A Family for the Farmer (3 page)

Yes, he'd have another long talk with God. Maybe this time the good Lord would give him some clear instructions about how to handle all this. He sure hoped so, because Abel was going to need all the help he could get.

Chapter Two

P
hoebe fell asleep on the ten-minute ride out to Goosefeather Farm and had to be wakened when they pulled up in front of the white farmhouse. Even Paul's eyelids looked a bit heavy, and he leaned against the clapboards on the shady porch as Emily twisted the metal key in the ancient lock. She was a little surprised when she heard the tumblers click grudgingly back into place. Although her grandmother had given her the key several years ago, Emily had never actually used it. The truth was she'd never known this welcoming red door to be locked, and she was amazed that the key even worked.

She gave the children a snack of apple wedges and cheese at her grandmother's big kitchen table and then took them upstairs and settled them in the spare bedroom for a nap. It was proof of their exhaustion that they accepted this arrangement without a fuss. Phoebe flopped on top of the blue-and-yellow quilt covering the bed nearest the window, cuddled her tattered stuffed rabbit close to her, sighed once and promptly fell back asleep. Paul arranged himself more carefully in the other twin bed, tracing the pointed stars of his matching quilt with a thoughtful finger.

“Are you going to take a nap, too, Mama?” he asked.

She wished. “No. I've got some thinking to do.”

“Oh.” He nodded sagely. “But thinking's hard work, and you're tired. You might better rest awhile first.” After that pronouncement he closed his eyes and stuck his thumb in his mouth.

Emily kissed him gently, smiling at her son's unique mixture of innocence and maturity. His preschool teachers had already labeled Paul gifted. That might explain why he often seemed so much older than his years. Emily still worried that being the son of a single mom was making her little boy grow up too fast. His manly little efforts to take care of his mother and sister made her both proud and sad.

She left the door to the twins' room ajar and crossed the hall to the bedroom that had been hers. Like the rest of the old-fashioned farmhouse, it hadn't changed much in the last six years. Its generous windows faced west, and the early-afternoon sun slanted warmly across the wide oak floorboards. The violet-sprigged curtains were the ones her grandmother had let her choose from a catalogue years ago. Now they were looped back with faded lavender ribbons to show off a view of the farm's rolling fields and trim little barns. Emily's books were still lined up on the white shelf underneath the window, and her teacup collection was arranged along the wide windowsill. Outside this room, Emily's life had rushed forward like a runaway train, but in here time had held its breath.

She doubted her grandmother had left things this way because of sentimentality. Grandma had just been allergic to change, and she'd never paid much attention to the inside of the house anyway. Sadie Elliott had always preferred to be outside spoiling one of her beloved animals or puttering around in her garden. She'd never known quite what to do with her indoorsy granddaughter, but Sadie had still insisted on the annual visits, rightly guessing that Emily's mother was far too busy chasing men to supervise her daughter during her school vacation. And while Emily had never particularly enjoyed spending her summers on the farm, she'd grown to love her outspoken grandmother fiercely.

She could remember exactly where she'd been standing in the coffee shop when Mr. Alvarez relayed the message that her grandmother had died. Emily had dropped the metal tray she'd been sliding into the glass showcase, and muffins had rolled in every direction. Caramel pecan, the Tuesday special. When she got her next paycheck, she'd discovered that Mr. Alvarez had docked her pay to cover the cost of the dropped muffins. Compassion wasn't her boss's strongest trait. If she stayed on the farm for the summer, she'd almost certainly lose her job.

If she stayed.
She couldn't believe she was even considering it. She rummaged in her purse and brought out her cell phone. Forcing herself not to think about the minutes she was squandering, she sank down on the white chenille bedspread and dialed her friend Clary Wright's number.

Clary answered on the first ring. “Well,” she said, “you're using your cell phone, so I already know this is something big. Either your grandmother was secretly a millionaire and left you wads of money, or that rattletrap car of yours conked out and you need your roomie from the big city to drive to the boonies and rescue the three of you. Which is it?”

Emily felt her lips tilting up at her friend's familiar voice. Clary was just what she needed right now. “Neither one. Right now I really just need a listening ear.”

“Uh-oh. You must need one pretty badly to be using those precious minutes of yours. What's up?”

Clary listened as Emily filled her in on the terms of the will. “Wow. So, what did the letter say?”

“I haven't opened it yet.” Emily glanced at the envelope lying beside her on the bedspread. “I think... I think I'd like to make up my own mind about what I want to do before I read it. That's why I called. I don't have a clue what I'm supposed to do here, Clary.”

“Now that's a switch.” Clary's laugh bubbled through the phone. “You've never had much trouble knowing your own mind, Em. I'm always the one calling you.”

“Well, this isn't exactly an easy choice.” Emily glanced out the window at the tidy barnyard. “On the one hand this could make a real difference for the twins and me. Financially, I mean. There's over a hundred acres here, not to mention the farmhouse and the barns. I have no idea how much it'd sell for, but...”

“Whatever it is, it's a lot more than you've got right now,” Clary finished for her. “You've been praying for the money to start up your own coffee shop, Em. Maybe this is the answer you've been waiting for.”

Emily had thought of that, too. “It's possible, I guess. But it seems like a pretty strange way for God to answer. I stink at farming.”

“You only have to hold things together for the summer. How hard can it be?”

How hard can it be?
Emily wanted to laugh, but it really wasn't funny. “Harder than you can imagine. You've never lived in the country, Clary. You don't know about farms.”

“Maybe not, but I know about you. You're a working single mom of twins, Emily! Farming should be a snap compared to that.”

“But if I stay here for the whole summer, I'll lose my job at Café Cup for sure.”

“True,” Clary admitted after a thoughtful second. “But you know, maybe that wouldn't be such a bad thing. Mr. Alvarez takes advantage of you.”

Emily sighed. Clary, who tended to flit from job to job, had worked at Café Cup herself. Her accident-prone nature and the boss's skinflinty tendencies hadn't been a good combination. “You just don't like him because he fired you.”

“Not true. I don't hold grudges. You know that. No, this is all about you. How many of your muffin recipes are on his menu now? Five?”

“Six.”

“And aren't those his best sellers?”

“Usually.” Emily felt a tiny flush of satisfaction.

“But he pays you the same as the other waitresses, right? Even though you're creating these unique recipes and baking half his product? I'm not sure I'd pass up this opportunity just to keep a job like that.”

“But if I lose my job, how can I pay my half of our rent?” Emily felt panicky just thinking about it.

“Don't worry about that. I can stretch my budget a little bit and handle the rent by myself for a while.”

“I can't ask you to do that.”

“You didn't ask. You never do. And this time I'm not taking no for an answer. Listen.” Clary's soft voice took on an uncharacteristic firmness. “You can do this, Em. I know you can! And what's more, I know you'll never forgive yourself if you don't at least try.”

Clary had a point. Emily ended the call and set the phone down on the snowy bedspread. Well, she couldn't put this off forever. She took one steadying breath and tore up the envelope's flap.

Her grandmother's message was written in blue ballpoint pen on a plain sheet of notebook paper. Sadie Elliott had never been one for frills or preambles. She got right to the point.

I know right now you're probably pretty hot at me, but you're just going to have to get over it.

You're not much on trusting folks, Emily-girl, and I understand that. But you're going to have to trust me on this one thing. I had my reasons for leaving things the way I did. Believe it or not, I did it because I love you, and I want what's best for you. And like all old folks, I think I've got a better idea of what that is than you do, so I couldn't resist taking one last opportunity to meddle a little.

You've got plenty of spunk and grit in you, Emily. I admire that—probably because you got those things from me. You're also stubborn as a country mule. That part you got from your grandpa. When that man made up his mind about something, he was harder to move than a sack of bees.

You settled on an opinion about Pine Valley and Goosefeather Farm a long time ago, and I don't think you gave either of them a fair shake. I always felt like you were made and meant for this old place, but you were too bullheaded to consider its good points and too busy mooning after the likes of Trey Gordon to notice what the good Lord put right under that pretty little nose of yours.

But there's no point my going into all that now. Anyhow, it's something you'll have to figure out for yourself.

Maybe you're right, and you never belonged here. Then again maybe you're wrong. You know well enough what I always thought. Here's your chance to find out once and for all which one of us is right.

As usual, I'm banking on me. I'm not much to look at, but I'm smart as a whip.

Praying God's blessings on you and those sweet babies.

All my love,

Grandma

While she was reading, the tears Emily had been fighting all day had spattered down on her grandmother's writing, making wet circles on the paper. She'd heard her grandmother's voice just as plainly as if the feisty old lady had been sitting next to her.

She folded up the letter carefully and slipped it back into its envelope. She sat on the bed for a few minutes listening to the ponderous ticking of the grandfather clock at the base of the stairs and the occasional squawk of a chicken from the barnyard.

When nineteen-year-old Emily's pregnancy test had come up positive, Grandma had set her lips together tightly and left the room for fifteen minutes. When she returned, she'd given her granddaughter a fierce hug and told her she was welcome to stay at Goosefeather Farm for as long as she liked. They'd raise the baby together with God's help.

She'd never understood Emily's unwillingness to take her up on that offer, and she hadn't approved of Emily's choice to return to Atlanta. Sadie's concerns turned out to be right on target. When Emily got back to her mother's apartment, she discovered that Marlene had followed her latest boyfriend to Florida, leaving nothing behind but a stack of overdue bills and a scribbled note saying that Emily was plenty old enough to manage on her own. If Sadie had known half of what Emily had gone through during her first months alone in the city, her grandmother would have driven her old Ford truck up there and hauled her granddaughter straight back to Pine Valley.

Sadie Elliott had been an independent woman herself, though, and she'd reluctantly allowed Emily to forge her own path. Still she'd never really understood why Emily was so stubborn in her refusal to return to Pine Valley or why Emily had gone to such great lengths to entice her grandmother up to Atlanta for holidays and birthday celebrations. Sadie had felt Emily was being unreasonable, and she'd said so on several occasions.

But Grandma hadn't known everything.

Before Emily had gone to her grandmother with her suspicions, she'd already been to speak to Trey Gordon and his widowed mother, Lois. Naive as she'd been back then, Emily had banked on Trey's boyish promises, and she'd confidently expected to be making wedding plans once the initial shock subsided.

Instead Trey's socially prominent mother had wasted no time setting Emily straight. There would be no marriage. Her son's bright future wasn't going to be dimmed by tying himself to the likes of Emily Elliott, no matter what kind of fix she'd managed to get herself in. In Lois's opinion Emily's best option was to take herself and her problems back up to Atlanta. Given the sort of woman Emily's mother was, Lois had no doubt Marlene would know how to deal with this. Trey had simply sat by without saying a word, letting his mother fillet Emily into quivering strips with her barbed tongue.

Trey had been killed in a drunk driving accident over four years ago, but apparently his mother had never forgiven Emily for having the audacity to expect her precious son to shoulder his rightful responsibilities. Lois had made that perfectly clear when she bumped into Emily on the morning of Sadie Elliott's funeral. Emily had felt the chill radiating off Trey's mother from all the way across the room, and it had been a profound relief when she'd finally been able to put Pine Valley in her rearview mirror and head back to the haven of the Atlanta apartment she and the twins shared with Clary.

Now she was supposed to stay here for the whole summer? It was a daunting thought.

She got to her feet and crossed over the creaking floor to the window that looked out over the farm. She could see her grandma's milk cow grazing placidly in the pasture on the right-hand side of the house and the vegetable garden to the left with its tidy rows. The far field was dotted with black Angus cows. They were the farm's bread and butter and depended on the hay fields, which were tucked out of sight behind the house.

It all looked so serene and orderly. Emily knew it was anything but.

Already weeds were impudently sprouting up between the plants in the garden, and each row of vegetables would end up requiring hours of labor before the produce made it to the local farmers' market or to the farmhouse kitchen, where it would have to be processed and canned to be stored for winter eating. That cow would have to be milked night and morning no matter what else was going on, and the dairy pails and strainers would have to be scrubbed and sanitized daily. Those black Angus cows would need to be carefully monitored and fed if they were going to bring top price at the end of the summer. Then there were the goats and the chickens to look after.