Chapter Six
Sam
The look on her face sent a lot of feelings crashing into me. She looked sincerely pleased, and proud of herself, for the first time since I met her. I wondered at the kind of life she led where something so small made her feel that way. But then I remembered the kinds of things she had said about her grandmother, and I didn't have to wonder any longer. The woman sounded like a miserable, controlling bitch who made it her mission in life to make her granddaughter suffer. Well, if I had anything to say about it, that expression was going to be there a lot in the near future.
"Ready for the next job?" I held back on shaking my head at myself. So much for my determination to stay out of it.
Her eager nod said it all, and I couldn't regret not keeping my distance. "What are we doing?"
"You're doing it. I'll show you how, but this one, I think you're especially suited for." I led her to the other barn, where Jake kept the horses he actively worked with. At the last stall, I leaned against the door and watched the tiny filly lipping at the straw of her bedding, checking out the texture. "This little girl's momma died during the birth. None of the other mares would take her on to nurse, so she's on the bottle. You think you're up for feeding this baby?"
"I think so." She looked nervous, but eager as hell. "I'm sure I can do it."
Something nagged at the back of my mind, and then I realized. "SHIT!" I took off for the house at a dead run.
"What is it?" Marynne's voice faded behind me.
I skidded across the porch and raced into the kitchen, not mindful of the noise I made. The baby monitor sat right there on the counter where I'd left it, still silent. I bent, hands on my knees, to catch my breath and settle the panic. Jake would fucking kill me if anything happened to the kids because I was absent minded. Or occupied with mooning over a woman instead of minding my responsibilities.
Marynne came in, far more quietly than I managed. "Oh my God. Are they still sleeping?"
Shit. What if they weren't? What if something happened to them? Fear surged again. I rushed down the hall to the makeshift nursery and peeked in the door. Ian still sprawled on his back, and soft snores came from the portable baby bed. I backed slowly away.
"Clip it to your belt." Marynne held the monitor out as if it might bite at any moment. I took it from her trembling fingers and did exactly that. "I'm sorry, I was supposed to remind you." Was that actual fear in her expression?
"It's okay. No harm done. You're not used to keeping up with them either." I draped an arm around her shoulders, meaning to comfort her and guide her back toward the door. She shrugged my arm away as if I'd burned her, but I pretended not to notice. "Let's get Lily her breakfast before they wake up." There was definitely more going on with Marynne than met the eye.
She watched closely as I mixed the foal formula and showed her how to hold the bottle and brace for the baby's strong head butts. After a couple of minutes, I turned it over to her and stepped back to watch. The absolute awe and love in her eyes as she watched Lily suck entranced me. Marynne was a beautiful woman in any circumstance, but like this? She was heart stopping.
Too soon for Lily's liking, the last of the milk disappeared, and she gave an extra hard pull and push as Marynne slipped the nipple from her mouth. And Marynne went down, ass first, into a pile of horse shit. Rather than the anger I expected, she laughed. And laughed. Until tears rolled down her cheeks, and I joined in. Every time she got it under control and tried to catch her breath, the giggles came again. Lily stood at the back of her stall and stared suspiciously at the insane humans.
Finally, we both got it together. "You okay?" I helped her stand.
She nodded. "Better than okay, I think. That was…incredible."
I chuckled. "Yeah, it was. Let's get you back so you can get changed." I led her toward the house.
She paused when her cell phone started ringing, and pulled it out of her pocket. "Grandmother. Good morning." She froze, her face going white. "It isn't like that, Grandmother. I actually am helping." She stopped talking for a long moment. "Yes, ma'am." She extended the phone toward me. "My grandmother would like to speak with you and ensure I'm actually earning my keep and not imposing on your kindness."
What the actual fuck? I took the phone. "Heya, Grams. This is Sam Quick. What can I do for you?"
The outraged sound on the other end of the line raised a chill along my spine. "I'm choosing to overlook your insolence, young man, since the minister speaks so highly of your family. I hope you're not allowing my spoiled granddaughter to lounge about and be a burden. She's there to learn how the real world works."
That tone went right through me. "Well, Grams, for your information, in the short time she's been here, Marynne has helped take care of my brother's kids, including changing an insanely bad diaper. She helped save a cow's life. And just a minute ago, she bottle fed an orphan horse, and got knocked on her ass in a pile of horse shit. Is that real enough for you? No? She also washed dishes, and she's getting ready to take care of the chickens, because that bastard rooster has it in for me." I stopped before I could say anything too outrageous.
"Farm work and nanny duties aren't exactly what I had in mind. She needs to learn things that will help her survive on her own." The woman's bitter words added to the anger pulsing in my head.
"You think that about farm work the next time you eat. Guarantee a farmer had a hand in it. So if she knows how to produce food, she can fucking survive." I hit end on that call before I got myself in any deeper. My big mouth already had Marynne in all kinds of trouble, unless I missed my guess. "That old bat needs to come down out of her bell tower and see some real world shit."
Marynne sputtered with laughter. "Oh, my God! I don't think I've ever seen anyone talk to her like that! I'd have loved to be a fly on the wall when she heard all that!" She bent over, holding her belly and laughing even harder. "I think I've had more fun in the last couple hours than I have in my whole life!"
Okay. That right there. My immediate goal in life became to make sure she had fun, lots of it, while she was here. Because that laugh, that joy, needed to be there all the time. "Well, let's get you changed and the kids awake and fed, and we'll find some more fun for you to have." Thankfully, so far, simple things seemed to entertain her. I didn't have to try too hard, though I would have been perfectly willing.
Marynne went to change while I woke Ian and Janna, glad Ande had left clothes for them that I could understand how to get on them. Ian had grown a lot since coming here, and he needed only a little help dressing now, but Janna…dressing that child was an exercise in contortionism. She grasped, rolled, kicked, reached, and tried to crawl all at the same time, usually while drooling enough to make her slippery as hell. Jake was an expert now, and had showed Nate and me how to handle her before he left. Otherwise, I would have been at a total loss.
With both kids dressed, we went to the kitchen just as Marynne came in wearing fresh clothes. She had taken her hair loose from the fancy knot she had it in earlier, and tied it back in a simple pony tail.
"That look suits you a lot better than all the fancy threads you had on earlier." Shit. I hadn't meant to say anything, but her smile made me glad I did.
"You think so?" She looked down at herself. "I like these clothes. It's more…relaxing, I guess."
After the kids finished breakfast and we cleaned up, I led the way to the hen house. "I'll tell you what to do from here." I stopped outside the pen and watched warily as the rooster sized me up and planned his attack. "If I go in there, that—" I stopped before I could say the word that came to mind, "the rooster will attack me. He doesn't bother anybody else."
Ian stood at the wire enclosure and giggled as the hens came up to check him out, and Janna clapped and crowed in my arms. Marynne looked doubtful, but she nodded. "Okay, tell me." I directed her through giving them fresh grain and water, and gathering the eggs from the nest boxes. "That is so amazing!" She came out of the pen smiling ear to ear. "I never thought chickens could be so fascinating."
"Yep, fascinating, until a rooster decides you're a threat to his flock. Listen." I nodded at the birds. "They're singing. They're happy with you feeding them." The hens made their low chuckles of pleasure and contentment as they ate, seeming to converse with one another.
"Really?" Marynne's face glowed with happiness. "Well, chickens, I'm happy with feeding you, too."
"You want to give them a treat?"
Her eager nod sent me walking on clouds as I led the way to the garden. "There are only a few tomatoes left. Ande has already canned a ton, but there's more than we can eat still. Grab a few ripe ones." I showed her how to pick the fruits, amazed with her delight at something so basic. Back at the chicken pen, I directed her to use my pocket knife to cut the tomatoes into sections, then scatter them on the ground.
Her face and eyes lit up as she watched the chickens grab the treats, darting back and forth to eat as quickly as possible. "That's crazy! I would never have thought to give them tomatoes. What else do they like?"
I explained how the birds would basically eat anything that didn't eat them first. "But we're choosy what we give them. It has to be clean, no chemicals. They get all the leftovers from the garden, and some kitchen scraps, too."
"Are there babies?" The excitement in her face made me wish there were a dozen fluffy little yellow bastards cheeping in that pen.
"Not right now. We usually hatch off a bunch in the spring, and raise them for meat." I expected her expression to turn to horror, but instead she nodded, accepting it easily.
"So you pretty much grow all your own food?" She seemed actually interested.
"We did until our Gramma died. Then, none of us knew how to cook and we failed at learning. We ate a lot of frozen dinners and pizzas, until Jake hired Ande and she rescued us." Oddly, I didn't mind admitting my own failure to Marynne. Normally, I needed people to think I could do anything I set my hands to. The surprising revelation gave me something to think about later.
"Well, just don't ask me to cook. I've watched at home, but I've never been allowed to try beyond an ill-fated attempt to take Home Ec in high school. I had to leave the class before we got past preparing a salad. I'm pretty sure you would do much better at cooking." Despite her smile, I sensed her sadness at the missed opportunity.
Maybe it made me sexist, but the very idea of a woman not being allowed to learn to cook just seemed wrong to me. "Why? Grams didn't want you to?"
She shook her head and held Ian's hand as we walked back toward the barn. "No. It was beneath my station, according to her, and the class was, she said, meant for those destined to be domestics."
"What about when you went to college? You didn't have your own place?" I tried to wrap my head around all this. Someone thinking they were too good to prepare food boggled my mind.
"No. Grandmother insisted I live at home. I barely managed to convince her to let me drive myself, instead of having her driver deliver me to classes every day." She winced. "That would have been so much fun. It wasn't bad enough she made me wear clothes she considered suitable instead of the kinds of things other girls my age wore."
The barn door creaked as I slid it open. "I'm having a hard time understanding this real world thing she wants you to experience. What does she think most people do? What does she think you're going to do with your life?" Ian dropped Marynne's hand and ran over to the pony's stall to pet the velvet muzzle thrust over the door.
"I was raised for one purpose, and one purpose only. To be a proper lady and snare a husband from old money and live the same life Grandmother has." Bitterness turned the corners of her mouth down a little. "She drove my parents away with that plan for my mother, but when they were killed in a car accident, she was my only remaining relative willing to take me in. Things would have been different if they lived."
Shit. Sympathy caused my arm to go around her. "I'm really sorry. I can't imagine growing up with somebody like that dictating every move." She moved away quickly, but not before Janna caught on to the hugging thing and wrapped her chubby little arms around Marynne's neck.
Her half-hearted shrug tugged at something in my chest. "It's okay. I guess I'm used to it. I was fortunate in having all my needs met. Other people have things so much worse that it seems petty and spoiled to be less than happy about my life. When I leave here, I'll go back to all that and do as I'm expected."
Now, that just pissed me off. "Why? You're an adult. You can do like everyone else and make your own way."
She gave a wry laugh. "Right. With what skills? I can organize charity galas for a bunch of rich people. And speak intelligently about art and other suitable pursuits for a lady. Know any jobs with that description?"
I thought about it. "She trapped you."
She blinked and a tear squeezed between her lashes. "That's one way of putting it."
I grunted, thinking hard. "I need to get the cattle fed. You want to tag along and help me with the kids?"
She nodded, seeming thankful to change the subject. "Are they all like Daisy?"
I laughed. "Afraid not. She's been handled enough to realize fighting is useless and if she just tolerates me, it ends and she's okay until I come back. They're not wild, but they're only really handled for vet care, vaccinations, castrations, and parasite control. As far as they're concerned, humans are the gravy train and occasionally annoy them."
"So they won't let us pet them?" The faint hurt in her voice made me want to go out and tame every damn cow on the place just so she could pet them all.
"Nope, sorry."