“Because we’re not getting a good enough price for our produce these days to warrant breaking our backs any further than we are doing already,” she said with a sigh.

  “Then, it has nothing to do with the fact that these are the two fields that Kirby Thornhill is determined to buy?”

  “Not as far as I’m aware,” she said, her mind racing. “But I didn’t actually know that this was the particular land he wanted.” She chewed at her bottom lip. “Although, I guess it makes sense.”

  “How does it make sense?” He took a step toward her until they were just inches apart.

  He was so tall, so broad and every bit the farmer. Why couldn’t she just be glad that he was here? Glad that an able-bodied person was willing to help?

  “This is the closest to town, and it is a good flat parcel,” she said a little vaguely, her mind still whirling.

  “So?” he prompted and tilted his head to one side.

  “I don’t know how much you remember about Kirby Thornhill, but he’s always wanted to beat Dillon Goodman at his own game. I don’t remember much about Dillon Goodman’s beginnings here, myself, but I’ve been told that he took all manner of risks to get a start here. Something about a bucking bronco competition.” She shrugged.

  “Yes, I remember that,” Clay said and laughed. For a moment, the tension eased between them. “I saw it with my own eyes. There was one heck of a purse for that bronco and I could see right then that Dillon was determined to have it. Took guts right enough, for that horse was not ready to be broken.”

  “Well, it was that purse which started Dillon and Trinity up here in Oregon. I would say it’s what made Dillon so successful, but he also worked for every bit of it. The bucking bronco thing might have got him the materials to build his merchant store, but it was back-breaking hard work that made it a success.”

  “He’s a good man. The Goodmans are fine people, I remember them well.”

  “There’s something about Dillon’s self-made wealth that irks Kirby Thornhill. If you remember Thornhill’s family, you’ll know that they arrived in Oregon with a ton of money and, even now, they still live in the finest home for miles. I guess Kirby’s been handed everything and it upsets his manhood to see that Dillon did it all for himself.”

  “I seem to remember that Thornhill had something of a fancy for Trinity as well, although, I could be wrong about that.” He squinted as if trying hard to sort fact from fiction.

  Katie realized then that the two of them were smack-bang in the middle of an ordinary conversation. No anger, no accusations or recriminations, just everyday conversation.

  “Yes, I think I heard that, too,” she said and nodded. “Anyway, Thornhill has wanted to build a merchant store to rival Goodman’s for years, but the town has grown, and the ideal plot of land just doesn’t exist. And this right here,” she said, stamping her foot on the ground beneath her. “Is just exactly what he needs. There’s no point having a merchant store that isn’t close enough to town to rival the one that is already there, is there?”

  “And right here is just a stone’s throw away from all the action,” Clay said, nodding slowly as he caught on.

  “Exactly that. But then, if Marlon had cared to take me into his confidence, I would have realized all this a long time ago,” she said, remembering her hurt pride.

  “I reckon he thought you had enough weight on your shoulders without adding to it,” Clay said gently.

  “Perhaps,” Katie said, knowing in her heart that it was true but finding herself, once again, unwilling to simply accept it and to admit it.

  “When did the price start to go down?” Clay said, changing the subject so suddenly that she had no idea what he was talking about.

  “What price?”

  “The price you get for the produce.”

  “I don’t know, a year or so, I guess.” She shrugged. “Times are hard, or at least that’s what the buyers tell us.”

  “I see,” he said his eyes narrowed to slits as he stared off into the middle distance, lost in thought. “But even if the price is low, maybe it makes sense to plow this lot up now and get planting before we miss the opportunity. I understand how soul-destroying the idea of it must’ve been before, but I’ll do it, I’ll get on with it. You just tell me what needs doing and I’ll do it.”

  “If you can manage the plow by yourself,” Katie said, but tempered the barb with a grin.

  “I reckon I can, I had a real good teacher.” He winked at her and it did something to her; it stirred something which had lain as dormant as the fields in which they stood.

  It was unsettling, worrying, and she gave him a quick, tight smile before sweeping the feeling away as quickly as it had appeared.

  “Well, summer is already here,” she said, turning her attention to the farm as she always did when feelings she wasn’t too keen on threatened to make themselves known. “You’ll have to get on with it if you really are intent on turning these fields.”

  “There’s no time like the present,” he said jovially.

  “I like your enthusiasm, Clay, but it’s too late in the day to get the oxen and the plow over here. By the time you’re ready to set off, the day will be over. Maybe tomorrow.” She laughed, wondering if they really had changed places.

  He was as eager as a child, as eager as she had been all those years ago to make a difference. And all her eagerness, all her zest for life, had vanished somewhere along the way.

  “I’ll get started first thing. We can’t have Kirby Thornhill bullying his way onto this land, can we?”

  “We are already running at a loss, Clay. We’ve been running at a loss ever since prices dropped and that’s the truth. In the end, Kirby Thornhill won’t need to bully anybody, we’ll be running to him and begging him to buy the land from us so that we can survive.” Katie felt suddenly defeated by admitting the truth.

  “I’m sure there’s something we can do, Katie.” Clay’s voice lowered into a rich and soothing tone.

  He took a step toward her and Katie felt her heartbeat quicken.

  “Maybe now that you’re here, the time has come for me to look somewhere else,” she said and nodded firmly. “Maybe get some kind of work in town, bring in a little money finally.”

  “I guess you’re heartsick of this place,” he said apologetically.

  “No, Clay, that’s just the thing, I’m not. I know I’m a woman but I’m also a farmer. I’m a farmer right down to my very bones and I love this place as if it were a living, breathing thing.” Katie realized, with horror, that achingly hot tears had sprung in her eyes. “It’s not the farm I hate, it’s the struggle. It’s not the land which has taken everything I’ve got to give, it’s the hardship.”

  “I’m so sorry, Katie. I’m so sorry for everything,” he said and took that final step toward her, his muscular arms wrapping around her.

  In that moment, Katie wanted nothing more than to fall against him, to have him comfort her and to feel his arms wrapped around her, holding her tightly. She panicked suddenly, she’d felt this way before, and she knew where it led. Instinctively, she took a step away from him, raising her hands in front of her just enough to let him know that she did not want to be comforted in that way.

  He looked crestfallen and she did not blame him. But Katie couldn’t be responsible for the way Clay Horton felt, not now, maybe never. It was a hard enough task being responsible for keeping a lid on her own pain, she didn’t need the added work of tending to the bruised ego of a handsome man.

  “But we keep going, huh?” she said and tried to be jovial. “You can plow to your heart’s content, Clay, and who knows, maybe it will be enough to keep us going.” She shrugged in a nonchalant manner and turned her attention back to the matter of the much-needed repairs to the fencing.

  Chapter Nine

  “Hand me that bag of cornstarch, honey,” Charlotte said to her daughter who was sitting at the kitchen table in her Sunday best. “I want to thicken up this gravy a little bit. It’s kind of watery and I don’t want to spoil such a fine meal with bad gravy.”

  “Your meals are never bad, Mama. You’re the best cook for miles,” Katie said and guiltily thought of the wonderful fruit pies of Trinity Goodman.

  “Flattery will get you everywhere,” Charlotte said, holding out her hand to keep her daughter in her seat. “And I’ll get the cornstarch myself.” She laughed.

  “No, I should be helping you.” Katie rose to her feet and took her own apron down from the hook on the back of the kitchen door, quickly slipping it over her head and tying it neatly behind her.

  “I don’t need you to help me in the kitchen, Katie. You don’t need to prove anything to me. You work hard enough six days a week that you could use a little rest on the seventh. Now, take that apron off and sit back down.”

  “Well, I’ll sit back down, but I reckon I’ll keep the apron on. After all, I’ll need it to protect my Sunday dress from your watery gravy when the time comes to sit down and eat.” Katie chuckled mischievously.

  “Now, there’s a girl I haven’t seen in a little while,” Charlotte said and turned to look at her curiously, her head tipped to one side. “I can’t remember the last time you were in the mood to tease.”

  “No, neither can I,” Katie said cautiously.

  Teasing, chattering, laughing, and loving, had been the trademarks of Katie Clements from birth onward. She knew that Bo Henderson’s betrayal had changed her, she just wondered if it was as irreparable as she’d first thought.

  “So, how is Clay doing on the farm? Is he taking to it?”

  “You’d do better to ask Marlon,” Katie said, remembering her belligerence and welcoming it like an old friend.

  “I’m asking you,” Charlotte said a little firmly.

  “I guess he’s picking it up, Mama,” Katie said, recognizing the tone and deciding not to antagonize her mother any further. “He’s spent the last three days plowing up the south end of the farm on his own. Although, I can’t watch him hitching up the oxen, it makes me wince.” She chuckled somewhat mirthlessly.

  “It’s good of him to get involved, honey.”

  “Is his father’s farm, Mama, he should be involved.”

  “All right, all right.” Charlotte held her hands up in front of her. “I can see that the two of you aren’t getting on any better after all these weeks.”

  “We get along all right, Mama. I’m just not ready to proclaim him a conquering hero of the farming world is all.”

  “Stepping on your toes, is he?”

  “No, he isn’t. I’m glad we are planting a late crop instead of leaving those fields dormant. It might not get it anywhere, but at least we can thumb our noses at Kirby Thornhill by doing it.”

  “I hope you’re not going to worry about that, Katie. Just go about your days and try not to think about it. Let Clay do what he’s going to do at the south end of the farm and let’s hope it all works out for the best.”

  “Sometimes things don’t just work out for the best, Mama. Sometimes you have to take action of some kind. That’s why I wish that Marlon had said something to me sooner instead of carrying that burden all on his own.”

  “He didn’t carry it on his own.” Charlotte looked at her daughter and raised her eyebrows. “And we decided between us not to make your life any harder than it already is. So, if you want to go blaming anybody, blame me, your mother, not Marlon and certainly not Clay. Clay had no say in any of it. I know his father told him about the whole business without telling you, but Clay had no way of stopping him doing that, did he? It was just a few lines in a letter, a way for Marlon to get things off his chest and nothing more. I do wish you would let yourself relax a little about all of this. You’re looking for a reason to be outraged wherever you can find it and it won’t do you any good.”

  “All right,” Katie said, giving in. “I guess I’ll just have to let it go.”

  “Well, don’t look so miserable about it. Letting go of things that aren’t, in the end, all that important, can be a great source of relief. You should try it sometime.”

  “You mean I should let go of my anger at Clay?”

  “No, I think you should study that a little harder and work out exactly what it is you’re angry about because I’m certain that it can’t be Clay anymore.”

  “I’ll do just that,” Katie said and Charlotte sighed.

  “Just give him a chance, honey, you might find a friend,” Charlotte said and grinned; she could tease as well as Katie’s younger self could have done.

  “You got me,” Katie said and laughed, shaking her head. “You’d do better to turn your attention to that watery gravy,” she went on and was pleased to hear her mother roar with laughter.

  As Katie quietly set out the knives and forks for their Sunday meal, she wondered if her mother had a point. It had felt good to just talk things over out on the farm with somebody new. To discuss the machinations of Kirby Thornhill and to speculate on the reasons for his determination to have the land had felt so natural.

  But it had all led her to the point where, with her guard down, tears had sprung into her eyes as she had thought of the farm, she really did love it with all her heart. She held her breath as she remembered Clay stepping toward her, his arms outstretched, ready to comfort her. The most unsettling thing of all was just how much she had wanted to walk into him, to close her eyes and let him comfort her just as he had so clearly wanted to.

  But Katie had a sneaking suspicion that such contact would lead her to thoughts beyond simple comfort. Clay really was a handsome man, so much more appealing than he had been eighteen years before. And he appealed to her now as a woman, not as a child. This was dangerous territory; Bo Henderson had been a handsome man, one who had appealed to her in just the same way.

  Katie expelled a deep breath of air with such force that it caused her mother to spin around and look at her. She shook her head vehemently, thoughts of Clay Horton and his undeniable handsomeness certainly needed to be kept at bay. There were things to do; extra fields to plow and a farm to be saved. There wasn’t time for her to let the same old thing happen again. And there wasn’t the resilience in her heart to ever suffer the same pain and humiliation again.

  Of course, Katie didn’t know what Clay’s feelings for her were and she didn’t want to. She just had to be sure that her feelings for him didn’t become something that she couldn’t control.

  “Will you go and fetch Marlon and Clay, honey? I’m just about ready to serve up.” Charlotte said, snapping her daughter out of impossible thoughts.

  Chapter Ten

  “I just don’t understand why I can’t stay here.” Katie, perched on the end of her mother’s bed dressed in her best, and pulled a face. “We don’t normally go to the barn dance as a family, do we?”

  “Look, this is the first opportunity since Clay has returned and I know that Marlon is looking forward to it.”

  “I know, Mama, and I’m real pleased for him. I’m pleased for them both. I just don’t see what difference my presence will make.”

  “Why on earth wouldn’t your presence make a difference? I want you to come with us. Marlon wants you to come with us. And I’m certain that Clay would want you to come with us also.” Charlotte, putting the finishing touches on her hair, turned to look at her daughter. “What’s this all about? I thought you and Clay were getting along a little better lately.”

  “Yes, of course. He’s making himself very useful on the farm,” Katie said with a shrug. “But you know I’m not particularly keen on the barn dance.”

  “You always used to be.”

  “That was a long time ago,” Katie said and smoothed out the pale blue fabric of her dress over her knees.

  “Honey, it’s been seven years, you can’t hide in here forever.”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Katie lied.

  “And who’s to say that Bo Henderson will be there, anyway?”

  “I don’t care if he is or not,” Katie went on but it was clear that her mother was not taking her objections on board.

  “I mean, they’ve got children, haven’t they? Who’s to say they have managed to find someone to look after them while they go out?”

  “I know they’ve got children, Mama,” Katie snapped back. “I’m perfectly well aware that they have children and even more aware that I don’t.”

  She recovered, though, and attempted to change the subject, “Now, I suppose we better get going or we will be late.” Katie rose to her feet and began to march out of the room.

  “Wait, wait.” Her mother caught up within a heartbeat and grabbed her hand. “I didn’t mean to be insensitive, Katie. I just wish that you could get over Bo Henderson, he’s not worth it. He let you down in the worst possible way but if you continue to let it affect your life, in the end, that will be you’re doing.”

  “And I wish that you could understand that I am over Bo Henderson. I wouldn’t marry him if he came with the house and bank balance, trust me.”

  “Then, what is it?”

  “It’s the way people look at me. If Bo Henderson is anywhere nearby, people look at me as if they’re waiting for my reaction. I think I’m tired of being entertainment for the town is all.”

  “And I think you’re seeing things that aren’t there. For goodness sake, most people won’t even remember that day. I think you’re holding onto something that everybody else has forgotten about.”

  “We’d better go,” Katie said, having no intention of continuing the conversation.

  If her own mother thought she was still in love with Bo Henderson, then why would everybody else be any different? That was the worst of it, a continuation of the humiliation which had begun that day in the church seven years before. It wasn’t her keeping it alive, it was everybody else with their firm ideas of exactly how it was Katie Clements felt. If they kept their noses out, maybe the humiliation would evaporate like rain on a hot day.

 

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