The eight-year-old trooped off as, with a time-honed precision that was truly a thing of beauty, breakfast dishes were cleared, lunches distributed, assorted arms shoved into jacket or sweatshirt sleeves, and Sam felt a little of his hard-won peace return. Farming was a challenge, no doubt about it; raising six kids by himself even more so. But it was amazing how smoothly things could run—or at least, had run up until the Attack of the Killer Hormones—by simply establishing, and enforcing, some basic parameters, making sure everybody did their fair share.
As all the boys except Travis filed out to catch the school bus, Sam shifted his weight off his complaining leg, deciding there was no reason at all why the method that had stood him in good stead since Jeannie’s passing shouldn’t continue to do so. Not that it hadn’t been hard at first. Lord, he’d missed her so much those first few months he’d thought he’d go crazy, both with grief and unfulfilled longing. But the pain had passed, or at least dulled, as had the collective ineptitude. Jeannie hadn’t meant to make them all dependent on her, Sam knew that, but it had simply been in her nature to do for them. She hadn’t wanted anyone else messing in her kitchen; there was no reason for the kids, or Sam, for that matter, to remember where anything was because Jeannie had a photographic memory. But when she died, of a freak aneurism that nobody could’ve predicted, let alone prevented, and it became clear exactly how useless they all were in the house….
Well. Never again, was all Sam had to say. And now that everything was running more or less smoothly, he saw no need to go mucking it all up by introducing another human being into the mix. He’d had his one true love. Maybe it hadn’t lasted as long as he’d hoped, but there’d be no replacing Jeannie, and he had no intention of trying. No matter how much Libby thought otherwise.
No matter how bad the loneliness tried to suffocate him from time to time.
His daughter clomped past again, her midriff now covered, her makeup more in keeping with what Sam considered appropriate for a girl who didn’t turn fifteen for another month. He grabbed her again, this time to inflict a one-armed hug, which she patiently suffered for a moment or two before grabbing her backpack and sailing out the back door. Now alone in the kitchen, except for a dog or two and a cat who must’ve slipped inside when everybody left, he silently reassured his wits it was okay to come out of hiding.
Like his mother used to say, it was a great life if you didn’t weaken.
He found Travis in the living room, on his stomach in front of the TV, watching a faded Grover through a scrim of wiggly lines. One of these days he was gonna have to break down and get a satellite dish, he supposed, except he couldn’t work up a whole lot of enthusiasm for making TV even more appealing to a houseful of kids.
“Hey, big stuff—you make your bed?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Then go pee and get your jacket, we’ve got supplies to buy, fences to fix.”
A half minute later, the little boy returned to the living room, trying to walk and straighten out his elastic-waisted jeans at the same time and not having a whole lot of success. Underneath a pale blond buzz cut, big blue eyes the exact color of his mother’s met Sam’s as he squatted to fix the boy’s twisted waistband. “C’n Radar come, too?”
Sam glanced over at their most recent acquisition, who looked to be part Heeler, part jackrabbit. Biggest damn ears he’d ever seen on a dog. Mutt had shown up during a thunderstorm a month or so back and didn’t seem much interested in leaving. Despite Sam’s regular declarations of “No more animals,” every homeless cat or dog in Mayes County seemed destined to land on their doorstep, although Sam told himself this was not because he was a pushover.
“Don’t see why not,” Sam said, and boy and dog practically tripped over each other on their way out the door. Seconds later, they were all in the pickup, headed into Haven and Sutter’s Hardware. Granted, you could find bigger, fancier, and probably cheaper home improvement centers in Claremore and Tulsa. But what with gas prices being what they were these days, and the fact that Abe Sutter carried only what the local farmers needed and not a whole lot of stuff they didn’t, thus drastically reducing the temptation to spend money they didn’t have to begin with, most folks found Abe’s more of a bargain than you might think.
The sun had pretty much burned off the morning chill, leaving behind one of those nice Indian Summer days that could make a man feel in charge again, even of headstrong teenagers who craved their freedom right when they needed the most watching. Never mind that the thousands of black-eyed Susans bobbing in the breeze on either side of the road seemed to be laughing at him, that the golden fields falling away as they crested each rolling hill stirred up memories of another teenage girl, her face flushed with newly discovered sexual passion during some hot and heavy necking sessions with a certain teenage boy who’d ached to take them both to places they’d never been, even as he knew the time hadn’t been right for either of them, not yet.
Sam had respected Jeannie’s wish to remain a virgin until marriage, but waiting had nearly killed both of them. Especially as “waiting” had meant until after they’d both finished college and Sam was sure he could support a family. Was it any wonder that Jeannie had gotten pregnant on their wedding night? Or that Libby was the way she was, being the product of all that pent-up passion?
Considering how good his and Jeannie’s sex life had been, doing without all this time hadn’t been nearly the struggle he’d thought. The farm, though, was in better shape than it had ever been, leaving Sam to consider, as he crested a hill to find himself trailing a camper-shelled pickup with an Ohio plate, that he probably was the only farmer in existence who actually liked repairing fences.
His musings disintegrated, however, when, with a great deal of squealing, the truck suddenly swerved like a spooked elephant, lurched off the road into the shallow, weed-tangled ditch, then shuddered to a stop as if grateful the ordeal was over. Adrenaline spiked through Sam as he pulled up behind the listing vehicle, squinting in the glare of sun flashing off white metal.
“You stay put while I make sure everybody’s all right,” he said to Travis, unbuckling his belt and climbing out just in time to hear a female voice let loose with a very succinct cussword, followed immediately by a man’s admonition to watch her language. Which in turn resulted in an even more succinct cussword.
The driver’s side door popped open, slammed back shut—which resulted in a loud “Dammit!”—then opened again, this time to stay put long enough for the skinniest woman he’d ever seen to push herself up and out of the truck like a frantic, if emaciated, butterfly emerging from its cocoon. Pinpricks of light flashed from a series of earrings marching up her ear.
“You okay?” Sam asked, not realizing she hadn’t seen him. She jumped back with a startled “Oh,” one hand pressed to her flat chest, her long fingers weighted down with so many rings Sam wasn’t sure how she could lift her hand. Especially considering her wrist looked like it would snap in two if a person breathed on it hard.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” she said on a pushed-out breath, swiping one hand over dark hair yanked back from her face to explode into a surprisingly exuberant, curly ponytail on the back of her head. “Just pissed.” Startlingly silver-blue eyes glanced off Sam’s for a split second before, her forehead creased, she returned her attention to the still-open truck door. “Dad? Can you get out?”
Forget the butterfly image. The set to her mouth, the way her nut-colored skin stretched across her bones, brought to mind the kinds of insects that cheerfully devoured their mates after sex.
Sam moved closer to lend a hand, if needed, just as a pair of chinoed legs in lace-up walking shoes emerged from the truck, followed by a white head and wide shoulders. With a grunt, the tall man levered himself out onto his feet.
“Yes, yes, I’m fine,” he said to the gal, then turned back to glare at the listing truck. “Although my state of mind pretty much echoes my daughter’s.”
Reassured that nobody was hurt, Sam chuckled, then extended his hand. “Sam Frazier. I’ve got a farm