Chapter Six
Rhett
When the kiss happened, I hadn’t thought much of it—or at least, I hadn’t thought it was a big deal to Emily. It had definitely been a big deal to me, since it isn’t every day that a gorgeous woman lays one right on me. But by the time she left to head back to Houston, I started thinking that maybe, in spite of the fact that she’d started the kiss, I’d somehow let things go too far.
I worried about it all the next morning, going around the farm and taking care of things. Mom noticed I was distracted at lunch and asked me what was wrong. What’s wrong is I might have gotten too pushy with a girl and convinced her not to move to town, I thought, but I told her I was just thinking about something, nothing too important.
I washed up after lunch and decided that the only thing for it was to call Emily and apologize. I found her number in my phone from when she’d called me the day before. Fortunately it was a Saturday, so I was pretty sure she’d be free, whatever it was she did for work.
“Rhett? Hey—what’s up?”
“Not much,” I said. If she was angry at me, she definitely wasn’t making it obvious. I was relieved. “I just wanted to check in, and make sure things aren’t weird between us after yesterday.”
“Why would they be weird?” She sounded genuinely confused.
“When you were going it seemed like maybe you were shaken up a bit,” I said. “And then I didn’t hear from you—and I started to think maybe I’d pushed things too far.”
“Oh! No—no, it was fine. I was out of line,” she said. “I kind of embarrassed myself there.”
“Nothing to be embarrassed about,” I told her. “I’m just glad I didn’t end up pushing you to decide to move somewhere else.”
She sort of half-laughed on the other end of the line. “A kiss would not be enough for that.”
“I guess you haven’t decided against coming here?” That was the important thing.
“No, absolutely—I still plan on coming,” she said.
“Let me make you a proposition,” I suggested. “If you really want to know if you can live here, you gotta actually work like you live here. Come spend the afternoon helping me out in the field.”
“You just want free labor,” she said, but her voice was teasing.
“I can always use another pair of hands,” I admitted. “But look at it this way. At the end of the day you’ll know for sure whether this life is for you.”
There was a silence on the other end of the line and I wasn’t sure if she was going to go for it, if she was seriously thinking about it, or if she was trying to figure out how to tell me no without being rude.
“I’ll be there in a little over two hours,” she said finally.
“Plenty of time to get some work done,” I said. “Call me when you get close and I’ll meet you at the gate.”
She must have hurried, because it was even a little less than two hours when she called to let me know she was getting close to the farm. When she got out of her car—a slightly older Saturn—I was actually surprised to see she was dressed exactly the way I would have told her to dress. She had on a heavier t-shirt, a light jacket over it that she could button up if she wanted to, a pair of jeans, and some sneakers that looked like they’d been used pretty thoroughly already. Her hair was in a braid again, and she’d pulled a ball cap down so that the bill shaded her face.
“So, what are we doing today?” Again, she wasn’t wearing any makeup, and I had to admit that I liked the look of her fresh, clean face just as much as the made-up face she’d had the first time I’d met her.
“Well, we’re going to check the fields for rabbits and other pests, first,” I explained, “and then I’ll let you help me run the tractor and spray everything with fertilizer and pesticide.”
“I have never really considered how rabbits are pests to farmers,” Emily told me as we headed out to the field to quarter it. I’ve always tried to check every day, or every other day, for rats, rabbits, voles, and other critters that like to eat my crops. It’s not as bad as if I were growing wheat or corn, but little creatures still want to get at the crops if they can—along with different kinds of bugs, which are easier to deal with.
“They love sorghum just like a lot of other animals,” I said. “Some people, too.” Normally if I had someone quartering the field with me, I’d have them start at the opposite end, but since Emily didn’t know what to look for—and I’d been planning on doing it by myself anyway—we walked along the rows together. I pointed out the marks and signs of a few of the area animals where I saw them.
“What do you do, if you see signs of animal pests but don’t see the animals themselves?” I glanced at Emily quickly. She didn’t seem to be too faint of heart, but some people didn’t take to kindly to the unvarnished truth.
“If I know they’re here but I can’t get at them walking through the fields, I set up traps,” I told her. “If it’s a rabbit—hey, Mom makes great rabbit stew. If it’s a rat, or something like that, I just kill it and toss it.” Emily might have hesitated for just a second, but it wasn’t even long enough for me to be sure.
“Makes sense,” she said. “Are we laying traps today?”
“We can,” I said with a shrug. “If you want to see how that works.”
We went back in the direction of the house, and I went into the barn to get the traps I used out in the field. I showed Emily how to set them up, and she helped me place them throughout the rows.
Time went by at least three times faster than usual, with Emily there to talk to. Even if she didn’t really know what to do—especially once we went to spraying the fields—just having someone to chat with was nice. Before I knew it, everything was done, and the sun was starting to go down. As we headed back to the house, Mom came out onto the patio.
“You didn’t tell me you were expecting company, Rhett,” Mom said, sounding more disappointed in me for not telling her than concerned about a stranger being there. “I’m his mother—Lena.”
Mom stepped closer and offered her hand to Emily, and Emily shook it, smiling up at her from the bottom step of the porch.
“Pleased to meet you. I’m Emily,” she said.
“Emily’s thinking of coming to Mustang Ridge,” I explained. “I showed her around the town yesterday, and today I invited her to come lend a hand to see if she can cut it out here in the boonies.”
“Well if you’ve been working all afternoon, then you need to get a good meal in you before you think about doing anything else,” Mom told Emily in her matter-of-fact way. “I’ve almost got supper done, if you’ll join us?”
“I really couldn’t impose on you,” Emily said.
“Please, Emily—you can’t let my son extort free labor out of you,” Mom insisted.
Emily looked at me.
“You did tease me earlier about free labor,” I pointed out. “Let us pay you back.”
“Fine,” Emily said. I could tell she was more tired than she was probably willing to admit. “But if you’re not done making dinner, I’d like to help you finish up if I can,” she added to my mother.
“You’ve already worked the whole afternoon,” Mom pointed out.
“But not for you,” Emily countered.
“Okay then,” Mom said with a grin. “Come on in and get cleaned up and we’ll have dinner on the table lickety split.”
I gave Emily a chance to get her face and hands clean, and then went into the bathroom on the ground floor to give myself a little more thorough a scrub-down. By the time I was out and dressed, Mom was putting the last of the dinner on the table: baked pork chops and apples, Texas caviar, sliced tomatoes, and corn bread.
We all sat down to the table, and I found out that while I’d been taking my shower, Mom had been making friends with Emily. “If nothing else, when she comes here she could get a job down at the diner as a relief cook,” Mom told me.
“I don’t know if I’m that good,” Emily countered. “Most of it was done by the time I chipped in.”
“Well you take instructions well, which is the important thing,” I said.
We settled into eat, and I could tell that Emily was pretty tired; of course, I thought, she wasn’t used to working outside in the sun half the day. I didn’t know what she did for a living but it was clearly some kind of office job. Mom and I did most of the chatting over dinner, like usual—but Emily jumped in now and again, and it felt really, weirdly, comfortable.
“Emily, hon, you look worn out,” Mom observed toward the end of the meal. I’d had two helpings of everything, but Emily was struggling to finish her first, not because she didn’t like it but just from sheer fatigue.
“I’m okay, really,” Emily said.
“You don’t look like you’re in any condition to drive two hours home,” I told her.
“Two hours?” Mom looked from me to Emily. “No. I can’t let you leave the house this tired for a drive that long. Please say you’ll stay the night? We have a guest room you can use, and I’m sure I can come up with a nightgown that’ll fit—even if it’s a bit big on you. And I could wash your clothes so at least in the morning you’ll have something clean to wear.”
“It’s really all right,” Emily said. “If I could get home from the bar at two in the morning I can get home from here at…” she glanced around until she found a clock in the room, on the wall. “About seven or eight at night.”
“Please, I wouldn’t be able to forgive myself if you fell asleep behind the wheel,” I told her.
Emily looked from me to my mom and then smiled wryly.
“Fine,” she said. “I’ll stay the night.”
I cleared the table while Mom led Emily upstairs to her room to give her something to wear to bed. I’d seen how surprised Emily was to see me just get up and start clearing things away, and I’d grinned at her. Mom—and my father—had raised me to the standard that whoever didn’t cook, cleaned.
The whole house wound down, and Mom loaded Emily’s clothes into the washer with her own stuff while Emily took a shower. When she came back downstairs, she was in one of the smaller of my Mom’s old nightgowns. She actually looked pretty good in it—and thankfully nothing like my mother. Her hair was down around her shoulders, and she looked girlish like that—like someone I could have known back in high school.
She thanked us both for our hospitality and Mom asked if she needed an extra blanket or anything like that, and Emily said no—everything in the guest room was fine.
“I’m actually heading to bed as soon as I move the clothes into the dryer,” Mom told her. “Don’t feel like you have to stay up for our sake.”
“I’m probably going to read a bit and go to sleep, myself,” I agreed.
“That’s a relief—not that you two aren’t wonderful company,” Emily said. “I just am worn out.”
“Go on up and sleep,” Mom told her.
I watched Emily go back upstairs and smiled to myself. She’d actually hung pretty tough with me through the afternoon—I thought she could probably hack it in the country life. I helped Mom finish cleaning up and went upstairs, and saw that the light was off in her room, which wasn’t a big surprise.
I went into my room, changed into pajama pants and a t-shirt, and settled in to read until I dozed off. I’d just about gotten there when I heard something from the guest room, which shared a wall with me. It was a muffled sound, gone before I could even identify it, and then after that I heard some murmurs. Mom had—I knew—already gone to sleep, so when I heard the telltale sound of the guest room door opening and closing, I got curious. What was Emily doing? Sleepwalking?