Chapter 18
eighteen
D eacon Hammond entered the farmhouse where he’d grown up and moved past the formal living room and down the hall to where the house opened up into a massive kitchen, dining room, and living room. A front office sat around the corner, and Deacon had visited his father there many, many times.
Cosette had texted him that she’d put his monthly paperwork there and that it needed to be signed by five o’clock tonight. When he’d become the owner of the farm, he hadn’t realized how much paperwork his father and brother had done.
He knew he was lucky to have Cosette, and he had no idea what he’d do when the woman decided to retire. She probably still had a good ten years in her, and Deacon pushed away the worry.
“Hey, Jane,” he said to his sister, moving over to give her a side squeeze at the island. “How’s Molly today?” He glanced into the living room, where he often found his sister-in-law sleeping in the afternoons.
“Hunter just took her out for a walk,” Jane said, and Deacon nodded.
“I just saw her parents leaving.”
“Yeah, they’re going to town to get a few things,” Jane said. “I know her mom’s coming back tonight.”
Molly had been out of the hospital for a week, but she still struggled with all the classic symptoms of a concussion. Hunter had sent horrifying photos of deep blue and purple bruising down the left side of her ribcage and toward her hip.
She’d been to the doctor almost every day since the accident, and she had not been back out to the barns or stables at all.
Well, that part wasn’t entirely true. She’d visited Lady a couple of times on the three short walks that Hunter made her take every day.
She got visually and auditorily overstimulated easily, and she had to retreat to a dark room and be alone—or at least, the person who sat with her had to be silent.
And one of Deacon’s superpowers was being quiet.
He often came to sit with Molly in the afternoons so that Hunter could deal with his restless teenagers, as well as anything out on the farm that needed to be done. Jane ran her husband’s mechanic shop, but she’d been bringing food and company whenever she could.
“I have to go,” Jane said. “You guys are all okay here? Her parents said they wouldn’t be back until after dinner.”
“We’re fine here,” Deacon said. “I just have some paperwork to sign in the office, and then I need my afternoon downtime.” He smiled at his sister, and she hugged him again before she left.
Deacon followed her out and sat in the swing his brother had installed on the front porch.
I’m just sitting in the swing, he texted. Text me when you get back and I’ll come sit with Molly while she naps.
It’s not a good day, Hunter said. Our walk won’t be very long.
No problem, Deacon replied as his heart ached for both Hunter and Molly. He should probably get up and get that paperwork signed while he had the chance. Just like Lady, he didn’t like leaving Molly alone once she was in his care.
A car came around the curve a couple hundred yards away, and Deacon watched as it slowly trundled toward the barn. He recognized the SUV as Kristie’s, and she turned and technically went off-road on the south side of the barn.
She was here to check on Lady.
Deacon admired her tenacity and dedication to the horse’s care.
And if there was a man who spoke less than Deacon, it was Mission Redbay.
He had not brought up his relationship with Kristie since their Sabbath Day lunch at Opal’s—that had been three weeks ago now—and as far as Deacon knew, they were still together.
Deacon had turned twenty-six a few months ago, and he certainly wasn’t old by any means.
Hunter had returned to town when he was twenty-six, and he and Molly had been married soon after that.
Deacon had been almost seven at that time, and he’d grown up with Molly on the farm and in his life—as Hunter’s wife and through all his most important memories.
She was practically a second mother to him, and she’d always treated him with love and kindness. Like he was the smartest person in the room.
Deacon knew he wasn’t, and most days, he could barely believe that he owned this farm.
He and Hunter ran it together right now.
Tuck hadn’t wanted it, and neither had Jane.
The farm felt like it lived in Deacon’s blood, fused into his DNA, and he’d never wanted anything but to work the land, raise the cattle, and ride the horses right here where he’d grown up.
He thought of his parents, who now lived in Coral Canyon, Wyoming, and a powerful wave of missing rolled through him.
Everyone in his immediate family now had a significant other except for him, and he had never felt so lost and alone and afraid as he did in that moment.
You could do something and change that, he said to himself as he toed the swing gently back and forth. You could ask a woman out.
He met plenty of women at church and around the farm. They had cowgirls who worked here, and female counselors, and a dozen suppliers who came and went. The fact was, no one had ever really caught Deacon’s eye or intrigued him very much.
And with those thoughts stuck in his mind and a huff coming out of his mouth, he pushed himself to his feet and went inside to get his paperwork done.
A couple of hours later, Deacon sat in the dark bedroom with Molly several feet away, asleep in the bed.
He liked the recliner in the corner best, as it faced her. He could instantly look up from his phone—or open his eyes, if he’d been resting—and see her.
But the noise he just heard had not come from her.
He also liked this spot because once Molly fell asleep with her weighted blanket and her eye mask over her face, he could twitch the curtain back a little bit and let the daylight in.
He’d done that and cracked the window at the same time, so he could listen to the Colorado breeze as it rustled through the trees.
Another sound came. A small cry. Almost like the tiny meow of a newborn kitten. An extra rustle followed, and Deacon realized he was not listening to Molly have a fitful dream—or the cries of a cat.
The rustling had been a sniffle, and the sound was very much human.
His heart beat a little faster. Deacon wasn’t the most emotional man on the planet, and he would rather avoid conflict than run headlong into it.
His muscles tensed.
He waited.
When he didn’t hear the sound again for several long moments, he turned his head a couple of inches and looked out the narrow two-inch strip of the window he could see.
Nothing seemed amiss.
So he went back to reading about sprinkler systems and pest management.
He’d never gone to college, but he’d grown up in the era of the Internet and currently lived in the Information Age, where anything he didn’t know probably had a dozen videos online to explain it.
His brothers had joked with him more than once about how he should start a video channel with his dry humor and grumpy attitude about everything on the farm. He could come up with the funniest, wittiest captions and get millions of views.
Deacon had less than zero interest in that, and, in general, found social media to be a waste of time. He appreciated the information videos that taught him how to change a filter on a fifty-year-old tractor or de-ice a fuel pump during a sudden freeze, though.
The cry sounded again.
Deacon whipped his head up. This time, he got to his feet and pulled the curtain back a little further. He searched the backyard, still seeing absolutely nothing that would cause such a cry. Perhaps Molly was nightmaring.
Then, a dark-haired woman came around the corner of the house and into one of the most intimately shaded parts of the yard.
Deacon himself had probably never set foot there, as this corner of the house nearly butted up with the back corner of the generational house, where he lived, and tall aspens and pines filled the space all between and along this side of the houses.
Judy Foster had her eyes on the ground as she walked in a very straight line, and Deacon realized there were railroad ties there, creating raised beds around the basement window wells. She was most likely walking on one of those.
She sniffled.
The previous sounds aligned with the one Deacon now saw her make as he heard it at the same time.
Deacon didn’t know her—not really. She worked at Pony Power as a children’s therapist, and Deacon had nothing to do with that.
He quickly cut his eyes over to Molly, who ruled the roost at the juvenile equine therapy unit. He could barely see her now, as his eyes were not adjusted to the dark.
Then—another startled cry. Much louder than before.
A gasp filled his ears and stole his attention back out the window.
Judy now stood maybe a foot from him, the wall of the house and the window the only thing separating them.
Her eyes widened. Deacon could very clearly see that she had been crying.
He had no idea what to say, and Judy froze like a deer caught in headlights.
Finally, the cowboy side of Deacon caught up to the situation, and he asked, “Do you need help?”
Judy dissolved right in front of him, her face falling and tears flowing down both cheeks. But she shook her head, squeaked out a strangled, “No,” and turned her back on him before she ran away.
Go after her, Deacon thought, but the words hadn’t come from himself.
He pulled the curtain closed again and looked over to Molly. A quick glance at the digital alarm clock on the nightstand told him that Judy had just gotten off work about fifteen minutes ago, and that he could probably get Charlotte or Lisa to come sit with their mother for a few minutes.
Deacon crossed the room quickly and eased out of the bedroom.
He found Lisa in the formal front room, playing the piano, and he said, “I have to run out for a minute. Can you sit with your mom?”
“Sure, Uncle Deac,” she said, abandoning her song mid-note and going down the hall.
Deacon faced the back of the house, once again hesitating. Unsure.
He hated feeling like this, but pure Hammond stubbornness drove him forward and out the back door, in search of the lovely Judy Foster, who’d said she didn’t need help, but had clearly been lying.