His Hometown Girl

He’d only dated her because he felt sorry for her—a fact he hadn’t denied when she’d accused him.

So when her parents had moved to Arizona, she’d left a week early for college without warning him. What could she have said that wouldn’t have caused more hurt? Their original plan had been to maintain their relationship and see each other during college breaks. Instead, she’d vowed to never return home again. Until now... She’d reacted impulsively, she realized, looking back. But there was no sense in wishing for a chance to make things right. Especially not with both of them on opposite sides of this battle.

Besides, those were the feelings of an adolescent girl crushed by her failed first love. Not the woman she was today. Not even close.

“You said this wasn’t personal.” The timbre of his voice deepened.

She shrugged tense shoulders. “It’s not.” Not in the way he meant anyway. This was for Tyler, not revenge on an ex-boyfriend.

“Then it’s for the bonus.”

“That’s none of your business.” Heat flared along her upper chest and crept up her neck. She needed that payment for Tyler.

“Fine. You win.” He sent her a sideways glance. “This time.”

She unclenched her hands when Daniel clicked off his windshield wipers. The rain ceased its steady drum and sunshine splashed down where clouds broke apart and moved off, revealing patches of blue. She squinted out the window and breathed deeply. She had nothing to feel guilty about.

Until they rounded a corner.

“And this is where your mother used to live growing up.”

Tyler kept eating and Jodi averted her eyes. She didn’t want to see the scene of her father’s accident.

“The next side road’s a shortcut to Aunt Grace’s house,” she said through shaking lips. “Could we take that, please?”

“But you’ll miss seeing Deep Meadows Farm. Remember the daisy chains we used to make?”

“Take us home, Daniel,” she ordered, voice thick. She clasped her trembling hands in her lap, recalling the dash to the hospital ten years ago, and her remorse for not being there to help with the skid loader borrowed from Daniel’s father.

“But, Jodi Lynn, you are home.” Daniel’s insistent tone softened.

“Home is Chicago.” Jodi said it to remind herself as much as Daniel. “I meant to my aunt Grace’s house. The tour’s over.”

Her voice was harsher than she intended and Tyler flapped his hands. He rocked forward in his seat and made a keening sound that pierced her heart.

“Tyler, I’m sorry,” she crooned, regret filling her. “We’ll be home soon and you can take a nap.” She wedged his stuffed animal beneath his seat belt. “Ollie’s tired, too.” She tried pressing on his shoulders the way the therapist had showed her to calm him, but couldn’t get the right angle.

Daniel turned off the radio and flicked his blinker on at the side road.

“No,” she protested when Tyler’s protests escalated to full-out screams. “Some noise is good. Do you have anything classical?” A familiar weeping willow flashed by along with a clearing that contained two grazing dapple-grays. Good. Getting closer now.

“Just 102.9.”

But when he tuned into the local channel, they were running through sports news, the announcer’s high-pitched voice making Tyler’s legs beat against the seat, his small hands covering his ears.

Familiar panic set in. The juice box she offered Tyler wound up on the floor beside the Fruit Roll-Up. The back of her neck grew damp and her eyelid twitched.

She knew she shouldn’t feel ashamed of her difficulty in controlling Tyler’s outbursts, but she did. It felt as if a marquee sign appeared over her head flashing Bad Mother...Bad Mother.... And the disapproving looks she got in restaurants or checkout lines confirmed the fact that, yes, she was being judged and found wanting.

How would they have handled this at Wonders Primary? She pictured the brightly colored toys and equipment in the well-lit, open space, the smiling, patient therapists who played on their knees with the children. There this tantrum might never have occurred.

This was exactly why she needed to succeed and head home as soon as possible. She wasn’t what was best for Tyler. They were. And the thought made her want to cry along with her son.

A few minutes later, Aunt Grace’s cedar-shingled house appeared through a row of blue spruce. Behind the tidy one-story, the deep navy of Lake Champlain shimmered. Tyler let out a piercing scream when they bounced to a halt.

“It’s okay, Tyler. We’re here,” she murmured as her hands struggled with the child seat restraints across his stomach. Her fingers tingled when Daniel brushed them aside. In one snap, he freed her son, lifted him out of the truck and carried him to the front porch steps.

Jodi freed the car seat, grabbed it and her purse and followed until a familiar voice stopped her.

“Welcome home!”

She whirled and sagged into Aunt Grace’s outstretched arms, her face buried in her familiar, lilac-scented shoulders. Or maybe the scent came from the purple, white and pink blossoms in the basket she carried. Either way, the smell made something inside her loosen.

“It’s so good to see you.” She stepped back at last and admired Aunt Grace’s soft pink blouse and gray slacks.

“I’ve waited a long time for this, Jodi.” Her aunt’s brown eyes, set behind skin folds and creases, were still as piercing as ever. “Wish you’d come home under better circumstances.”

“A visit with you is the best circumstance.” And it was.

“I agree. If only your parents would come back from Arizona, too.” Aunt Grace wrapped an arm around her and led her toward the garden beds surrounding her porch. “How are you, Daniel? Would you like to come inside for some tea?”

“I think Jodi’s had enough of me, Grace, but thanks.” His eyes lingered on Jodi’s for a long minute before he headed back to the truck, his movements easy and athletic.

No sooner had he grabbed their suitcases than he dropped them again to lunge after a bolting Tyler. A tern, Tyler’s target, squawked and flew from Aunt Grace’s dock directly behind her small house.

Jodi clutched her chest, grabbing the locket containing Tyler’s baby picture, her heart beating like the frantic bird’s wings. If not for Daniel’s lightning reflexes, Tyler might have ended up in the water, or worse, on the rocks that flashed just above the surface before the lake bed dropped off. She’d been so fixed on watching Daniel that she’d missed her son’s dash. Her “Bad Mother” marquee flashed on again.

“Daniel, thank you,” she said when he deposited Tyler in her arms. Her son kicked and protested until Grace offered him a cookie and led him inside.

Daniel’s face creased. “No need to thank me. It’s what neighbors do, Jodi. Help each other.”

And just like that her gratitude dissolved into irritation. She pushed back the strands a lake breeze blew in her face.

“Neighbors in cities support one another, too. My neighbor has been taking care of Tyler until—”

Daniel’s biceps flexed as he carried her suitcases and placed them at her feet. “Until...?”

Her hands curled. Why did she forget herself so often around him? “Until he starts day care.” There. It was the truth without saying anything that would connect it to her real reason for being here. Daniel needed to see her as a strong opponent, not a mother who was struggling to provide for her child.

He stared intently at her, then passed her a small bag. “You’ll be glad to go back soon. Even if it is empty-handed.”

“I agree with half that statement.” Daniel had charm and contacts, but she had the drive of needing something badly.

Daniel hopped up on his running board. “Guess we’ll have to agree to disagree on that.”

She raised an eyebrow. “It’s not a matter of agreeing or disagreeing. We’re not playing on the same team anymore.”

“Have we ever?”

Their eyes locked for a breathless moment, both recalling when they had.

“This is different.”

He studied her for a long minute, then waved before sliding inside. “I know.”

As he began backing out of her aunt’s driveway, his eyes on her, she heard him shout, “This is war!”

CHAPTER THREE

AND WAR IT was, regardless of the fact that Jodi had been on his mind nonstop during his afternoon chores, his ever-present retriever, Goldie, at his heels. He could fool himself. Think he was strategizing. But the truth was he kept picturing the smile she’d given him when he’d rescued Tyler. And the way her blue eyes had warmed to him—even for a short while.

He cranked off the engine on his feed blower, stepped out and pulled off his hat, letting the fans sweep his damp hair away from his forehead. Who was he kidding fantasizing about Jodi? Their short-lived relationship had left scars. She’d been right to accuse him of pitying her. He had felt bad about what’d happened to her family. It was the reason he’d put a stop to their rivalry and started being nice to her.

But when their truce had turned to romance, it’d been hard to separate those feelings. To know where one emotion ended and the other began. When she’d asked him if he’d dated her out of pity, he’d struggled to express himself clearly.

Looking back, he understood that he hadn’t been mature enough to handle the situation. It’d been complicated, and she’d run off, quit, before he’d figured out how to explain without offending her or revealing his own family’s secrets.

Her father’s accident had left Daniel’s family in a bad place financially. Replacing the skid loader her father had broken had pushed Daniel’s cash-strapped family over the edge. That was the real reason he’d convinced her to keep their romance a secret—he didn’t want to give his parents another excuse to argue. After all, she’d been the source of his family’s strain. He rubbed the back of his tense neck. But that was a long time ago; they weren’t teenagers anymore.

In fact, like Jodi, he’d moved on. He had dated other women, although none as seriously. He had too many things to focus on before settling down, his updated farm being one of them. He looked on with pride at the orderly rows of newly widened stalls. Brown jersey cows stuck out their heads and nipped at his homegrown organic silage, their lowing filling the barn. Besides sunrise, this was his favorite time of the day, when the last of his herd had exited the mechanized, circular milking parlor and returned to stalls heaped with sweet straw bedding, their eyes drooping from a long day at pasture, many on their knees already.

“All set there, Daniel?” A gawky young man waved at him from farther down the center aisle. His hired hand was a decent guy who mostly kept to himself. Hopefully, this one would last out a full year. Colton was one of the best workers he’d found in a while.

“Pretty much. I’m about to head up. Are you coming for supper?”

“Yeah, if you don’t mind. I’ve got to set the timer on the mister and change out of these.” He plucked at his tan coveralls.

“Sounds good. We’ll hold the meal for you.”

A striped barn cat wound its way through Daniel’s legs and touched noses with a tail-wagging Goldie. Cat and dog. Natural enemies. Yet they’d found a way to get along. Would he and Jodi ever find that peace? He gritted his teeth. Only if she saw the light—like the mellow gold shafts striping the sawdust-covered floors. No business office could compete with this. It was majestic.

And Jodi shared that quality. It had made her his fiercest enemy growing up, and the subject of many boyhood dreams—one of which had briefly come true. He paused to look at a mound of hay in the same place as the one where they’d kissed ten years ago. It was a memory best forgotten, especially now that they were locked in this “winner take all” battle.

If she had her way, his jerseys wouldn’t be brushed nightly, given hours of outdoor time or slipped a carrot when they looked a little off, because yes, despite having three hundred head, he knew them all that well. Had birthed them and named them himself. They were a family of sorts and he never could look at them as pure dollar signs.

He slopped milk into a trough left out for the cats. The orange tabby had already been joined by three calicoes, a gray short hair, a tailless Manx, and a rag-doll cat he couldn’t resist picking up and letting flop across his forearm. He rubbed its belly fast before its claws came out, then put it down where it shoved its way into the growing crowd. He noticed a Persian hanging back. Huh. He’d never seen it before. Must have been another midnight drop-off from a regretful pet owner.

The skittish cat raced from him as he approached, but in minutes he had it cornered and in a pet carrier. He strode up the small knoll to his gray, plank-sided, two-story farmhouse where the smell of pot roast and onions made his stomach growl. For a moment he imagined what it’d be like to have Jodi there, waiting for him, but shook off the foolish thought. As soon as she left town, she’d disappear for another ten years, maybe forever.

Feeling hollow, he trudged up the back porch steps, which badly needed a coat of paint, and pulled open the screen door. He shrugged off his plaid overshirt and stepped inside the narrow hallway lined with framed pictures of his ancestors, their smiles absent, but their eyes content. He grinned at his grandfather’s 1957 tractors calendar, glad they’d never had the heart to take it down.

“Sue!”

His sister appeared in the door frame, her glasses askew on her narrow nose, her short dark hair standing up in odd places.

“Tell me you didn’t fall asleep and forget to turn off the oven.”

Her hazel eyes widened and she tugged at the collar of a top she’d probably crocheted herself. “I’m sorry, Daniel. You know I’m useless in the kitchen.”

He passed her the pet carrier. “Did you start the water on the potatoes?”

“Ten minutes ago.” She peered into the plastic container. “Who’s this rapscallion? Don’t remember seeing it around.”

He glanced up at the worn edge of the Scrabble box perched on the hall-closet shelf and whistled. Last weekend, their traditional Saturday night game had ended after three hours and a few words that weren’t allowed on the board.

“Nice word. A fifteen pointer. As for this guy, he looks like another drop-off. Thought you might bring him to the vet tomorrow. Get him checked out, shots, neutered...you know.”

His sister heaved a sigh and poked a finger in the cage to stroke the cowering feline’s nose. “Oh, I know. We’re practically an animal dumping ground.”

“It’s not just us, Sue.” He sniffed and calculated. He’d put the beef in the roaster when he got back from picking up Jodi, so it was probably burned on the bottom. And the potatoes he’d peeled would still be as hard as rocks. Another typical Gleason meal. “I’m going up to shower but I’ll be down in ten to help finish.”

His sister gave him a small salute and took the pet container. “Will do, Cap-i-tan.” It was their inside joke from the days he’d earned enough badges to move on from Eagle to Life scout. “Oh, and is, uh...Colton joining us?” The toe of her flip-flop circled the rag rug in front of her.

“Yes.” He kept his face neutral at her less-than-subtle crush on his employee and raced upstairs. After a quick shower he was back in the warm kitchen. He kissed his sister on the cheek as she stood by the stove, wearing his mother’s old green-checked apron. Steam rose from the potatoes she whipped and turned her face a bright hue—that and a lounging Colton sipping coffee at the table.

“Smells good, sis. Hey, Colton.”

The farmhand looked up from the sports section, his work coveralls replaced with a T-shirt and jeans. “Looks like the Hawks won again. They’re moving on to the state finals. Sure wish I could go.” When he took off his Hawks cap and studied the emblem, his light brown hair lay flat against his skull and curled beneath his ears.

“When is it?” Daniel asked.

“Next Thursday. But I can’t bike to Rutland and back. The game starts at three.”

A spoon clattered to their red-tiled floor. “I could drive you.” Sue spoke without looking up as she grabbed the utensil. “I mean. You could use my car. Or I could come and you could drive, or—”

Time to leave before his sister’s nervous flirting made him chuckle out loud. He headed for the double parlor at the front of the house.

“Hi, Pop.” Daniel stopped and let his eyes adjust to the sight of his frail, trembling father seated in a rocking chair, an afghan of Sue’s design across his lap. It was hard to reconcile the image with what he remembered—his hearty father overflowing the chair, two kids and a dog on his lap, his mother laughing at all of them.

But that was a lifetime ago. Or at least it felt like it.

“Supper’s ready. Susie made a roast.”

His father lifted his chin and sniffed. “Smells like she burned it again.”

Daniel unfolded the walker in front of Pop’s chair and helped him to his feet. “We’ll cut off that end.”

His dad laughed, a faint sound that ended with a coughing fit. “We always do,” he wheezed out.

Step by step they made it to the kitchen.

“Smells good, darlin’.” His father lifted a shaking hand to Colton and lowered himself into the chair Daniel held out.

“Thanks, Pop. I think everything’s on. Who wants to say grace?”

“Good potatoes. Good meat. Good God, let’s eat.”

Everyone laughed at Colton and started passing the heaped dishes of mashed potatoes, sliced pot roast, bread, sweet pickles and boiled turnip—or microwaved, Daniel supposed, given Sue’s last-minute rush. Even so, it all looked great.

“So I ordered that wind turbine today, Pop.” Daniel scooped some potato onto his father’s plate, waited for a nod then piled on more. “Between that and the solar panels, we should be set for power this winter.”

His father nodded. “It’s a good thing to be independent. Never regretted a dime on educating you and your sister. Though I wished you’d done something else with your life.” He looked away, as he always did, when Sue reached over to cut his meat.

“I saved the farm from bankruptcy. That’s doing something.” Daniel kept the heat out of his voice, despite his words. Pop meant well and wished his worsening Parkinson’s hadn’t forced Daniel to take over the farm after college. Daniel would have chosen to return anyway. It’d just happened sooner than he’d planned.

“Bud Layhee stopped by today,” Pop continued, scooping some potato with a shaking hand. “Says his son Ted can’t keep the farm going with milk prices where they’re at. They’re borrowing thirty thousand dollars a month and he might have to sell out and put Bud in a nursing home.”

His father’s fearful tone made Daniel’s fingers tighten on his fork. Wouldn’t Jodi pounce on that news? “That’s not going to happen, Pop.”

Not on his watch. He’d known the weather was making more than a few farmers skittish. If Jodi got hold of some of the financially weaker ones, they might give into the pressure and sell out. Things were worse than he’d thought if a tough, retired old farmer like Bud would share that kind of news. Daniel needed to put his co-op plans in motion faster than he’d intended and send Jodi on her way before she did more damage than the relentless rain.

“Colton, would you like more roast?” Sue smiled warmly and passed more beef over Daniel’s empty plate.

“So are you still going to Princeton?” Colton spoke through a mouthful of beef, then took a long drink of foamy milk, his Adam’s apple bobbing.

Sue twisted her cloth napkin.

“No.”

“Yes.”

She and Daniel spoke at the same time and looked at each other. “Sue. You’re staying at Princeton until you finish your Ph.D.” He kept his voice low and eyed his father’s bent head. As far as his father knew, Sue was on break.

“You stopped at an MBA,” she hissed for his ears only. “So why the grief? I’m already a certified psychologist.” She spooned more turnip on Colton’s plate.

“Because you’re not a quitter.”

“Mom was.”

A hush came over the table as all eyes fell on Pop. Luckily he was tinkering with his hearing aid and seemed to have missed the painful reminder.

“Sue. Stop.” Daniel forked a piece of beef and ladled more vegetables on top of a slice of bread.

“Oh, sure. Let’s not talk about the fact that she walked out on all of us. Couldn’t take farming. Hah. Couldn’t take us!”

“Enough, Sue.” Daniel’s glass banged on the table as he recalled the painful summer he’d lost his mother and Jodi. When his father looked up, Daniel smiled for his confused-looking dad’s benefit. “Got the fly! Hey. What’s for dessert?”

“Strawberries and pound cake.” Sue crossed her arms and leaned back in her chair, her eyes on Daniel. “Heard Jodi Chapman’s in town.”

“Jodi Chapman?” His father sat up straighter, his eyes sparkling. “No one said she was home. Now, that’s a sweet girl. Remember how hard she worked in the barns after her father’s accident? A spirited little thing. Is she visiting soon?”

His pulse sped. “Not a chance, Pop.”

Sue sent him a warning look.

“I mean, I don’t think so.”

“Well, you’ll have to invite her. I know she’d want to see me.” His father pointed his turnip-laden fork at himself, then lifted it to his mouth and got his cheek instead. Sue reached over to wipe him but he brushed her aside and did it himself.

Daniel held back a groan. He’d bet Jodi would love to visit his father. Him and all the other farmers around town. And they’d welcome her, their reactions just like Pop’s. His unease amped up another notch. He’d better nix whatever she planned pronto. If good guys like Bud Layhee could be turned out of their family’s homes, then this wasn’t just about a way of life anymore. It was about lives. Period.

“Will she be at your class reunion Friday night?” Sue asked.

“It’s your tenth, right? Wow, that’s old.” A confused look crossed Colton’s face at Sue’s sudden frown. She was four years older than the oblivious object of her affection.

“I’m guessing she won’t miss the chance to talk to some of the farmers attending. She’ll probably be there.” Daniel drained the last of his milk and wiped his mouth. “But not for long.”

* * *

THREE DAYS LATER, Jodi stood on her aunt’s back porch and hugged a quilt around her shoulders. The chill air was fresh with dewy promise and filled with birdcalls. It’d finally stopped raining and the rising sun changed Lake Champlain’s rippling surface from onyx to periwinkle, and then a deep navy studded with white caps that glittered in the growing light. She sighed and wrapped the blanket tighter. It really was beautiful here. She eyed the lake again. As long as you only looked at the surface.

A door squeaked open and Aunt Grace joined her at the railing. “So did you miss your hometown?” She passed Jodi a cup of tea.

“No,” Jodi answered honestly. And she hadn’t. Since she’d left for college, she’d used the mental equivalent of a Magic Eraser and wiped her past clean. Yet somehow, Daniel had stayed with her. Her mouth quirked. Even his memory was stubborn.

Aunt Grace’s wire-rimmed glasses fogged when she sipped her tea. One of her curlers dangled over her ear. “Well. I’m glad you’re here, even if I wish you had a different reason.”

She sighed. “Aunt Grace, you know it’s the only way I can get the money for Tyler’s school.”

“We’ve got perfectly good schools here.”

Her hand covered her aunt’s and squeezed. “Not the kind that Tyler needs.” Her aunt meant well, but she was Tyler’s mother and knew best.

“I like this,” Jodi added after tasting the minty tea. “Peppermint Harvest?”

“Green Moroccan. Trader Mike’s is carrying it now.”

“Since when did Cedar Bay go international?” She couldn’t resist teasing her aunt, although the inclusion of foreign products at the local mom-and-pop store did surprise her. Yankees weren’t fond of change. Just look at Daniel. As the class valedictorian with a full ride to Cornell, he could have studied anything. Been anything. And what had he done? Gotten an MBA in agricultural economics and run right back to his farm. She took another sip of tea. Why did her thoughts so often turn to him?