Two #2
Outside, the windmill kept creaking, and she knew just what to do to fix it.
It wasn’t Beck’s idea to deliver his mother’s gift to the female pilot, but she’d insisted.
Lonnie couldn’t do it, she’d said. He had a family to see to—a wife expecting their second baby in a couple of months and a two-year-old son that had more energy than a bear cub with a honey pot.
Mary Sue had a doctor’s appointment this morning she needed driving to, so he wasn’t even home to be able to head over to their new neighbor’s place.
Beck’s father couldn’t do it. He was too busy tilling the ground for his mother’s garden.
She couldn’t do it because she’d just put a roast in the oven, and she didn’t trust any of her Archer menfolk to keep an eye on it, and since she didn’t even drive, the whole point was moot, anyway.
So that left Beck.
As if he didn’t have a whole load of chores to do himself.
Riding fence, monitoring stock tanks, checking newborn calves and mamas.
Even scouting out the south pasture for hot spots after yesterday’s fire.
Heck, he could spend days in the ranch’s shop just repairing the equipment that always broke down at the worst times.
But because he loved his mother, who loved him even more, he’d agreed with only a slight scowl of protest. She’d put a fresh loaf of bread wrapped in a clean towel and a jar of her prized plum jam in his hands, and here he was, driving out to the Kincaid place to deliver the Archers’ gesture of gratitude for the pilot and her recon that had helped them put out the fire. And kept it out.
He slowed his dark blue Ford F-2 and turned onto a gravel road.
It’d been years since he’d been out here, but the house looked about the way it always had—one story with a porch, paint peeling on the wooden siding, shingles that needed replacing on the roof.
It would take a heap of work to get the place looking presentable again.
Made him wonder if she intended on tackling that work herself.
But the yard told a different story. A landing strip was in the works, if that’s what those two rows of white stakes meant. A beige Willys Jeep sat inside the barn, its doors wide open for anyone’s viewing.
A pilot’s yard, he supposed. An unconventional one to boot, showing all the signs of an aviation business on the cusp.
Beck eased the truck to a stop and cut the engine.
The prairie fell quiet around him, broken only by the whistle of a meadowlark perched on a fence post somewhere close.
On the other side of the screen door, the front door was open in mute welcome, and he scooped up his mother’s bread and jam from beside him on the seat and stepped down from his Ford.
By the time he was halfway toward the porch, a distinct clanking stopped him. A metal-hitting-metal sound, and he swung toward the direction, quickly defining the source as coming from the windmill across the road.
But it was the woman perched on the ladder halfway up the tower that just about gave him heart failure. She’d climbed nearly to the top of the thing and was leaning out over the spinning wheel with a wrench in her hand, her russet hair whipping loose in the wind.
Tucking the bread and jam under his arm, he sprinted toward her, his alarm building the closer he got. The blades clanked again, then turned smoother, quieter, and by then he was there, at the bottom of the ladder. If she slipped, he’d be right there to break her fall.
“You planning to fly this thing?” he called up.
Her slender body tensed in a startled movement before she glanced down. “Only if my plane quits.”
He wasn’t assured enough for her safety to be amused just yet. She finished tightening whatever she was working on. One boot, and then the other, descended the narrow rungs.
“Most folks would’ve sent for help.” He extended his free arm to assist her to the ground, but she jumped down all on her own.
“If I hired help every time something broke around here, I’d be broke by summer.”
“Bearings usually stick in the spring.”
“I’ll remember that.”
She wasn’t nearly as fragile as he’d thought, now that she was standing here in front of him.
Strong, slim, athletic—the way a pilot should be built.
The wind kept tugging at her hair, but she didn’t seem concerned.
Pretty hair, the color of rich cinnamon.
And her eyes, the color of the Sandhills in spring—a gentle green, the kind a man could look into longer than he meant to.
“Is there something I can help you with?” she asked.
Her quiet question shattered his awareness of her and made him realize she’d been staring at him, too. Maybe remembering him from the fire yesterday.
But her question forced him to explain why he’d driven out.
“My mother made some fresh bread this morning. Sourdough. No one makes it better.” He opened the edges of the towel to reveal the golden crust, unable to hide the pride that threaded the words.
“Gets her a purple ribbon at the county fair every year. She sent along some of her plum jam to go with it. It’s real good, too. ”
She stared at his offering before jamming the wrench into her back pocket.
“For me?” she asked, as if she couldn’t believe it. “Why would she?”
“You saved us yesterday,” he said quietly, re-wrapping the bread again. “Without your warning, that fire might’ve run half the county.”
She accepted the bread and jam, holding both against her. “She didn’t have to do anything. And you… you drove out here to—”
“It’s the least I can do.”
She’d gone pale as flour. She stood still as stone, too, holding that bread so tightly she’d likely crush it.
He didn’t quite know what to make of it.
“You’re an Archer, aren’t you?” she asked.
“Born and bred.” He kept his eye on her. “Fire was on my father’s land. The Archer & Sons Ranch.”
Again, she swallowed. “Which son are you?”
“There’s two of us.” He kept his tone even. He didn’t want to upset whatever was bothering her. “Lonnie is younger. I’m—”
“Beckett, the oldest Archer son.”
It wasn’t surprising she would’ve heard of him. Most folks around here had, one time or another. Yet the way she spoke his name, like it had been pulled from the deepest part of her….
“That’s right.” A corner of his mouth lifted. He tried to keep his tone light. “Beckett Joseph Archer, to be exact. Lived here all my life, except for a stint in the Army. Don’t see myself leaving any time soon, either.”
“Ooh.” The little sound whispered out of her, and he’d swear she quivered, like a wounded bird.
He didn’t know what to make of it. Her reaction. Her white-knuckled grip on his mother’s jam.
But he had the uneasy certainty that he’d just complicated her day.