She grinned at her mom happily, who, thank God, was grinning back. “He said I can move in this weekend. Can you believe it – a whole farm for me to take care of! I mean, not the beef cows out in the field, thank heavens, but Skunk and Dumbass and the chickens – it’ll be my job to take care of all of them.”

“Skunk? Dumbass?” her mom repeated, one eyebrow raised.

Kylie shrugged, laughing. “Skunk is the black-and-white milk cow, and Dumbass is the milk goat. She’s definitely got…personality.”

“Well, I’m just glad to hear that you have a place of your own.” Like a light switch that had been flicked, she went into Mother Mode. “Do you need help with the utility bills? You’ll need to put a deposit down with the power and the gas company. Maybe even the trash company. I’m assuming you’ll be with Custom Waste Systems since Adam’s place is a rural address, not a city one.”

“Hold on, what’s the difference?” Kylie asked, confused. She felt a little stupid asking, but she’d always lived inside the city limits. Even as small as Sawyer was, there was still a basic level of services that came with living there, and of course, in Bend, Oregon, she’d lived inside city limits, too. She might be from Idaho, but ironically enough, she was still a city slicker in a lot of ways.

“Well, you won’t have a city bill, for starters,” her mom said, settling easily into the role of educator. As an employee of the local county partnership program, she spent a lot of time working with, and educating, people on choices, and how to climb out of the vicious cycle of poverty.

Kylie realized with a sinking feeling in her stomach that this was something she’d need a lot of help on herself. Unfortunately.

“You’ll have a septic system for your waste water, like the water from your kitchen sink drain, tub, toilet, that sort of thing. As the landlord, Adam will take care of cleaning out the septic tank periodically, so you won’t have that worry, which is nice. Your garbage will be picked up by a private company called Custom Waste Systems. People out in the country used to simply burn all of their garbage in burning barrels, and there are still some older people who do that, but most people have moved towards using a private garbage company.”

Kylie nodded, appreciating the information, but then she felt her eyes cross and a full-body yawn steal over her. She was exhausted, what with her day of cleaning the office and then touring the farm. This much excitement in one day was a little overwhelming.

“I’ma-gonna-goto-sleep,” she slurred, “so I can get started,” another yawn, “wanna move first-shing in da morning.”

“It’s a good thing I’m fluent in Exhausted Kylie,” her mom said, laughing, and then stood up to help her off the couch. “I’m proud of you, dear – I hope you really do know how much I love you.” She got serious for a moment and said softly, “Just because I like having elbow room in my house doesn’t mean I don’t love you with all my heart and soul. I just know that if I didn’t say anything, it’d fester inside of me and eventually, I’d start to get angry with you over it and you wouldn’t even know why. That sort of passive-aggressive behavior isn’t right.”

Kylie leaned into her mom’s side with a laugh and another rub of her eyes. “You’re right,” she agreed, her words coming out a little more legibly this time, “and I appreciate you telling me the truth. I won’t lie and say that it was the easiest thing in the world for me to hear, but it does make sense.”

They were heading back to Kylie’s room, arms around each other’s waists, when Kylie said with a laugh, “Do you remember when I was a kid – I don’t recall where we were at, but I’d taken off my jacket and I’d handed it to you to hold. You took it from me, looked down at it, then back up at me, and said, ‘I don’t want to hold your jacket for you.’ I remember I was in shock; it just blew my mind. I was only six at the time and it had never occurred to me that you didn’t want to follow me around and act like my personal coat rack. What do you mean, you don’t want my coat?! Of course you do! You’re my mom. Your highest goal in life is to be a human coat rack and food dispenser, don’t you know?!”

They laughed together for a moment, and then it was Kylie’s turn to get serious. “I didn’t mean to fall back into that. I was so stressed out when I finally faced the fact that I was pregnant that I don’t think my brain was operating at full capacity, you know? I just wanted to hide from the world. I wanted to run back to my mom and have her take care of all of my problems and make my life okay again. Sounds childish, doesn’t it?”

Her mom shrugged, her pale green eyes kind. “I know Grandma died too young for you to remember her, but almost until the day she died, I felt the same way with her. I think it’s encoded deep into our DNA – no matter how bad the rest of the world gets, when things really get awful, you want your mom. Hell, when I’m sick with a cold, I still miss my mom. I want her to bring me chicken noodle soup and tuck me into bed. Your grandma’s chicken noodle soup was the best. She never did teach me how to make it, so I can’t replicate it, dammit. But it warmed you to the depths of your soul.

“So tonight, let me tuck you into bed,” she pulled the covers back on the bed, “and wish you a good night,” she bent over and kissed Kylie on the forehead, “and tell you once again that I love you, and I’m proud of you. This isn’t an easy situation you’ve been handed, and you’ve been doing nothing but trying to make lemonade from it…after your eight-day pity fest, of course.”

Kylie laughed at that, her eyelids drifting shut even as she mumbled, “Well, I can’t be totally perfect. No one wants to deal with someone who is too perfect. That would just be obnoxious.”

“Yeah, that’s it,” her mom agreed dryly, laughing. “Truly, I appreciate your thoughtfulness. Well, goodnight.” And the door closed with a click behind her and Kylie drifted into a world of dreamless slumber almost instantly.

She awoke to someone knocking on her bedroom door. “Yeah?” she croaked, trying to get her eyelids to open and her voice to work correctly. Either it was really early or she was still recuperating from her hard scrubbing of the vet office yesterday.

“Dr. Whitaker is here,” her mom said through the closed door.

Kylie jackknifed up in bed. “What?!” she hollered.

Well, her voice was working just fine now.

“He says he’s here to help you move out to the farm.”

Kylie scrubbed at her eyeballs with the palms of her hands. “Umm…yeah…okay. Give me a minute here.” She rolled over and peered at the alarm clock blearily. 7:22. The man was here at 7:22 in the morning.

What

the

hell

Granted, she had to be to work at the clinic at 7:30 in the morning, but that was Monday through Friday. She didn’t tend to get up quite so early on the weekends.

Le sigh…

She hurried to get ready, pulling on yoga pants and a tank top, with a sweatshirt over that. Yoga pants were her saving grace; they were the only reason she hadn’t needed to go buy pregnancy pants yet. This particular trick wouldn’t last forever, but it would be damn hard to explain away a wide stretchy band of material around her waist if, say, Dumbass grabbed the bottom of her shirt and lifted it up into the air again – thanks, Dumbass – so she’d stick with the yoga pants for as long as possible. That and the biggest shirts she could find meant she probably had another month before her pregnancy bump became impossible to hide from even the least discerning Sawyer residents.

It was really too bad she carried her baby like her mom had carried her – loud and proud, upfront and noticeable to all. Her mom had already warned her that by the end, she’d look like she’d swallowed a basketball, maybe even a beach ball, for breakfast.

No, there was no hiding that from anyone.

Hair pulled through the opening in the back of her hat, teeth brushed, and tennis shoes on, Kylie was ready to face the day. She hurried out to the living room where she found Adam standing there, shifting from foot to foot, a baseball cap in hand.

“Hi, Dr…Adam,” Kylie stumbled out.

He raised one eyebrow, a quirk crossing his lips. “Dr. Adam…that’s a new one for me.”

Kylie laughed, embarrassed. “Thanks for coming over. I didn’t know you were going to help me.”

He shrugged, his turn to look embarrassed. “You’ve done so much for me, I thought it’d be a good way to help you in return. I didn’t remember Carol driving a pickup around town, so I figured my truck would come in handy.”

“It’s true, I only have a little Toyota Prius,” her mom put in with a laugh. “We could’ve gotten it done, but it would’ve meant more trips back and forth.”

“Are you all packed up?” Adam asked, his whiskey brown eyes trained on Kylie. She gulped. He wasn’t trying to be sexy – in fact, the words, “Are you all packed up” couldn’t be less sexy unless he started discussing the digestive tract of the snail in there somewhere too – and yet, just him looking at her was making her heart go into overdrive.

Which, considering the fact that he was her boss and her landlord, was quite an unfortunate thing. She really needed to stick with “Dr. Whitaker.”

And start wearing a pair of blinders around him.

Because that wouldn’t be obvious at all…

She smiled at him, trying to act confident. It was a stretch, for sure. “Pretty much. I haven’t had much of a chance to unpack since I got here, and I didn’t have much stuff to begin with, so this should go fast. Mom, while I’m packing up my clothes and toiletries, would you mind showing him where my boxes are at?” She turned back to Adam. “I have some memorabilia from high school that I left behind when I moved to Oregon, so I might as well take that with me now. Give my mom all of her house back.”

Her mom shot her a huge smile. “Great idea!” she exclaimed happily. Adam and Mom headed out to the garage where her mom had stashed the keepsake boxes while Kylie got to work packing up her clothes and toiletries. After she was done, she looked down at the oversized, overstuffed suitcase with a sigh.

When she’d left Oregon in a rush, she’d had to leave so many things behind, but what she missed most of all were her kitchen gadgets. She’d pumped gas and gone to school and scrimped and saved for four long years to buy all of that stuff, and to know that it’d all been sold to support her former roommate’s pizza habit…it was not a happy thought.

Well, now that she had a house to live in, she could start all over again. If nothing else, this whole thing was teaching her that life did not start and stop with the collection of items.

She wheeled her suitcase out into the living room, and Adam took it from her, hauling it outside and pushing it into the bed of the truck, next to the half-dozen plastic totes. “Is…is that it?” he asked, looking at the load.

Kylie shrugged. “I travel light,” she said, trying to play it off. His answering smile, confused and concerned, told her that he didn’t believe her, not one bit, but he didn’t say anything and for that, she was grateful. She didn’t want to talk about why it was that she’d had to leave Oregon in the middle of the night, without most of her stuff, a refugee from her own life.

No, she didn’t want to talk about that at all.

Her mom gave her a huge hug goodbye and slipped something into Kylie’s sweatshirt pocket as she did so. “Utility deposits and a little extra something to help you get by,” she whispered into Kylie’s ear, and then pulled back with a big smile on her face. “I’m proud of you,” she told Kylie. Turning towards Adam, she added sternly, “I’ll be out to do an inspection on your place in a couple of days. If it isn’t in good operating shape, you’ll be hearing about it.”

Kylie laughed at the worried look on Adam’s face; that was her mom all right – protective mother hen even when she didn’t need to be. “It’s not a palace,” she warned her mom, “but all of the toilets flush and the fridge runs.”

“Well, I suppose that’s good enough for my little girl,” she said like a queen bestowing a favor upon her subjects. But she winked at Adam as she said it, and they laughed, the relief evident on Adam’s face when he realized she’d been kidding around with him.

Kylie bit back her grin. Poor Adam; Carol VanLueven could be intimidating as hell when she wanted to be. Something her only daughter was all too aware of.

Climbing into his truck, Kylie felt like she was practically vibrating off her seat with energy and nerves. She’d lived for four years away from home, of course, but she’d always lived with a roommate, and she’d always lived in an apartment. This was the first time she’d be living in a real house, and living all by herself, and it was surprisingly intimidating to her.

If the floorboards were creaking during the night, she couldn’t send her roommate in to see if a burglar had broken into the house.

She’d be the cause of – and the person who had to clean up – all of the dirty dishes.

All utility bills were her responsibility.

She had a lawn to mow and flower beds to weed.

She had the sexiest man this side of the Continental Divide as a landlord.

No, this wasn’t like living in Bend, Oregon at all.

And hell, that wasn’t even touching on the fact that she’d be in charge of feeding and taking care of animals, something she had absolutely no experience in at all. She had a sudden urge to go adopt a goldfish, or three. The smart thing to do would be to start out small, and move up from there.

But she forced herself to face the fact that the reason that her boss was giving her a place to live – for free! – was because she’d agreed to take care of animals slightly larger than goldfish.

She tried not to groan out loud with worry.

The drive out to the new place passed by in a blur and before she knew it, they’d pulled up in front of the farmhouse. Kylie bounded out of the truck like a dog finally let off a leash. She hurried to help Adam carry everything into the living room to stack it in the corner out of the way, where she could work on unpacking the items over the next week or two, and then stood back with a satisfied grin. At least this part was under control.

The whole entire house was all hers – she couldn’t believe it.

All the way out in the country, far, far away from…

“Oh no!” Kylie groaned just as Adam said, “Oh shit!”

They looked at each other.

“I have no way to get back to town,” she groaned, gnawing on her bottom lip.

“No, you don’t,” Adam agreed, his eyebrows creasing with worry. “I can’t believe I didn’t think of that before.”

“I can’t believe I didn’t think of it! In Bend, there was a great public transportation system in place so I just used that, and then here, since my mom’s house is in town, I could just walk everywhere I wanted to go. Shit. I’m trapped here.”

The excitement she’d been feeling quickly turned to panic. Being stuck out in the country, with no way to get to town, was just about the loneliest prospect ever. What if something happened? And how was she supposed to get to work? And—

“I don’t know how you feel about grandma cars,” Adam broke into her rising internal hysteria, “but my mom’s had this car for probably 20 years, and since she doesn’t get around real well anymore, she keeps telling me I should sell it. It’s just sitting in the garage, dry rotting away. You could pay for it out of each paycheck – $50 a check or something.”

Kylie quickly did the math. That would be $100 a month plus insurance and gas, which damn, that was a gut punch to her budget, but on the other hand, she needed a car. She couldn’t exactly give birth to a baby and then cart it home on her back. Plus, if she had no car, she had no job and because her boss was now also her landlord, that meant she had no place to live, either.

Yeah, that wasn’t going to work out so well.

$100 a month plus insurance and gas it was.

“That sounds amazing,” she said, a little tremor in her voice. She cleared her throat. She was not going to start crying again. Damn pregnancy hormones. “I feel like such a mooch – first you give me a job and then a place to live and now a car to drive. I promise I’m not normally this needy!”

He laughed off her concerns. “First off, I’m not giving you anything. You’ve done an amazing job with the clinic, moving out here to take care of the animals is a huge weight off my shoulders, and actually getting my mom’s car sold without having to list it in the newspaper or on Craigslist is a wonderful gift. My mom will be thrilled to know it’s finally going to be used by someone instead of just dry rotting away.”

“You said ‘dry rotting’ before; what does that mean?”

“Oh,” Adam said, a little surprised by the question. He probably wasn’t used to dealing with people who barely knew what an engine was and had no idea what an alternator was. Kylie was embarrassed by her ignorance, but she also knew that if she never asked any questions, she’d never learn anything.

“Well,” he started out hesitantly, “vehicles are meant to be run. Whenever you drive or start a car, the oil is moved around, re-lubricating everything, so the longer a vehicle just sits there, unused, the worse condition it ends up in. If a car sits out in a car lot for a long time, not being sold, it’ll eventually end up with ‘lot rot,’ which – you can guess just from the name – isn’t good for it.”

“Wow. I had no idea.” Her cheeks flushed red and she stared down at the hardwood floors in embarrassment. How was it that she was technically an adult and yet, there was so much she still didn’t know? If she was old enough to get knocked up, it seemed like she ought to be old enough to know the most basic of information.

Lot rot? Septic systems? Burning barrels? Was adulthood this confusing for everyone or had she missed a class somewhere on how to become a real adult?

Adam reached out and gave her a friendly hug. “Don’t feel bad!” he reassured her. “You’ve never owned a car; you can’t be expected to know every…every little thing about them.” Except the last part came out in a mere whisper as he stared down at her, tucked up against his side, and she was drowning in his whiskey brown eyes, her breath caught in her throat.

I can’t, can’t, can’t do this. I can’t fall in love with my boss/landlord/car salesman.

Absolutely, positively cannot.