Home to the Farmer

When she inherits her grandmother’s farm, Emily Elliott must return to the small town she thought she’d permanently escaped. The citified single mom of twins must live on Goosefeather Farm for the summer...or lose it to neighbor and childhood friend Abel Whitlock. It’s Abel’s chance to own the land he’s always wanted, but he won’t do it at the expense of the girl he’s never forgotten—or her adorable twins. Instead, Abel will show Emily how to take care of the farm and its wayward animals. He has three months to fight for a lifetime with the family he loves.

She couldn’t ignore the gleam in his eyes.

Maybe this arrangement wasn’t such a good idea after all. “You know, babysitting wasn’t part of our agreement.”

“I’ve got to do something to pay you back for that lemon pie you made.” One side of his mouth tilted up. “Besides, I like spending time with the twins.”

A burst of childish laughter came from the yard, and Emily saw the echo of her own smile on Abel’s face. Her heart bobbed and dipped crazily and her cheeks started to burn.

She’d never had anybody to share such parenting moments with, and there was an intimacy that unsettled her, making her feel like her most vulnerable spots were unprotected.

Abel’s smile suddenly faded. “I think you’d better get going.” There was a strange tone in his voice and a stunned intensity in his eyes that struck her like an electric shock.

This was bad. Those silly little sparks flashing between them weren’t one-sided. Abel was feeling them, too, and that could only mean one thing.

Trouble.

LAUREL BLOUNT lives on a small farm in middle Georgia with her husband, David, their four children, a milk cow, dairy goats, assorted chickens, an enormous dog, three spoiled cats and one extremely bossy goose with boundary issues. She divides her time between farm chores, homeschooling and writing, and she’s happiest with a cup of steaming tea at her elbow and a good book in her hand.

A Family for the Farmer

Laurel Blount

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business, and to work with your hands, just as we told you.

—1 Thessalonians 4:11

In memory of my mother,

Frances Russell Medcalf,

who encouraged me to dream,

and for my husband, David,

who made all those crazy dreams come true.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Introduction

About the Author

Title Page

Bible Verse

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Epilogue

Dear Reader

Extract

Copyright

Chapter One

“I don’t want a peanut butter sandwich. I want one of the hamburgers we smelled outside.” Five-year-old Phoebe’s voice sounded unusually whiny, and Emily Elliott sighed as she dropped the baggie-wrapped offering back into her purse.

She knew her children were tired. She’d had to roust them out of bed early to make the drive down to Pine Valley from Atlanta in time for this appointment with her grandmother’s lawyer. She could have saved herself all that heroic rushing around, because the attorney had already kept them waiting twenty minutes.

And of course his office would have to be located downwind of the small town’s one and only fast food restaurant.

“You can’t have a hamburger, Pheebs. There’s no money.” Paul spoke calmly to his twin as he flipped through the book on reptiles he’d just pulled out of his backpack. “There never is.”

Emily’s heart clenched, and she cast a quick glance over to the desk where the sleek secretary was busily clicking the keys on her computer. The other woman caught her eye and gave Emily a pitying smile. She’d heard.

Emily felt her face flush. It didn’t matter, she reminded herself sternly. She was here to get the details of her grandmother’s estate settled, not to impress Jim Monroe’s secretary.

Her daughter pushed her bottom lip out. “I’m tired of sitting here. You said this would take just a few minutes, but we’ve been waiting a really long time.”

“We have been waiting a long time.” Emily shifted uneasily in her chair. She really hoped Mr. Monroe wasn’t going to ask her to reschedule this meeting. If she had to drive down again, it would cost gas money she didn’t have, and she’d have to ask Mr. Alvarez for another day off.

Asking for this one off had been bad enough.

Well, there was no point fretting over all that now. “All things work for good for those who love the Lord and are called according to His purpose,” her minister had assured the congregation last Sunday. Surely that included late lawyers and cranky bosses. Emily forced a smile and smoothed a stray tendril of blond hair away from her daughter’s sulky face. “Try to be patient, honey. I don’t think it’ll be much longer.”

“Here, Pheebs.” Her son pushed his reptile book over so that it rested halfway in his sister’s lap. “You can share my book. It shows the inside of the lizards, not just the outsides. See? That’s his guts.”

“Eeww!” Phoebe made a face, but soon she was as absorbed in the book as her brother.

Emily sighed again and fished the rejected sandwich out of her bag. She was starving, and those hamburgers had smelled good. She broke off a small chunk and tucked it discreetly in her mouth while avoiding looking in the direction of the elegant secretary. The peanut butter stuck to the roof of her mouth and made her long for the travel thermos of double-strength coffee she’d left in the cup holder of her elderly compact car.

The twins were almost to the end of the lizard book. By the vigorous way Phoebe was kicking her small tennis shoes against the legs of her chair, Emily knew that keeping her small daughter appropriately behaved was about to get even harder. Something had to give.

Emily rose, and the twins looked up at her expectantly. “I’m going to walk outside and let the children stretch their legs for a minute. We’ll be right back.”

The secretary glanced away from her computer screen and blinked. “Of course,” she murmured politely. “Why don’t you give me your cell phone number in case Mr. Monroe comes in while you’re out?”

“Mama doesn’t give out her cell phone number,” Paul interjected helpfully. “It’s just for emergencies. Minutes cost money. Like hamburgers.”

The secretary’s gaze slid over to her son, and Emily was suddenly aware of how rumpled and sticky they all looked after the three-hour drive in her old car with its wonky air-conditioning system. She tilted up her chin.

“We’ll come back in about fifteen minutes. I’m sure Mr. Monroe won’t mind waiting for us if he gets back before then.” The secretary looked as if she thought Mr. Monroe probably would mind, but Emily was past caring. She pushed open the heavy door and ushered the twins out into the early-summer sunshine.

It was only eleven thirty in the morning, but the Georgia heat had already settled over the town like a hot, moist blanket. Emily hesitated in front of the old storefront that housed the lawyer’s office, blinking in the strong sunlight.

Jim Monroe’s office faced the town square. The brick courthouse loomed directly across the street from where they stood. Its lawn looked lushly green, and shade from a huge magnolia tree dappled a bench near a concrete war memorial. Emily took her twins’ hands and headed in that direction, hoping to put some distance between Phoebe and the smell of grilling burgers.

While the twins ran off some of their energy chasing each other around the tree’s gnarled trunk, Emily sat on the bench nibbling at the sticky sandwich and feeling uncomfortably conspicuous. Passersby curiously glanced her way, and she could see them wondering who she and the twins were, trying to place them. This was a small town, and outsiders stood out.

She hadn’t always been a stranger here. She wondered how long it would take before somebody figured that out and remembered the last time Emily Elliott had been downtown in Pine Valley. That had been the day her grandmother had marched her into Donaldson’s Drugstore to buy a home pregnancy test.

She’d felt pretty conspicuous then, too.

Emily’s eyes flickered to the twins, who were clambering over the twisting roots of the ancient magnolia, and she felt her nerves ease a little. That had been the beginning of the toughest time in her life, but God had brought two amazing blessings out of it. He’d get her through today, too.

“I’m telling you, this isn’t right.” An emphatic male voice broke into Emily’s thoughts, and she glanced up to see two men rounding the corner of the courthouse. “None of it’s right.”

Emily frowned. The man had his dark head turned away from her, but his voice sounded oddly familiar. He was tall and casually dressed in jeans and a red cotton shirt with the sleeves rolled up. His companion was older, and either the Georgia heat or the sharp edge of the tall man’s voice had the fancy-dressed gentleman sweating through his very expensive suit.

“You’re the lawyer,” the familiar-sounding man continued. “Find a loophole.”

“There isn’t one.” The other man mopped at his balding head with a handkerchief as he struggled to keep up with his companion’s long strides. “We’ve been over this, Mr. Whitlock. Repeatedly. And all I can do is tell you the same thing I’ve been saying all along. There’s nothing I can do.”

Whitlock.

Emily squinted at the dark-haired man, and her heart jumped. She stood, shading her eyes with one hand to get a better look. “Abel? Abel Whitlock?”

The man stopped walking and turned toward her. “Emily?”

She felt her lips tilt upward in her first real smile in two long weeks. She took four running steps and flung herself into the tall man’s arms hard enough that he staggered backward a step.

For a second she held on to him without thinking, her nose buried in the softness of his shirt, inhaling the scent of him—wood shavings, soap, the wild tang of the pine woods that surrounded his cabin. “Oh, it’s so good to see a friendly face.” She backed up a step, still clutching his upper arms, feeling the solid strength of his muscles through the worn cotton of his shirt. She peered up into his face. “You’re a sight for sore eyes, you truly are!”

His blue eyes, startling in his tanned face, looked bemused. He seemed at a loss for words, but that wasn’t unusual for Abel. She’d met him when she was fourteen, and he was the lanky eighteen-year-old who helped out on her grandmother’s farm. He hadn’t been much of a talker back then, either.

“Emily,” he repeated.

She laughed self-consciously and released him. “I know. I’m terrible, flinging myself at you like that. I just couldn’t help it.” She turned back and motioned for her twins to approach them. “Phoebe, Paul, this is Grandma Sadie’s friend Mr. Abel. He takes care of her animals.” She smiled up at him. “He and I knew each other when I used to spend my summers with Grandma Sadie out on the farm.”

The twins approached them slowly. Their experience with men in general was fairly limited—Emily didn’t trust most men around her children. But this was Abel Whitlock, and he was in a category all by himself.

Abel detached his gaze from her face and dropped his eyes to the two tousled blond heads beside her.

“Well, now.” He lowered himself slowly onto one knee and considered the children soberly. “So you’re the famous twins I’ve heard so much about! I’ve waited a good while to meet you.” He fished in his shirt pocket and produced a couple of striped discs of candy. “Do you like peppermint?”

Emily’s smile widened. She’d seen him use the same technique countless times with skittish animals. Move slow, talk low and have a treat ready, he used to tell her. They’ll come around.

The children considered his offering warily, glancing up at their mother for direction.

“You can take it. Mr. Abel’s a good friend.”

“You’re big. Like a tree.” Phoebe blinked her green eyes at him as she accepted her candy. Abel’s mouth crooked up in a lopsided smile that jarred half a dozen more memories loose in Emily’s mind. How could just that sideways quirk of his lips bring back so sharply the details of her Pine Valley summers? She could almost smell the odors of drying hay, fresh sliced tomatoes and green beans processing in her grandmother’s pressure canner.

“I am that,” Abel said, agreeing with her daughter. “And you’re sweet. Like a daisy.”

“She’s not sweet all the time.” Paul popped his own peppermint in his mouth and held out his hand. “I’m Paul Thomas Elliott, and it’s nice to meet you. Thanks for the candy.”

Abel shook the proffered hand. “I’m honored to meet you, sir, and you’re welcome.”

“I’m not a sir. Not yet. I’m just a kid.” Paul cocked his head on one side, and Emily could see him weighing her old friend carefully. “But when I am a grown-up, I want to be a pilot. Of an airplane. Or maybe a rocket. I haven’t decided yet.” Emily smiled. Abel must have passed inspection. Paul was her reserved child, and he didn’t share personal information easily.

“Good to know,” Abel said gravely. “I like a man with a plan.”

They nodded solemnly at each other for a couple of seconds before Abel got back to his feet. When his blue gaze returned to Emily’s, it held a lingering gentleness that made inexplicable tears prick at the back of her eyes. She blinked furiously and managed to keep them from spilling over. Good grief. She was crying over everything these days.

Abel held his hand out to her next. “I didn’t get a chance to speak to you at the funeral. I want you to know how sorry I am about Miss Sadie.”

“You of all people don’t have to tell me that.” She took the hand he offered, feeling the dry roughness of his calloused skin. She squeezed hard, looking up into his face. “Grandma’s death is just as much your loss as mine. I know that.”

“Now, see there!” the stocky man interjected jovially. “It’s always nice when folks get along. And it sure makes my job a whole lot easier.” He offered his own hand to Emily. “Jim Monroe. And you must be Miss Elliott.”

Her grandmother’s lawyer. Finally. “Yes.” She took the man’s perspiring hand briefly in her own and couldn’t help comparing its flabby softness to the hard strength of Abel’s.

“I’m late, I know. Sorry about that. I was—” the man glanced up at Abel briefly before finishing “—delayed. Whew, it’s hot as blazes out here! Why don’t we take this little reunion inside where it’s air-conditioned? The three of us have a lot to talk about.”

* * *

Inside the lawyer’s office Abel shifted his weight in the captain’s chair he’d been assigned, and it creaked irritably. He ran a fingertip along its polished arm, assessing the wood. Cherry, he thought absently, with a pretty, rosy grain to it.

Any other day he’d have offered Monroe cash for this chair and hauled it back to his cabin. He’d have taken it apart, stripped off its polish and studied the grain of the wood, looking for the secrets he could carve out of it. But not today. Today he had other things on his mind.

Abel stole a look at Emily, who was standing at the doorway of the conference room talking earnestly to her twins. She was wearing a white shirt with short, filmy sleeves and pale green slacks, and she had that bright hair of hers pulled into some sort of soft little roll at the back of her neck. She was leaning over with her slim, city-pale arms extended, her hands resting gently on her twins’ shoulders.

She reminded him of a dogwood tree just coming into blossom in the earliest days of spring, when its flowering branches looked like bits of lace tangled in the pines. Emily had always had something of the refreshing chanciness of springtime about her, and she’d always given Abel the same fluttering, uncertain feeling in his belly that the first days of March always did. That sense of waking up after the dull darkness of winter.

When she’d run up and grabbed him outside, he’d felt just like he had last fall when Miss Sadie’s ornery little bull calf butted him squarely in the stomach. But then Emily’d always had a knack for knocking him off balance, for making him feel clumsy and foolish, like he was wearing his boots on the wrong feet. Back when she spent her summers on Goosefeather Farm, he’d done his share of mooning over her.

That was what happened when you put a lonesome boy and a pretty girl in the same general vicinity, he reckoned. Of course, Emily had never looked twice in his direction, not that way, and he’d never seriously expected her to. The Whitlock and Elliott properties might butt up against each other, but the families were worlds apart in every other way. Even back then, he’d had enough sense to know that much.

All that was water under an old bridge, because once Emily heard what this lawyer had to say, Abel didn’t figure on getting another hug from her any time soon.

“You be good for Miss Marianne, now,” Emily was telling her children. “Mind your manners.”

“I always mind my manners,” the boy, Paul, answered in a matter-of-fact tone. “It’s Phoebe who forgets.”

“I do not! Well...” Phoebe stuck one finger between her pink lips and hesitated. “Sometimes I forget.” In spite of the knot of nerves in his belly, Abel found himself smiling.

Emily’s twins were cute little things with bright expressions and golden hair exactly the color of wildflower honey, just like their mama’s. The boy had Trey Gordon’s brown eyes, though, and the girl had something of Trey in the set of her chin.

The memory of Trey Gordon made the smile fade from Abel’s face. The summer that Emily Elliott had fallen for Trey had been her last in Pine Valley, and the recollection of it still rankled more than he liked to admit. Still, the man was dead and gone. If Abel couldn’t bring himself to be overly sorry about that, at least with the good Lord’s help he could toss a little mercy at Trey’s memory.

Miss Sadie had taught him that much.

“The kids will be fine.” Jim Monroe sounded impatient. “Marianne loves kids, don’t you, Marianne? Take ’em down the hall to the library, and let them watch cartoons on the television in there.” Monroe dismissed his secretary with a wave and began rummaging through the files stacked on his desk. “Have a seat, Miss Elliott, and we’ll get started.”

Emily had her head stuck out into the hallway, watching her children. She glanced at the lawyer, but she lingered where she was, apparently reluctant to let her children out of her sight.

She’s a good mother, Abel realized, which was pretty remarkable considering that her own mother hadn’t exactly been cut out for parenthood. He’d only met Marlene Elliott a few times, but he remembered her as a flighty woman who always seemed to be in the middle of some kind of man-related crisis. Maybe Emily had inherited her common sense from Tom Elliott, Miss Sadie’s son. He’d passed on before Abel came into the picture, but Tom was remembered in Pine Valley as a solid, upstanding man.

“Close the door if you would, Miss Elliott.” The lawyer darted an uneasy look at Abel. “In these situations privacy is important.”

Emily hesitated another second, then eased the heavy door shut. She came over to take her place in the second chair angled across from the lawyer’s desk.

“Now, Mr. Whitlock, Miss Elliott, you’re here because you are both beneficiaries of Mrs. Sadie Elliott’s last will and testament.”

Abel’s heart sank, and he glanced over at Emily wondering how she’d take this first blow. Emily turned to him, her face lighting up like a spring sunrise.

“Oh, Abel. I’m so glad! You’ve been such a help to Grandma all these years. She’d never have been able to stay on Goosefeather Farm without you, and we both know she’d have been miserable anywhere else. I’m so happy she remembered you in her will!”

Abel winced. He’d thought he couldn’t feel any worse about this whole thing than he already did.

He’d been wrong.

“I never expected her to.” Abel cut another look at Jim Monroe, who winced and pulled a tissue out of the box on his desk to dab at his perspiring forehead. “And, Emily, I want you to know before we go any further, that I had nothing to do with this.”

“We’ve been through all that, Mr. Whitlock,” Monroe sighed heavily and continued as if Abel had directed his comment toward him. “I’m well aware of your sentiments on the matter. But as I’ve already explained to you, Mrs. Elliott set out her wishes very clearly in her will, and like it or not, all three of us are going to have to abide by her terms or accept the consequences.”

Emily frowned. “Of course we’ll abide by the terms of Grandma’s will. Why wouldn’t we?” She looked from one man to the other, her expression puzzled. “What consequences are you talking about? What’s going on?”

Fifteen minutes later she knew.

“You have got to be kidding me.” Emily sounded bewildered, but she didn’t sound angry. Not yet. Abel had his elbows on the desk and his chin cradled in his hands.

So far this was going just about the way he’d figured it would. Not well.

“I’m afraid it’s no joke, Miss Elliott.” Jim Monroe slid his glasses down his nose and looked at Emily sympathetically. “As I said, Mrs. Elliott was very clear. Either you reside on Goosefeather Farm for three months and care for its livestock and crops to the satisfaction of the county extension agent, beginning now, or you forfeit the farm and the rest of your grandmother’s assets to Mr. Whitlock here. Lock, stock and barrel.”

Abel’s gut clenched. Emily was pale except for two spots of red burning high on each cheekbone. She looked like she’d just been slapped.

He couldn’t have loved Miss Sadie Elliott any more if she’d been his own flesh and blood, which was no wonder when you considered that she’d done a sight more for him than any of his own people ever had. When she’d died it had felt like somebody had cut a chunk right out of the middle of his heart. But she’d sure left him in a mess with this crazy notion of hers.

“I can’t live here!” Emily was protesting. “I have a job and an apartment in Atlanta. Phoebe and Paul will be starting kindergarten in August. I’ve already registered them.” She shook her head. “I just don’t get it. What was Grandma thinking?”

“As it happens, we may have an answer to that question.” Jim Monroe slipped an envelope out from under the papers neatly stacked in the manila folder in front of him. He slid it across the table toward Emily. “She left this for you.”

Emily accepted the letter, which bore her name in Miss Sadie’s spidery writing, but she kept her eyes fixed imploringly on the lawyer. “You don’t understand. I can’t stay in Pine Valley,” she repeated. “I just can’t!”

“If you’re unable to meet the conditions of the will, then I’m afraid Mr. Whitlock gets the farm and all your grandmother’s monetary assets, which while hardly extensive are not inconsequential. I’m very sorry, Miss Elliot. I can see this wasn’t what you were expecting, and I agree that it’s quite unusual. I also want you to know that I did encourage Mrs. Elliott to speak to you about it when we drew up the will a couple of years ago. Obviously she didn’t take my advice.”

“This is crazy.” Emily closed her eyes and rubbed her temples with trembling fingers. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.” The confusion and hurt on her face reminded Abel of the time he’d happened across a tiny fawn tangled up in the rusty remains of a barbed-wire fence. Emily’s expression tore into his heart just the same way. Only this time he couldn’t ease the pain with a pair of wire cutters and some salve.

Monroe coughed. “Miss Elliott, this isn’t a decision to be made in haste. Read your grandmother’s letter and think things over. You can come by tomorrow and let me know what you decide. ”

“I was going back to Atlanta this afternoon. I have to work a double shift tomorrow. It’s the only way I could get today off.”

The lawyer made a sympathetic noise as he got up from the table. “Here’s your copy of the will, Miss Elliott. And yours, Mr. Whitlock. Should you have any questions, you can give me a call. But as I’ve already explained to Mr. Whitlock at some length, this will’s going to hold. I drew it up myself, and I know my business. You’re welcome to consult with another lawyer if you choose to fight it, but if he’s worth his salt he’ll tell you the same thing.”

And charge you a pretty penny to do so, Abel thought grimly. He’d already called another attorney, and he’d gotten nowhere.

Monroe shook both their hands. “Take your time if you want to discuss it. The children are fine with Marianne.” He nodded and then exited his office with an air of relief, pulling the door carefully shut behind him.

The silence in the room was leaden. Emily wouldn’t look in Abel’s direction.

“Did you know about all this?” she asked finally, keeping her gaze on the hands she held tightly in her lap.

“Not until it was too late to do anything about it. Monroe called me the day after Miss Sadie passed and told me the basics.” He’d been looking for loopholes ever since, but he hadn’t found any, so he saw no sense in mentioning that.

“Mr. Monroe didn’t tell me anything over the phone except that Grandma left some special condition in the will. I thought it had something to do with finding new homes for the livestock. You know how she was about her animals. I never imagined...” Emily massaged her temples again. “I wasn’t expecting anything like this. Mr. Monroe should have given me the same information he gave you so I could have been prepared.”

“He was probably afraid to,” Abel said honestly. “I’ve been giving him kind of a hard time about all this.” The truth was, he’d hounded the life out of the lawyer, desperate to avoid this very moment. The look on Emily’s face made him wish he’d tried a little harder, although he didn’t see how he could have.

“Really?” Emily’s voice chilled. “Why would you do that? As it stands, all you have to do is wait for me to fail, and you end up with Grandma’s farm. You’ve always been crazy about the place. It seems to me this is a pretty sweet deal for you.”

His heart dropped to the bottom of his gut. This was exactly what he’d been afraid of, what had kept him awake half of last night. He’d worried she’d think he’d finagled this somehow, that he was the kind of person who’d have conned an elderly lady into something like this.

She wouldn’t be alone in thinking it, either, and for good reason. He was the son of a man like that and the grandson of another one. He’d worked hard to build a different kind of reputation for himself in Pine Valley, but it had been uphill work. Easier, his younger brother, Danny, had said, just to move off and start fresh in a place where the Whitlock name wasn’t muddied up with generations of lies, bad debts and shady deals.

Abel had argued, but Danny had had his heart jammed up by some girl who’d looked down her nose at him and he’d been in no mood to listen. His brother had left, and Abel had set his jaw and started the long, slow work of forging trust with his wary neighbors. One day Danny would feel the call of home. Everybody did, sooner or later. And when that day came, he was going to find out that the Whitlocks had a different reputation in this town. Abel intended to make sure of that, and he’d come too far to see it all crumble into dust just because Miss Sadie had come up with one of her crazy ideas.

He met Emily’s eyes squarely. “I’ve already told you I had nothing to do with any of this. If I wanted Goosefeather Farm, I’d have asked Miss Sadie to sell it to me and given her a fair price for it. I’d have asked her straight out, too, like a decent man does when he wants something. I would never have gone behind your back and wheedled her into giving it to me and shortchanging yo—” He stopped short when he saw Emily’s bottom lip trembling. He was about to make her cry, which was just about the only thing that would make this situation even worse than it already was.

“Emily,” he began helplessly but then floundered. He had no idea what to say. Words never came easily to him, and this was way beyond his skill level.

She got up, pushing her chair back so abruptly it almost tilted over. “I can’t talk about this right now. I’ve got to find somewhere to think...and to read this letter. I’ve got to make sense of this somehow.”

Abel reached deep in his jeans pocket, pulling out an old-fashioned key. “Here. Why don’t you go out to the farm? I’ve been locking up since...for the last couple of weeks and taking care of things.”

Emily’s eyes flashed angrily, and her chin went up a notch. “I already have a key, thanks. It was my grandmother’s house after all.”

Abel winced. He was trying to help, but he’d managed to put his foot in it instead. He felt like he was trying to plow a field blindfolded.

“Emily,” he tried again, but she cut him off firmly.

“Don’t try to talk to me right now, Abel, please. Just don’t. I’m tired, and I’ve got a lot to think about. You and I’ve known each other for a long time, and you were always nice to me when I came out for the summers. You looked out for me, and I haven’t forgotten that. You even used to sneak around and do my chores sometimes when Grandma wasn’t looking.” A smile flickered briefly on her lips. “You’re probably the only friend I have left around here. I really—” Her voice broke again, and she coughed and restarted. “I really don’t want to say something to you right now that I’ll regret later.” Her voice sounded thick, but whether it was clogged with tears or anger, he couldn’t tell.

He sat like a stone, listening as she went down the carpeted hallway and gathered up her twins, who protested at leaving in the middle of their cartoon. He waited until he heard the outer office door shut solidly behind her. Then he sighed and rubbed wearily at his eyes.

He had no idea what Miss Sadie had been thinking, but surely this wasn’t what she’d been hoping for. Emily was hurt and angry, and Abel felt like he’d just murdered a puppy. And he had a hunch things were going to get a whole lot trickier before they got any better. If they ever did.

He got to his feet, folding up his copy of the will into a square that would fit in his shirt pocket. He was anxious to escape this stuffy office and get back outside, where he could breathe. Emily wasn’t the only one who needed to think. Maybe a walk in the woods and some time in his workshop would clear his head. He’d spend some more time praying, too. He always felt closer to God out alone under the pines or with his chisel in his hand than he did indoors crowded up next to other folks. It was something he’d had a hard time explaining to the new minister when he’d pestered Abel gently about his spotty church attendance.

Yes, he’d have another long talk with God. Maybe this time the good Lord would give him some clear instructions about how to handle all this. He sure hoped so, because Abel was going to need all the help he could get.

Chapter Two

Phoebe fell asleep on the ten-minute ride out to Goosefeather Farm and had to be wakened when they pulled up in front of the white farmhouse. Even Paul’s eyelids looked a bit heavy, and he leaned against the clapboards on the shady porch as Emily twisted the metal key in the ancient lock. She was a little surprised when she heard the tumblers click grudgingly back into place. Although her grandmother had given her the key several years ago, Emily had never actually used it. The truth was she’d never known this welcoming red door to be locked, and she was amazed that the key even worked.

She gave the children a snack of apple wedges and cheese at her grandmother’s big kitchen table and then took them upstairs and settled them in the spare bedroom for a nap. It was proof of their exhaustion that they accepted this arrangement without a fuss. Phoebe flopped on top of the blue-and-yellow quilt covering the bed nearest the window, cuddled her tattered stuffed rabbit close to her, sighed once and promptly fell back asleep. Paul arranged himself more carefully in the other twin bed, tracing the pointed stars of his matching quilt with a thoughtful finger.

“Are you going to take a nap, too, Mama?” he asked.

She wished. “No. I’ve got some thinking to do.”

“Oh.” He nodded sagely. “But thinking’s hard work, and you’re tired. You might better rest awhile first.” After that pronouncement he closed his eyes and stuck his thumb in his mouth.

Emily kissed him gently, smiling at her son’s unique mixture of innocence and maturity. His preschool teachers had already labeled Paul gifted. That might explain why he often seemed so much older than his years. Emily still worried that being the son of a single mom was making her little boy grow up too fast. His manly little efforts to take care of his mother and sister made her both proud and sad.

She left the door to the twins’ room ajar and crossed the hall to the bedroom that had been hers. Like the rest of the old-fashioned farmhouse, it hadn’t changed much in the last six years. Its generous windows faced west, and the early-afternoon sun slanted warmly across the wide oak floorboards. The violet-sprigged curtains were the ones her grandmother had let her choose from a catalogue years ago. Now they were looped back with faded lavender ribbons to show off a view of the farm’s rolling fields and trim little barns. Emily’s books were still lined up on the white shelf underneath the window, and her teacup collection was arranged along the wide windowsill. Outside this room, Emily’s life had rushed forward like a runaway train, but in here time had held its breath.

She doubted her grandmother had left things this way because of sentimentality. Grandma had just been allergic to change, and she’d never paid much attention to the inside of the house anyway. Sadie Elliott had always preferred to be outside spoiling one of her beloved animals or puttering around in her garden. She’d never known quite what to do with her indoorsy granddaughter, but Sadie had still insisted on the annual visits, rightly guessing that Emily’s mother was far too busy chasing men to supervise her daughter during her school vacation. And while Emily had never particularly enjoyed spending her summers on the farm, she’d grown to love her outspoken grandmother fiercely.

She could remember exactly where she’d been standing in the coffee shop when Mr. Alvarez relayed the message that her grandmother had died. Emily had dropped the metal tray she’d been sliding into the glass showcase, and muffins had rolled in every direction. Caramel pecan, the Tuesday special. When she got her next paycheck, she’d discovered that Mr. Alvarez had docked her pay to cover the cost of the dropped muffins. Compassion wasn’t her boss’s strongest trait. If she stayed on the farm for the summer, she’d almost certainly lose her job.

If she stayed. She couldn’t believe she was even considering it. She rummaged in her purse and brought out her cell phone. Forcing herself not to think about the minutes she was squandering, she sank down on the white chenille bedspread and dialed her friend Clary Wright’s number.

Clary answered on the first ring. “Well,” she said, “you’re using your cell phone, so I already know this is something big. Either your grandmother was secretly a millionaire and left you wads of money, or that rattletrap car of yours conked out and you need your roomie from the big city to drive to the boonies and rescue the three of you. Which is it?”

Emily felt her lips tilting up at her friend’s familiar voice. Clary was just what she needed right now. “Neither one. Right now I really just need a listening ear.”

“Uh-oh. You must need one pretty badly to be using those precious minutes of yours. What’s up?”

Clary listened as Emily filled her in on the terms of the will. “Wow. So, what did the letter say?”

“I haven’t opened it yet.” Emily glanced at the envelope lying beside her on the bedspread. “I think... I think I’d like to make up my own mind about what I want to do before I read it. That’s why I called. I don’t have a clue what I’m supposed to do here, Clary.”

“Now that’s a switch.” Clary’s laugh bubbled through the phone. “You’ve never had much trouble knowing your own mind, Em. I’m always the one calling you.”

“Well, this isn’t exactly an easy choice.” Emily glanced out the window at the tidy barnyard. “On the one hand this could make a real difference for the twins and me. Financially, I mean. There’s over a hundred acres here, not to mention the farmhouse and the barns. I have no idea how much it’d sell for, but...”

“Whatever it is, it’s a lot more than you’ve got right now,” Clary finished for her. “You’ve been praying for the money to start up your own coffee shop, Em. Maybe this is the answer you’ve been waiting for.”

Emily had thought of that, too. “It’s possible, I guess. But it seems like a pretty strange way for God to answer. I stink at farming.”

“You only have to hold things together for the summer. How hard can it be?”

How hard can it be? Emily wanted to laugh, but it really wasn’t funny. “Harder than you can imagine. You’ve never lived in the country, Clary. You don’t know about farms.”

“Maybe not, but I know about you. You’re a working single mom of twins, Emily! Farming should be a snap compared to that.”

“But if I stay here for the whole summer, I’ll lose my job at Café Cup for sure.”

“True,” Clary admitted after a thoughtful second. “But you know, maybe that wouldn’t be such a bad thing. Mr. Alvarez takes advantage of you.”

Emily sighed. Clary, who tended to flit from job to job, had worked at Café Cup herself. Her accident-prone nature and the boss’s skinflinty tendencies hadn’t been a good combination. “You just don’t like him because he fired you.”

“Not true. I don’t hold grudges. You know that. No, this is all about you. How many of your muffin recipes are on his menu now? Five?”

“Six.”

“And aren’t those his best sellers?”

“Usually.” Emily felt a tiny flush of satisfaction.

“But he pays you the same as the other waitresses, right? Even though you’re creating these unique recipes and baking half his product? I’m not sure I’d pass up this opportunity just to keep a job like that.”

“But if I lose my job, how can I pay my half of our rent?” Emily felt panicky just thinking about it.

“Don’t worry about that. I can stretch my budget a little bit and handle the rent by myself for a while.”

“I can’t ask you to do that.”

“You didn’t ask. You never do. And this time I’m not taking no for an answer. Listen.” Clary’s soft voice took on an uncharacteristic firmness. “You can do this, Em. I know you can! And what’s more, I know you’ll never forgive yourself if you don’t at least try.”

Clary had a point. Emily ended the call and set the phone down on the snowy bedspread. Well, she couldn’t put this off forever. She took one steadying breath and tore up the envelope’s flap.

Her grandmother’s message was written in blue ballpoint pen on a plain sheet of notebook paper. Sadie Elliott had never been one for frills or preambles. She got right to the point.

I know right now you’re probably pretty hot at me, but you’re just going to have to get over it.

You’re not much on trusting folks, Emily-girl, and I understand that. But you’re going to have to trust me on this one thing. I had my reasons for leaving things the way I did. Believe it or not, I did it because I love you, and I want what’s best for you. And like all old folks, I think I’ve got a better idea of what that is than you do, so I couldn’t resist taking one last opportunity to meddle a little.

You’ve got plenty of spunk and grit in you, Emily. I admire that—probably because you got those things from me. You’re also stubborn as a country mule. That part you got from your grandpa. When that man made up his mind about something, he was harder to move than a sack of bees.

You settled on an opinion about Pine Valley and Goosefeather Farm a long time ago, and I don’t think you gave either of them a fair shake. I always felt like you were made and meant for this old place, but you were too bullheaded to consider its good points and too busy mooning after the likes of Trey Gordon to notice what the good Lord put right under that pretty little nose of yours.

But there’s no point my going into all that now. Anyhow, it’s something you’ll have to figure out for yourself.

Maybe you’re right, and you never belonged here. Then again maybe you’re wrong. You know well enough what I always thought. Here’s your chance to find out once and for all which one of us is right.

As usual, I’m banking on me. I’m not much to look at, but I’m smart as a whip.

Praying God’s blessings on you and those sweet babies.

All my love,

Grandma

While she was reading, the tears Emily had been fighting all day had spattered down on her grandmother’s writing, making wet circles on the paper. She’d heard her grandmother’s voice just as plainly as if the feisty old lady had been sitting next to her.

She folded up the letter carefully and slipped it back into its envelope. She sat on the bed for a few minutes listening to the ponderous ticking of the grandfather clock at the base of the stairs and the occasional squawk of a chicken from the barnyard.

When nineteen-year-old Emily’s pregnancy test had come up positive, Grandma had set her lips together tightly and left the room for fifteen minutes. When she returned, she’d given her granddaughter a fierce hug and told her she was welcome to stay at Goosefeather Farm for as long as she liked. They’d raise the baby together with God’s help.

She’d never understood Emily’s unwillingness to take her up on that offer, and she hadn’t approved of Emily’s choice to return to Atlanta. Sadie’s concerns turned out to be right on target. When Emily got back to her mother’s apartment, she discovered that Marlene had followed her latest boyfriend to Florida, leaving nothing behind but a stack of overdue bills and a scribbled note saying that Emily was plenty old enough to manage on her own. If Sadie had known half of what Emily had gone through during her first months alone in the city, her grandmother would have driven her old Ford truck up there and hauled her granddaughter straight back to Pine Valley.

Sadie Elliott had been an independent woman herself, though, and she’d reluctantly allowed Emily to forge her own path. Still she’d never really understood why Emily was so stubborn in her refusal to return to Pine Valley or why Emily had gone to such great lengths to entice her grandmother up to Atlanta for holidays and birthday celebrations. Sadie had felt Emily was being unreasonable, and she’d said so on several occasions.

But Grandma hadn’t known everything.

Before Emily had gone to her grandmother with her suspicions, she’d already been to speak to Trey Gordon and his widowed mother, Lois. Naive as she’d been back then, Emily had banked on Trey’s boyish promises, and she’d confidently expected to be making wedding plans once the initial shock subsided.

Instead Trey’s socially prominent mother had wasted no time setting Emily straight. There would be no marriage. Her son’s bright future wasn’t going to be dimmed by tying himself to the likes of Emily Elliott, no matter what kind of fix she’d managed to get herself in. In Lois’s opinion Emily’s best option was to take herself and her problems back up to Atlanta. Given the sort of woman Emily’s mother was, Lois had no doubt Marlene would know how to deal with this. Trey had simply sat by without saying a word, letting his mother fillet Emily into quivering strips with her barbed tongue.

Trey had been killed in a drunk driving accident over four years ago, but apparently his mother had never forgiven Emily for having the audacity to expect her precious son to shoulder his rightful responsibilities. Lois had made that perfectly clear when she bumped into Emily on the morning of Sadie Elliott’s funeral. Emily had felt the chill radiating off Trey’s mother from all the way across the room, and it had been a profound relief when she’d finally been able to put Pine Valley in her rearview mirror and head back to the haven of the Atlanta apartment she and the twins shared with Clary.

Now she was supposed to stay here for the whole summer? It was a daunting thought.

She got to her feet and crossed over the creaking floor to the window that looked out over the farm. She could see her grandma’s milk cow grazing placidly in the pasture on the right-hand side of the house and the vegetable garden to the left with its tidy rows. The far field was dotted with black Angus cows. They were the farm’s bread and butter and depended on the hay fields, which were tucked out of sight behind the house.

It all looked so serene and orderly. Emily knew it was anything but.

Already weeds were impudently sprouting up between the plants in the garden, and each row of vegetables would end up requiring hours of labor before the produce made it to the local farmers’ market or to the farmhouse kitchen, where it would have to be processed and canned to be stored for winter eating. That cow would have to be milked night and morning no matter what else was going on, and the dairy pails and strainers would have to be scrubbed and sanitized daily. Those black Angus cows would need to be carefully monitored and fed if they were going to bring top price at the end of the summer. Then there were the goats and the chickens to look after.

And the hay field. Emily didn’t even want to think about that hay field. Haying was backbreaking work that required the use of a lot of complicated equipment that she couldn’t even imagine running on her own. She didn’t know much about any of this. She’d spent most of her summers on the farm trying to avoid this type of work so she could spend her time tinkering around in her grandma’s old-fashioned kitchen. And now she had the twins to look after, as well.

Her grandma had always counted on Abel Whitlock to do the toughest farm work, but Emily could hardly expect him to help out now, not when he stood to inherit the place if she made a mess of things. Besides, even if he were willing, she had no money to pay him.

She might as well face it. She was on her own. And that was fine, she told herself, lifting her chin a fraction. She was better off that way. Depending on other people was what generally got her in trouble.

Through the window Emily watched a hen that had somehow managed to escape from the coop, wandering the yard, clucking and pecking at bugs. She’d have to catch the silly bird before a hawk did and then try to block the hole in the chicken pen. She’d have to see the rest of the animals settled for the night, too, which meant she was going to have to take her first shot at milking a cow in years.

Then she’d have to go back to Atlanta and do her best to explain things to Mr. Alvarez. Given her boss’s temperament, she knew keeping her job was unlikely, but she’d see what she could do. She needed that job.

Because the minute the farm was legally hers, Emily planned to stick a for-sale sign in the yard, point her little car back toward Atlanta, and once again put Pine Valley and all its painful memories in her rearview mirror—this time permanently. For once in her life, Sadie Elliott had gotten things utterly and completely wrong.

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.

She got very busy peeling the paper off a muffin before she spoke. “You don’t have to apologize for meaning a lot to my grandmother, Abel. And I don’t blame you for the way she left her will. You and I both know nobody could talk Grandma into doing anything she didn’t want to do.”

Abel heaved a deep sigh, and she looked up from her muffin to find him smiling that lopsided smile of his. He looked relieved. “That’s good to hear.” He stripped the paper off one of his own muffins and broke off a generous chunk.

“That doesn’t mean I’m happy about being put through this trial by farm, or whatever you want to call it,” Emily cautioned. “It’s the craziest thing I ever heard of. I don’t know what Grandma was thinking.”

“The letter didn’t tell you?”

Emily shrugged. “Grandma never thought I appreciated Goosefeather Farm the way she wanted me to. It looks like she just wanted one last opportunity to change my mind. She was always convinced I belonged here.”

“Maybe you do,” Abel said simply, breaking off another chunk of muffin.

“Believe me, I don’t.” He looked as unconvinced as her grandmother had every time they’d had this particular conversation. Time to change the subject. “How are those muffins? I baked them yesterday morning.” She was tinkering with her apple spice muffin recipe, and she thought adding the extra ground cloves had been a good idea.

“Really good. But then you always were a good cook, even when you were a little slip of a thing. Better than Miss Sadie, rest her soul. Her muffins were like hockey pucks.”

Emily smiled, remembering. “She mixed them too much. You’ve got to be careful with muffin batter. I always told her so, but you know Grandma. Whatever she did, she did with a vengeance.”

Abel chuckled. “You’re right about that. Miss Sadie never did do things by halves. I recall when she finally got fed up with my excuses about not going to church with her. She went out in the middle of a Saturday night and flattened her own truck tires, all four of them, so I’d have to come over and drive her into town. Then she made a big show of stumbling on the curb in front of the church so I’d be sure to walk her in. She had me sitting in that pew before I knew what had happened, and she was right beside me, grinning like a mule eating briars.” He sighed. “I’m sure going to miss her.”

Emily nodded and took a deliberate sip of her scalding coffee to dissolve the lump in her throat. “I know. Me, too.”

She’d been right to give him two muffins. He polished them both off in short order. She watched as he carefully wiped up the few crumbs he’d dropped on the table and deposited them on the plate next to his neatly folded muffin papers. Then he drained his coffee mug, set it on the plate and rose to carry his dirty dishes to the sink.

Abel had always done that, she remembered. He’d cleaned up after himself, been careful to remove his muddy boots at the back door and never left one crumb or drop behind. It had seemed so strange for such a big, outdoorsy boy to be so meticulous about things like that that Emily had found it amusing. She’d joked about it one time to her grandmother, and Sadie Elliott’s sharp reply had caught her off guard. “Them that’s had their share of trouble know better than to make trouble for other folks, missy! Mark that, and remember it.”

“Emily?”

She glanced up, startled to find Abel standing at the sink looking uneasy.

“Yes?” She tilted her head to look up at him, thinking that inside the house he seemed bigger somehow. He’d always been tall, but she never remembered him taking up so much space before.

“I reckon we’ve circled around all this long enough. I don’t want to upset you, but I’m going to speak plain. You’re going to lose this farm if you don’t have good help. There’s just no two ways about it, and I’d sure hate to see that happen.”

He’d filled out, Emily realized suddenly. Abel couldn’t be called lanky anymore. He was still lean, but his shoulders had broadened, and there was a muscular set to them now. When she’d left Goosefeather Farm six years ago, Abel Whitlock was only a few years out of his teens. Now he was a man. That was the difference she was picking up on.

She felt a sudden prickle of nerves. Maybe this deal with Abel wasn’t such a good idea after all. Then again, she knew he made a good point. If she didn’t have help, she’d never be able to keep this place afloat.

It looked like she was trapped between this rock of a man and a very hard place.

“Listen to me, Emily. I know you’re not easy in your mind about any of this. You don’t like leaning on somebody else, and I can’t say as I blame you. I’d likely feel the same if I were in your shoes. But I’m no stranger to you. You’ve known me nearly half your life, and you surely know me well enough by now to know that I mean what I say. If you let me help you, I’ll make sure you end up with this farm at the end of the summer. You have my word on it.”

For a second, all Emily could do was blink at this man standing in her grandmother’s kitchen in faded jeans and a threadbare shirt. Apparently he was so determined to forfeit a tidy little inheritance that he was promising his help to the very person who was going to do her best to make sure he didn’t get it. Was it even possible that such a person still existed in this dog-eat-dog world?

“Come on, Emily,” he coaxed, one side of his mouth quirking up. “You must have one last Goosefeather Farm summer left in you.” Suddenly there was something irresistible about that crooked smile. She found herself smiling right back at him, and that was when it happened.

Emily felt a quick, flooding warmth around her heart, and her stomach dropped abruptly out from under her as if she’d just unexpectedly barreled down the slope of a roller coaster. She froze while Abel calmly turned his attention to rinsing out his coffee cup at the sink.

What had just happened?

Her mind stuttered with the shock of it. Had she just had some kind of weak-kneed, girlie moment? Over Abel Whitlock?

Surely not.

She’d thought she was dealing really well with Grandma’s death, all things considered, but she was obviously more overwrought than she’d realized. Because Emily Elliott didn’t have weak-kneed, girlie moments over men anymore. She’d learned her lesson in that department a long time ago, and she had no plans to go down that particular road again any time soon—if ever.

And if and when she did, it certainly wouldn’t be with another man from Pine Valley, Georgia.

* * *

Abel turned back from the sink to find Emily studying him with a wary expression on her face. As he watched, her cheeks flushed pink, and her gaze darted back into her coffee cup.

She was still acting skittish, but who could blame her after the day she’d had? Judging from those purple smudges under her eyes, she was tuckered out. He could hear the twins arguing in the living room, something about a cartoon. Emily still had to load them up and make the trip back to Atlanta tonight. Abel felt a flicker of doubt. As much as he wanted to get this all settled, maybe right now wasn’t the best time. He hesitated, shifting his weight from one foot to the other and wishing he knew just what to say to put her mind at ease.

“Abel.” Something in Emily’s voice jerked his wandering thoughts to attention. Now she was sitting bolt upright in her chair, and she looked as taut as a newly strung fence wire.

His muscles tensed. Something was wrong. “What is it?”

She swallowed, and very, very slowly she scooted the old ladder-back chair a few inches backward. “I think...” she whispered. “Okay, I know it sounds a little crazy, but I think there might be something alive under this table.”

Abel’s mind flashed to the screened door, to how it had seemed to be open just a crack when he came up the back steps, and he winced. On Goosefeather Farm that could only mean one thing, and he didn’t think Emily was going to like it one little bit.

Before he could gather his thoughts enough to speak, something gray and long snaked out from under the low-hanging tablecloth and jabbed Emily smartly on the thigh. She yelped, and the mug she’d been holding hit the floor and cracked into pieces, sending the remains of her coffee flooding across the floorboards. Emily tipped her chair over backward, her legs tangling up in its slats as she scrambled away.

She was halfway into the living room before she stopped to look back. “What is it?” she asked in a trembling voice as the creature sidled slowly out from under the table.

“She’s an African gray goose.” Abel tried to keep the laugh out of his voice, but he couldn’t entirely manage it. “I gave her to Miss Sadie last spring because I figured any farm called Goosefeather ought to have at least one goose living on it. Your grandma named her Glory. And she’s a born troublemaker.” He addressed his last comment to the goose, who honked briefly at him in reply.

Emily stayed safely in the living room, her arms wrapped protectively around her twins. They’d left their cartoon to blink owlishly at the unrepentant goose, who was doing her best to thieve the remains of Emily’s muffin off the top of the kitchen table. “Thanks, but you can skip over the introductions. I don’t think I want to be on a first-name basis with that thing. How did it get in here?”

“You must have left the screen door cracked when you headed out to the barn earlier. She’s smart about opening it if it’s not pulled all the way shut. Your grandma thought it was a cute trick, and that didn’t help.”

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