novel in progress

Fiction Friday: The Farmer’s Daughter Chapter 16

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 1 Comment

The chapter is long this week but I’m throwing it up anyhow. Not a ton of people read my fiction or comment so who is going to care? No one. *wink* Sometimes it’s depressing writing into a void and sometimes it is very, very liberating.

Seriously, hope everyone is doing well and to find previous chapters from this story you can click HERE or at the top of the page where I also have links to excerpts from my books that are on sale on Kindle.



The board says they are going to need at least half of the loan paid off by the end of the summer for the bank not to foreclose.”

Bill Eberlin’s words were like a kick in the chest to the Tanner siblings and their spouses.

Half of the more than $50,000 loan paid off in less than three months? With the way the milk market was and the fact the corn was barely growing Robert knew the task was virtually impossible. He slid his hand over Annie’s as she sat in the chair next to him and clutched it tight. She smiled at him, but he saw the worry in her eyes.

The men of the family had kept their word and brought Annie, Hannah, and Lauren into the loop, to be sure the women were aware the full extent of the trouble the family’s business was in. Now they were sitting with him, Walt, and Bert in the sparsely decorated conference room at the Spencer Valley Savings and Loan, trying to find a way to save a business that not only supported them but several other families.

“By the end of the summer?” Bert shook his head. “I just don’t see how that’s possible. Will they accept installments of some kind?”

Bill drummed his fingers on the top of his desk. “They might would have if payments had been made before this ‘come to Jesus’ talk, so to speak. The members of the board are nervous, afraid they won’t get their money back. I think they believe setting a deadline will push you to get this loan paid and show you how important paying this loan back is to them.”

Robert rubbed his hand across his face. “I shouldn’t have dragged my feet on getting this taken care of.”

Walt leaned forward on his elbows on the table.

“You weren’t the only one who should have done something,” he said. “We were overly confident that we could take care of this with last year’s milk prices. The last quarter was much worse than any of us imagined.”

“There is plenty of blame to go around,” Hannah said. “But placing blame isn’t going to help us right now. The best we can hope for is a good growing season and stellar sales at the farm store.”

She leaned back in the plush chair with maroon cushions, arms folded across her chest, a determined expression furrowing her eyebrows.

“It’s not hopeless by any means,” she continued. “Our family has a good thing going, a good business. I know the market isn’t great and the growing season has been garbage this year, but the farm store may be just what will keep the business afloat. Molly and I were talking the other day about some ideas for expanding our inventory, adding home décor and expanding the greenhouse.”

Robert admired his sister’s optimism, but spending more money wasn’t what the family needed to do right now.

“Expansion means investing more money and more money isn’t what we have right now,” he said softly.

“I agree with Hannah.”

Walt’s wife, Lauren, was what Robert called pleasantly plump. She wore her light brown hair shoulder length most of the time, curling the edges toward her face, framing her attractive smile and bright blue eyes. She was soft spoken like her husband and thoughtful like Robert, rarely speaking before she had considered all the options of how her words would be received. Her sudden endorsement of Hannah was an unusual step for her.

She shifted slightly in her seat as she realized all eyes were on her now.

“It’s just, I think we can find a way to expand some of what we offer at the farm store and combining that with any income we receive from the milk and produce, we could reach the end of the summer deadline, or at least part of it. Maybe with a show of good faith the board will work with us.”

She glanced at Walt who smiled at her. Their eyes locked as she continued.

“If God is for us, who shall be against us? If we lose the business then, well, God has another plan for this family.”

A brief silence settled over the room. Lauren didn’t speak often but Annie, for one, was glad she had this time. She had a feeling the rest of the family agreed by the way they were nodding their heads.

 Bill, clearing his throat, was the first to speak.

“So, sounds like we have a plan all at least. I’m going to keep talking to the board, keep fighting for them to let you amend the contract, and extend the deadline a little longer and you all get everyone in your circle on board and let me know how it goes.”

Walt laughed softly. “I guess that means we need to let our kids and staff know what’s going on.”

Robert winced. “Ooh boy. That’s not going to be fun.”

“No,” Annie agreed. “But it’s necessary.”

***

Molly had invited Alex to church more times than he could count. He’d always declined. He knew he wasn’t cut out for church. He’d never been a church person. Good people went to church and while he’d never been the worst person in the world, he’d never really been a good person.

In high school, he’d been a troublemaker, mostly pranks and petty theft and underage drinking. He wasn’t sure where he would have ended up if his grandfather hadn’t bailed him out of jail and put him to work at his car business after his last run-in with the law – stealing a truck from a local used car lot and driving it across the city until he crashed it into a telephone pole when the tire blew.

During college it had been all-night drinking at fraternity parties, but luckily he’d kept himself out of trouble long enough to finish his degree, even though he had had no idea if he even wanted to use degree. He’d tried working computer programming for a full year before he hit rock bottom and Jason picked him up and told him: “Boy, I’m going to sweat that rebellious spirit out of you.”

Alex had sweated a lot over the years, but he wasn’t sure he’d sweated anything out of himself except laziness. He’d sweated while working in the fields, cutting down the hay, bailing it, building barns, spreading manure, shoveling manure, milking cows, feeding cows, running errands, and hauling vegetables and other products to the farm store. He’d learned more about farming, construction, operating a business, and planting produce in the last five years than he’d ever learned about computers during college.

The Tanner family had influenced him in almost every aspect of his life, but so far he hadn’t agreed to attend church with any of them. He’d watched them live their faith out every day and that was enough for him. The idea of sitting in a church wasn’t one he relished. Sitting in a hard pew, wearing a stiff shirt and tie and shoes too tight on his feet while a man stood in the pulpit and told him all he’d done wrong with his life did not sound like his idea of fun.

Molly had talked to him about church this morning in the barn, about how a friend of the family was singing a solo, about how the music always made her feel relaxed and at peace. He’d listened to her while hooking the cows into their stall, trying not to laugh at the excited way she talked about a place that seemed so boring to him. Listening to her talk about church, though, didn’t make it sound so bad. Sitting next to her, even on a hard pew, didn’t sound so bad either. Still, he wasn’t interested in tagging along.

“You sure you don’t want to go?” Molly asked as he climbed into his truck.

“Yep, but have fun,” he said with a smile, touching his finger to the edge of his cowboy hat.

He pulled the truck out of the drive and looked in his rearview mirror at Molly walking back toward the farmhouse, wondering if it was wrong to admire the appearance of a pretty Christian girl on a Sunday morning.

Ten minutes later he pulled into the Bradley farm to pick up extra fencing they’d offered Robert the week before to help fix a space of broken fence in the lower pasture.

The Bradley’s 7-year old son Daniel sat on an old rusting milk can by the barn door.

“Hey there, Mr. Stone.”

Alex paused, narrowed his eyes and tipped his head back so he was looking down his nose at the little boy.

“Daniel. Little dude. What did I tell you about calling me Mr. Stone?”

Daniel grinned, a piece of sweet grass in the corner of one mouth. “You said don’t call you that. It makes you feel old.”

“That’s right,” Alex laughed, holding his hand out for a high five. Daniel returned the high five and jumped off the milk can.

“Come on Alex,” Daniel said with a mature jerk of his head.
“Dad said to show you to the fencing back here.”

Alex followed Daniel, amazed, as always at his maturity at such a young age. The first time he’d met him a year ago he’d walked up to Alex and Robert, stuck out his hand and announced “Welcome to our farm. Follow me and I’ll show you the milking room.”

Four-feet tall, dark brown hair and freckles spread across his cheeks and nose, Alex always thought he looked like he walked out of one of those books by that writer his teacher made him read in sixth grade. The Farmer Boy or something.

“Fencing is there, wire is there and Dad says you can have the nails that went with it too.”

Alex nodded and reached for the fence posts and the barbed wire. “Thanks, bud. How’s farmin’ life treatin’ you?”

“Treatin’ me just fine,” Daniel said, leaning back against the wall of the barn, one foot crossing the other, hands in his pocket. “We had a calf last night. ‘Nother bull. Gotta sell it in a few weeks. Can’t give us milk and we already got a bull.”

Alex chuckled as he stacked the posts. As usual, Daniel was giving the run down like he was the parent, instead of the child.

“Were you there for the birth?” Alex asked.

“Yup. It was gross.”

Alex laughed. “But pretty cool to see new life come into the world, right?”

Daniel shrugged and spit the rest of the grass at the ground. “Yeah. Guess so.”

Alex heard Patrick Bradley’s voice boom across the yard to the barn.

“Daniel! Come on up to the house. It’s time to get ready for church.”

“Be right there, Dad! Just helping Alex get the fencin’.”

“Hey, Alex!”

“Hey, Patrick!” Alex shouted back.

He looked at Daniel and nodded toward the house. “Go on and get ready for church. I can finish here. Thanks for showing me where it was.”

Daniel shoved his hands in his overall pockets and turned toward the house then back to Alex again. “Don’t you go to church, Alex?”

Alex shook his head, tossing the last of the posts in the pile. “Nope.”

“Why not? Don’t you believe in God?”

Alex shrugged. “Yeah, I guess so.”

“So why don’t you wanna go to church?”

Alex lifted some of the posts and started walking toward his truck. “Just not my thing, kid. You go with your family and enjoy it, though, okay?”

Daniel walked behind him, furrowed eyebrows highlighting a thoughtful expression as he rubbed his chin. “I guess it’s okay if you don’t go to church. Mama says God’s not in the buildin’. He’s all around us so you could just talk to God no matter where you are, right?”

Alex tossed the posts into the back of the pick-up, turned and looked down at Daniel, ruffling his hair. “You know what, Daniel Bradley? You’re one smart kid.”

Daniel grinned, one of his bottom front teeth missing. “My mama tells me that all the time.”

“Well, she’s right. Now, head on in and get ready like your dad said. I’ll see you another day, okay?”

Alex watched Daniel run to the house and laughed to himself. If he’d been as smart at 29 as that kid was at seven he had a feeling he wouldn’t have had made as many mistakes as he had in life.

After breakfast in town, Alex headed back to the farm, windows down in the truck, music turned up. He glanced at the Tanner’s church on his way by, slowing down when he noticed Molly out front talking to someone hidden by a tree. Her reddish-brown curls spilled down her back, loose, unlike when she worked in the barn and secured it in a ponytail or under a baseball cap. She was wearing a light pink shirt that highlighted her curves and a flowing black skirt.

 Molly smiled and nodded to the person she was talking to. When Alex slowed down and pulled his truck into a parking spot further down the street, he could see through his side mirror that the other person was Ben.

Ben motioned toward a bench in front of the church and sat down. Molly sat next to him as he spoke. At first her expression was serious, then a smile crossed her mouth. She nodded again, speaking to Ben and reached across and laid her hand on his.

What are you even doing, Alex? You’re looking like a stalker right now.

He rolled his eyes. No. You don’t look like one. You’re being one right now.

Molly smiled and laughed again.

Ben smiled and laughed too.

They seemed to be enjoying themselves. Alex noticed the way Ben was sitting close to Molly, touching her arm lightly as they spoke, the way she wasn’t moving away from him, instead watching him intently, clearly engaged in the conversation and maybe also engaged in admiring him.

Jealousy hit Alex hard in the center of the chest. Jealousy and another feeling he couldn’t exactly put his finger on. Maybe disappointment mixed with anger, mixed with a hard realization that he’d been a fool thinking he’d ever be good enough for someone like Molly. Uninterested in sitting and watching their happy reunion any longer, he shifted the truck into gear and gently pulled onto the road, back toward the farm, cursing under his breath.


***

Jason Tanner pulled his dirty shirt and jeans off and tossed them toward the laundry basket on his way to the bathroom for a shower. It had been a long day, a long week, and that whole thing with Molly a few days before hadn’t helped his mood at all either. He had no idea what nerve he had touched when he offered his sister a cookie but it had left him bewildered and annoyed. He’d been so annoyed he hadn’t even addressed it with her yet, choosing instead not to poke an angry bear.

Women were so confusing. How did offering someone a cookie translate to “You’re fat.”? And how was he supposed to know that Molly was upset about her weight? He knew she’d been working out with Liz and eating a lot of grass-like foods, but he thought it was because she wanted to get healthier, not because she thought she was fat. She never seemed to let it bother her before. She was funny, confident, joked around in the barn and at work at the farm store. She never seemed down or depressed. At least that he’d noticed.

Of course, he was a guy and it had been pointed out to him more than once by El, Molly and a few other women in his life, that he was a bit oblivious at times.

Molly wasn’t fat anyhow. Sure, she’d gained weight over the years, but she looked fine. What was she so worried about anyhow?

He turned the shower on, washing the dirt, grime and sweat from the day away. Today had been tough and pretty weird but that day earlier in the week with Grandma had been even weirder. Had he actually struck a deal with his grandmother to propose to El? He knew his grandmother would hold up her end of the deal too; anything to get him to follow through on his end.

He didn’t know why he was so worried about it anyhow. He’d wanted to propose to Ellie for a couple of years. He could just never seem to get his courage up and then life, and their relationship, would continue on and he’d push it to the side again. He liked the way things were between them now; date nights, road trips to antique stores, church on Sunday, long walks in the woods behind her parents’ house, movie nights.

Of course, there was that one downside that Alex had harassed him about. The whole ‘waiting for marriage’ thing. He definitely struggled with that one, not so much in respecting Ellie’s wishes, because he did respect them, but with the waiting. Like Ellie, he’d been brought up to wait for physical connection beyond kissing until marriage, but there was no denying it, waiting was hard. Very hard. Especially since every time he was near Ellie a barely controlled desire roared inside him and he often had to step back before he tried to push their kisses further.

They’d come close to going all the way more than once but one of them had always stopped it, reminding each other they wanted to save that special moment for their wedding night. Then they’d have the familiar long talk about making sure they had enough money in the bank before they got married, so they could pay for the wedding (since both their parents were farmers and strapped for money) and since they wanted to be able to buy their own house and be financially secure when they were married.

It wasn’t that Jason had never “been with”, for lack of a better term, another woman. He had. Once. In college. With someone he hadn’t cared about. He had met her at a party and thought he wanted to be someone different than he’d been at home. It wasn’t a pleasant memory for him and he’d tried to push it out of his mind for years. The memory carried with it an overwhelming guilt that  he’d sacrificed his personal morals for an experience that was rushed and impersonal.

He and Ellie hadn’t been dating at the time and though he hated that it sounded like an excuse, Jason had been restless, lonely, lost. He felt like that night was his rock bottom moment; a wake up call to what kind of man he really wanted to be.

He’d never told Ellie, but, of course, she’d never asked either.

Jason shut the shower off and reached for a towel, rubbing it against his face, water dripping onto the floor. Maybe that was why he hadn’t proposed to her yet. He hadn’t been honest with her and deep down he knew he needed to be open and completely honest with her if they were going to get married, letting her decide for herself if she still wanted to be with him, to start a life with him, despite the fact he’d withheld part of his past from her.

He groaned into the towel. He had to bite the bullet, no matter what, though, not just because of the deal with his grandmother, but because he needed to know if Ellie would accept him despite his failings. God, he hoped she would because he couldn’t imagine his life without her.

Special Saturday Fiction: The Farmer’s Daughter Chapter 14 Part 2

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 6 Comments

I added a little extra to the end of what I shared yesterday for today’s special Saturday fiction. If you want to see Part 1 of Chapter 14 you can see yesterday’s post. To catch up on the entire story you can click HERE.



Pulling up to the farm store, Molly sat outside in her truck, bleary-eyed and unmotivated. She’d barely been able to sleep last night, thinking about Alex and his . . . well, weirdness and about how much she did not want to come to the farm store this morning. She propped her forehead against the steering wheel and groaned. She was in no mood to be perky and she needed to be perky by the time the customers arrived. Some days she took on the motto “fake it until you make it.” Some days, face perkiness was the only way to make it through their day.

“Is this the only milk you have?” a woman had asked last week, looking at her over a pair of sunglasses, one eyebrow raised.

“Yes, ma’am. That’s the company the local farmer’s supply to.”

“Okay, because I’m a vegan and I need something that doesn’t come from a cow.”

“Oh. Well, then . . .”

Molly had had to pause because what she wanted to say was “If you’re vegan, why are you in a store that clearly sells cow milk?” but she glanced at the woman’s cart, full of vegetables and flowers, and decided to cut her some slack. At least she was supporting farmers in her own way.

“Then, I’m sorry,” Molly said. “We don’t carry non-diary options at this time. Maybe you can try the local Weis?”

“You know this little store needs to move with the times,” the woman said unloading the items from her cart to the counter. “Milk from mammals is a thing of the past. The only ones who should be drinking cows milk are baby cows.”

“Mmmm,” Molly responded adding up the items on the cash register. “That will be $75.50.”

If the woman hadn’t been spending so much Molly might would have told her to shove off, but the money was welcome and needed in a time when local farmers were struggling. The money from the Tanner’s store didn’t only benefit the Tanners. It also benefited several families who supplied inventory – from locally raised and butchered pork, beef, and chicken to eggs, homemade furniture and hand-sewn blankets and quilts. Losing customers could mean losing income for these families as well.

Thankfully the woman left without anymore comments, though a ‘thank you’ would have been nice.

Some days Molly wondered if this would be her entire life; sitting in her family’s story, being lectured by people who called themselves “woke” about what to eat and how to live. She wondered if she’d always be just the farmer’s daughter.

Walking into the store through the backdoor she heard her Aunt Hannah talking in the office.

“I am nervous about the meeting, yes. And I’m nervous because I don’t know how we are going to come up with the money to pay off this loan.”

Molly paused outside the closed door.

What loan?

“Let’s talk to Bill and see what can be worked out,” her Uncle Walt said softly.

“I would have talked to Bill a long time ago if I had known what was going on,” Hannah said curtly.

“Hannah, Robert told me he explained why —”

“I know,” Hannah interrupted, her voice less tense than before. “I’m sorry. I’m just anxious. I’ve been looking at the numbers this morning. They aren’t great. I’m worried we won’t be able to do this, Walt.”

Numbers? What numbers? Molly’s mind started racing. Was the farm in trouble? And if so, why hadn’t her parents told her?

Her hand hovered over the door handle and she thought about walking in and asking Hannah what was going on, but thought better of it. If her family wanted her to know what was going on, they’d tell her, and, to be honest, she felt too drained to add anymore to her mental que to think about.

She continued her path to the front counter where Ellie was already loading the cash register.

Ellie glanced up as she counted. “Fifty, seventy . . . Hey, Mol. You look wiped today. Eighty…rough morning in the barn?”

“No, just . . .tired.”

Molly didn’t feel like talking about all her worries with her brother’s attractive girlfriend, even though she’d known Ellie for years and they were only a couple of years apart in age and she considered Ellie a friend.

“Ninety. One hundred.”

Ellie shoved the final bill into the drawer and wrote down the amount on the sheet next to the register.

“Looks like a nice day ahead,” she said. “That will probably bring out the gardeners.”

Molly groaned. “Oh no. With gardeners come all the weird questions about which tomatoes I think are best and what kind of squash grows better in what month? You would think after all these years working here I would know.”

Ellie shrugged. “I don’t know either. I just refer them to your aunt.”

Molly’s aunt. That word sent her back to think about what her aunt had said, about the loan and numbers. She sipped the coffee she’d brought with her in a tumbler and sat on the stool behind the counter.

She wondered again why her parents hadn’t said anything to her about it all. Then she wondered if Jason even knew. Were they trying to shelter her? She didn’t need to be sheltered. She needed to be told the truth.

“So Jason is taking me out this weekend for our anniversary,” Ellie said, interrupting her thoughts.

“Oh yeah? Where to?”

“He won’t tell me.

Molly hated the look of excited anticipation in Ellie’s eyes. Every year on June 24th for the last four years Jason took her out for dinner to celebrate their night of their first date after he came back from college. And every year on June 25th, Ellie relayed how wonderful the night had been but in a tone tinged with disappointment. Molly still couldn’t understand what was taking Jason so long to propose to Ellie.

They were perfect for each other. Ellie and Jason were both farm kids, for lack of a better term, both Christians, both loved sappy romantic movies (though Jason refused to admit it), and both wanted to continue farming, either on a farm of their own or on the Tanner’s farm. Molly was tired of facing Ellie Fitzgerald’s forced smile overshadowed by sad eyes every June 25th. She needed to ask Jason what the deal was already. Why was he dragging his feet on proposing to the woman that Molly, and he, knew was the only woman for him?

***

Franny couldn’t get over the size of her grandson. He now towered over her when he’d once been small enough for her to sit on her knee and hear about his day. She guessed him to be over six foot now and maybe — she tipped her head and looked him up and down as he placed a box on her counter — maybe 210 pounds, with a good amount of that weight being muscle.

“So mom sent some of her famous chicken soup over,” Jason was saying, sitting a large sealed bowl on the table. “Biscuits and a side of carrots too.”

He might be big now and speak with a deep, mainly voice, but Jason was still Franny’s sweet boy and she was proud of him the same way she was of Molly.

“That’s very nice, hon’” she told Jason. “You tell Annie thank you for me. What happened? You get the short straw and had to take your cantankerous grandmother dinner?”

Jason laughed, bending down and kissing Franny’s cheek. “Now, grandma, you know I love coming to see you. Aunt Hannah has a PTA meeting tonight so mom offered to cook some dinner to you and I actually asked to bring it.”

Jason sat on the chair across from his grandmother and leaned back, stretching a long leg out in front of him. Franny braced herself. It looked like he was going to launch into a heart-to-heart and she wasn’t sure she was up to it this evening. He folded his hands across his stomach, and she was reminded again how much he looked like his father; her serious, thoughtful oldest son Robert.

And like Robert, Jason didn’t pull punches. “So, what’s going on with you, Grandma? You know you can tell me. I’ve noticed how down you’ve been and we’ve missed you in church.”

Franny avoided his eyes, stirring her spoon in the soup. “I’m fine, Jason.”

“You’re anything but fine. Out with it. Is it your eyes?”

Darn it, that Jason. He always was observant. To a fault in this case.

“How did you know about my eyes?”

“I’ve noticed you bumping into tables when I’ve been here, squinting through your glasses.”

She cleared her throat. “Well, yes, I am concerned about them.”

“Do you think it could be macular degeneration?”

“I don’t know. I’ve heard of that but I’m not really familiar with it.”

“Ellie’s grandma has it. Her eyesight is slowly detorating. But maybe yours isn’t that bad. We can go see Dr. Fisher and it could turn out you just need a prescription.”

“Ah, now. Speaking of Ellie —”

“Grandma, we’re talking about you right now.”

“We’ll get back to that. Let’s talk about Ellie and why you’re not proposing to her.”

“Grandma…”

“Jason, honey, she’s the girl for you. You believe that, right?

Jason laughed softly and cleared his throat. “Yes, Grandma. I really do.”

“Then what are you waiting for?”

Jason softly groaned and covered his face with his hands, leaning his head back. “Grandma. . .”

“Don’t let her get away from you, Jason. Do you hear me?”

Jason looked at his grandma, his face flushed but a smile tugging at his mouth. “Yes, ma’am. I do, but right now we are talking about your eyesight. I can drive you to Dr. Fisher. Let’s find out what’s going on. It may not be as bad as you think, okay?”

Franny sipped from her glass of water, a small smile flicking across her lips. “Okay. I’ll make you a deal, Jason Andrew Tanner. I’ll let you take me to Dr. Fisher if you agree to propose to that lovely Ellie.” She reached her hand out toward her grandson. “Deal?”

Jason tipped his head back and let out a deep laugh. He shook his head and chewed his lower lip for a moment, rubbing his chin as he looked at his grandmother’s hand. He couldn’t lie to himself; he was scared to propose to Ellie in some ways, but he knew his grandmother was right. Ellie was his best friend and the only woman he could imagine being married to.

“Yeah, okay, grandma.” He took her hand gently. “Deal.”

Fiction Friday : The Farmer’s Daughter Chapter 14 Part 1

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 3 Comments

This story is starting to consume my brain, folks. I have so many ideas, so many stories I want to tell and I know I’m writing a series so I can tell them later but oh man — this is my first series so it’s hard to know when to introduce certain characters and how much of their stories to share because I plan to share more of their stories in the next couple of books.

I like when a story consumes my brain in some ways, especially with the craziness of the world these days. When a story pushes its way into my mind, there isn’t room for too much else and that’s a nice break for my brain (well, except late at night when I’m mulling over a plot point and a scene idea comes into my head at 1 a.m., when I need to be asleep. Then my brain doesn’t get a break at all.)

To catch up with the rest of the story find the link at the top of the page or click here.

Sit-ups. Alex was actually doing sit-ups in his room. What was he even thinking? The problem was he’d been thinking too much since earlier that afternoon.

About Molly. About Molly at the gym and her skin glowing and her top pulled tight against her and ­– he lifted his upper body again, bending his torso to touch his knees.

“Fifty-five,” he gasped, the counting pushing away the images rolling around in his mind of Molly.

He hated working out. He didn’t feel the need to workout, just like he had told Liz, because he worked out enough doing his work on the barn. But Jason had mentioned once that working out helped get out frustrations and Alex was definitely frustrated. He was frustrated at himself for not telling Molly how he felt and he was frustrated with the images that played over and over in his head of grabbing Molly in that gym, yanking her to him and kissing her hard, his hands in her hair, showing her how he really felt about her. He’d imagined doing it so many times it was almost real to him.

He laid back on the floor, breathing hard, hands behind his head and closed his eyes, willing the images to go away. Under normal circumstances he would have shared his thoughts of romantic angst with Jason, but this wasn’t normal circumstances. He couldn’t tell Jason he was struggling with an incredibly strong attraction to his younger sister. Not if he wanted to live for more than five minutes.

His phone beeped and he reached for it, grateful for something to distract him from thoughts of Molly.

Hey, big bro. Still working at that farm?

It was his brother, Tyler.

Alex: Hey, little bro. Yeah. Still working at that office?

Tyler: Yeah. For now. Dad is making it hard though.

Alex: A real jerk, huh?

Tyler: You know he is.

Alex: Why do you stay there? It’s not going to make him care about you, you know.

Tyler: You’re not my therapist, Alex. Chill. Anyhow, I like the work here. Been on any good dates lately?

Alex: No. You?

Tyler: A couple. Actually, one really nice one. She’s a lawyer.

Alex made a face.

Alex: “Lawyer? Run away, dude. They’re black widows.

Tyler: Lol. Not this one, she’s a good one.

Alex: OK. If you say so.

Tyler: When you coming down for a visit?

Alex chewed on his bottom lip, thinking how to answer, knowing “when hell freezes over” was too harsh and would make it sound like it was his brother he was trying to avoid instead of his dad.

Alex: Don’t know. Busy season for the farm. Planting, cutting down hay and bailing it. You should come down and help bail. Be a good learning experience for you to get your hands dirty.

Laugh emojis filled the screen.

Tyler: You were the one who always liked to get his hands dirty, remember? Not me. Have fun, bro. I’ll text you when dad finally fires me.

Alex laid back on the floor and laughed at his brother and the fact he was still chasing after their dad after all these years. It seemed like Tyler would never understand that their dad would never care about anything except his business and the money and maybe an occasional mistress or two. Tyler had told Alex a month ago that their dad was dating someone new again, a blond younger than both his sons. It didn’t surprise Alex. He’d been dating women younger than him even before he had divorced Tyler and Alex’s mom.

There were few things Alex could count on in life but one of them was that his dad would always be in a new relationship. The other was that his dad would never care what was going on in his life. He’d heard from his dad four times since he’d moved in with Jason five years ago. Twice to ask him if working on a farm was really what he wanted to do. The last conversation hadn’t gone well at all.

“You have a degree in computer programing, Alex,” his dad had said over the phone in his familiar depreciating tone. “We could use you here in the IT department. And from there, maybe we can move you up into —”

“Thanks, Dad. I’m good here.”

“Farming, Alex? Really? This isn’t what I had in mind for you when —”

“When you what? Abandoned Tyler and I all those years ago?”

“That’s not what happened, Alex. When you get older, you’ll understand that life isn’t always easy.”

“Yeah, hey, have to go dad. Mr. Tanner needs me to clean some cow poop out of the stalls and I’d rather do that then talk to you.”

Most of Alex’s conversations with his dad ended in similar ways and many times he didn’t bother to pick up the phone at all, on the rare occasion his dad did call. He’d guessed the calls came when his mom nagged his dad to call and act like “a real father.” It was a conversation he’d heard over and over throughout his life.

“Act like a real father for once, Michael,” his mother would say on the phone, when she dropped the boys off for weekends with their dad, or when Alex got in trouble in high school or college.

But Michael Stone had rarely acted like a father and Alex never expected him to. What he’d missed out on in Michael Stone as his father, he’d gained in Robert Tanner.

Robert had shown Alex how to be a husband, a father, and a provider in the five years he’d known him. His tenderness with Annie, his fatherly love for Molly and Jason, the way he treated his livestock and his staff with respect. It was hard for Alex not to compare Robert’s successes in fatherhood and adulthood to the failures of his father. What wasn’t hard was knowing that he wanted to model his life after Robert’s instead of Michael’s.

It had taken Alex a couple of years to realize he wanted to be more like Robert, though, and until then he’d drank too much, flirted with too many women, and lived a life far from Robert’s. There were days he felt like he’d never live up to Robert’s life, though, and days he wondered if he was being stupid thinking he could change, be better and be worthy of the Tanners, especially Molly.

Jason’s voice outside the door startled him from his thoughts. “Alex? You in there? Ellie brought over some supper. You want some?”

Alex wasn’t about to turn down one of Ellie’s meals.

“Hey,” he said, opening the door. “Let me get a shower and I’ll be right down.”

Five minutes later he was sitting at the table with wet hair but more than ready for Ellie’s food.

“Hey, Alex.”

As usual Ellie was smiling and chipper, her long black hair pulled back in a braid down her back. She rushed around the kitchen, setting plates full of food and three plates around the table.

Not only was Ellie perky, pretty, and friendly, but she was an amazing cook. Fried chicken, mashed potatoes, biscuits, peas, and even gravy filled the dishes in front of Alex and Jason. He thought about leaning across the table and asking Jason to remind him again why he hadn’t proposed to Ellie yet, but he thought better of it. He wouldn’t be able to eat with a broken jaw.

Once the food was on the table, Ellie sat down with them and smiled her captivating smile.

“So, how was everyone’s day?” she asked.

Alex shoved a piece of chicken in his mouth, not interested in answering. He knew the question was really meant for Jason anyhow. He was the third wheel.

“Busy,” Jason said. “Still a lot of work to do before we start the haying next week, we have another delivery of the vegetables we have been able to harvest for the farm store, and we’re hoping the rain finally lets up so the corn will grow some more.”

“It really has been a tough year, hasn’t it?” Ellie asked. She reached over and laid her hand on Jason’s, compassion in her eyes. Her small, slender fingers looked almost comical against Jason’s massive, roughed hand.

“It has, but we’ll figure it out somehow,” Jason said, smiling back at her, his fingers encircling her hand, swallowing it.

Looking between the two love birds, Alex felt slightly sick to his stomach but also a pang of jealousy at their obvious devotion to each other. He hoped to have a relationship like theirs someday. Jason and Ellie had dated on and off since high school but exclusively since Jason came back from college. Both of them had grown up on farms, their parents knew each other, and Alex always imagined they’d met at a square dance. Or maybe it was on corn picking day. Either way, they were one of the most perfect couple’s he’d ever seen, which again, made him both sick and jealous.

Unlike the girlfriends of his other friends Ellie didn’t care when Jason hung out with Matt and Alex and didn’t try to push her way into their guys’ nights. She didn’t make fart jokes or participate in burping contests like Molly, but she was still a farm girl, not afraid to get her hands dirty and put in the hard work.   

Alex grinned as he watched them the rest of the dinner, both of them pretty much oblivious to his presence. He looked forward to harassing Jason about them making googly eyes at each other later when Ellie had left.

***

Pulling up to the farm store, Molly sat outside in her truck, bleary-eyed and unmotivated. She’d barely been able to sleep last night, thinking about Alex and his . . . well, weirdness and about how much she did not want to come to the farm store this morning. She propped her forehead against the steering wheel and groaned. She was in no mood to be perky and she needed to be perky by the time the customers arrived. Some days she took on the motto “fake it until you make it.” Some days, face perkiness was the only way to make it through their day.

“Is this the only milk you have?” a woman had asked last week, looking at her over a pair of sunglasses, one eyebrow raised.

“Yes, ma’am. That’s the company the local farmer’s supply to.”

“Okay, because I’m a vegan and I need something that doesn’t come from a cow.”

“Oh. Well, then . . .”

Molly had had to pause because what she wanted to say was “If you’re vegan, why are you in a store that clearly sells cow milk?” but she glanced at the woman’s cart, full of vegetables and flowers, and decided to cut her some slack. At least she was supporting farmers in her own way.

“Then, I’m sorry,” Molly said. “We don’t carry non-diary options at this time. Maybe you can try the local Weis?”

“You know this little store needs to move with the times,” the woman said unloading the items from her cart to the counter. “Milk from mammals is a thing of the past. The only ones who should be drinking cows milk are baby cows.”

“Mmmm,” Molly responded adding up the items on the cash register. “That will be $75.50.”

If the woman hadn’t been spending so much Molly might would have told her to shove off, but the money was welcome and needed in a time when local farmers were struggling. The money from the Tanner’s store didn’t only benefit the Tanners. It also benefited several families who supplied inventory – from locally raised and butchered pork, beef, and chicken to eggs, homemade furniture and hand-sewn blankets and quilts. Losing customers could mean losing income for these families as well.

Thankfully the woman left without anymore comments, though a ‘thank you’ would have been nice.

Some days Molly wondered if this would be her entire life; sitting in her family’s story, being lectured by people who called themselves “woke” about what to eat and how to live. She wondered if she’d always be just the farmer’s daughter.

Walking into the store through the backdoor she heard her Aunt Hannah talking in the office.

“I am nervous about the meeting, yes. And I’m nervous because I don’t know how we are going to come up with the money to pay off this loan.”

Molly paused outside the closed door.

What loan?

“Let’s talk to Bill and see what can be worked out,” her Uncle Walt said softly.

“I would have talked to Bill a long time ago if I had known what was going on,” Hannah said curtly.

“Hannah, Robert told me he explained why —”

“I know,” Hannah interrupted, her voice less tense than before. “I’m sorry. I’m just anxious. I’ve been looking at the numbers this morning. They aren’t great. I’m worried we won’t be able to do this, Walt.”

Numbers? What numbers? Molly’s mind was racing. Was the farm in trouble? And if so, why hadn’t her parents told her?

Her hand hovered over the door handle and she thought about walking in and asking Hannah what was going on, but thought better of it. If her family wanted her to know what was going on, they’d tell her, and, to be honest, she felt too drained to add anymore to her mental que to think about.


Fiction Friday: The Farmer’s Daughter Chapter 12

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 6 Comments

I worked on this book this week, finally feeling creative after shutting off the news and social media. I probably wrote 1,000 words Tuesday night, saved and shut off my computer, only to discover that the computer, which saves to Microsoft OneDrive, had not saved any and I mean ANY of my changes that I had worked on for hours that evening.

I had been saving for hours and all of it was gone when I opened it up right before bed to add something. I normally email a copy to myself but it didn’t matter because none of the changes had saved so the emailed copy didn’t have any of the changes or additions either. I have no idea why it happened but now I am working on rewriting entire chapters, fixing errors and rewriting rewrites.

Some days I just want to give up on this silly writing thing but then I remember that no one really reads my stories or books anyhow so this whole writing thing is really just a hobby and I should not be upset by a hobby. Ha! A hobby is for fun so I had fun going back and rewriting all that I had lost and I will be rewriting much of it again in the future when it is all complete.

Anyhow, to catch up with the story, you can click HERE or at the top of the page. This is a work in progress and as always there could be errors, typos, plot holes, etc. that I will hopefully fix in the final draft. My other works of fiction are linked to at the top of the page as well and both of my books are currently on Kindle Unlimited: A Story to Tell and A New Beginning.


The serene scene of cows grazing in a field bright with golden sunlight was in stark contrast to the direct view Molly had of a grieving Alice Stanton. Alice’s hands were pressed to her face, the tears she’d fought to hold back for much of the day spilling down her cheeks and through her fingers.

 Alice, a small woman with long dark brown hair streaked with graying highlights that fell to the  middle of her back, was known by many in town as usually being upbeat and optimistic in situations others found too overwhelming. Today, though, Alice was the one overwhelmed.

Her cheeks were splotched red from crying and her usual upbeat demeanor had crumbled under the pressure of her family’s financial strain. Her body trembled with each sob and it was all making  Molly feel awkward, unsure how to respond to Alice’s tears. But then Molly did what she’d want someone to do for her if she was in the same situation: she pulled Alice into a hug and let Alice cry on her shoulder while stroking Alice’s hair.

The Stanton’s farm had fallen on hard times three years ago and instead of trying to survive another year they had given up, like so many other farmers, filing for bankruptcy and choosing to sell off their animals, equipment and land.

“Oh, Molly,” Alice said as she lifted her face and tried to dry her eyes with an already soaked, crumpled tissue. “I can’t believe this is really happening to us.”

Molly looked across the Stanton’s field at the tractors and farm equipment lined up in rows, people walking around the items, looking at them thoughtfully, studying them, discussing their worth. Behind the farm equipment were rolling hills, fields filled with cows that were also being bid on, and beyond those fields, other farms dotting the landscape, some of those farms on the verge of bankruptcy as well.

“That’s our life for the last 30 years,” Alice said in disbelief, looking out at the large crowd and the auctioneer setting up his booth. She gestured at the scene with one quick movement of her hand that she returned to the cross necklace, clutching it tightly. “There it all is – set up for strangers and neighbors to pick through and pick apart. It’s so surreal.”

Fresh tears spilled down Alice’s face and Molly felt the sting of tears in her own eyes.

“What will you and Jim do?”

Alice shook her head. “I don’t know for sure yet. I picked up a job at the bank and Jim has an interview at the meat packing plant next week. Isn’t that ironic? He couldn’t afford to produce milk and meat himself so now he’ll have to work packing some factory farm’s meat.”

The auctioneer started the bidding on the Stanton’s hay baler, rattling off its attributes and suggested prices in a quick paced tone, almost too fast for Molly to keep up with. The men standing in front of the auctioneer trailer were a mix of mostly men, some well-dressed while others had obviously driven straight from the barn to the auction.

The well-dressed were usually from the corporate farms, having driven two or more hours. Molly looked at them like vultures come to feed on dying carcasses of the small family farms. She knew she shouldn’t think that way. They had their place in the world too, but Molly agreed with her dad and other small farmers who worried about the loss of quality and safety in corporate farming. Then there was the questionable care of the animals and the reduced profits for small farming operations when the bigger farms moved in. Molly didn’t know how it all worked really, but small farms were all she’d ever known and she felt a fierce loyalty to them.

Molly knew from past auctions that many of the farmers from the family farms didn’t want to bid, not because they couldn’t use the equipment, but because they didn’t want to see their neighbors go out of business. And in some cases, the bidding farmers wondered if they might be next and if they should waste money on equipment they’d soon be selling themselves.

“This was a four-generation farm,” Alice said softly, watching the auctioneer. “Jim’s grandfather took it over from his father, who died very young from tuberculosis. This was all Jim ever wanted to do, from the time he learned to walk, pretty much. If this is this hard on me I can’t imagine how devastated he has to feel about all of this. He won’t even talk to me about it. He’s so matter-of-fact about the bills and how we are too far in debt.”

Alice found another tissue in her jeans pocket and wiped the tears from her cheeks.

“I just wish he would talk to me about how he is feeling,” she said, blowing her nose. “I worry about what holding it all in is doing to his health.”

Molly’s chest constricted. She understood Alice’s worry for Jim. Molly had the same worries about her father who rarely spoke about how situations his family had faced or were facing him made him feel.

Alice lowered her voice and leaned closer to Molly. “Did you hear about Larry Jenson?”

Molly shook her head.

“He couldn’t take the pressure,” Alice whispered tearfully. “He felt like he’d let his family down when the farm failed last year. His wife found him two nights ago in the barn, a bottle of pills in his hand, an empty glass that smelled like whiskey next to his body. The coroner told his wife he’ll most likely rule it a suicide but he’s waiting for the toxicology report.”

Molly gasped. “Oh my gosh! His wife and family must be devastated.”

Alice nodded. “She is and I think that’s one thing I’m worried about with Jim. If he won’t talk to me about how all this making him feel, maybe he won’t talk to me if he’s thinking of . . .” Alice shook her head, closing her eyes briefly. “I can’t even bare to think about it.”

Molly laid a hand on her shoulder. “You won’t have to,” she said, hoping she was right. “Just keep an eye on Jim and be there for him. When he’s ready to talk he will. I’m sure he’s just keeping quiet now to make sure he can get what needs to be done done.”

Alice turned her head, wiping the tears from her face. “I’m going to go make sure they have enough hot dogs and snacks for the bidders. If I cry anymore my eyeballs will fall right out.”

Molly watched Alice walk back toward the barn and bit her lower lip, wondering when the day would come when her family auctioned their life away. She turned and watched her dad walking with other farmers, studying equipment, contemplating about quality and price. Jason and Alex stood at the back of the crowd talking to a small group of younger farmers and Molly recognized one of them as Jason’s former classmate Jeremy McCarty. The McCarty’s had been farming their land with a head of 250 dairy cows for three generations, but Jason had said the family was considering selling out and moving to Kansas within the year.

“This is a fine harvester,” the auctioneer said. “Three years old. Great paint job still. Well taken care of. Let’s start the bidding at nineteen. Nineteen thousand. Nineteencanigetnineteen? Nineteennineteennineteen – Nineteen in the back. Can I get twenty-twenty-twenty? Twentytwentytwenty – twenty-one. Twenty two thousand-twenty-twothoussandtwentythreecanigettwentythreeandtwentytwentytwenty -three! Twenty-three!”

The bidding went on like that for the rest of the afternoon while Molly served buyers hot dogs and soda and agreed with other farmers that the day was one of sadness; the end of an era. This was the first auction Molly had been to, but she knew there had been others in recent months and she knew there would be more. The faces of many of the farmers who walked by were etched in worry, eyelids drooping from late nights of crunching numbers.

“Sold off half the herd last month,” one farmer said to another, standing in the doorway of the barn where a makeshift concession stand had been set up. “If we can save some money this year, I’m hoping to bring some more cows back.”

“I saw the most recent reports from the dairy bureau,” the other farmer said. “The numbers don’t look encouraging.”

Both farmers shook their heads.

“This is all I’ve ever done,” the first farmer said. “It was all my dad and his dad ever did. I can’t imagine what I’ll do with myself if I have to finally pack it in.”

His friend laughed, clapped him on the back.

“How about finally retire and take Eloise on that cruise she’s always wanted?”

“I get sea sick, but even if I did go, what will I do with myself after we get back?”

The farmers stood, hands shoved in their overall pockets, silent for a few moments, and looked out over the field full of farm equipment, buyers and curious onlookers weaving around each other.

“Welp, best get back to the barn and milk what’s left of my cows.”

“Yep,” the other farmer nodded, still looking out at the auction. “Need to get back and make sure mine are all in the barn for the night.”

The two men parted ways, heads both down, deep in thought as Molly watched them. She sat on the stool behind the table and felt a strange heaviness in her chest. The idea that these men, so much like her father, could no longer live the lives they had hoped to broke her heart and made her world feel upside down.

She sat down on the stool behind the table, opened a bottle of water and watched the trucks pull in and out of the Stanton’s side yard where a makeshift parking lot had been set up.

She had been considering walking away from farming, seeing what the world was like beyond her parent’s corn fields, but at the same time she dreaded the possibility that in the near future she wouldn’t even have a choice if she wanted to be involved in farming or not.

“Whatchya thinking about?”

Molly startled at the sound of the voice to the right of her. She looked over to see Alex grinning, his black cowboy hat tipped low on his head, a black sleeveless shirt revealing his tanned muscular biceps. She wasn’t sure when he started wearing that hat, but every time she saw him in it, it flipped her stomach upside down.

Alex had come to their farm a city slicker, but he should have been born a country boy as fast as he had adapted to life on the farm.

She shrugged as an answer to his question, then thought for a moment about how to answer.

“Alice was just telling me about Larry Jenson, this local farmer . . .”

Alex cracked open a Pepsi and sat on a stool next to her.

“The one who offed himself? Yeah. Jason was telling me about that.”

Molly’s eyebrows darted up, and Alex knew he’d said something wrong.

“Offed himself? Really? That wasn’t very sensitive, Alex.”

“Oh. Sorry. I mean —”

Molly sighed. “It’s okay. You can’t help being insensitive. You’re a man.”

“Ouch.”

“Anyhow, it’s just — I mean, Mr. Jenson had to be really down to do that, you know? What if —”

“Molly, your dad would never do that, if that’s what you’re thinking, and neither would Walt. You know that.”

“I don’t know. Do I? If things got bad enough and —”

Alex shook his head. “Not going to happen. No more thinking that way, okay? Your family has a good thing going. They’ve got the farm store, the rain has finally let up, there should be a good crop this year. Everything is going to be okay.”

He looked over at her, reached out and laid his hand against her shoulder. “No more worrying, okay?”

His hand on her skin flustered her for a moment, but she managed to nod as she looked at him.

“Okay. I’ll try.”

She pulled her eyes from his, her heart pounding.

She watched the farmers walking by the open barn door, cars pulling in and out of the field that was serving as a makeshift parking lot.

Alex watched too.

After a few moments of silence, he looked at her again.

“So, if you’re done worrying, I’m heading back to see how much equipment your dad is going to make me haul out of here when he’s done bidding.”

Alex’s grin as he stood to leave not only lifted her heavy mood, it made her feel almost giddy. She leaned forward on the stool, propped her elbow on the table, her chin on her hand and welcomed the distraction of watching him walk away. Now one wore a pair of jeans as well as Alex Stone.

Alex tried to push Molly’s worries from his mind as he walked toward Robert and Jason. He whole heartedly believed that Robert Tanner would never leave his family, in any way, no matter how tough it got, at least not on purpose. Still, Molly’s concerns were contagious.

He had been noticing how tired Robert had been looking lately, but he wasn’t about to mention it to Molly or Jason. Alex had tried to step up more, offering to take on jobs Robert would normally do, hoping it would encourage Robert to slow down. Instead, Robert had replaced the jobs with different jobs, never slowing down, always on full-speed. Alex had acted confident with Molly, but inside he worried like she did that all the pressure of running a large farming business would finally break the man he’d come to think of as a father figure.

***

“So, when were you going to tell me about the financial trouble the business is in?”

Robert’s back was to his sister but he didn’t have to see her to know that Hannah was standing with her arms folded across her chest, her leg cocked to one side, and a tight scowl pursing her mouth into an angry frown. He inwardly groaned and titled his eyes toward the heavens, silently praying for an interruption.

He and Bert, her husband, had talked last night about telling her about the issue with the loan so he knew this moment was coming. Bert had even called an hour ago to warm him she was on the warpath. Bert had already had his hide chewed and it hadn’t been pretty. Robert knew he was next.

He had hoped she would find Walt first, but Walt told him last night he’d be an hour away today, picking up supplies for the farm store at a partner farm. Walt had a way of avoiding conflicts by making himself hard to find. 

“Well?”

Robert cleared his throat before turning away from the tractor he’d been preparing to climb into. It was obvious it was time to face the music with yet another woman in his life.

He turned and saw his youngest sibling standing in the exact way and with the same expression he had pictured in his mind. “Good morning to you too, Hannah.”

“Robert, I can’t even believe that you and Walter and Bert kept this from me. I had every right to know what was going on. I’m a full partner in this business.”

She was doing that thing now where she pointed one finger down at the ground at the end of every sentence and emphasized every other word.

“Hannah, I know. It was wrong. I just – we just —”

“Didn’t want me to know because you thought you could fix it on your own? Because I’m a woman? What?” She placed both her hands on her hips, her nostrils flared.

“You know that’s not why.”

Hannah’s light brown hair, now streaked with blond highlights from exposure to the sun, was pulled back in a tight ponytail, and her brown eyes were flashing with fury.

Robert was a mild-mannered man who often spoke softly and was rarely angered. He remained calm when others weren’t and normally Hannah admired this quality but today she wanted to see some actual emotion from him, to see a response behind his normal calm, closed off demeanor.

“No, Hannah, that wasn’t it at all.”

“You need to be honest with me this time, Robert. Don’t keep hiding things from me.”

With a heavy sigh Robert sat on a square bale of hay near the barn door and leaned forward slightly, arms propped on his knees. “Walt and I wanted to protect you because of how hard Dad’s death was on you. We planned to pay things off at the end of this summer with the corn harvest, but as you know, that’s not going as planned. We were going to talk to you once we had the money to take care of the shortfall. Until then we tried to shield you so you wouldn’t have to face anymore stress. You’ve been the main one caring for Mom, we saw how hard you tried to act like Dad’s death didn’t affect you, but Hannah . . .”

He looked at up at her from where he was sitting, saw her mouth was still pressed into a thin line. “Walt and I know it almost destroyed you. We didn’t want that to happen again. We didn’t want to see you hurt and worried again. We thought we could handle it. We were wrong. I’m sorry.”

Hannah’s shoulders had already started to relax as she listened to her brother and her face was less pinched than before. She sat next to him on the hay bale, not sure whether to yell or cry. The emotions she had been shoving inside for the last year chose for her.

Robert reached over and squeezed her hand as tears rolled down her cheeks. “I’m sorry, Hannah.”

She nodded and accepted the wadded up handkerchief he handed her, blowing her nose into it and wiping her eyes.

“I know you didn’t mean to keep me out of the loop. It’s just — I always feel like I’m the last to know everything. I was the last to know that Daddy was sick. No one wanted to tell me when the doctors said his heart was in worse shape than they thought. And now here we are, possibly losing our livelihood and I’m in the dark again.”

Robert shook his head. “We’re not going to lose the business, Hannah. It’s going to be fine. Walt and I,” he took her hand again. “and you, will go over tomorrow and talk to Bill and we will work out a plan, like we should have in the beginning.”

Hannah nodded, sniffing and blowing her nose again. “Okay.”

She looked at her brother, tears glistening in her eyes. Seeing her in such a tender moment, so vulnerable and emotional, was unnerving to Robert. Hannah was always the strong one, the determined one, the one who seemed to have it all together, even though she was the baby of the family. Even at their dad’s funeral she’d been composed, strong, and had only cried once, briefly, in front of everyone else.

He knew from what Bert had told him, though, that the tears had flowed, hard and fast at home, locked in her room at night or in the bathroom when she thought no one could hear her or see her. Robert didn’t know why his sister had always fought so hard to hide her emotions but he was glad to see a part of that wall breaking down now, even if it did make him uncomfortable.

“We need to talk about Mom,” she said finally, after a few more moments of tears and blowing her nose.

“She’s still pretty down, isn’t she?”

Hannah nodded. “I’m worried about her, Robert. She has little interest in anything anymore. I can’t get her to go to church. She complains all the time.”

Robert knew all of this already. He’d listened to his mom complain about a variety of people and situations in recent months. He’d also listened to her refusals to attend church with him and Annie, instead saying she didn’t feel well and would rather read her Bible at home.

“I’m not ready to lose Mom too.” Hannah choked out the words. “But I think she’s just given up since Daddy died.”

Robert slid his arm around Hannah’s shoulders and pulled her gently against him. “I’ll go talk to her. All we can do right now is love her through this.”

Hannah nodded against his shoulder and blew her nose again.

 She looked at the soggy handkerchief crumpled in her hand. “Is the handkerchief you always have shoved in your pocket and blow your nose on all day?”

Robert sighed. “Yes. It is, but I haven’t used it yet today.”

Hannah wiped her eyes with the corner of the handkerchief. “Oh. Thank God. Men are so gross.”

Robert shook his head. Some things never changed.

A Special Fiction Saturday: The Farmer’s Daughter Chapter 11 Part II

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 3 Comments

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.

Fiction Friday: The Farmer’s Daughter Chapter 11 (Part 1)

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 4 Comments

Yes, Chapter 11 is broke up into two parts for the blog this week because, to me, this chapter is too long for a blog, but not too long for a book. No idea what I’m talking about? Me either, but I rambled about chapter size last week on the blog and still couldn’t decide how I feel about long chapters.

I will be sharing part two tomorrow because, quite frankly, some of my readers need a good, light distraction right now (and luckily my fiction isn’t too hard hitting.)

Anyhow, if you would like to catch up on the story, you can find the other chapters HERE. There are links to my other works of fiction at the top of the page, as well, including The Farmer’s Daughter, Quarantined (a short story), Rekindle (the start of another story story), and links to my two books for sale on digital platforms.

Alex woke from a sound sleep to someone pounding on the front door. It was his morning off from the barn. The morning Taylor Bundle came to help out and Alex got to sleep in but missed out on joking with Molly.

“Jason! Are you in there!? If you’re sleeping in, well, get up!”

Alex rubbed his eyes, listening to Molly yelling from the front porch. He threw the covers aside, hoping something hadn’t happened at the farm.

He staggered down the stairs in a pair of old sweatpants and it wasn’t until he had unlocked the door and swung it open that he remembered he’d forgotten to grab a shirt.

A strange rush of energy pulsated through the center of Molly’s chest at the sight of a bare-chested Alex standing groggily in the doorway.

“Hey,” he said, mid-yawn. “What are you doing here?”

“Um. Oh. Hey.”

Molly’s mouth was suddenly dry, and she felt a rush of warmth in her cheeks as she struggled to remember why she was standing on Jason and Alex’s front porch at this time of the morning. She seemed to have forgotten who she even was for a moment.

Good grief. Alex even looked good yawning. Her eyes fell on a small tattoo on the skin just below his tanned collarbone. An eagle sitting on a globe. All these years working with him and she’d never noticed he had a tattoo. She’d seen him with his shirt off before, but she’d never let her eyes linger. Why had she never let her eyes linger? She might have enjoyed the hard work in the barn more if she had.

She noticed he was looking at her, his hair ruffled, one eyebrow cocked, waiting for her to answer his question. He’d asked her a question. What was it again?  

“Oh. Yes. I was — I mean, I’m on my way, or I was on my way to the rummage sale but the truck broke down down the road and I didn’t want to, — well, Jason was closer than going back to get Dad so I was hoping I could talk to Jason.”

Alex yawned again and leaned against the door frame.

“He took Ellie out antiquing or something. I don’t remember what he said, exactly. I was sleeping. Or trying to. You want me to look at it?”

“No. Well, yes, but actually I need a ride to the rummage sale first. Mavis has me on the baked goods tables this morning and I don’t want to listen to her scold me about being late if I don’t show up on time. Any way you could drive me to town?”

Alex rubbed his fingers across his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose, willing himself to wake up more. Alone in the truck with Molly. While groggy.

This might be fun.

“Uh . . . yeah . . . just let me throw on a shirt and I’ll be right out.”

No need to throw on a shirt, Molly thought.

“Yeah, sure,” she said out loud. “No problem. Take your time. I’ve still got a bit before I’ve got to be there.”

Molly turned back toward the road as Alex shut the door and let out a long breath.

Take your time. Getting a shirt on. Covering up all that beauty.

What a way to start a day. First, a broke down truck, which was a bad start, but then seeing Alex shirtless, a definite improvement.

“Why would a woman from church scold you for your truck breaking down?” Alex asked when he climbed into his truck next to her ten minutes later.

He pushed his hand through his hair and, unfortunately, had pulled a t-shirt on. He was eating a piece of toast as he shifted the truck into drive and pulled onto the dirt road.

“What do you mean?”

Alex shrugged. “I mean, she’s a Christian. Shouldn’t she be all nice and stuff? And forgiving?”

Molly looked out the window and leaned against her hand. “Well, yeah, she should but . . . well, sometimes human nature gets in the way I guess.”

Alex shoved the last piece of toast in his mouth, talking with his mouth full. “She sounds like she should read her Bible more.”

Molly laughed. “A lot of us should read our Bible more, but yeah, she should.”

Fencing and cow pastures rushed by and Molly thought about how even she should be reading her Bible more.

“You should get rid of that truck, you know.”

Alex shifted topics of conversation as quickly as he did gears, and it made Molly smile as she looked at  him.

“Why?”

“It’s a piece of junk.”

“I like my piece of junk.”

“You could get a nice sedan or something.”

“Out here? And why? Because I’m a girl? So, you think girls shouldn’t drive trucks. Is that it?”

She smirked at Alex, waiting for his response. He looked out through the windshield, his arm hanging lazily over the steering wheel, grinning. She recognized that look well; a look that said he was about to roast her like he often did in the barn.

“You know it’s not because you’re a girl,” he said, not taking his eyes off the road. “You’re one of the manliest girls I’ve ever met.”

Molly didn’t even hesitate to ball her hand into a fist and smashing it straight into his upper bicep, her eyes narrowed and her jaw tight, but a small smile tugging at the corners of her mouth.

He laughed loudly. “What? You are! You burp louder than most guys I know, and I know women say they don’t fart but that time you blamed it on the cow? Yeah, I didn’t buy that for a second.”

“I didn’t fart!” Molly cried through the laughter. “It was Betsy!”
Alex was laughing harder now.

“That poor cow,” he said. “She gets blamed for so much of your gross behavior.”

“My gross behavior? You spit loogies on the ground all the time.”

“It’s not my fault I have an abundance of phlegm.”

She laughed and pushed at him gently with her hand.

“I didn’t need to know that, Alex Stone.”

Alex smiled, glancing at her, enjoying the sound of his name when she said it. They laughed for the rest of the drive, harassing each other about various sounds they’d made while working in the barn, or jokes they’d passed back and forth that probably shouldn’t have been said at all.

Molly wiped tears of laughter from her eyes as Alex pulled into the parking lot. She opened the truck door as he parked it in front of the basement door.

“Thanks for the lift,” she said climbing out. “I can get a ride home after I’m done.”

“I don’t know. Maybe I should come in and see if they’d have anything I’d want.”

Molly shut the truck door and leaned on it to talk through the window. “I doubt it, unless you need a new purse or some heels”

Alex shrugged. “I don’t need those, no, but Jason said they have some electronics this year. Maybe I’ll come check it out.”

“Okay,” Molly said, turning toward the church basement door. “I’m heading in. I’ll see you there.”

Alex leaned his head against his hand, smiling, watching her walk away for a few moments before pulling his truck into a parking space.

Inside, the baked goods table was already half-filled and the rest of the tables were set up and ready for customers.

“There you are!” Maddie whispered loudly when Molly approached the table. “I was afraid you weren’t coming and then I’d be stuck listening to Mavis complain all morning about your failure to keep commitments.”

Molly rolled her eyes. “She’d already started that speech, huh?”

Maddie nodded. “Of course. I’m heading back to the children’s section. Pray for me.”

“I definitely will.”

Molly straightened the cakes and cookies, displaying them along the table, separating each kind of cookie and each style of cake and then propping up the pies so people could see them better. She waited for the first customers of the day and watched Alex walk through the electronics aisle, looking over old computers and stereos.

On the tables spread across the basement, various items sat on tables for sale; old televisions, lamps, pots and pans, dishes, books, sunglasses, toys, video games, and even a motorcycle helmet. A few early birds were already perusing the merchandise that, if sold, would help the church with various projects throughout the year, including putting a new roof on the church.

Molly had attended the Spencer Valley United Methodist Church since she was a child up until a year ago. Her parents and grandparents had always attended the church. Molly, however, had fallen in love with a church across town that featured more upbeat music and a younger congregation over all. Even though she no longer attended the church she continued to help with fundraisers and other events, which was why she couldn’t avoid Mavis’ overly critical eye.

She liked the church and the other people who attended, though, including Maddie and the new pastor and his wife. Joe and Emily. They had arrived at the church a little less than a year ago, shortly after her grandfather passed away and about the same time her grandmother had stopped attending church.

Molly liked Pastor Joe’s easy going demeanor and outgoing personality and Emily’s sweet nature. Molly couldn’t pinpoint why but she felt a sadness in Emily when she talked to her and she wondered it was because Emily still felt out of place in her fairly new surroundings.

“Well, hey, I didn’t expect to see you here today.”

The familiarity of the voice made Molly turn her head to see if it could really be him. It could be and it was. Ben Oliver was standing in front of her with a broad smile, looking surprisingly even more handsome than the last time she had seen him five years ago at his grandmother’s funeral.

His hair was cut high and tight, his dark brown eyes sparkled, and a small dimple pricked the skin next to his mouth when he smiled.

She now wished she hadn’t rushed out of the house so quickly, throwing on a Confederate Railroad t-shirt and a pair of jeans and pulling her hair back into a loose ponytail on top of her head.

She tried to act non-plussed by his presence. “Ben, hey. What a surprise. Jason said you were in town.”

“Yeah, just came back a couple weeks ago.”

Molly decided to look busy. She straightened the cookies and stacked a couple of the pies. “Staying long?”

Ben nodded, watching her work. “For good actually. I’m opening a law office in Waverly.”

Waverly was a half an hour from Spencer Valley. And half an hour away from Molly, which she was fine with.

“Oh. So, you’ll be living there then?”

“I’m not sure yet. For now I’m living with my parents while I look for a place, either here or there. Actually, I’m here today with my mom.” He laughed. “She’s looking for a new purse.”

He smiled and picked up a bag of cookies. “Hey. You always made amazing cookies. Chocolate chip if I remember right.”

Yes, Ben, I did make cookies. For you. Like it mattered.

“Yep. I used to. I don’t really make cookies anymore.”

A woman with dark brown hair hanging down her back and a strained expression on her face approached the table. Two young children hopped up and down beside her while she held their hands tightly.

“I want the chocolate ones!” A little girl with blond curls cried.

“I want peanut butter!” Her brother said loudly as he hopped in place.

Molly guessed their ages to be about four and them to be twins. Their mother looked exhausted as she let go of their hands and struggled to open her change purse. “I’ll take one of each.”

Molly slid them across the table and accepted her money, watching them shove cookies into their mouth as they darted toward the toy section.

“Wow,” Ben said watching the children leave. “That was – well, a lot of energy.” He smiled at her and she felt the old familiar rush of warmth travel from her stomach to the top of her head.

“Did you make anything on this table?” he asked.

“Just some cakes with my mom. They’re the ones over there.”

“Oh man. Those are your mom’s cakes? I’m definitely getting one of those. Her cakes are one of the highlights of my youth.” He walked to the other side of the table and began to look through the cakes. Over his shoulder Molly saw Alex studying a laptop, his eyebrows furrowed in concentration.

This is insanely awkward, Molly thought to herself, unable to shake the memory of Ben’s comments about her the day in the convenience store. Stop pretending to be nice, Ben.

She was grateful to see Liz walking toward her a few moments later, a broad smile on her face, an attractive pink bag hanging over her shoulder.

“I told you I wouldn’t leave you to deal with Old Battleax on your own.”

Molly tilted her head toward Ben, her eyes wide.

Liz looked at Ben, back to her and then mouthed. “No way. Ben? What is he doing here?”

Molly shrugged and rolled her eyes. Liz flung her purse on the chair next to Molly and placed a hand on each hip. “Well, well, well,” she said loudly. “Benjamin Oliver. Surprised to see you show your face here in Spencer Valley again.”

Ben smiled broadly as he looked at Liz, the container carrying one of Annie’s chocolate cakes in his hand. “Liz! Hey! You look great!”

“Ben, hey. You still look like a jerk.”

“Liz!” Molly hissed.

Ben laughed softly and shook his head. “It’s okay, Molly. Liz has never liked me, if you remember.”

“Liz has never trusted you,” Liz shot back with a scowl. “And rightly so, I’d say.”

Ben slid the cake across the table toward Molly. “People can change, Liz. Learn from their mistakes.” He smiled tightly. “Don’t you think? Hey, how’s Gabe doing?”

Molly winced internally. This was getting messy.

“I left him,” Liz said coldly.

“Oh, well, see we do learn from our mistakes, I guess.” Ben smirked and Molly shook her head because it was apparent he still had his quick tongue.

Molly placed the cake in a bag, watching Liz and Ben watch each other, feeling the tension in the air.

“That’s $4.50,” she said quickly to interrupt the stand-off.

Ben’s charming smile had returned as he turned toward Molly, handing her a $5 bill. “Keep the change,” he told her. “It’s for a good cause. And listen, Molly, I’d really like to talk to you sometime. If you have time? I didn’t expect to see you here today, but I had planned to track you down at some point.”

Molly nodded outwardly but shook her head inwardly. “Yeah, sure, that would be fine. I’ll be around.”

Out of the corner of her eye she watched Alex sauntering toward the table, a used laptop under one arm and a cowboy hat propped on top of his own. As if the awkward moment couldn’t get even more awkward.

“Well, you were wrong,” he said to her cheerfully. “It turns out they did have a couple things I wanted.”

His gaze traveled from Molly to Liz’s tense expression and then to Ben standing awkwardly with a bag of cake in one hand and his wallet in the other.

“Oh, hey, did I interrupt something?” Alex asked.

“No, not at all,” Liz said. She tipped her head at Ben. “Ben here was just leaving.”

Ben? Alex looked Molly’s ex-boyfriend up and down, taking in his light blue polo shirt, tan khakis, brown leather belt and dark brown loafers. He wanted to laugh out loud. This was the great Ben Oliver? He definitely looked like a lawyer – overdressed, sneaky, and weak.

“Ben,” he said with a forced welcoming smile. “Nice to meet you. I’ve heard a lot about you.”

Ben looked surprised. “Oh? You have? I’m sorry. You are . . .”

“This is Jason’s friend Alex,” Molly said quickly. “He works for Dad.”

She cleared her throat and focused on some crumbs on the table, brushing them away.

“Ah, a farm boy, eh?” Ben grinned and looked from Alex to Molly. He winked. “Does he say ‘As you wish?’ to you?”

Molly’s face grew warm. She knew what Ben was referring to, especially because The Princess Bride had been her favorite movie to watch with him when they had been dating. Wesley, the farm boy, would always say “as you wish” to Buttercup, the farmer girl, when she’d ask him to fetch something for her, and in the book the author wrote that “as you wish” was code for “I love you.”

Ben had never said “as you wish” to her.

Molly started to speak, but didn’t even know how to respond. Was Ben mocking her? Was he mocking Alex? She wasn’t even sure at this point.

Alex laughed and slapped Ben on the back with one solid movement of his hand. “Oh, Ben. You’re just as witty as Jason and Molly described you. Of course, that’s what I say to Molly. I mean, who wouldn’t be honored to travel through the Fire Swamp with someone like Molly? Right?”

He smiled at Ben a little longer than Molly felt he needed to. She caught Liz smirking on the other side of Ben.

Ben laughed a laugh that sounded slightly nervous. “Right. Of course. Very funny.”

“Well,” Alex said with an exaggerated sigh. “I would love to stay here and talk more but I’ve got manure to shovel, cows to milk, hay to fork into the stables. You know, all those ‘farm boy’ things we ‘farm boys’ do.”

He turned quickly toward Molly and slid his hand under her elbow, leaning close to her. “I had fun this morning. See you later okay?”

He winked, brushed his mouth against her cheek, and walked through the door, leaving her and Liz staring at him in bewildered surprise.

“Oh,” Ben said after a few moments. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know you two were …”

“He’s just a co-worker,” Molly blurted.

Liz smothered a snicker behind her hand and sat in the chair behind the table.

Ben nodded and shrugged. “Oh, okay, well —”

“Molly, there are more cakes in the kitchen that need to be brought out.”

Mavis’ spoke over Ben and Molly was grateful for the interruption.  

“No problem, Mavis. I’ll be right there.” She turned to face Ben. “I’m so sorry. Duty calls. Catch up later?”

Ben nodded. “Yeah. Yeah. Sure. No problem.”

Molly walked quickly back toward the kitchen, her face ablaze with shock, embarrassment, and confusion. First, seeing Ben out of the blue and then Alex acting weird.

What in the world was Alex even doing? Was he trying to make it look like they were dating? For what purpose? For whose benefit? For hers? For Bens?   . . . for his? She didn’t know what he was doing but she knew she was going to have to talk to him about it later at the barn. And Molly knew Liz was going to want to talk about it as soon as she arrived back at the table with the extra cakes

Fiction Friday: The Farmer’s Daughter Chapter 8

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 8 Comments

Catch up on Molly’s story HERE. As always, this is a story in progress and there very well could be some typos, plot holes and errors.

An update on A New Beginning that I put up on Kindle this week. I have temporarily removed it to fix some errors and issues and hope to have it back up for sale on Monday. A Story to Tell, the first story about Blanche is currently available on Kindle Unlimited (free for members of Kindle Unlimited on Amazon) and will be on sale for $.99 next week for those who don’t have Kindle Unlimited.


“Hey, Molly, guess who I saw in town this morning.”

“No idea.”

“Ben Oliver.”

Molly’s muscles tensed at the name.

It was a name she didn’t like hearing and had hoped she’d never hear again.

She kneeled next to Daisy the cow and prepped her for a milking session. “Oh yeah? Where did you see him?”

“At the gym.”

“Ah. I see.”

Molly hoped Jason would drop the subject. She didn’t want to think about Ben, let alone talk about him, especially in front of Alex.

“Who’s Ben Oliver?” Alex asked, preparing another cow in the stall across from her.

Molly inwardly groaned. Shut up, Alex.

“Molly’s old boyfriend.”

Shut up, Jason.

Alex’s head popped up over the back of a cow. “Boyfriend? Oh yeah?” He grinned. “Do share.”

Jason leaned against a beam, arms folded across his chest, grinning.

“Yep. They were pretty hot and heavy before he left for college in Boston or somewhere.”

Molly’s heart pounded faster. She was furious at Jason for teasing her about Ben, but how would Jason know how much Ben had hurt her the night he’d broke it off with her? Molly had a feeling if he had known not only would he not have been teasing her, but he probably would have punched Ben in the face.

She didn’t know if she would call anything about her and Ben’s relationship ‘hot and heavy.’ They’d only dated a couple of years as two young, inexperienced high school students. He’d been her first major crush, her first kiss and then her first heartbreak.

They’d broken things off when Ben had left for college. Actually, no. Ben had broken things off but if he hadn’t, Molly would have. Especially after what he’d said to his friends when he thought she wasn’t listening.

“He’s a lawyer now,” Jason told Alex. “I don’t know why he’s back here. He can’t be thinking of opening a law office here. There’s definitely less money here than in a big city.”

Alex shrugged. “You never know. There’s probably more legal possibilities in a small town like this than most of us realize. Real estate transactions, divorces, custody battles —”

“Maybe he can represent all those drunk drivers we read about in the Spencer Chronicle,” Jason said with a snort.

Jason stepped away from the beam and reached for a pitchfork. “I still say he’d make more money in a bigger city.”

Alex adjusted the milking machine on one of the cows. “Who knows, though. Maybe he didn’t come back for money.”

He looked at Molly and winked. She saw the wink out of the corner of her eye and ignored it. “Maybe he came back so he can win Molly back.”

Jason shoved the pitchfork into a pile of hay, lifted it and tossed some inside one of the cow’s stalls.

 “Hear that, Molly?” he asked. “Maybe you’ll be the wife of a rich lawyer one day.”

Molly inwardly cringed. She finished hooking up the last of the cows and walked back toward the feed room. “Hey, Alex, keep an eye on the girls. I’m going to get some feed. I’ll be back.”

Alex sipped from a bottle of water as Molly walked past him, noticing the tension in her face. He tried to read the expression, wondering if it was anger, longing, or something else. He vaguely remembered hearing about this Ben guy before. That had been a couple of years ago. From what he’d gathered, Ben had been a high school boyfriend of Molly’s, but their relationship hadn’t been serious. Now he wondered what had happened between the two to make Molly so uncomfortable at the mention of his name.

“So, were they serious?” Alex asked when Molly was out of earshot as he grabbed another rag to wipe the next cow’s udder.

Jason tossed more hay into the stalls. “Who?”

Alex looked over the top of the cow. “What do you mean who? Molly and this Ben guy.”

Jason shrugged and stooped to lift another pitchfork full of hay. “Yeah. I think so. For a while anyhow. I can’t really remember why they stopped dating. I guess because Ben went so far away for college. I always felt bad they broke up. I thought they were a good fit, you know?”

Alex’s eyes narrowed as he looked toward the back of the barn. “Yeah. Uh-huh. I guess.”

He wondered how Molly and this Ben were a good fit. What made anyone a good fit anyhow? If they liked the same things, maybe. Had the same interests. Shared the same faith.

Did Ben and Molly share the same faith? Did Molly miss Ben and if she did then why had her expression been so vague and not more joyful at the mention of his name?

He mentally scolded himself for all the questions he was asking himself. He’d never asked so many questions in his life. Alex Stone, what are you doing right now? This is none of your business. You have no claim on Molly because you can’t even tell Molly how you feel about her, you coward.

 Alex finished hooking up the cows in his row to the milking machine and stretched his arms out to the side, yawning.

“Out late again last night?” Jason asked. “I didn’t see you when I got back from Ellie’s.”

“Actually, no. I couldn’t sleep. Took a drive, sat and looked at the moon for a while and came home.”

Alex wasn’t about to tell Jason he’d sat and looked at the moon and thought about Molly part of that time. He’d also thought about his past, stupid decisions he’d made over the years, what his future might hold, and wondered what his dad was up to since he barely heard from him anymore.

He unhooked the machine from the first cow in his row, changing the topic. “So, when are you going to ask Ellie to marry you anyhow?

Jason rolled his eyes. “You sound like my mom.”

“Well?”

“I don’t know. I like how it is now. Things are good.”

“Yeah, but don’t you Christians believe in waiting until marriage?”

Jason looked at Alex and laughed. “Not all of our lives revolve around that, dude.”

Alex grinned. “Yeah, but still. Don’t you want to —”

“Hey,” Jason said, holding his hand up toward Alex. “I’m not talking about this with you.”

“Maybe that’s why you’re so uptight sometimes. Maybe you would be less stressed if you and Ellie —”

Jason gently shoved Alex in the arm. “I said I’m not talking about that with you, got it?” He smiled and propped the pitchfork against a wall. “Seriously, though, I have considered proposing to Ellie. And not just for that reason. I really . . .”

Alex wanted to laugh at the red flushing along Jason’s cheeks but with Jason being twice his size he was afraid of ending up with a broken nose.

“I can see myself growing old with her.” Jason finished his sentence after he cleared his throat and looked away, clearly embarrassed by the tenderness he’d just revealed.

Alex patted him on the shoulder. “Then you’re going to have to pull that trigger soon, buddy. Ellie’s not going to wait forever, you know.”

Jason unhooked some more of the cows. “What about you?”

Alex frowned. “What about me?”

“You think you’ll ever settle down?”

Now it was Alex’s turn to flush red. He turned his face quickly away from his friend, bending down to unhook the milking equipment from Daisy, his favorite Jersey. “Eh, who knows. Not something I think about too much.”

Alex wasn’t lying. He really hadn’t thought about settling down. Not in the same way Jason was thinking about it anyhow. What Alex had been thinking about lately was how much he’d fallen in love with farming, with waking up each morning knowing he would be doing something that mattered; something that would provide food for families across the country. He rubbed Daisy’s ears and let her nuzzle his hand.

He’d fallen in love with the smell of fresh cut hay, of cows mooing in the distance, with barn cats, and even with the sweet smell of manure when it was spread in the spring.

As for finding a woman to marry, Alex wasn’t sure yet. He’d never thought about himself married but if he did ever marry he knew he wanted to marry someone just like Molly Tanner, the girl who wasn’t afraid to compete with him in a burping competition or make a hilarious fart joke like one of the guys. Molly was real and if he ever did marry that was what he wanted in a wife – authenticity, kindness and devotion. He had a good feeling he would find all those things in Molly because he already saw them in her.

He chuckled softly. What was he doing even thinking about Molly and marriage in the same vein? Alex Stone and marriage were two things that didn’t go together.

“What’s so funny?” Jason asked.

“Nothing,” Alex said quickly. “Nothing at all.”

***

Molly slammed the lever to the feed machine up hard and kicked a metal bucket across the barn floor. Why did Jason have to bring up Ben anyhow?

She still remembered well the night Ben broke up with her. They’d gone to the movies, had lunch at a café in town and he had driven her home and walked her to her front porch. She’d expected a kiss before he headed home to finish packing for college, but instead he’d motioned toward the porch swing.

“Hey, Mols, can I talk to you for a minute?”

There was a cool breeze blowing, golden sunlight was pouring across the fields, and a heifer mooed softly in the barn. One of the barn cats rubbed against her shin and she reached down and stroked its head and back.

“Sure.”

They sat next to each other, but Molly noticed Ben sat back slightly away from her, instead of pulling her close like he usually did. When he sighed, turning toward her, taking her hands in his, she knew something was wrong.

“This isn’t an easy thing for me to talk to you about, Mols,” he said softly. “But I’m — I mean, it’s just. . .”

He paused, took a deep breath and let it out slowly. The rest of what he had to say came out quickly and abruptly.

“You know I’ve been working a lot with Angie at the ice cream shop on the weekends?”

Of course, she knew he’d been working with Angie. Angie Phillippi. Skinny. Blond. Long legs. Perfect. All the things Molly wasn’t.

She was starting to feel uneasy. “Yeah?”

“Yeah, so, yeah. We — Angie and I — we’ve grown close this summer and, the thing is, I think we’ve fallen for each other.”

“Oh.”

Molly swallowed hard, a heavy lump forming in the center of her chest.

“Molly you know how much I care about you, but,” Ben shifted nervously on the swing. “I feel different when I am with Angie. I feel — I don’t know. I feel like she really gets me. We’re into the same things. We laugh at each other’s jokes. . .”

I laugh at your jokes, Molly thought.

“She’s . . . I don’t know. She’s someone I can’t imagine not being in my life and it’s not fair to you to keep stringing you along when I know I want to be with Angie.”

I can’t imagine you not being in my life, Molly thought.

Molly nodded slowly, pulling her hands from Ben’s grip. “Oh.”

She wished she could say more than “Oh,” but she seemed to be at a loss for words.

“I’m sorry, Molly. I really am.”

Molly forced a smile.

“It’s okay,” she finally managed to say, pushing the buzzing feeling in her chest – the one that signaled her emotions were about to override her brain – deep down because she was not, no, she was not going to cry in front of Ben Oliver, her first ever crush and boyfriend. “You can’t help how you feel.”

Her voice sounded far away, like someone else’s. What was she even saying? She didn’t believe any of the words flying out of her mouth, but she had to say them to hurry this conservation along, to end it quickly before she sobbed in Ben’s face and made a fool of herself.

Ben sat back slightly, his shoulders relaxing. “I am so relieved you understand. I never wanted to hurt you. I just knew I had to be honest with you, though, and with myself.”

He leaned forward and took her hands in his again. His dark brown eyes focused on hers. “I will always remember our time together, okay? And you’ll always be special to me.”

Molly suddenly felt like a first grader being talked to by their teacher.

“If I’m so special, then why are you breaking up with me?” she wanted to ask, but she didn’t, because she didn’t really want to hear the reason again.

Instead, she told him that she was okay, that she was happy for him, that this was for the best. She was glad he had told her now, instead of waiting until after he left for college, she assured him.

Of course, they’d still be friends.

Of course, she’d write him at college.

Of course, she’d always remember the good times.

Yes. Good luck at college.

She reassured him again she’d be fine and then he’d left with a gentle, brief kiss on her cheek. After he’d left, and she walked into the house, she answered her parents concerned expressions by telling them she and Ben were taking a break while he went to college and that was fine with her. Then she lied again, telling them she was relieved because she had felt herself drifting away from Ben for a few months now. He’d be away at college, going to law school, and she’d be at the community college, pursuing a degree in English, or writing, or something similar. There hadn’t been a future for them anyhow, right?

She hadn’t told Jason because he’d been away at college, hanging out with Alex and earning a degree he’d use when he came back to the farm.

Her parents had said they understood, asked if she was going to be okay, and each gave her hugs.

“Yep. I’m good.”

She had smiled broadly and walked up the stairs to her room. Behind the closed door she blasted Garth Brooks from her stereo, sat at on her bed, laid there on her side for a few moments starring at the blank wall of  her bedroom and then cried until her throat and chest burned.

As if Ben’s breaking up with her to date Angie hadn’t been enough, Molly was in the convenience store a week later when she heard Ben’s voice from another aisle.

“Yeah, I know it is weird,” he was saying. “But it was time. Molly’s a nice girl, but Angie. Dang. Angie. She’s hot. She’s got legs that go for miles. And she’s so slender she just fits against me perfectly, you know?”

One of Ben’s friends laughed a laugh Molly could only think to describe as a dirty laugh. “Fits against you? Dude, how far have things gone with Angie?”

Ben joined the laughter. “That’s personal, man. All I can say is she has way more experience than Molly Tanner ever did or ever will.”

Molly’s sob had caught in her throat as she sat the soda and chips she’d been holding onto the counter and darted outside. Tears streaked her face all the way back to the farm, her hands tightly gripping the steering wheel of her grandfather’s old pickup. At church the pastor always acted like God cared more about what a person looked like inside, but Molly knew that wasn’t what Ben cared about. Somehow, it seemed to matter more at that moment what Ben cared about.

As she drove, she vowed to never again let herself fall for someone like she had fallen for Ben. She’d never let those walls down again, let any man see the deepest parts of her. She was going to keep her distance from men from now on, keep herself from feeling the pain she felt now.

She vowed that one day she’d lose weight and make Ben Oliver regret he’d walked away from her all those years ago. Watching the feed fill the wheelbarrow, Molly felt self-focused anger rage through her. Ben wasn’t going to regret he’d left her if he saw her now. She’d never lost that weight and had maybe gained more. What she hadn’t gained was more experience at whatever she should have had experience at, at whatever experience Angie had had. She was still the same, fat Molly and there was no way Ben would ever regret he had broken up with her

Fiction Friday: The Farmer’s Daughter Chapter 7

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 2 Comments

Catch up with the rest of The Farmer’s Daughter, a continuing story, at the link at the top of the page or HERE. You can also read my short romance story Quarantined about Liam and Maddie Grant, an estranged couple who get caught in quarantine together.

“I had to explain to the woman that CBD oil is not pot and she will not get high off of it,” Liz said, sliding her shoes off and sliding her legs under her on the couch. “I mean, what did she think, we were selling pot plants in the store? So, she said she’d think about buying the oil the next time she’s in. I don’t know, at least the conversation with this lady was way tamer than the one with that guy with the rash . . .”

Liz shuddered at the memory.

“I did not need that much detail about how fast his rash had spread, or where it had spread to.”

Molly handed Liz a glass of iced tea and sat next to her.

“You certainly have some interesting stories from that health food store,” Molly said, shaking her head. “I’m afraid my stories aren’t that exciting – unless you want to hear about the udder infection one of our cows had and how I had to apply udder cream on her every morning for two months.”

Liz’s face scrunched up in disgust.

“That’s right up there with the rash dude,” she said, grimacing.

“So, Liz, tell me – what’s up with you and Matt?”

Liz shrugged. “We’ve gone out twice now. He’s nice, I guess. Even if he is a friend of your dorky brother.”

“He is a little older than you and I’d hate to see you rush into anything,” Molly said. “It’s only been a couple of months since you —”

“I know,” Liz interrupted. “Since I told Gabe to get lost. Matt and I have just gone to a couple of movies and bowling. We’ve talked, hung out, but neither of us is really interested in anything serious.”

Molly sipped her tea, sitting next to Liz. “I don’t mean to be nagging, or too motherly. I just don’t want to see you get hurt again.”

“Oh, Molly, don’t worry about it. I know you are just trying to protect me. That’s what friends do.”

Gabe and Liz had dated since their senior year of high school. They’d taken a break while Liz attended a two-year business course at the local community college and Gabe had decided to attend a four-year college four hours away. The relationship picked up, gaining intensity when Gabe graduated and opened a physical therapy office in town. The relationship was tumultuous at its best, chaotic at its worst.

The day Liz called Molly, sobbing into the phone, Molly knew it was over. Liz had finally had enough of Gabe flirting with other women and was certain he had cheated on her after she’d agreed to move in with him.

“It’s not my bra,” she’d told Molly. “It’s someone else’s bra, in our apartment. How could I have been so dumb?”

“You’re not dumb, Liz,” Molly told her. “You may have ignored your intuition but you’re not dumb.”

Molly helped Liz move out of the apartment, back to her parents and had also helped her resist picking up her cell when Gabe tried to reach her. Liz had sunk into a deep depression for three weeks after the break-up, feeling as if she’d walked away from everything her parents had taught her and she’d learned at church when she moved in with Gabe. Molly reminded her there was forgiveness and healing from any shame she felt.

“You know, I don’t know how I would have made it without you,” Liz said, sitting her glass down on the end table by the couch. “I’d probably still be in that apartment listening to Gabe tell me that it would never happen again – for the twentieth time.”

“Not necessarily,” Molly said. “You’re stronger than you give yourself credit for. You would have finally had enough and cut him off, even without me.”

Liz placed her hands together on her lap and focused on Molly.

“Enough about me. It’s time to talk about you, Molly. It’s time to get you out and about a little bit. The annual summer benefit dance for the fire company is coming up in a few weeks. Let’s find you a date and go together. Maybe I’ll take Matt.”

Molly rolled her eyes. “You know I don’t go to dances.”

Liz laughed. “No one dances at that thing. Not really. It’s mainly for eating, talking and, for some people, an excuse to get drunk.”

Molly scooped her hair up in her hand and wrapped a scrunchy around it.

“I don’t even know who I’d go with. But I don’t mind tagging along with you for fun. Even if I do hate socializing with – well, anyone.”

Liz and Molly both laughed.

Liz’s eyebrows raised and Molly knew that meant Liz thought she had a brilliant idea. “Molly, why don’t you ask Alex to go with you?”

“Liz, no.” Molly shook her head, holding up her hands in front of her as if to stop that suggestion right in its tracks.

“Why not?”

“It’s just – I don’t know – he’s my brother’s friend and we work together and —”

“And that’s enough excuses,” Liz interrupted. “He’s good looking. He’s funny. It’s not like you’re asking him to get married. You’re just asking if he wants to go to the banquet with you.”

“He’s also older than me.”

“By like five or six years, not twenty,” Liz said. “You should just ask him.”

Molly drank the rest of her iced tea and walked toward the kitchen.

“I’ll think about it, but I don’t think so. He won’t want to take me. He hates dances as much as I do.”

Liz sat back against the arm of the couch and slid her feet up on the cushions, sighing.

“What we really need to talk about is what you brought up the other day at sewing club. About how you’re thinking of spreading your wings and branching out from the farm. What about asking Liam Finley at the Journal about some freelance work or writing a column? Or you could start a blog. That could be a way of branching out without making a drastic change.”

Molly’s face scrunched up in disgust at the mention of Liam Finley. In some ways, he was the stereotypical small-town newspaper editor – sleazy, unshaven, frequently intoxicated and a womanizer. He was not, however, balding, or fat. She also didn’t necessarily see the Spencer Journal as the highest form of journalistic integrity, but then again, it was better than some in an age of declining integrity overall for journalism.

“I never even finished my degree,” Molly said.

Liz shrugged. “I doubt Liam would care and you could raise the quality of that paper if you submitted a column.”

Molly didn’t like the idea of writing for the small newspaper in the town neighboring hers. She’d always imagined writing for larger publications, but everyone had to start somewhere she supposed.

“How do you know Liam anyhow?” Molly asked.

Liz rolled her eyes. “He was a friend of Gabe’s.”

Molly grimaced. “That doesn’t make me feel any better about submitting any of my writing to him then.”

Liz shrugged again. “Eh. He’s okay. A little messed up but he’s more level headed than I’d expected. He and Gabe mainly went out drinking a lot together. And he only made a pass at me once. He’s good at what he does, though, and seems to be able to separate the personal from the professional.”

“Well, I’ll think about it,” Molly said. “Who knows. Maybe doing something different means leaving Spencer.”

Liz leaned forward, eyes narrowing. “Molly Tanner. You are not seriously considering leaving me alone in this God-forsaken dump of a town, are you? Don’t you dare.”

Molly sighed and tipped her head back against the couch. “I don’t know, Liz. All I know is I feel so . . . stuck. So stagnant. So . . . I don’t even know what.”

Molly didn’t like the smirk on her friend’s face.

“Maybe you need a little excitement,” Liz said, raising her eyebrows. “And asking Alex to that dance certainly would be exciting.”

Molly playfully tossed a pillow at Liz, laughing. “Liz, stop it! Why don’t we just change the subject? Are you going to go with the ladies group with Tuesday?”

“You can change the subject, lady, but I’m going to keep on you until you ask Alex to take you to the banquet,” Liz said, sipping her tea. “And yeah, I think I’ll go this week. Jane cut the hours for the store back on the weekends now, so I don’t have to be there late anymore.”

“Good! It will be nice to have you there,” Molly said. “I’m not sure what we’re discussing this week, but it will be a good time for fellowship with other women.”

Liz grinned. “Molly, you sound so ‘holy’ anymore. Listen to you. ‘Fellowship with other women.’ Why don’t you just say, ‘We’re going to hang out with some other women.’?”

Molly laughed. “Yeah, I guess I am starting to use a lot of,” she made quote marks with her fingers. “Christianese these days. I’ll try not to do that anymore.”

“It’s okay,” Liz said. “As long as you don’t try to pray a demon out of me.”

Molly almost snorted tea out of her nose. “I don’t think there is any chance of me doing that.”

She leaned forward, reaching for the remote. “Hey, let’s take advantage of your day off and watch a movie.”

“As long as it isn’t anything with Russell Crowe, I’m fine.”

“What’s wrong with Russel Crowe?” Molly asked, looking through her brother’s old stack of DVDs.

Liz rolled her eyes. “He was Gabe’s favorite actor and we had to watch every movie he ever made. Now I can’t see a clip of Gladiator without thinking of Gabe.”

Molly slid a Harrison Ford movie in and sat back on the couch, but found herself unable to concentrate on the movie as she considered Liz’s suggestion about asking Alex to the banquet. Still struggling with how to interpret Alex’s recent change in behavior, she couldn’t wrap her mind around the idea of sitting next to him at a banquet, trying to make small talk without making it obvious everyone else would think they were on an official date.

Of course, asking him to go with her to the banquet could clarify the matter and then she wouldn’t have to wonder anymore. Then again, it could also complicate the situation even further. If she was honest with herself, she was terrified to find out why Alex had been acting strange around her. What if he was simply toying with her to have a story to tell his friends at the bar? She knew he couldn’t be interested in her romantically. She definitely wasn’t his type. Her hips were three times the size of the women he usually dated. Molly glanced at her chest. Well, her chest might be about the same size. She shook her head, trying to focus on the movie again.

Maybe Alex wasn’t acting differently at all. Maybe her restlessness was distorting everything around her, including her friendship with Alex.

She pushed her thoughts of Alex away, forcing herself to figure out what Harrison Ford was telling his female costar. She needed to worry more about what direction her life was taking, or wasn’t taking, than Alex Stone. It would all work out eventually — when she figured out what direction she needed to take to help her feel less . . . Less what? Trapped? Yes. Trapped. That’s how she felt. Trapped in her stagnant, boring life.

So, trapped that she was starting to hallucinate and see things that weren’t even there – like a change in the way Alex looked at her and a change in the way she was seeing him. It must be stress causing her to notice his smile more, the way his eyes sparkled in the sunlight, his long fingers and strong hands, the way his jeans fit . . . She closed her eyes and bit her lower lip, trying to stop her thoughts from spiraling out of control. What other explanation of her confused thoughts and feelings was there than stress? She couldn’t actually have feelings for goofy, obnoxious Alex.

“Harrison Ford still looks amazing for his age, doesn’t he?”

Liz’s comments broke into her thoughts.

“He certainly does,” Molly agreed. “I never thought I’d think a man in his 70s was attractive, but he has proven me wrong.”

With a small laugh to herself, she pushed the thoughts about Alex aside and instead joined Liz in commenting on the movie and admiring Harrison Ford. She could figure out how she felt about Alex and her life on the farm later. 

Special Fiction Saturday: The Farmer’s Daughter, Chapter 6

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 2 Comments

I posted Chapter 5 of The Farmer’s Daughter yesterday. You can catch up on the story HERE or at the link at the top of the page.

The sun was already hot on the back of Robert’s neck and it wasn’t even 9 a.m. yet. He chose a wrench from the toolbox sitting next to the tractor and leaned over the engine, hoping to find out why the tractor had sputtered to a stop earlier in the day.

He knew the rest of this hot day would be a tough one, one that would leave him with a red, burned neck if he wasn’t careful. Annie was always after him to put on his sunscreen. He scoffed almost every time. Sunscreen? Really? He’d lived and worked on this farm his whole life and never wore sunscreen. That was until he met Annie and she ran around behind him with a bottle ready to squirt the cold, white liquid on the back of his neck, arms, ears, anything exposed to the sun. This morning he’d skipped out before she could catch him, but he knew she’d be out eventually, bottle in hand.

“You’re going to need this,” she’d say. “Can’t have you getting skin cancer on top of all the other stresses we’ve got going on at this place.”

Robert reached for a different wrench and bent over the tractor’s engine again. This time the wrench fit smoothly over the bolt and he started twisting, biting his lower lip like he always did when he was focused on a task. Annie was right. There were enough stresses on this farm. His health didn’t need to be one of them. Working the bolt loose he heard a car engine and looking up he watched one of his many stresses weave down the long driveway, past the farmhouse and up toward the barn. It looked like this day wasn’t going to be one of the easy ones.

Dust billowed around the car and rolled toward Robert. He squinted, keeping one eye on the bolt he was working on and one eye on the imposing figure climbing out of the drivers seat of the beat-up blue Toyota Camry. He may have looked imposing, but Robert knew there wasn’t anything imposing about Bill Eberlin, the man he’d known since high school who was more threatening to a plate of wings than he was to another man.

Bill Eberlin lumbered toward him in his familiar gate with a slight limp, button up shirt partially untucked from the top of a pair of oversized black dress pants, his large belly stretching the limit of the shirt. The collar of his ruffled suit coat had somehow gotten flipped up on one side, down on the other, and Robert could see by the sweat glistening on his foreahead that the air conditioning had broke down in his car.

Robert kept his eyes on the engine as Bill approached, tightening his jaw as he worked the bolt loose.

“Robert. How’s it going?”

Robert smiled, glancing briefly at Bill. Bill’s face, his cheeks slightly puffed, slightly sagging from age, was a mix of flushed red and pale white.

“Okay, Bill. How’s it going in the banking business?”

“I think you know the answer to that Robert. Been trying to get you on the phone. Sent you a couple of letters. Haven’t heard back from you, but figured you’ve just been busy. For the last six months.”

Robert’s smile faded. He straightened and focused his gaze on Bill’s. “Yeah, Bill, I know. Walter and I have been talking about how to take care of this. We’ve been meaning to call you.”

Bill let out a long breath, leaned back against the barn door. He rubbed his big hands against his eyes. “Listen, Robert, you know I don’t like being hard on you guys. We went to school together. I like you and your brother and I love to see farms thrive.” He looked up, his expression serious. “It’s my bosses. They’ve really been on me to get you back on track with payments. I want to work with you, okay? If I can just get you to talk to me, we can find a way to make this work.”

Robert wiped grease off his hands and nodded. “I know, Bill. I’m sorry we avoided you. It’s not like me, you know that. I guess I was just trying to buy us some more time. We were hoping for better milk numbers this month and that didn’t happen. We were also helping for a better corn crop and that’s not going so well either. I kept thinking things would get better and —”

Bill chuckled softly, sliding his hands in the pockets of his wrinkled dress pants. “That’s not happening either. I get it buddy. It’s tough for a lot of farmers right now. For a lot of small business owners for that matter. I’m  beginning to feel more like a therapist than a loan officer.”

Robert nodded, walked toward Bill and leaned back against one of the tractor’s towering tires. He and Bill stood there in silence a few moments, looking out over the fields.

Bill sighed. “Times are tough, all over, Robert, is what I’m saying. You’re not the only one in trouble.” He looked over at Robert. “Don’t feel ashamed, alright? I’ve got a 3 o’clock Tuesday. Come in and we’ll work something out. Maybe we can even lower your payments, get you a better interest rate and get you caught up.”

“Thanks, Bill. I’ll be there.”

“Bring that lovely wife of yours too. She brightens up a room. Maybe she can charm the manager into a loan extension.”

Bill winked and stuck his hand out toward Robert, who took it and shook it.

“Be careful out there, Bill,” Robert said, pushing the door to Bill’s car closed.

Bill laughed softly as he slid the key in the ignition. “I know you’re a praying man, Rob, so pray for me. I’m on my way to Nelson Landry’s.”

Robert leaned back from the car and whistled. “You got your bullet proof vest?”

Bill shook his head, and smiled. “I don’t. That’s why I need the prayers. Heard the last guy who drove up there looking for payment had a bullet shot through the back window.”

“Nah,” Robert said. “I heard he just shot a warning shot in the air.”

Bill shifted the car into reverse, his foot still on the break. “Either way, I’m not looking forward to it.”

“Who knows. Maybe you’ll get lucky and this will be one of his hangover days.”

“Yeah, you know, I can’t figure out how he keeps that gas station open and keeps such late nights at the bar at the same time.”

Bill backed out and waved at Robert. “See you Tuesday. Hang in there.”

Robert watched the car disappear down the driveway, filling his cheeks with air and letting it out again. He walked back to the tractor and started working again, hoping Jason would get back from town soon with that part they needed.

“I brought you some lemonade.”

Robert looked up, his face smeared with grease and sweat and when he saw his wife standing there, her dark brown curls falling around her shoulders, the sunlight behind her creating a deep orange aura around her, his stomach flipped like it so often did when he saw her. She still had the same affect on him even after 31 years of marriage. He couldn’t look at her without feeling the way he had at the age of 15 when he’d met her on that merry-go-round at the fair; a teenage giddiness that sent ripples of pleasure through his chest.

Robert straightened from where he’d been bent over the tractor and wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. “Thanks, sweetie.”

He took the glass from her hand and drank it in one long gulp, the cold of it spreading from his chest throughout this limbs,

 “I needed that,” he said handing her the glass. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

She stood, smiling, holding the glass, watching him as he wiped the grease from his hands. “Have you figured out what’s wrong with it yet?”

“Yeah, I think so,” Robert said, avoiding her gaze. He knew she didn’t really want to know about the tractor. She wanted to know why Bill had been there and he knew he was going to have to tell her. He’d hoped she hadn’t seen the exchange, but he knew better. Annie didn’t miss much around this place and it wasn’t easy to keep secrets between them.

 He knew if he looked at her she’d draw it out of him, the same way she drew so much else out of him – deep feelings he wouldn’t share with anyone else: worries, hurts, joys, sadness, fear.

Desire.

Passion.

 He didn’t want her to draw this out of him, to have to admit he was failing his family; that even by working so hard every day on this farm he couldn’t pay his bills, pay his debts, and keep the farm going the same way his father would have.

“How far behind are we, Robert?”

He laughed softly. “You really do know everything that’s going on around here, don’t you?”

Annie smiled. “I’ve been married to you 33 years, Robert Patrick Tanner. I know when something is bothering you. Plus, when Bill Eberlin comes out to the house to talk to you in person, I know it can’t be good. It takes a lot to get him to move from that comfy chair of his.”

Robert studied her calm expression, listened to her evenly toned words, and felt a peace settle over his spirit that he hadn’t had a few moments before.

 “We’re about six months behind,” he said bluntly. “Walt and I’ve been paying other bills and trying to figure out a plan to make payments on the loan at the end of this summer. We didn’t want to tell our families until we got it figured it out. We shouldn’t have done that. I’m sorry we kept this information from you for so long.”

Annie sighed, stepping closer to her husband, and laid her hand against his cheek. “Robert, when will you learn that we are in this together? I’m sure Lauren would tell Walt the same thing. What about Hannah? Have you kept her in the loop on this?”

Robert smiled and shook his head, laying his hand over his wife’s as she moved it to his chest. He hadn’t told his sister, the farm store manager, about the financial struggles, but he had told her husband, Bert, even though Bert, a local mechanic wasn’t even technically part of the business.

“I guess we were a little sexist, us Tanner men and Bert,” he told his wife sheepishly. “Some kind of ancient instinct must have kicked in and we wanted to protect our women, so we discussed a plan to take care of it on our own.”

Annie leaned close and brushed her lips against her husband’s. “We are in this together, Robert. That means you and me, Walt and Lauren and Bert and Hannah. We want to help. Don’t shut us out.”

This woman is still way too good for me, Robert thought as he looked in his wife’s eyes, seeing compassion and concern there, not the anger he probably should have seen.

“We won’t do it again,” he told her. “I promise. We’ll figure this out,” he kissed her gently. “Together. I didn’t mean to lie. It’s just . . . there is so much to worry about. I didn’t want to add more to your plate.”

Annie slipped her arms around his neck. “I know why you did it, Robert. It’s okay. You did it to protect me, not to hurt me. What’s done is done. Now, let’s just start figuring out how to get this business back on track.”

Footsteps behind them pulled Robert’s gaze from his wife’s and he laughed as he saw Jason standing in the doorway with a look of disgust on his face.

“Guys, seriously? Aren’t you a little old to be doing this type of stuff?”

Robert scoffed, his arms sliding easily around his wife’s waist as he pulled her against him. “Too old? Really, Jason? What are you going to do when you get this age? Never kiss Ellie again and become a monk?

Annie laughed, pulled from her husband’s grasp and looked at her son, a hand on her hip. “Speaking of Ellie, when are you going to finally ask that sweet young lady to marry you? You’re not getting any younger and neither is she and this mama wants some grandchildren.”

Jason dipped his head, bright red flushing from the base of his neck up to his forehead, and walked through the doorway, turning a right and heading toward the pig pens. “Need to go check on Bessie and see if she’s ready to give birth to those piglets yet.”

Annie laughed. “Oh, I see how it is. Avoiding the subject, Jason Bradly. Well, you go ahead, but I’m not giving up. I’ll have you married by the end of this year yet.”

“Okay, Mom,” Jason called over his shoulder as he stepped into the mother pig’s pen. “Just go back to making out with Dad. I won’t look.”

Robert and Annie looked at each other and laughed.

“So, do you want to make out, Annie?” Robert asked, pulling her close again, kissing her neck.

Jason shouted from the pig pen: “Oh, my gosh! Guys! I was kidding.  Get a room!”

Annie tipped her head back and laughed and then pressed her mouth against her husbands. When she pulled her mouth away several moments later she laid her hand against the back of his neck.

“Oh my, that skin is hot. I’ll go get the sunscreen. I left some right over here somewhere. . .”

Robert laughed, shaking his head as he watched Annie wander to the other side of the barn near the room he’d built to sleep in when one of the cows were calving or the pigs were in labor. She was nothing if not predictable.