Chapter 14
Tuesday morning gave Mark a leaning fence line, a stubborn cedar post, and a strong enough wind that made a man question why anyone bothered wearing a hat in December.
He stood in the south pasture with his gloves tucked beneath one arm and a posthole digger in both hands, trying to decide whether the old post had rotted at the base or had simply surrendered from years of cattle leaning on it.
Three strands of barbed wire sagged between the remaining posts, and the lower wire had twisted loose enough that a determined calf could have worked its way through before supper.
His father stood on the other side of the fence with a roll of wire and two fence stays. “That post needs to come out.”
Mark looked at the cedar post. “It has one more year in it.”
“It has one more strong breeze in it.” His father nudged the base with his boot, and the post shifted in the dirt with a dry creak. “Maybe less.”
Mark sighed and set the digger aside. “I was trying to be optimistic.”
His father laughed as he reached for the fencing pliers clipped to his belt. “That was not optimism. That was a man trying to avoid digging another hole.”
“Same family.”
“Distant cousins at best.”
Mark pulled on his gloves and crouched to unfasten the wire from the post. The morning was cool but not bitter, and the sun sat pale over the pasture, catching on the dry winter grass.
A few cattle grazed farther down the slope, pretending they had no interest in the fence repair while absolutely watching every move.
Cattle loved a weak spot. So did weather. So did people, sometimes.
He had spent half the night thinking about a gift shop, mistletoe, and Natalie Winters standing close enough that one more breath might have changed everything.
He had also spent half the night trying not to think about any of that.
His father glanced over while working the top strand loose. “You’re quiet.”
“I’m working.”
“You talk while you work.”
“Not always.”
“No, not always.” His father pulled a staple free and dropped it into the bucket near his boot. “You have something on your mind?”
Mark gave him a look. “Maybe. Maybe not.”
“If you want to talk, I have two ears.” His father grinned, but he did not push, and together, they worked the wire free from the failing post.
The thing came loose easier than it should have.
Mark braced one boot against the dirt and pulled while his father rocked the post from the other side.
It gave with a groan, the rotted base crumbling as it came out of the ground.
Mark carried it aside and tossed it near the truck bed with more force than necessary.
His father watched the post land. “Feel better?”
“About the post, yes.”
“And about whatever else you’re contemplating?”
Mark picked up the new cedar post from the truck and carried it back to the hole. “There isn’t anything else.”
His father took the other end of the post and helped guide it down. “That answer usually means there is, and a man has decided being stubborn counts as handling it.”
Mark set his jaw and shifted the post until it stood mostly straight. “I learned from the best.”
His father’s mouth twitched. “Your mother would agree with that, but she would not mean it as praise.”
Despite himself, Mark huffed a laugh.
His father stepped back to judge the angle then motioned with two fingers for Mark to pull the top toward him. Mark adjusted the post, and his father nodded before grabbing the level from the tailgate.
“Hold it there,” his father said as he set the level against the wood. “A little left. No, your left. There. Good.”
Mark held the post steady while his father shoveled gravel around the base, the rhythm familiar enough to quiet him for a while.
Gravel, dirt, tamping bar, more dirt. His father worked without hurrying.
Mark liked that about him. Johnnie Clemons could joke at the supper table and tease his children without mercy, but when work mattered, he gave it his full attention.
Maybe that was why Mark finally spoke. “Did you ever know you were making the right choice and still feel like you were stepping into something you couldn’t control?”
His father’s tamping bar paused in midair.
Mark regretted the question immediately. “Never mind.”
His father drove the bar down hard into the packed dirt before looking at him. “Are you talking about dating Natalie?”
Mark tightened his grip on the post. “No,” he said almost too quickly.
His father lifted his eyebrows and waited.
Mark blew out a breath. “Well, the thing is… nothing happened.”
“Between you and Natalie?”
Mark frowned toward the pasture before slowly nodding.
His father resumed tamping. “That has never stopped a man from thinking too much.”
The wind moved over the grass, and a steer lifted its head near the far fence as if it had heard something interesting.
Mark stared past the animal toward the line of mesquite trees beyond the pasture.
He could still feel Natalie’s breath close to his, still hear the bell over Winter Wishes’ door, still see Mrs. Barlow’s delighted face as he stood beneath that ridiculous mistletoe.
“We almost kissed,” Mark said, and once the words left his mouth, there was no dragging them back.
His father did not drop the tamping bar.
He did not grin. He did not whistle or clap Mark on the shoulder or make one of those comments that would travel from the pasture to the kitchen before lunch.
He simply packed the dirt tighter around the post and gave Mark the dignity of not making him wish he had stayed quiet.
“Almost can be loud,” his father said.
Mark looked at him. “What does that mean?”
“Sometimes what doesn’t happen tells you more than what does.”
Mark swallowed and looked back at the post. “It’s supposed to be temporary.”
“What is?” Then, his father seemed to understand and slowly nodded. “You two aren’t actually dating.”
“No.”
“But you almost kissed?”
“Yes.”
His father set the tamping bar aside and picked up the roll of wire. “And what about the rest of it?”
“There isn’t a rest of it.”
His father handed him the wire and waited until Mark pulled it tight against the new post. “You said that like a man hoping if he repeats it enough, the Lord might agree to make it true.”
Mark hooked the wire with the fencing pliers and twisted it tighter than necessary. “I’m not asking for a sermon.”
His father chuckled. “Good thing I’m not a pastor.”
“You sound like one,” Mark grumbled.
His father smiled faintly. “I’ll apologize to Pastor Abernathy later.”
Mark secured the wire and reached for a staple.
He could feel his father watching him, not with judgment but with the steady attention Mark had seen him give hurt animals, broken equipment, and fence lines that had taken a hard wind.
His father never rushed the repair. He figured out what had failed first.
Mark drove the staple into the post. “I don’t know what I’m doing.”
“Most guys don’t.”
“It’s useless.”
“No.” His father picked up another staple and handed it to him. “It’s honest, and honest is where useful starts.”
Mark took the staple and set it in place, but he did not hammer it in right away.
“Jenna and I had plans. Not exact plans, maybe, but enough. Three years. I thought I knew where it was going. Then it didn’t go there, and everyone kept acting like I should be able to pick up and try again long before now because that’s what people do. ”
His father leaned one forearm against the post. “And you didn’t want to.”
“No. I didn’t want to be the man everyone felt sorry for either.” Mark struck the staple once, the hammer blow ringing sharp in the cool air. “Natalie made that stop for a while.”
“She made the pity stop?”
“The questions. The careful looks. The suggestions.” Mark drove the staple the rest of the way in, then rested the hammer against his leg. “At first, that was all it was. Easier. Quieter.”
His father nodded slowly. “And now?”
Mark could have lied. He had done plenty of that lately, even if he and Natalie had given the lying a prettier name by saying they were not correcting people.
But standing in a pasture beside his father, holding a hammer in one hand and a fence line between them, he could not make the lie sound right.
“Now it doesn’t feel quiet,” Mark said.
His father looked toward the cattle for a long moment.
“Your mother left me at the altar. You know that part, I’m sure.
You and your brothers and Julia learned the cleaned-up version somewhere along the way.
Wedding got delayed. Family trouble. Everything worked out.
” His father bent to pick up the next strand of wire, and when he straightened, his face was thoughtful rather than pained.
“That is all true, but it’s not the whole truth. ”
Mark held the wire while his father worked it into place. “You don’t have to tell me.”
“I know.” His father tightened the strand, his jaw moving once as if he were weighing each word before letting it go.
“Your mother loved me. I knew that. I knew it when she said yes to the proposal, when we planned the wedding, when she fussed over colors and flowers and tried to pretend she wasn’t exhausted from work.
I knew it when she looked at me at church before everything fell apart, but love wasn’t the only thing in her heart that day. ”
Mark pressed the wire against the post. “What else was there?”
“Fear.” His father’s voice stayed steady.
“Her parents’ marriage was breaking apart.
Her mother told her that morning that she and Harold were separating.
Your mother had spent years watching work take over that house.
She was a lot like her father then, working too hard, trying to be everything to that company, and all at once, she looked at marriage and saw a promise she might fail to keep. ”
Mark thought of Natalie beneath the mistletoe, saying this was supposed to be temporary. He thought of himself telling her they had made the rule for a reason.