his way to the Iron Horse for what he called a nightcap.

Time of arrest: 10 a.m.

She’d visited her grandparents in Brookville many times over the years, even spending a couple summers with them. She’d met characters during those visits who very well could have been the individual involved in this particular incident.

Nestled in mountains which were actually hills by the official definition, Brookville was tiny, with a population of maybe 6,000. Scattered around it were small villages of populations of anywhere from 50 to 100 people, spreading out until farmland ran into a bigger town 30 miles away with a population of 10,000. The Brookville Beacon was named after the town, but its coverage area encompassed the entire county.

The town she’d grown up in in New York had been four times the size of Brookville, but still had some small town elements as well. Nothing like Brookville, though, where it wasn’t uncommon to see a farmer driving a tractor down Main Street on his way to a fellow relative’s farm.

Half an hour later the phone rang and the man on the other end introduced himself as Justin Dreward, the Brookville Fire Chief.

“So, you’re the new girl?”

At this point she should just legally change her name to New Girl.

“Gladwynn Grant, yes.”

“Gwendolyn? What a nice name. You related to Granny Grant?”

Gladwynn laughed. “If you mean Lucinda Grant, then, yes, I am. She’s my grandmother. But my name is actually Gladwynn.”

“Oh. Sorry about that. Your grandmother was my sixth grade teacher. Everyone thought she was mean, but she was the best teacher I ever had. Helped me with my reading when no one else did. I never held it against her that she put me in the corner that one day. I deserved it.”

“I deserved it when she did it to me too.”

It was Justin’s turn to laugh. “Okay, so details on the accident, right?”

“Yep, if there are any you can give me.”

“I can give you a few, but the main report will come from the state police. They are the main investigators on scene. I can tell you that it happened around 5:30. It was one vehicle going at a high rate of speed in slushy conditions. It went off the road, hit an embankment and flipped onto its roof. One occupant, the driver. She had to be cut out of the car. I don’t have any details on her condition, and I’m not allowed to give out names.”

“That’s fine. That will give me a little to go on at least. More than the state police.”

Justin snorted. “Yeah. That’s true most of the time. They’re pretty hard to get any information from. A lot of good guys but they do live up to that nickname of Gray Gods sometimes.”

“Okay, well thank you Mr. – “

Justin laughed. “Don’t call me mister anything. I’m just Justin. About the accident, though — I don’t know if it was just the weather. Ellory said something as they were loading her into the ambulance about her brakes not working.”

“Ellory?”

“Ellory Banks. She’s the manager of Citizens Bank downtown and on every board and in every organization you can imagine. Hey, wait. Don’t put her name in there unless you get it from the staties.  Identification of victims can’t come from emergency responders. State and federal laws and all that. You know what? You’d better keep that whole brake thing off the record too. She hit her head pretty hard and her brother is a local mechanic. He might take offense to that since he probably does all the work on her car.”

Gladwynn wrote Ellory’s name down, circled it and wrote “off the record” next to it.

She thanked Justin again, hung up, and took her notepad with her to Liam’s office for a crash course on how to write a news story.

Fiction Friday: The Farmer’s Daughter Chapter 33

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 11 Comments

Thank to you 21:25 books for the review of A New Beginning on her blog and then for her interview with me the following day.

This week there was a lot of thinking about this current book and what I want to happen and how I want it to end so that it will leave the door open for a continuing story of Molly and Alex, Liz, Ginny, Jason and Ellie, etc. I fall asleep dreaming about my characters and hoping by morning they will tell me which direction it all needs to go. The picture is definitely clearing up but I am already able to tell that there are some gaps in the story that still need to be filled in during revisions.

If you want to catch up with the rest of the story, you can do so HERE or by clicking the link at the top of the page.

As always, this is a novel in progress so there are bound to be typos, plot holes, etc. and you are welcome to let me know about them via the contact form or in the comments.

Molly closed her eyes against the darkness, the thrumming of tires on asphalt lulling her into a much needed sleep. When she woke up, Alex was parking the truck in the driveway and she was staring at the darkened windows of her parents’ house, a painful reminder that they weren’t there and her dad was in a coma at a hospital four hours away.

She wished she hadn’t agreed that she and Alex should come home and get some rest while Jason and her mom crashed at a hotel down the street from the hospital. Her world was upside down and she didn’t know if it would ever be right side up again.

“You going to be okay alone?”

She shook her head, still looking at the house.

Wiping her fingertips across the damp skin under her eyes she looked at him, his face barely lit by the light from the light pole next to the barn. “I really don’t think I can be here without them.”

She looked at the house again. “I’d stay with Liz but she’s still at her parents. I could crash at grandma’s, I guess.”

“You could, but I don’t know if the best thing for a woman Franny’s age is someone pounding on her door at midnight.”

Molly laughed softly. “Yeah. You’re probably right.”

“You want me to stay?” He shrugged a shoulder. “I can sleep on the couch.”

She knew she should say ‘no’. The idea of being alone with him when she felt so vulnerable scared her, but the idea of being in her parents’ house without them, alone with the thoughts that her dad might not ever come back here again, absolutely terrified her.

“Yes.”

She thought he might hesitate, but instead he jumped out, briskly walked to her side of the truck, and opened the door for her.

“Come on, then. We can do this.” He took her hand in his. “Together.”

Flicking on the lights in the house, they stood in the doorway frozen, as if they were both afraid to take a step inside.

He let out a breath. “Wow. I don’t like this at all.”

“Too quiet.”

“Much too quiet.”

They stood there for a few seconds longer and then he walked inside, snatched up the remote and turned on the TV. “That’s better. It’s not as quiet now.”

Molly laughed, wiping tears from her cheeks. “That works.” She stepped inside and tossed her jacket on the back of the couch, pushing the door closed behind her. “How about a snack and movie?”

She’d almost said, ‘before bed’, but that would have sounded wrong. So wrong. She was glad she hadn’t said it.

Alex flopped on the couch and propped his feet on the coffee table. “Absolutely.”

Molly looked at him with a mocking expression of disapproval.

“Do you seriously have your dirty boots on my mom’s coffee table?”

“Oh, crud.” He slid his feet back down again. He winced. “Don’t tell Annie.”

Molly laughed as she turned to walk back into the kitchen.

When they were sitting together on the couch a half an hour later, watching an old Humphry Bogart movie she’d suggested, a bowl of popcorn on her lap, she was definitely aware of how close he was, how warm his arm was against hers, but she was also bone tired.

She was thankful she was bone tired. Even if he had made a move, she wouldn’t have been able to enjoy it. As her eyelids grew heavy, she thought about their conversation on the way to the hospital and what he’d said when she’d been worried about paying off the loan.

“We’ll figure it out.”

She’d liked the way he’d said it, how it showed that he saw himself as part of the family. Five years ago, he’d walked into the barn for the first time, clean shaven, quiet and withdrawn. He’d had walls up she didn’t think would ever come down. They weren’t completely down, but they were falling piece by piece and she was grateful she was beginning to see sides of him she’d previously only seen glimpses of.  

Leaning her head against his shoulder she closed her eyes, drifting to sleep, the voices of Humphrey and Lauren Bacall fading in and out between images of the cows in the field, her dad laughing from the back of the tractor, and Alex’s smile the day he’d kissed her at the overlook.

***

Alex woke to the sound of the shower running upstairs and a cow mooing in the pasture behind the farmhouse. Sunlight poured in through the front windows and the small window in the front door. He grabbed at his side as he sat up, wincing in pain. He knew he had a bag of painkillers in the truck, but he was leery of taking them again considering the crazy trip they’d sent him on a couple of days before. He’d ask Molly if she had any Tylenol or Ibuprofen when she came down instead.

He kept his hand against his side as he limped toward the kitchen, hoping Molly wouldn’t mind if he made himself some coffee. In the kitchen, he found the coffee already brewing and a plate of eggs and bacon on the counter with a note next to it.

Eat. Don’t argue. You can have the shower next.

How had she woken up without him even knowing, brewing coffee and cooking breakfast to boot? He’d either been extremely tired or she’d been extremely quiet. Either way, he was grateful for the coffee and the food. It would help give him fuel for the day he had planned. He’d be late to the barn, but he had chores to do to keep his mind busy and make sure Walt and Hannah didn’t have too much extra work on them. There was a full staff willing to help, he knew that , but after five years of being Robert and Jason’s right hand man he didn’t want to let them down now when they needed him the most.

Sipping coffee hot and black a few moments later, he was suddenly struck with how domesticated this all felt. The woman he loved was upstairs in the shower and she’d made him breakfast. He was getting ready to start his workday and he wouldn’t be surprised if she followed him to the barn to work with him.

Was this how Robert and Annie felt? Like a team? Two people working toward the same goals – putting food on their table but also the tables of their employees and consumers.

He added cream and sugar to the coffee, sipping it as he wandered into the living room and looked at the photos on the wall, photos he’d seen before, but never really studied close.

There was Jason and his dad standing next to a cow with a number clipped on its’ ear and a ribbon around its’ neck. Jason was probably 12 and Alex guessed the competition to be related to 4-H. The next photo was Molly riding a bike on the dirt road outside the house, her dad behind her, balancing the bike with his hand. Her grin was mesmerizing, her beautiful curls trailing behind her, blowing in the wind. She was probably seven or eight

His eyes moved across the images, the moments and memories that made up a life of the family he’d fallen in love with. His gaze stopped at Robert and Annie’s wedding photo. He’d already been told they had married right after high school and Jason had been born a few months after Annie turned nineteen. He couldn’t imagine starting a family at such a young age.

 He could barely imagine starting one now at his age. Still, there were those images he’d had in his mind that night in the barn when he was kissing Molly. Those images of Molly holding a baby on her hip. Some part of him must have been able to imagine his future with children in it. His children. His and Molly’s children.

Seeing those visions that night had been one of the most surreal moments of his life. He had never experienced such a visceral moment with a woman and the experience had completely terrified him.

He didn’t intend to ever tell anyone what he’d seen so clearly in his mind’s eye..

Rubbing his hand across his face and the back of his neck, he hoped the coffee kicked in soon. In that brief moment as he sipped his coffee and heard the bathroom door open he pictured himself in the emergency room, hooked up to an IV, Molly next to him, her head bent down close to his. He almost choked on his coffee as the moment rushed back in sickening clarity.

He had told her about the visions. He remembered it now.

He shook his head, rubbed his hand across his mouth, down his chin.

No.

He must have dreamt it.

That painkiller had hit him hard.

He hadn’t known what was real and what wasn’t that night and he still wasn’t sure. He took a deep breath and let it out again.

Yes, it had been a dream. It had to have been.

 He hadn’t said anything to her. Right?

Molly stepped off the bottom step, her hair damp, her skin glowing, wearing a pair of jeans that fit her curvy figure perfectly and a clean, crisp flannel shirt that he knew meant she planned to head to the barn. He looked at her over the edge of the mug and tried to decide if he really had told Molly about seeing her with that baby on her hip, her parents in the backyard pushing a child on a tire swing and Ellie pregnant in the front yard, holding an apple pie. He was sure it would all come back to him over the next few days and until then he decided not to bring it up. It was too mortifying, too frightening to think that he might also have told her he knew he was going to marry her one day.

The key word was “one day.” What if she’d thought ‘one day’ meant today’?

She tilted her head to one side, narrowed her eyes. “You okay?”

“Hum?” He realized he was still staring at her, both hands cupped around the mug of coffee. He lowered the mug and smiled. “Oh yeah. I’m great. Thanks for breakfast and the coffee.” He gestured toward her. “Are you thinking of heading to the barn? I was going there myself after I clean up.”

“Yeah. I want to see if Uncle Walt needs any help.  Speaking of help, when you’re done washing up, I’ll help those bandages. The doctor said to change them once a day, remember?”

He shrugged. He hadn’t had time since he’d left the hospital. “I can handle it.”

A half an hour later, though, he was sitting in the living room shirtless embarrassed to admit to Molly he couldn’t get the bandage tapped to his back so it would cover the stitches which stretched from his stomach to around his side.

“It looks better than it did a couple of days ago,” she said after she’d pulled the old bandage off. “Did I tell you I almost passed out when they started to clean it out?”

He grinned. “No, you didn’t tell me that. A strong farm girl like you couldn’t handle the sight of blood?”

She didn’t smile when she lifted her head to look at him. “Not yours. No.”

He lifted his arm as she taped the bandage to his skin with the medical tape. Her damp curls grazed his cheek as she worked, and he breathed in deep the smell of her shampoo.

Was it wrong to kiss a woman when her dad was in critical condition in a hospital four hours away? He wasn’t sure but before he gave himself time to think about it, he kissed her cheek softly, hoping she’d turn her head so he could kiss her mouth next. She did and the kiss was sweet and long and enough to make him forget the events of the last few days, at least temporarily.

When she pulled her mouth away slowly several moments later her hands were in his hair, his hands were on her hips, he had pulled her against him, and they were both breathless. She slowly let his hair slide through her fingers as her hands fell to his bare shoulders and she leaned back to look at him.

“I’m going to tape the rest of this up and go check on Uncle Walt,” she said softly. “Because if I keep kissing you, we’re going to get into trouble.”

He smiled and nodded. “Understand.”

And truly, he did understand.

He tried to calm his racing heart as she finished with the bandage and then stepped away from him, turning to walk toward the front door.

“See you in the barn,” she called over her shoulder as he buttoned his shirt.

When she opened the door, though, she started and stepped back surprised to see an attractive blond woman in her mid-50s, wearing a pair of sunglasses, and a light pink suit coat and pants, standing there with her arms folded across her chest and dark red lips pursed together.

Alex, standing and buttoning his shirt, looked at the woman in surprise. “Mom?”