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Emily didn’t belong on Goosefeather Farm. She never had, and she never would.
* * *
Abel rounded the corner of Miss Sadie’s barn and stopped short in the wide doorway. Beulah the cow was clumsily tied into her stanchion, and Emily was crouched down beside her, trying to poke the stainless steel milking pail under the bulging udder. The twins were standing a respectful distance away watching the process with doubtful expressions.
For a moment Abel was distracted by the picture they made. The fading sunlight reached through the slats of the barn wall to highlight Emily’s honey-colored hair, which was gathered into a messy knot on the top of her head. The twins were mostly in shadow with only their faces picking up the light.
Abel’s fingers itched for a sketch pad. There was so much here he could carve: the curves of Emily’s face, the sturdy, childish shapes of the twins...
The cow shifted irritably. Abel blinked, and his mind shifted abruptly back into gear. “Emily, look out there! You’re on the wrong side. She’s going to kick you!”
As if on cue the Jersey lifted one fawn-colored leg and struck out sideways in Emily’s direction. Emily fell backward, her breath escaping her in a loud huff, while Beulah focused on aiming her second kick at the empty pail.
The pail landed next to Emily with a loud clang that set the hens clucking worriedly. Abel crossed the barn in three strides and knelt down beside Emily, whose gray-green eyes were wide.
“Did she get you?” Abel asked as he helped Emily back to her feet. “She can be an ornery old girl. You have to watch her.”
“I’m all right.” She stepped away from him, dusting off her pants with quick, irritated motions. “Stupid cow.”
“Beulah’s smart enough. That’s the problem. If she was stupid, she’d be a lot easier to handle.” Since Emily seemed unhurt, Abel turned his attention to the cow. He placed a reassuring hand on Beulah’s flank and murmured to her, settling her with his familiar touch and voice. The Jersey gave a long-suffering sigh and rolled her big brown eyes reproachfully in his direction. About time you showed up, she seemed to be saying.
He almost hadn’t come at all. He’d dawdled a full forty-five minutes after his normal chore time wondering if he should. In the end his concern for the animals had won out. Emily didn’t know the routines, and she didn’t know where the feed was. He didn’t know if she wanted his help or not, but he knew she needed it. So, like it or not, she was going to get it.
“Maybe I’d better milk her out for you tonight.” He righted the toppled pail with one hand and scooped up the three-legged milking stool with the other. “Cows are kind of particular about their milking routine, Beulah more than most,” he explained, stepping over to the other side of the fidgeting cow. “She’ll probably behave herself better for somebody she’s used to.” As he settled in on the correct side, he could feel the cow relaxing. She took up a mouthful of grain and began crunching calmly, looking as if she’d never tried to kick anybody in her life.
Abel, on the other hand, felt as jumpy as a cricket in a henhouse...and a whole lot less welcomed. Emily was still standing in the spot where he’d left her, and the twins, their eyes big with curiosity, were watching him clean off Beulah’s full udder with the wipes Miss Sadie kept on hand.
Abel had never spent much time around kids, and the few he’d run into here and there hadn’t left all that favorable an impression. These two seemed different. He liked the no-nonsense way the boy had of summing things up, and Emily’s little girl had a real special sparkle to her.
He liked them just fine, but that didn’t mean he knew how to talk to them. It didn’t help matters that they kept staring at him wide-eyed like two tawny little owls. Fortunately for Abel, milking was a great way to avoid eye contact. He kept his gaze focused on the streams of creamy liquid that jetted into the bucket with a ringing hiss as his practiced hands did their work.
Paul walked over and hunkered down next to him, watching the process with a wrinkled nose. “I don’t think I like milk anymore.”
“Me, either,” said Phoebe, who was keeping a safe distance.
“Aw, now. You’ll hurt Beulah’s feelings talking like that. Anyhow, I expect you’ll change your mind when you taste this milk. Beulah’s milk is the best in the county, maybe even the state. You’ll see.”
“Paul, back up. I don’t want that cow to kick you.” Emily sounded irked.
“He’s all right. She’s not in a kicking mood anymore,” Abel said evenly. “She was just reminding you that cows like to be milked from the right, that’s all.”
“How does a cow know the difference between right and left?” Paul was skeptical. “Even Phoebe doesn’t know that yet.”
“I do, too, know that!”
“You don’t, either.”
“Children.” Emily’s voice held a tinge of desperation. “Why don’t you go look at the chickens for a few minutes and let me speak to Mr. Abel?”
“Chicken feed’s in that big metal can over there. You can throw some to ’em if you want to,” Abel suggested. The twins scurried off excitedly.
“Stay outside the pen,” Emily called. “That rooster might be mean.”
“He is that,” Abel agreed. “Newman’s about the meanest rooster I’ve ever seen. Your grandma was the only one who could handle him.”
Emily fixed him with chilly eyes. “What are you doing here, Abel?”
“It’s milking time. I thought you might need a hand.” He’d been right, but he figured it was the better part of wisdom not to point that out.
“I can manage on my own.” Emily tilted up her chin as if daring him to argue with her.
He wasn’t going to. According to the information that had filtered down through Miss Sadie to him over the last six years, managing on her own was Emily’s specialty. This woman had plenty of grit. She was just a little low on know-how.
And maybe gratitude, come to think of it.
“I’m not saying you can’t handle things by yourself, but it’s been a while since you had to deal with this kind of stuff, and now you’ve got twins to look after in the bargain. I know the ropes around Goosefeather, and your grandma was good to me. I’m just trying to help you out a little.”
“Yes, well. Your helping me is kind of a conflict of interest right now, isn’t it?”
Abel felt temper flare inside him. The tempo of his milking upped a little, but he kept his voice carefully calm. “Not the way I see it, no.” There was a pause, punctuated by the hiss of the milk foaming in the half-full bucket and the excited clucking of the hens as Paul and Phoebe tossed cracked corn through the chicken wire.
Emily sighed sharply. “I just don’t think this is a wise move right now, Abel. Your helping, I mean.”
“That kind of depends on what you call wise, I guess,” Abel said, stripping the last drops of milk from Beulah’s deflated udder. He lifted the heavy pail from under the cow’s belly and topped it with its clean lid before setting it safely to the side. “Maybe you and I have different takes on it. Like right now it seems to me you’re looking a gift horse in the mouth, and that sure doesn’t seem all that smart to me.” He angled himself under the cow and carefully applied the spray that would help protect her from mastitis.
“Sorry, but it’s been my experience that gifts, horses or otherwise, tend to come with strings attached.”
“Mama!” Phoebe’s excited voice called over from the chicken pen. “Did you say horse? Is there a horsie here? I love horsies!”
“No, hon. No horsies,” Emily called back.
“Can we get one? Please?”
“Good heavens, no! The last thing I need around here is something else to feed and look after,” Emily added under her breath.
“You’ve got a lot on your plate all right,” Abel agreed. “That’s why I think it’d be foolish of you not to take what help you can get.” He stood up, unhooked Beulah from her stanchion and gave her an affectionate slap on her bony rump as she ambled peaceably out of the barn to graze in the evening cool. “And just so you know, I don’t do gifts with strings, Emily. Either I give them or I don’t. Look, I know you’re mad about how Miss Sadie left the will, and I can’t say that I blame you. I’m none too happy about it, either.”
“Yes. So you said.”
There was something in her voice, some subtle tone of disbelief that jarred a little of his temper loose. It wasn’t the first time somebody had distrusted him, far from it, but it sure stung coming from Emily Elliott of all people, here in the one place where he’d always been trusted and relied on in spite of his last name.
“It’s the truth, but I reckon you can believe it or not as it suits you. That doesn’t change the fact that you’re going to need some help around here at least at the beginning. I’m willing to give it. If you’re as smart as I think you are, you’ll put your feelings about all this aside and take me up on it. Otherwise I think you’re going to find yourself going under pretty quick.”
Emily looked at him with her indecision written plainly on her face. She had an independent streak a mile wide, and apparently she’d gotten burned often enough not to trust people easily. Her suspicion was warring hard with her common sense, and from the look of things, it might take a while for the dust to settle there. In the meantime, Miss Sadie’s animals were already about an hour behind their normal eating schedules. They’d wasted enough time as it was.
He had opened his mouth to say so when suddenly a bloodcurdling child’s scream came from the direction of the chicken pen.
“Phoebe!” Emily bolted toward the noise.
“Newman!” Abel overtook Emily in two strides and was inside the chicken coop in a flash. He pushed himself between the five-year-old and the angry bantam and swept up the sobbing little girl in his arms.
“There, now,” he said to Phoebe, keeping his eyes on the tiny rooster, who was stalking around in the corner of the coop, his bright feathers standing out in an angry halo. “It’s all right. I’ve got you.”
“He tried to claw me!” Phoebe snuffled moistly into Abel’s neck.
“She went in to get an egg.” Paul spoke from outside the pen, his voice shaking. “I told her not to, but she wouldn’t listen. And then the rooster started chasing her and flying up at her!”
“He was protecting his hens. It’s what good roosters do. Newman’s just not smart enough to figure out that you’re not going to hurt them, is all.”
“He’s a bad, bad bird!” Phoebe peered around Abel’s neck at the little rooster, who crowed fiercely and ruffled his feathers. Phoebe promptly buried her face again, and Abel felt her little hands tighten.
Something in his heart shifted strangely at the feel of those tiny fingers twisting in the fabric of his shirt, and Abel looked narrowly at the strutting rooster. Newman considered Abel’s expression, and some primal warning must have flashed in his walnut-sized brain. He settled his feathers and sidled into the depths of his corner, edging behind a fat black-striped hen, who squawked at him irritably.
It looked like Newman was nobody’s favorite today.
Emily was beside him now, tugging Phoebe free of his arms and carrying her out of the coop. She knelt down in front of her daughter and checked her over with worried hands.
“I think he just scared her.” Abel shot another meaningful glance at the rooster, who meekly lowered his head and pretended to be interested in pecking at a piece of straw. Abel retrieved the egg that had caught Phoebe’s attention and latched the coop door securely behind himself.
“That’s why we told you not to go into the coop, young lady.” Emily’s voice was tense and stern. “You could have gotten hurt. That rooster could have put your eye out.”
In spite of himself Abel couldn’t help smiling a little. Emily was a mother all right. Mothers were always concerned about somebody putting an eye out. At least that was what he’d heard. Since his own mother had lit out when he was ten, he didn’t have a whole lot of firsthand knowledge in that department.
“I wanted to get the egg,” Phoebe wailed, fresh tears starting.
“And here it is. There’ll be more of them come morning. Next time, though, you’d better wait and let me go in there with you. Okay?” Abel handed over the smooth brown egg, and the tears stopped instantly.
“I’m going to go put it in the ’frigerator!” she exclaimed happily, and she and Paul dashed out of the barn toward the house.
“If that egg makes it all the way into a carton, I’ll be amazed,” Emily muttered under her breath. Then she glanced up at Abel. “Thanks.”
“No problem.”
“I guess Grandma’s rooster’s made your point for you. That scared me to death. Doing the chores around here and keeping an eye on the twins at the same time...well, it’s going to be a lot to manage. I couldn’t live with myself if Paul or Phoebe got hurt because I wasn’t paying attention.”
She was probably overestimating the damage one pint-size rooster could have caused, but he figured it wouldn’t be to his advantage to mention that. “Neither could I.”
“I guess if your offer still stands...” She trailed off.
“It does.”
“I don’t know how we can work this out, though. I can’t pay you. At least not until the farm sells.”
Until the farm sells. The words stabbed at him, but he shoved the pain aside for the moment. “I’m not asking for any pay.”
“Well, you’re not working here for free. That’s out of the question.” Emily’s chin went up mulishly. She didn’t want to be beholden to him. That was plain enough.
This was going nowhere fast, and he had hungry animals to tend to. “You’d better get on back in the house with the little ones. You’ve probably got some egg to clean up by now.”
The distraction worked. A tiny smile tickled around the corners of her lips. “You’re probably right.”
“Here. Take this milk on in with you and get it strained and chilling. You remember how to do that, don’t you?”
“Sure.” Emily reached over and took the full pail he held out to her. He winced a little when he saw her adjust her slim frame to balance its heft. He should offer to carry it for her. He’d always brought the milk pails in for Miss Sadie.
But he had a feeling Emily needed to feel like she was carrying her weight, so he let it go. “While you’re tending to that, I’ll finish up with the animals. I’ll come up to the kitchen for a minute or two when I’m done, and we’ll hash out some kind of arrangement. All right?”
Emily hesitated. She’d never been much on being told what to do, but she finally gave in. “All right.” She turned, carefully managing the milk bucket so it wouldn’t slop over on her pants, and headed back toward the farmhouse.
Abel began to measure out feed to take to the goats in the west pasture. Judging by the level of pellets in the big can, he’d need to make another trip to the feed store soon. Beulah was running low on her alfalfa hay, too, and that stuff was wickedly expensive and not something they could grow on-site.
As he began to think about everything he needed to explain to Emily, he felt his stomach tense up a little. There was a lot to managing even a small farm like Goosefeather. Stepping in cold turkey would have been a challenge for anybody, but for a city girl like Emily, it was going to be next door to impossible. Unless she was willing to accept his help, she was never going to meet the county extension agent’s standards for animal and crop care.
And then there was the whole business about her plans to sell the farm. He’d expected that, but hearing her say it out loud had set him back a pace or two.
He sighed, hoping Emily had the sense to put on a pot of coffee after she finished straining the milk. When it came to talking and explanations, he was every bit as far out of his comfort zone as Emily was out here dealing with Beulah.
He had a feeling this might take a while.
Chapter Three
Emily set the brimming pail carefully on the side of the old-fashioned apron sink and removed its loose lid. Phoebe’s egg had actually made it intact into the carton in the refrigerator, so Emily was able to get straight to straining the milk.
“Go wash your hands,” she instructed the twins, “and use plenty of soap.” Taking her own advice, Emily turned on the hot water faucet and squirted a generous dose of dishwashing liquid onto her hands. When she finished, she twisted the old-fashioned faucet off firmly. It had always dripped if you didn’t wrench it down tightly.
She was struck again by how little had changed on Goosefeather Farm. The fading afternoon sun still filtered through the same red-checkered curtains, and there were still terra-cotta pots of blooming geraniums lining the bookshelf under the wide kitchen window. The walls were the same creamy yellow, and the old wooden floor was showing its familiar signs of wear around the doorways and in front of the sink and the enormous freestanding stove.
This kitchen had been Emily’s happy place on the farm. There was something about this airy room that had always made her itch to pull out her grandmother’s ceramic mixing bowls, get the heavy crocks of flour down out of the huge pantry and bake something crumbly and sweet.
As she dealt with the milk, she reconsidered the space with a more experienced eye. The fixtures and the appliances needed updating badly, but the kitchen had a great flow and boasted some amazingly generous work surfaces. This room had been designed for serious cooking and canning, unlike the cramped kitchen she and Clary made do with in their Atlanta apartment. With just a smidgen of updating, this could be the kitchen of her dreams. If it were located somewhere else.
Anywhere else.
Emily finished straining the milk through the dairy filter into clean half-gallon glass jars and set it to cool in an ice-water bath, a task she’d done twice a day during the summers she’d spent here. Inside work had always played to Emily’s strengths, and since Sadie Elliott had never liked to spend any more time indoors than she had to, they had worked it out between them.
That was the one thing that had changed on Goosefeather Farm, Emily reflected sadly. Her grandfather Elliott had died before she was old enough to remember him, but her grandmother had been such a part of this place that it was almost impossible to believe she was gone. Emily half expected to see the old lady thumping down the kitchen stairs with her gardening hat on, heading out to wage war against the summer weeds. Emily blinked back her tears resolutely and lifted her chin.
She wouldn’t go there.
It’d be selfish to wish her grandmother back. For the past few years, Grandma had made no secret of the fact that she was ready, as she put it, “to get on to the next thing.” Once she’d reached her eighties, she said that the good Lord had tarried long enough.
Emily was thankful that her grandmother’s earthly journey had ended peacefully, but Sadie Elliott had sure left a big hole behind her. Emily sighed. Then she firmed up her lips, squared her shoulders and got busy. She had enough sorrow under her belt to know that the best way to fill up this kind of empty spot was with hard work.
There were some benefits to growing up with a mother whose idea of a meal was nuking a frozen waffle in the microwave and who couldn’t have cared less what kind of mess her daughter made in the kitchen. Emily had started cooking as soon as she was big enough to reach the oven controls, and she’d spent the last few years baking and waitressing in the hectic environment of a busy coffee shop. She might be clueless about managing a farm, but she knew her way around a kitchen. By the time Abel came through the back door, she had the coffee dripping fragrantly into its carafe and her children eating snacks in front of Grandma’s ancient television.
“Animals are all settled for the evening,” he said, crossing to the sink and beginning to lather up his hands. Emily noticed that he left the dishwashing liquid alone in favor of the little orange-colored bar of homemade soap in its dish.
“I sure wish we were,” Emily muttered under her breath. She had the three-hour trip back to Atlanta in front of her, and the twins were already exhausted. It wasn’t going to be a fun drive.
And there was still this conversation with Abel to get through. She might as well get that over with. “Have a seat,” she invited. “I’ll pour the coffee.”
“I was hoping you’d think to make some.” Abel pulled out a chair at the immense table that filled the center of the kitchen and slid his long legs under its checkered cloth.
“I don’t know about you, but I think it’s necessary.” She poured two mugs, black. She remembered that Abel had never doctored his coffee with cream or sugar, and she’d had to learn to drink hers plain because black coffee was cheaper. “It’s been a long day, and if I’m going to stay awake for the drive back, I’m going to need all the help I can get.”
Abel nodded. “I’m sure you’re ready to get on the road. I won’t stay long, but I thought your mind might rest easier if we went ahead and got a few things settled between us.” He accepted the cherry-red mug of coffee, flashing his crooked smile at her in thanks.
“You’re probably right.” She wasn’t looking forward to it. She hated negotiations when she was the one needing favors. The incident with the rooster had really scared her, though. It would be too easy for the twins to get hurt on the farm. She was going to have to keep one eye on them all the time, and that meant she had to have some help. Stalling, Emily turned to the counter and opened a green-striped bakery box. “I hope you like muffins.”
“I like pretty much anything I don’t have to cook, but you don’t have to feed me. The coffee’s plenty.”
“I brought these from the coffee shop where I work. It’s not any trouble to share them.” Emily took down two of her grandmother’s thick white plates and set an oversize muffin on each one. Casting a quick look back at the tall man sitting at the table, she considered, and then added a second muffin to one of the plates. Abel Whitlock had always been lean, but if her memory served, he had a hearty appetite.
“Thanks.” Abel picked up one of the muffins and toyed briefly with the thin silver paper on its bottom before setting it back down on the plate. “These look real good, but I can’t eat your food, Emily, until I’m sure you understand where I stand on this. I know you’re finding it hard to believe, but I’m on your side here. I want to help you.”
“Even though you’ll get the farm if I don’t stick this out?” She offered him a wry smile, but this time his expression remained serious.
“This farm is yours by rights. Miss Sadie was your family, not mine, and I’m sorry she left things like she did. I truly am.”
He sounded sincere, and Emily felt a niggle of guilt. Abel had no family worth speaking of. His mother had run off when Abel was just a boy, leaving him to deal with his younger brother and their moody, alcoholic father as best he could.
Her grandmother had told her about the morning Abel had knocked on the farmhouse door. A fourteen-year-old boy with hungry eyes, he’d asked if he could split firewood for her in exchange for some food for himself and his little brother.
“I almost ran him off the property,” Grandma had told Emily, shaking her head ruefully. “I’d been living next to the Whitlocks for too long not to be suspicious of them. Most of them would steal anything that wasn’t nailed down. But he was nothing but a boy, skinny as a beanpole and so famished he was shaking. No telling when he’d eaten last. Elton Whitlock never cared much about anything that didn’t come straight out of a liquor bottle, and he sure wasn’t troubling his sorry head about feeding those boys of his after Gina left him. But that young’un had more gumption in his little finger than the rest of his kin put together. He wouldn’t even eat the sandwich I brought out to him unless I let him earn it. So in the end I just handed him the ax and let him get on with it.”
At the end of that day, Sadie Elliott had a neatly stacked woodpile that would last her for a month of cold weather, and young Abel had gone home with a new shirt on his back, a basket stuffed with eggs and vegetables from her garden and a job on Goosefeather Farm for as long as he wanted it. Abel had been family to Sadie ever since that day, and Emily knew it.