The woman halted, expressed a breath as she turned to him. “Do you hope to last here until the harvest’s end, Mr. Holt?”
Hope. There it was again. The call that’d brought him here. He looked at the woman before him. Pure foolishness.
“This isn’t going to work,” Lorna decided before he answered. He was about to agree when a flash of soft defeat brought a humanness to her features.
Behind him, a woman’s voice deep and hard as a man’s called, “Lorna?”
Another voice, a high treble but equally adamant, blended with the first. “Lorna, dear?”
Lorna. Julius looked at the woman who’d fired him faster than she’d hired him. Her brow puckered as she expressed another long breath through her fine-cut nostrils. So that was her given name. Lorna. It fit her—the sound of it hard and soft like the woman herself.
“I told you she’d be here,” the deeper voice flatly pronounced.
“Why, of course, she’d be here. Where else would she be on a glorious day like today but outside in the fine air?” the treble retorted.
“You said she’d probably gone to town.”
“And you said she was in need of company. However—” the light voice raised on a speculative note “—it seems we were both wrong.”
Julius turned to see two elderly ladies crossing the grass. The smaller one wore a crocheted cape over a lace-collared dress and took dainty steps in low heels. The other woman wore a trench coat. Knit pants and flat loafers were revealed beneath the coat’s hem.
“Aunt Eve. Aunt Birdy.” Lorna welcomed the women. Julius heard the strain in her voice. “What a surprise.”
The women drew near. The taller one in the trench coat with a helmet of steel-gray hair stared at Julius with open disapproval. “I can’t even imagine.”
The smaller woman, her features crinkling with good nature, stepped forward and extended her hand. “How do you do, young man?”
He shook her hand. “How do you do, ma’am.”
Tipping her head back, the woman took in the length of him, her eyes the same gray-green as Lorna’s but sparkling. “I’m so glad our Lorna is already receiving gentlemen callers. The early bird gets the worm, you know.” Her smile went sly.
Julius gave her a wink.
“Aunt Birdy,” Lorna protested.
“Don’t be a ninny, Bernadette,” the other woman said. “Lorna’s louse of a husband hasn’t even been in the ground for a full season.”
The tiny woman smiled at Julius, holding his hand in both of hers, but she spoke to the one Lorna called Aunt Eve. “It’s been over a month, sister.”
“A rat’s ass. The date was—”
“Aunties.” Lorna stepped forward, disentangling Birdy’s hands from Julius. “Mr. Holt is no gentleman—”
“Indeed,” Eve intoned.
“He’s…” She glanced at him and straightened her shoulders. “He’s my new foreman.”
Julius looked at her with as much surprise as the aunts.
“He ran his family’s farm in Oklahoma,” Lorna continued, “and has also worked at establishments along both coasts as well as several in between. He has a wealth of experience.”
Birdy beamed up at him. Eve glared. He smiled, gave her a wink, too.
“I was just showing Mr. Holt his quarters.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Lorna,” Eve snapped. “Your husband already threw away enough of your money—”
“God save his soul,” Birdy interjected.
Eve snorted. “Too late for that. It’s bad enough your husband squandered as much of your trust fund as possible. Now you’re trying to finish the job by throwing the rest away on this sinking ship—”
“You should hear what they’re saying in town, dear.” Birdy’s expression softened with sympathy. “It’s quite upsetting.”
“I know what they’re saying in town. That I’ve gone off the deep end. ‘Loony Lorna.’ ‘Lorna the Loon.”’
Birdy glanced at her sister, then back at her niece, the distress in her eyes confirming Lorna’s claims. Julius saw Lorna’s smile stiffen. Up until that moment, he might even have agreed with the town’s assessment. But, until that moment, he’d never seen above that tense smile, pain so deep in those vulnerable gray-green eyes. Until that moment, he’d also never been a foreman before. Foreman. Even at seven an hour, he liked the sound of it.
“Actually, ladies,” he said, “Mrs. O’Reilly’s—”
“Lord, not that name.” Eve turned to Lorna. “I thought you were going to go back to using the family name?”
Lorna said nothing. She was watching Julius, waiting to see what he was about to say.
“Mrs. O’Reilly’s decision,” Julius began again, “to run this farm was a wise investment.”
Eve snorted. Birdy looked at Julius with her bright eyes. He squatted down to the new grass, pressed it to the ground. “Springs back up.” He looked at the women. “Rich, moist, class-one soil. Fed first by the waters that left us that creek that splits the land, that pond in the lower field. Good irrigation sources. A little time, hard work and innovative planting…” He straightened to his remarkable height and released his killer smile. “In five years, our yields will be the envy of every other farmer around.”
“Humph,” Eve huffed. “The way farmers around here are trying to sell out to contractors, there won’t be any left in five years.”
“Then it’s a good thing we’ll be here. Now, if it’s all right with you, Mrs. O’Reilly, and if you ladies will excuse me—” Julius tipped his absent cap “—I’ll get started inspecting the equipment.”
The women watched him as he headed to the buildings.
“I bet you could play tiddlywinks on that chassis,” Birdy observed.
“Bernadette,” Eve scolded as Lorna genuinely grinned for the first time in what seemed a long spell.
Eve turned to her niece. “Lorna, don’t you pay no mind what the gossips say in town. The entire incident was more excitement than most of these chattering fools around here will see in a lifetime.”
“I’m glad I’ve done the community a service then.”
“Now, there’s no need for a sharp tongue. And not everyone thinks you’re off your trolley, but how can others even express their concern when you’re hiding out here?”
“I’m not hiding out here.”
“Of course you are,” Eve insisted. “I don’t care how many gaudy outfits you wear as if spitting at any offers of sympathy. And land almighty, child, what were you thinking with those shutters?”
“I don’t want sympathy,” Lorna said quietly.
Eve eyed her niece. “‘The meek shall inherit the earth,’ Lorna. And you should make an appointment with Doc Stevenson, have him check you for color blindness if we can get you back into town.”
“I have no intention of staying out of town. In fact, I’m driving in tomorrow for groceries and a few other things.”
“Thatta girl,” Birdy urged. “You walk down Main Street, head high, strutting your stuff. Who cares what they say? What happened wasn’t your fault.”
Lorna’s grin was long gone. “Yes, it was, Aunt Birdy.”
“Nonsense.