Chapter 11
O nce Lenore had Brandon in her cabin, lying on her couch with painkillers and cold water in him, she tended to the wound on his hairline. “That one just needs a bandage,” she said, smoothing down the edges of the one she’d put over the small cut on his forehead.
Then she looked at his throat. “This one looks bad,” she said. “But I think it just shredded the skin.” She dabbed antibiotic ointment into the many cuts that had come from the rough edge of the strap.
“It’s not a clean line, you know?” She set aside the cream and looked at the box of Band-Aids. They weren’t going to work on this wound.
“Doesn’t feel like it either,” Brandon said between gritted teeth.
Lenore looked up at him and found his eyes clenched closed—just like his fists were.
“Sorry,” she said. “I do think we should cover it, just to give it a chance to relax.”
He nodded, and Lenore got up and hurried into her bathroom to get a box of gauze pads.
It took three to cover the slash on Brandon’s neck, and she quickly taped them in place with medical tape. “There you go,” she said, and he seemed to relax.
Lenore didn’t know how he did that, because they still had a greenhouse attached to a skid steer and so much more to accomplish that day.
She glanced toward the front door. “Are you okay in here?”
“Yes.” His eyes came open. “What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to go finish up with the greenhouse,” she said. “I can get it unstrapped, and I’m pretty sure I can back that thing up.”
“Lenore,” he said.
Fire filled her belly because she didn’t want to be reliant on him. She wanted to learn, and then she wanted to do things for herself. “I can do it.”
He studied her, and she searched his eyes too. After only a moment, he nodded. “It’s not hard. On one of the control levers, there’s an arrow pointing back toward your body. You pull the stick back toward you. It backs up.”
She nodded, the determination inside her the only thing keeping her from screaming. “I’ll be back in ten minutes,” she said. “And if your arms and legs aren’t broken, maybe we can keep going.”
He grinned at her. “Always pushing toward the next thing,” he said, letting his eyes fall closed again.
Lenore left the cabin, and after several failed attempts to release the tension on the strap, she made a guttural noise of frustration and turned in a full circle. Brandon had made that thing so tight, and she couldn’t get it undone.
She thought for a moment about ramming the greenhouse to give the strap a little bit of slack, but of course, she wouldn’t do that.
“There has to be more to this.” She examined the ratchet system and found a pin, and she pushed it. Slack came into the strap, and relief filled her. She was able to release it easily then, and she threw the hook to the ground near the corner of the greenhouse.
She got the other side off as well and situated herself behind the controls of the skid steer.
She’d watched Brandon boogie around in this thing that morning, clearing the land on this side of the cabin for the greenhouse and the gardening area.
It had only taken him about an hour, and Lenore could already see the landscape at the homestead changing for the better.
They planned to cut trees on Monday to use for the raised beds, as they had found no railroad ties as of yet.
Brandon also wanted to use the smaller trees to build the chicken coop.
He wanted a raised roost house, and he’d sketched and designed one that allowed the chickens to roam freely underneath their house, which would also protect them from flying predators.
The whole thing would be fenced, and Lenore wouldn’t have to go inside to get the eggs, as Brandon had designed little doors on the outside for collection.
They’d emptied the barn and brought in as much as they could this week, and Lenore had never worked so hard simply to get everything that had been deposited here, there, and everywhere into one place.
She saw the wisdom in it, but she had started to become frustrated at the lack of progress. She wanted to see things being built and fenced and growing—and all they’d done was fill the big area between the barn and the woods with all the junk on the homestead.
She looked down at the controls, found the one with the arrow pointing toward her, and put her hand on it. The machine hummed beneath her, and she pulled gently back.
The skid steer moved. The greenhouse rocked, then found a place to settle on the ground as the shelf cleared it. A smile burst onto Lenore’s face, and she pumped one fist. “Yes!”
Then the skid steer came to an abrupt halt as she hit something on the back right side. She immediately let go of the controls and quickly swiped the key out of the ignition. The engine died, and Lenore looked over her shoulder to see…she had hit her own cabin.
“No one needs to know about that,” she said to herself, and she hoped she hadn’t hit it hard enough to shake the walls inside. She embarrassed herself on an hourly basis in front of Brandon, and the last thing she needed was him to know that she’d hit her own home .
She got out of the skid steer in a much more graceful and dignified manner than Brandon had, and she looked at the greenhouse several feet away. It sat down on the ground in the new, rich earth that Brandon had turned up.
She went inside to see what damage had happened with the move, and she set about fixing the pots and starts had been knocked over or jostled out of place. Brandon had said she could plant down on one end now, right into the ground, which made Lenore smile.
The sun coming in the thick plastic windows definitely felt warmer on this side of the cabin too. She found the hosing he’d bought at the hardware store to start the watering system from the roof and set it on the end of the bench for him.
Susie-Q came into the greenhouse with her and laid down under one of the shelves. Lenore puttered around for longer than necessary, because she always enjoyed being in the greenhouse with living things.
As she worked, she thought of the way her fingers fit between his, and the jolt of electricity her heart had taken as she’d watched him get hurt. At first, she thought she’d hate having another person on the homestead, but she found she didn’t.
In fact, she quite liked Brandon’s presence in her life, and the way he’d started to drink her coffee in the morning and sit with her while they ate lunch.
He did work later into the evening than she did, and somehow, in only a week, they’d found a rhythm of working together and living on the homestead.
She finally returned to the cabin, where the sound of Brandon’s soft, even breathing told her he’d fallen asleep. Lenore envied him, as she was so tired as well.
Her mother had always warned her to be sure to drink enough water.
So Lenore got another bottle, intending to drink it before she laid down herself.
She didn’t normally nap during the day, but she reminded herself that they had done more in the five and a half days that Brandon had been living and working on the homestead with her than she could do in five months alone.
They could have a few hours off on a Saturday afternoon, and nobody would die, and nothing would perish.
“Lenny,” Brandon muttered as she started to walk past him on her way down the hall to her own bedroom. She froze.
She hadn’t been called Lenny in a long time. In fact, she’d only told Brandon about the nickname yesterday, right before he’d left to go pick up the equipment that he’d rented.
He shifted on the couch and raised his head. “You’re back.”
She detoured over to him. “Are you okay? What do you need?”
He reached for her, latching onto her hand and tugging her closer. “Come lay by me.”
Lenore eyed the couch and his broad shoulders. “I don’t think there’s room for that, Brandon.”
He turned onto his side and pushed back into the back of the couch, creating a little pocket for her. “Sure there is,” he gave her a soft, sleepy smile. “Right here. Just for five more minutes.”
Lenore’s heart pounded against her breastbone and her ribs. She’d had boyfriends in the past, but not for a few years, and Brandon reminded her of what it felt like to be touched and loved by another human being.
She hadn’t been hugged in far too long, and she found herself being very touchy-feely with Brandon. He didn’t seem to mind at all. In fact, he initiated the simple contact between them quite often.
He hadn’t held her hand again, though, since she’d sobbed into his chest. But Lenore now found herself sinking down onto the couch and sighing as she laid within the circle of his arms.
“Is that okay?” he asked, adjusting his bicep under her head.
“Yeah,” she whispered.
He rested his other arm across her hip, and Lenore reached out and fitted her fingers between his. She had no idea if this was how relationships started, as it sure didn’t seem very traditional.
“You want to go to dinner tonight?” Brandon asked.
Lenore stiffened. “Dinner?”
The soft wash of Brandon’s breath trailed over the side of her neck. “Yeah,” he said. “It’s an evening meal people eat?”
She smiled at the teasing lilt in his voice. “I know what dinner is.”
“Would you go with me?”
Lenore closed her eyes and zoomed out on the situation. In her mind, she could see the two of them lying there on the couch together, inside the silent cabin that sat on this expansive land that hadn’t been properly cared for in so long.
She saw the overgrown trees and the grass that needed mowing as it billowed in the breeze. She saw the greenhouse on the south side of the cabin and everything that they’d scavenged and found laid out on the tarps near the barn.
She saw the three chickens she had left, and in the blink of an eye, everything that was broken down and dilapidated and ruined changed.
The fields now flowed with green alfalfa. Her garden area had been built out and thrived with plants—squashes, cucumbers, potatoes, tomatoes, and more.
The chicken coop stood two stories tall and had at least a dozen chickens in it. It was surrounded by more enclosures which held sheep, goats, pigs, cows, and even a couple of horses.
She had machinery that worked and tools that weren’t rusted, and right in the center of all of it stood the handsome, hardworking Brandon Rhinehart.
“Yeah,” she said. “I’d love to go to dinner with you.”
She shifted, turning in his arms until she faced him. His eyes fluttered open and met hers, and Lenore wanted to ask him what was going on between them. But she didn’t need to. She saw it all right there in his face. This man liked her, and he wanted to go out with her.
“I think we’ve earned the evening off,” he said.
Lenore hummed in agreement, her gaze dropping to his mouth. She hadn’t kissed a man in a long time, and it was suddenly all she could think about.
“Do you care if I call you Lenny?” Brandon asked.
Lenore gave a minute shake of her head. “What’ll I call you?” she asked, surprised at her ability to flirt. It had been so long, and she really had no idea what she was doing.
“I don’t know,” he murmured. “You’ll think of something.”
He ducked his head toward her, getting closer, as if he might kiss her. Lenore wasn’t sure what she wanted in that moment, but she tilted her head back, ready to follow his lead. He certainly seemed like he wanted to kiss her, but he moved oh-so-slow—only millimeters at a time—as he neared.
“Lenny,” he whispered, and then the obnoxious shrill ringing of his phone filled the air.
He startled, and Lenore gasped. She had no idea what he might have said next, and the old-fashioned ringtone he’d put on his cellphone was seriously the most annoying thing Lenore had ever heard.
“Sorry,” he muttered, jostling her around as he tried to get his hand behind him to get his phone out of his back pocket. He finally managed it and held it up as he peered at it.
“It’s Conrad,” he said, though Lenore didn’t know who that was. “I don’t know why he’d be calling me….” His voice trailed off as the awful shrilling continued to echo through the cabin.
Foolishness ran through Lenore for trying to hold on to a moment that had already gone. “Answer it,” she said as she sat up and turned her back to him.
He moved, and in the next moment he said, “Conrad. Hey, what’s up?” in a totally normal voice, as if he hadn’t just called her a sweet nickname in a husky cowboy voice as he leaned toward her.
“Oh no,” he said, pure sadness dripping from both words.
Lenore turned toward him, and she caught his eyes closing as he shook his head.
“Darn it, Conrad. I’m real sorry.” He started to sit up, as if he didn’t even realize she was still there.
She scrambled out of the way, and he got to his feet and headed for the front door, the phone still stuck to his ear. He said something else as he walked out, but Lenore couldn’t tell what, and the door slapped closed in her face, though she stood a dozen feet away.
He’d just walked right out of her life without a single explanation.