Total pages in book: 89
Estimated words: 86073 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 430(@200wpm)___ 344(@250wpm)___ 287(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 86073 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 430(@200wpm)___ 344(@250wpm)___ 287(@300wpm)
“It’s not about the number.” I don’t elaborate. He’s been around here long enough. He knows exactly what it’s about.
He clears his throat. “Look, I get it. I do. But you would’ve torn the house down. That place? My grandfather built it with his bare hands. I couldn’t stomach seeing it flattened and turned into soybeans.”
If it were any other piece of property, he’d be right.
I would’ve leveled it.
Same as I’ve done with every farm I’ve ever bought.
Land’s more valuable when it works.
An empty house taking up fertile soil isn’t just an eyesore, it’s a liability, an expense.
But this is different.
The house would’ve stayed, just like I promised someone years ago.
“You should meet her,” he says. “Seems nice. Polite. Said she grew up around here. Can’t remember her name now. But her stepdad’s Will Cunningham. You know him?”
I don’t dignify his stupid question with a response.
Everyone knows Will.
You can’t be living in Colton Valley and not know Will Cunningham.
He’s done some trucking for me during harvest when I’ve been short on help. I knew he had children and he’d mention them from time to time, but I never paid much attention to the details as it was irrelevant to me. He’d ramble on about something, and I’d always change the subject back to work because time is money and he was on the clock. My clock.
“You seen her yet? Heard she’s quite the looker,” Rich adds, chuckling. “Won’t be long before someone swoops in and snatches that one right up.”
I grimace.
Never understood guys like Rich when it comes to women. The way they talk like women are game to be caught. Display pieces. Prey. Trophies. It’s dehumanizing, and it makes us seem like brain-dead Neanderthals with one thing on our mind.
Sure, beauty catches the eye.
But it also makes idiotic men do idiotic things.
That’s all it’s good for.
“You should introduce yourself,” Rich pushes once more, as if he’s hoping to bandage the damage by playing matchmaker, “now that you’re neighbors.”
“Gotta get back to work,” I tell him, steering the tractor toward the next row.
“All right, all right. I know you’re upset with me, McCrae, but it’ll all be fine. You take care now.”
I end what’s likely our final call ever without saying goodbye.
The weight of this news settles around me like a suffocating second skin.
The last forty acres of farmable riverfront land in the county.
A neighbor I didn’t want.
A promise I’ll never get to keep.
No peace. No privacy.
Just me and some city blonde for miles and miles.
6
Wren
It’s been two days since I saw Hunter last.
Two days—and I can’t stop thinking about that handsome blue-eyed killjoy from the grocery store. Nor can I stop picturing him in those faded, dirt-covered jeans, dusty work boots, and holey gray sweatshirt that hugged his broad shoulders like it was its sole purpose in life. He might as well have been strutting the aisles in Italian couture, because those clothes were made for his physique.
And his hands.
My god, those hands . . .
They were generous and slightly weathered in the kind of way that tells you he can fix things. They didn’t appear soft, like those of a man who spends his days pushing paper. They seemed capable, competent, steady. And the small traces of earth beneath his fingernails only added to their appeal.
I spent the weekend running errands, hoping maybe I’d run into him again, though in a town of two thousand, there weren’t many errands to run and it took less than two hours to knock out my list.
It’s quiet today. Almost unnervingly so. Atticus started his new day camp, though he seemed reluctant to leave this morning. He’s turning into a wildling already—spending every minute he can outside, hair full of grass, jeans streaked with mud and bug juice, the happiest I’ve seen him in a year. The boy who used to plead for extra iPad time now begs for me to “check the fences” with him. Yesterday we caught a frog and started building a fort with sticks and rope and boundless imagination.
This place is already working its magic on him.
And in between all that magic, I’ve been teaching him to read. If I play my cards right, he’ll be a little bookworm like me in no time and have an affinity for embracing life’s adventures, big and small.
Later this afternoon, I’m going to look at that pony. A little palomino Shetland named Sugarplum my mom’s neighbors are interested in rehoming. She’s slow, gentle, practically a four-legged lawn ornament, but she’s perfect. A starter horse, they called her. Amazing with kids. Atticus doesn’t know yet, and I can’t wait to see his face if I decide to bite the bullet and bring her home.
But for now, I’m alone. Free. Resting in a rare, delicious pocket of stillness and fatigue. Tired but wired with a mind that won’t shut off.