Chapter 6
STARLA
When my alarm went off, I was so tired I struggled not to turn it off or hit snooze. But I knew Ma would be awake any minute and ready to start the day. Experience told me my new schedule was going to take some adjusting.
The first time I came to live on the farm, I had already been through at least a dozen foster homes, so I adapted easily to new routines.
None of them prepared me for waking up before sunrise–a brutal task for someone who had never been a morning person.
Even as a kid, I hated mornings, but as an adult, I’d learned to deal.
I could usually be civil for the first hour after waking.
Cheerfulness remained absolutely impossible, but coffee helped me form coherent sentences and communicate without grunts and growls.
I forced myself to turn off the alarm and get out of bed, then stumbled toward the bathroom to splash water on my face.
I turned on the faucet and bent forward to take a few long sips.
Once I sated my thirst, I cupped my hands and splashed my face a few times, then stood and let the cold water drip down my bare chest.
After years of uncomfortable clothing, I’d become a closet nudist. I rarely wore anything while alone in my room, especially when sleeping.
Now, standing in front of the mirror and gripping the edge of the vanity, I kept my eyes closed and let the chilly water run down my chest and belly, leaving trails of goosebumps in its wake.
With a sigh, I reached for the hand towel hanging next to the sink and rubbed my face before opening my eyes to look at my reflection.
What I saw shocked me so badly that I let out an ear-piercing scream, spinning around to verify my mind wasn’t playing tricks.
I had the presence of mind to try covering myself with the hand towel, but it was only large enough to hide one breast and my belly button, leaving the rest of me exposed to the man sitting on the toilet.
“Graham!”
“Sarge, remember?” he asked calmly. “Mornin’, Starla.”
“What the . . . Why are you . . .” I stammered, covering my breasts with one hand and using the towel to cover my pussy.
Graham nodded toward the open door to my left. “That’s my room.”
I looked from one side of the bathroom to the other. I now shared a Jack and Jill bathroom with the hottest man I’d ever known. And at that moment, he was sitting on the toilet attending to his morning business.
Holy. Shit.
“Do you mind, babe? I need a minute.”
“Oh, shit! I mean, um, sure. Yeah. I’ll . . . uh . . .” I darted into my room and slammed the door, then leaned against it and listened to Graham’s booming laughter. I stood there, naked and mortified, until I heard the toilet flush and the faucet turn on.
After a few seconds, Graham asked, “Can I have that towel, babe?”
It never crossed my mind that he might have extra towels in the bathroom, so I stood up, cracked the door just wide enough to slip my hand through, and held the towel out for him.
When he didn’t take it, I leaned to the side and peered through the gap.
Graham stood against the vanity with his arms crossed and a huge smile on his face.
“I guess you’re awake now, huh?”
“Take the fucking towel!” I growled, throwing it at his head.
He snatched it from the air and began drying his hands.
Instead of slamming the door, I took a second to admire the play of muscles in his chest before I looked up and found him still smiling at me.
With an embarrassed squeak, I yanked my arm back and slammed the door shut.
His booming laughter did nothing to improve my mood or relieve my embarrassment. I decided then that Graham Brick was a complete asshole–a smoking-hot, tattooed asshole, but an asshole nonetheless.
As soon as the door on the other side of the bathroom clicked shut, I rushed in to lock it from the inside. With that done, I hurried through my morning routine, hoping to make it downstairs in time to impress Ma with my effort, even if I was later than planned.
By the time I got downstairs, Ma was already at work on the back porch, and a plate of food was waiting for me on the kitchen table. I carried it out to the porch and hopped onto the rail where I’d sat for countless hours as a kid.
Ma glanced at me, her eyebrows rising when she saw the notebook I’d set next to me. “What’s that for?”
“Notes.”
Ma hummed. “I suppose keeping a record of things is a good idea, so nothing changes after I’m gone.”
“Ma, you’re healthy as a horse. That won’t happen anytime soon.” When she frowned, I hesitated before adding, “Right?”
Ma rolled her eyes. “You’re just as dramatic as the boys. No, I’m not sick, Starla. I’m just planning for the future. That seems to be something you young folks take for granted.”
“I don’t think I do. Sarge probably doesn’t either.”
“Sarge?”
I felt myself blush. “Last night, he asked me to call him by his nickname, instead of Graham, like everyone else does.”
Ma’s smile surprised me. I had expected her to scoff at the idea. It confused me even more when, instead of arguing, she simply said, “Good.”
I couldn’t resist the urge to ask, “Why is that good?”
“One benefit of being as old as I am is that I’ve learned to keep my cards close to my vest, sweetheart. Right now, I’m playing the long game, so that’s exactly what I’ll keep doing.”
“The long game?”
“Are you going to eat so we can get to work, or are we going to sit here like lazy fools and bump our gums all day?” I took a big bite of my eggs, and Ma smiled. “You were always one of the smart ones.”
Two hours later, I was sweating and exhausted, having already put in more work than most people do in an entire day. I wondered how Ma maintained such a grueling schedule, especially since she worked at the same pace she had when I helped her twenty-five years ago.
The only real change was her willingness to accept help more easily than before.
She’d even hired a hand who was eager to help, and it didn’t take me long to realize their relationship was more than employer and employee.
James was at least Ma’s age, if not a year or two older, but just as spry.
However, he lacked her feistiness. When Ma got snippy because a task wasn’t being done to her satisfaction, James just smiled and went right back to his original pace, completely unbothered by her scrutiny.
I suspected they were friends, if not more, but I knew Ma would put me in my place if I dared mention it. So, rather than say anything, I observed them throughout the morning. I didn’t say a word when a touch lingered or I caught one of them watching the other work.
I held so many memories of Ma and Pa laughing over a shared joke or dancing in the kitchen, smiling lovingly at each other.
Pa’s death had devastated me, and I wondered how Ma managed being alone.
Now I realized that after a decade on her own, she had likely found friendship–and maybe even companionship–with James.
Realizing that people of any age could find love warmed my heart and solidified my hope that I might find it too.
◆◆◆
SARGE
I parked the tractor behind the ones my sons had been running this morning and hopped out of the cab to find them for lunch.
Once Luna was on the ground beside me, I signaled to two hands refilling the seed hoppers.
I let them know I had finished planting the corn in my section so they could clean and reload the bins for the afternoon schedule.
Since the boys’ Gator was no longer parked in the shade, I assumed they had already headed to the house for lunch.
I took my own Gator and made the trip in a few minutes.
I heard my boys laughing as I approached the porch and smiled when Ma scolded one of them for some slight he’d likely committed just to get a rise out of her.
I opened the door to the screened porch that stretched along the back of the house.
It served as a workspace, an outdoor kitchen for Ma’s preserving, and we rarely used it for relaxing, unlike the front porch where I’d visited with Starla last night.
The back porch pulled double duty, like most areas on the farm.
During the summer, the wide expanse held tables of produce and multiple propane burners for Ma’s batch canning, turning out food for the winter and stock for the farm stand.
She apparently planned to preserve some things today.
Four burners were already set up with large pots of water heating so they’d be ready after lunch.
Folding tables lined the wall, covered in baskets of fresh fruit and multiple bins of frozen fruit and tomatoes she had pulled from the deep freezers to thaw.
Ma was ready to put Starla to work. While I welcomed the help, it meant our evening would involve canning prep: washing jars, cutting fruit, and hauling sugar from the storage barn.
I had spent countless hours on those chores over the years, yet I didn’t mind them.
They meant plenty of sweet jams, jellies, and Ma’s delicious tomato sauces for our meals throughout the year.
My stomach rumbled at the thought of fresh bread slathered in butter and jam.
I stopped surveying the porch and opened the second screen door to follow Luna into the house.
Only Starla noticed my entry. I knew she’d spotted me when I heard the distinctive chime coming from her wrist. She frowned, pushed a button on her watch, and shook her head before looking back at her plate.
I was smiling as I filled a plate from the buffet on the sideboard, but by the time I walked to the table, I managed to suppress my glee at how much my mere presence affected the gorgeous woman.
After our talk on the front porch last night, I lay in bed thinking about her sitting alone outside.
When I heard her come up the stairs and the squeak of her bedroom door, my mind went straight to her lying in the room next to mine.
I listened to her move around and froze when her door opened again.
“You’re gonna get me in trouble, Luna,” she murmured.
“Go lie down where you . . .” A soft laugh followed before the door closed, and I realized my dog had abandoned me again.
Not for the first time since Starla’s arrival, I felt jealous of a damn dog.
Luna finally remembered me at breakfast and spent the morning working around the farm like she always did. But now that we were back at the house, she was glued to Starla’s side again. The change in her demeanor was so obvious that my sons noticed almost immediately.
“Dad, I think you’ve been abandoned,” Gabe teased.
Garrison laughed. “Do you blame her? Poor Luna puts up with him all day and night.”
Grant, the oldest of my sons, refused to be left out. “She won’t know what to do with herself if she stays here with Starla and Ma,” he said. “She might be forced to move around now and then instead of being lazy all day.”
I knew he was teasing, because none of us could ever be accused of laziness. Ma wouldn’t tolerate it, and the farm’s future depended on our work. Still, I pretended to take the bait and threw Ma into the mix. “She just wants to hang out in the air conditioning and nap all day like Ma.”
“Remember that you insulted me when you’re starving to death,” Ma warned, picking up the pitcher to refill my glass. “Or the next time you have a bellyache after enjoying my delicious food.”
“Would you poison me, Ma?” I asked.
“I’ve been trying for years, but you have the constitution of a goat.”
“You should have seen the slop they fed us in prison. It changes a man.”
“I think it killed half my tastebuds,” Starla said cheerfully. Then her eyes widened, and she glanced around the table. When no one reacted, she looked over at me in confusion.
“It’s not a secret, Star. Before Ma brought you home, we had a family meeting. She explained your background just like she would for anyone else she chose for the position.”
“Oh.”
When Starla looked down at her plate in shame, Ma said, “Mistakes are made so we can learn things. Life is like a pond–it’s full of different things working together to maintain balance, but without fresh water, it becomes stagnant and toxic.
The water you came across wasn’t fresh, and it threw your life off.
But living here with us will fill you back up and bring you into balance again. ”
As always, Ma was right. I could tell by Starla’s expression that the analogy brought her hope–something she likely had lacked for a long time. The thought of providing that hope made my chest ache in a way I hadn’t felt in years.
Ma and the others saw Starla as a woman who simply needed a hand up, but I saw her in a completely different light. After my sleepless night, I had reached a decision. It probably wasn’t the smartest one I’d ever made, but I couldn’t talk myself out of it, no matter which angle I came at it from.
I wanted Starla Ready in a way that had nothing to do with her becoming family–unless she became the woman who shared my life and future. Now I just needed to convince her that was a good idea.