A Family for the Farmer (4 page)

And the hay field. Emily didn't even want to think about that hay field. Haying was backbreaking work that required the use of a lot of complicated equipment that she couldn't even imagine running on her own. She didn't know much about any of this. She'd spent most of her summers on the farm trying to avoid this type of work so she could spend her time tinkering around in her grandma's old-fashioned kitchen. And now she had the twins to look after, as well.

Her grandma had always counted on Abel Whitlock to do the toughest farm work, but Emily could hardly expect him to help out now, not when he stood to inherit the place if she made a mess of things. Besides, even if he were willing, she had no money to pay him.

She might as well face it. She was on her own. And that was fine, she told herself, lifting her chin a fraction. She was better off that way. Depending on other people was what generally got her in trouble.

Through the window Emily watched a hen that had somehow managed to escape from the coop, wandering the yard, clucking and pecking at bugs. She'd have to catch the silly bird before a hawk did and then try to block the hole in the chicken pen. She'd have to see the rest of the animals settled for the night, too, which meant she was going to have to take her first shot at milking a cow in years.

Then she'd have to go back to Atlanta and do her best to explain things to Mr. Alvarez. Given her boss's temperament, she knew keeping her job was unlikely, but she'd see what she could do. She needed that job.

Because the minute the farm was legally hers, Emily planned to stick a for-sale sign in the yard, point her little car back toward Atlanta, and once again put Pine Valley and all its painful memories in her rearview mirror—this time permanently. For once in her life, Sadie Elliott had gotten things utterly and completely wrong.

Emily didn't belong on Goosefeather Farm. She never had, and she never would.

* * *

Abel rounded the corner of Miss Sadie's barn and stopped short in the wide doorway. Beulah the cow was clumsily tied into her stanchion, and Emily was crouched down beside her, trying to poke the stainless steel milking pail under the bulging udder. The twins were standing a respectful distance away watching the process with doubtful expressions.

For a moment Abel was distracted by the picture they made. The fading sunlight reached through the slats of the barn wall to highlight Emily's honey-colored hair, which was gathered into a messy knot on the top of her head. The twins were mostly in shadow with only their faces picking up the light.

Abel's fingers itched for a sketch pad. There was so much here he could carve: the curves of Emily's face, the sturdy, childish shapes of the twins...

The cow shifted irritably. Abel blinked, and his mind shifted abruptly back into gear. “Emily, look out there! You're on the wrong side. She's going to kick you!”

As if on cue the Jersey lifted one fawn-colored leg and struck out sideways in Emily's direction. Emily fell backward, her breath escaping her in a loud huff, while Beulah focused on aiming her second kick at the empty pail.

The pail landed next to Emily with a loud clang that set the hens clucking worriedly. Abel crossed the barn in three strides and knelt down beside Emily, whose gray-green eyes were wide.

“Did she get you?” Abel asked as he helped Emily back to her feet. “She can be an ornery old girl. You have to watch her.”

“I'm all right.” She stepped away from him, dusting off her pants with quick, irritated motions. “Stupid cow.”

“Beulah's smart enough. That's the problem. If she was stupid, she'd be a lot easier to handle.” Since Emily seemed unhurt, Abel turned his attention to the cow. He placed a reassuring hand on Beulah's flank and murmured to her, settling her with his familiar touch and voice. The Jersey gave a long-suffering sigh and rolled her big brown eyes reproachfully in his direction.
About time you showed up
, she seemed to be saying.

He almost hadn't come at all. He'd dawdled a full forty-five minutes after his normal chore time wondering if he should. In the end his concern for the animals had won out. Emily didn't know the routines, and she didn't know where the feed was. He didn't know if she wanted his help or not, but he knew she needed it. So, like it or not, she was going to get it.

“Maybe I'd better milk her out for you tonight.” He righted the toppled pail with one hand and scooped up the three-legged milking stool with the other. “Cows are kind of particular about their milking routine, Beulah more than most,” he explained, stepping over to the other side of the fidgeting cow. “She'll probably behave herself better for somebody she's used to.” As he settled in on the correct side, he could feel the cow relaxing. She took up a mouthful of grain and began crunching calmly, looking as if she'd never tried to kick anybody in her life.

Abel, on the other hand, felt as jumpy as a cricket in a henhouse...and a whole lot less welcomed. Emily was still standing in the spot where he'd left her, and the twins, their eyes big with curiosity, were watching him clean off Beulah's full udder with the wipes Miss Sadie kept on hand.

Abel had never spent much time around kids, and the few he'd run into here and there hadn't left all that favorable an impression. These two seemed different. He liked the no-nonsense way the boy had of summing things up, and Emily's little girl had a real special sparkle to her.

He liked them just fine, but that didn't mean he knew how to talk to them. It didn't help matters that they kept staring at him wide-eyed like two tawny little owls. Fortunately for Abel, milking was a great way to avoid eye contact. He kept his gaze focused on the streams of creamy liquid that jetted into the bucket with a ringing hiss as his practiced hands did their work.

Paul walked over and hunkered down next to him, watching the process with a wrinkled nose. “I don't think I like milk anymore.”

“Me, either,” said Phoebe, who was keeping a safe distance.

“Aw, now. You'll hurt Beulah's feelings talking like that. Anyhow, I expect you'll change your mind when you taste this milk. Beulah's milk is the best in the county, maybe even the state. You'll see.”

“Paul, back up. I don't want that cow to kick you.” Emily sounded irked.

“He's all right. She's not in a kicking mood anymore,” Abel said evenly. “She was just reminding you that cows like to be milked from the right, that's all.”

“How does a cow know the difference between right and left?” Paul was skeptical. “Even Phoebe doesn't know that yet.”

“I do, too, know that!”

“You don't, either.”

“Children.” Emily's voice held a tinge of desperation. “Why don't you go look at the chickens for a few minutes and let me speak to Mr. Abel?”

“Chicken feed's in that big metal can over there. You can throw some to 'em if you want to,” Abel suggested. The twins scurried off excitedly.

“Stay outside the pen,” Emily called. “That rooster might be mean.”

“He is that,” Abel agreed. “Newman's about the meanest rooster I've ever seen. Your grandma was the only one who could handle him.”

Emily fixed him with chilly eyes. “What are you doing here, Abel?”

“It's milking time. I thought you might need a hand.” He'd been right, but he figured it was the better part of wisdom not to point that out.

“I can manage on my own.” Emily tilted up her chin as if daring him to argue with her.

He wasn't going to. According to the information that had filtered down through Miss Sadie to him over the last six years, managing on her own was Emily's specialty. This woman had plenty of grit. She was just a little low on know-how.

And maybe gratitude, come to think of it.

“I'm not saying you can't handle things by yourself, but it's been a while since you had to deal with this kind of stuff, and now you've got twins to look after in the bargain. I know the ropes around Goosefeather, and your grandma was good to me. I'm just trying to help you out a little.”

“Yes, well. Your helping me is kind of a conflict of interest right now, isn't it?”

Abel felt temper flare inside him. The tempo of his milking upped a little, but he kept his voice carefully calm. “Not the way I see it, no.” There was a pause, punctuated by the hiss of the milk foaming in the half-full bucket and the excited clucking of the hens as Paul and Phoebe tossed cracked corn through the chicken wire.

Emily sighed sharply. “I just don't think this is a wise move right now, Abel. Your helping, I mean.”

“That kind of depends on what you call wise, I guess,” Abel said, stripping the last drops of milk from Beulah's deflated udder. He lifted the heavy pail from under the cow's belly and topped it with its clean lid before setting it safely to the side. “Maybe you and I have different takes on it. Like right now it seems to me you're looking a gift horse in the mouth, and that sure doesn't seem all that smart to me.” He angled himself under the cow and carefully applied the spray that would help protect her from mastitis.

“Sorry, but it's been my experience that gifts, horses or otherwise, tend to come with strings attached.”

“Mama!” Phoebe's excited voice called over from the chicken pen. “Did you say
horse
? Is there a horsie here? I love horsies!”

“No, hon. No horsies,” Emily called back.

“Can we get one? Please?”

“Good heavens, no! The last thing I need around here is something else to feed and look after,” Emily added under her breath.

“You've got a lot on your plate all right,” Abel agreed. “That's why I think it'd be foolish of you not to take what help you can get.” He stood up, unhooked Beulah from her stanchion and gave her an affectionate slap on her bony rump as she ambled peaceably out of the barn to graze in the evening cool. “And just so you know, I don't do gifts with strings, Emily. Either I give them or I don't. Look, I know you're mad about how Miss Sadie left the will, and I can't say that I blame you. I'm none too happy about it, either.”

“Yes. So you said.”

There was something in her voice, some subtle tone of disbelief that jarred a little of his temper loose. It wasn't the first time somebody had distrusted him, far from it, but it sure stung coming from Emily Elliott of all people, here in the one place where he'd always been trusted and relied on in spite of his last name.

“It's the truth, but I reckon you can believe it or not as it suits you. That doesn't change the fact that you're going to need some help around here at least at the beginning. I'm willing to give it. If you're as smart as I think you are, you'll put your feelings about all this aside and take me up on it. Otherwise I think you're going to find yourself going under pretty quick.”

Emily looked at him with her indecision written plainly on her face. She had an independent streak a mile wide, and apparently she'd gotten burned often enough not to trust people easily. Her suspicion was warring hard with her common sense, and from the look of things, it might take a while for the dust to settle there. In the meantime, Miss Sadie's animals were already about an hour behind their normal eating schedules. They'd wasted enough time as it was.

He had opened his mouth to say so when suddenly a bloodcurdling child's scream came from the direction of the chicken pen.

“Phoebe!” Emily bolted toward the noise.

“Newman!” Abel overtook Emily in two strides and was inside the chicken coop in a flash. He pushed himself between the five-year-old and the angry bantam and swept up the sobbing little girl in his arms.

“There, now,” he said to Phoebe, keeping his eyes on the tiny rooster, who was stalking around in the corner of the coop, his bright feathers standing out in an angry halo. “It's all right. I've got you.”

“He tried to claw me!” Phoebe snuffled moistly into Abel's neck.

“She went in to get an egg.” Paul spoke from outside the pen, his voice shaking. “I told her not to, but she wouldn't listen. And then the rooster started chasing her and flying up at her!”

“He was protecting his hens. It's what good roosters do. Newman's just not smart enough to figure out that you're not going to hurt them, is all.”

“He's a bad, bad bird!” Phoebe peered around Abel's neck at the little rooster, who crowed fiercely and ruffled his feathers. Phoebe promptly buried her face again, and Abel felt her little hands tighten.

Something in his heart shifted strangely at the feel of those tiny fingers twisting in the fabric of his shirt, and Abel looked narrowly at the strutting rooster. Newman considered Abel's expression, and some primal warning must have flashed in his walnut-sized brain. He settled his feathers and sidled into the depths of his corner, edging behind a fat black-striped hen, who squawked at him irritably.

It looked like Newman was nobody's favorite today.

Emily was beside him now, tugging Phoebe free of his arms and carrying her out of the coop. She knelt down in front of her daughter and checked her over with worried hands.

“I think he just scared her.” Abel shot another meaningful glance at the rooster, who meekly lowered his head and pretended to be interested in pecking at a piece of straw. Abel retrieved the egg that had caught Phoebe's attention and latched the coop door securely behind himself.

“That's why we told you
not
to go into the coop, young lady.” Emily's voice was tense and stern. “You could have gotten hurt. That rooster could have put your eye out.”

In spite of himself Abel couldn't help smiling a little. Emily was a mother all right. Mothers were always concerned about somebody putting an eye out. At least that was what he'd heard. Since his own mother had lit out when he was ten, he didn't have a whole lot of firsthand knowledge in that department.