“So where is this mystery farmhand?” Lily was peeking suspiciously around doors and into rooms in their childhood farmhouse as if she half expected a ninja farmhand to shape-shift into view from the shadows.

Maggie stood in the kitchen while her foster sister poked around, her arms folded. “Probably out, I don’t know, doing his job?”

“I don’t trust him alone with you. The man doesn’t even have a recycling bin in here.”

Maggie snorted. “Will you calm down? He probably uses and reuses more things than you do, plus composts. So don’t even start that.”

Lily acquiesced, a little. “I guess. If Mama Jane puts her trust in him, then I don’t see any reason to worry. I’m just feeling irrationally protective after everything Alex put you through. I don’t trust anything with a penis.”

“I love you, big sister.”

“I love you, little sister.”

A smile spread across Maggie’s face. She had an idea. “Hey, want to go visit the goats before you go?”

Lily almost beat her to the barn. They giggled like the little girls they once were, having the run of the place. When they reached the stables, they both immediately noticed the tidiness of the place. The kids always kept the stables clean and the troughs full of fresh water for the animals as part of their daily chores. But things were always a bit chaotic. Now, the broken window was fixed. A new ladder had been built to the loft. Mama Jane had been on her own and the kids had always helped her work, but things always fell to the wayside. 

“This place looks…different,” Lily said.

“Yeah,” Maggie agreed. “I can see why Mama trusted him to watch the place while she’s gone.” 

Maggie wandered over to the stable doors and gasped. “Whoa.”

“What is it?”

“Mama bought a lot more goats. Like, a lot.”

Lily sidled up next to her and breathed, “Wow, yeah.” 

Each stall was now filled, with two or three goats each. Growing up, they’d cared for maybe four goats at a time. Now there were at least 20. 

“Where did Mama get the money for this many goats?”

“I don’t know,” replied Maggie. “When did Mama save money to go to Greece for an unspecified amount of time?” She continued to take stock of the animals and realized the wether, the older boy they kept as a pet, was gone. 

“Hey, I don’t see Ray, do you?”

“No,” Lily said. “Ray’s definitely gone. Maybe he went to goat heaven.”

“Somebody is turning this place commercial.” Maggie now felt a little judgmental about this new person. How dare he turn her sweet little homestead into something…different. 

After Lily finally agreed to go, they said their goodbyes and Maggie was alone to get settled.

She looked into the guest room adjacent to the kitchen. The full-size bed stood covered in aging pink chenille, under a Hawkeye pennant on the wall. It looked welcoming as ever, yet Maggie felt too restless to settle in for the night.

She decided to have a look around the place. The older rock barn still kept watch on the eastern hill above the pasture, but now some construction equipment flanked it. She peeked into the old barn, and it looked as if Mama was renovating it. For what, she couldn’t tell. 

Maggie wondered what else had expanded, and so she decided to take a walk before the sky grew too dark.

In moments, she was beyond the pasture and crossing the creek over a new hand-built board bridge. Things look and feel different here, she thought. She approached the woods and found the fence line, and at least that was the same. She followed it through the darkening trees and wasn’t a bit surprised to come across a family of deer grazing on the wild blueberries as the creek wound its way in and out of the woods. It was dinnertime, wasn’t it? Her own stomach was starting to rumble, and pretty soon she knew exactly where her feet were leading her.

The fence line led straight out of the woods and onto the main highway into town. It was only about half a mile’s walk past the dairy to Carrie’s Tavern. She would be there just after dark. Sure, she’d have to walk back home again in the dark, but she knew the woods like she knew her own name. And she’d walked this countryside and all over Middleburg in total darkness more times than she could count. She had nothing to worry about now. She was safe here.

Stepping through the swinging door of the local bar and grill, Maggie was greeted by the familiar sounds of country music from the ancient jukebox. The worn brass rail along the bar that encompassed the entire back of the room was still there. Maggie finally sensed she was home again.

This was the first dining establishment that Jane had brought her to when she first came to live here after being removed from her biological family. Hell, it was the first restaurant of her life that wasn’t McDonald’s. As a four-year-old, she was enchanted by the neon lights over the far pool table, the giant mirrors behind the old oak bar, by the men in cowboy hats and boots. By the women with teased hair and bedazzled jeans. And then she had her first taste of real food and she thought she had died and gone to heaven. 

Maggie slid into a booth and didn’t bother looking at the menu. Instead, she remembered this was exactly where she’d sat with Mama Jane that first time. Mama Jane had remarked how most of her foster kids refused to eat anything that didn’t come out of a hot dog package or a box of mac and cheese, and she was impressed with how Maggie downed her first Iowa pork chop sandwich.

She ordered the same thing when Carrie came over to wait on her. It took a moment before Carrie recognized her. “Well, my gosh, aren’t you Maggie? How are you, girl?”

Maggie smiled. “I’m OK. Better now. How’s Scotty?”

“Oh, he’s off doing another tour in Afghanistan. He can’t tell me exactly what he’s doing, so all I can do is tell him to stay safe. How long you in town for?”

Maggie considered whether she could trust Carrie with the facts. She didn’t see why not. “For a while. I’m just needing a break from the city, so I came back for some peace and quiet. Who knows, I might move back here permanently.”

“Oh, I thought maybe you were in town for Charlie Bryson’s wedding.”

“Uh…no.”

Carrie’s face changed from pleasantly surprised to sympathetic. Maggie’s cheeks reddened. After a pause, Carrie took her drink order and then said, “Listen, if you need a job or anything, I’m pretty swamped here at night and I could use an extra bartender. Something to think about.”

Maggie smiled. “You’re sweet. And I’ll definitely think about it.” 

After Carrie walked away, Maggie wondered if that was the right response. The thought of serving drinks to the nosy people of Middleburg? It didn’t exactly make her cringe, but it certainly could be a little bit embarrassing, at first.

And then, someone who made her whole entire body cringe in revulsion slithered into the booth next to her.

The snake in farmer’s clothing, Chet Easley. What the hell was he doing here? 

He tipped his hat to her with the top of his open bottle of Michelob. 

“Well, hey there, stranger. It sure has been a while.” Even his voice was oily.

She nodded back. “Chet.”

What kind of a man slides into a booth with a lady uninvited? On the same side of the table, no less? A man who is partly still the teenage asshole who told the whole school she was a slut after she refused to go to senior prom with him, that’s who.

“Now, now. Ain’t you got a smile for your old high school buddy?”

She grinned menacingly and gave him a middle finger. “Ain’t you got an education yet? ‘Ain’t’ ain’t a word. But I guess you don’t need schooling when you slide right in to the hog factory fiefdom. How’s your daddy?”

“‘Fiefdom’…that’s a five-dollar word. You always were good in English. My father’s just fine. Retired in Florida a few years back. Handed over the reins to me while you were off busting your ass for…what was that again? Taking art classes? How’s that going? What you up to these days?”

She smirked. “Well, right now, I’m up to about five feet nine inches of horse shit in this-here booth.”

He laughed. “You sure are a snarky thing. Always were. Girl, come on. You know I’m six foot two. And what I got waiting for you in the back of my truck is even bigger.”

All of this was meant to shock, but none of it fazed Maggie. 

And then there was a voice. Deep, masculine, and precise. “Ma’am, is this gentleman bothering you?”

Chet whirled around, and Maggie craned her neck to get a look at where that voice had come from. First she saw the boots. Real, scuffed, actual farmer boots. Wranglers, not starched and pressed like Chet’s. Those jeans and that cowboy were old friends. His plain white T-shirt was loose enough to be unpretentious, but the sleeves strained just slightly against his muscular arms and torso. His shirt was tucked into his jeans and he wore a plain rope belt, no ridiculous shiny belt buckle you could use as a platter to serve a Thanksgiving turkey. Those shoulders, though. Maggie had a naughty vision of eating something sweet off those abs and those shoulders. Then there was the hair. Thick, deep brown with some silver at the temples, a slight wave. Just enough to make you want to run your fingers through it in the back of a pickup on a Saturday night. Oh lord, where is your brain, woman? 

Her jaw dropped, her knees tingled. She gestured at the new man with her half-empty bottle. “No, see, that man is at least six foot two—and that’s without a hat on, ’cause he knows to take his hat off indoors, unlike you—and he has about 15 pounds on you.”

And that was the beginning of the world’s first bar fight over the dignity of Maggie Jean Jensen.

If only this tall, dark, honorable stranger would have been around in high school. She might not have been so ready to cut and run from Middleburg.

* * *

After the nanny goat became a mama for the first time, and Jack saw the new kid latch on, he performed his usual clean-up duties and headed back into the house. He was almost disappointed at the quick and uneventful birth. But that was farm life. He never knew what to expect. 

He chided himself for being slightly disappointed he wasn’t needed in the barn that night. 

He had taken the life of that coyote, and he’d facilitated new life coming into the world, and felt like this farm business could really work. Maybe he should celebrate and go for a beer. What else was there to do in Middleburg? 

Jack showered in his newly renovated master bath, which he had tiled by hand. It was a bit of a luxury in this old farmhouse. But one can’t expect to raise a family in a four-bedroom house with only one main bathroom.

He had heard that the woman who owned this place before him was a dedicated foster mother and had raised countless neglected and abused kids over decades. How she did it with one bathroom, especially with teenage girls and boys, he had no idea. 

But it was his place now, and he could do with it what he wanted. So far, he’d installed a jetted tub and double vanity in the master suite and overhauled the existing bathroom in the upstairs hallway. That had seen better days. He had no judgment about the cracked tile and the peeling paint. Jane, the previous owner, had had a hell of a lot more on her plate than renovations. 

Jack almost wished he’d met Jane sooner. He could have helped out around the farm and done house maintenance while she tended to all those kids.

But then again, she had done something right, as she was headed off to Grecian adventures. Good for her. 

And good for him. Jack had proved handy at home renovations, and had done it all by hand so far. He was no contractor, but then, YouTube was a treasure trove of instructional videos. Next on his list would be a private full bath off the guest room, but that would have to wait until he’d gotten into a good rhythm of buying and selling the livestock.

So far, he was hopeful. This was going to work.

He got into his truck—a silver Chevy quad cab with an immaculate sprayed-in bed liner—and headed into town for a beer and a steak. His truck was his one other luxury at the moment besides his decked-out bathroom. He may look like a wannabe cowboy in this monstrosity, but at least he did own a legit farm truck. The older version was parked by the barn and used to haul feed, straw, hay, supplies, eggs and animals.

The silver beauty was strictly for going out, taking kids to soccer games. Bringing babies home from the hospital. Getting down and messy on a hot date night under the stars, down by the lake. Someday.

He pulled into his usual spot outside Carrie’s. He’d better make that “someday” thing happen sooner rather than later. He checked his reflection in the rearview mirror. That silver color around his temples was only going to spread, and those lines at the corners of his eyes were only going to deepen. 

A bottle of Budweiser was opened and waiting for him before he hit his usual barstool. Carrie was behind the bar pouring drafts for a gaggle of community college guys who were gathered at the other end of the bar. Carrie was probably the best-looking woman in Middleburg at the moment. Her kinky red hair and small frame made her cute as a button, but she was well spoken for. Her husband and co-owner of the bar, Scotty, was serving a tour in Afghanistan at the moment. 

“How you doing tonight, hon?” she asked. 

He nodded and placed his hat on the bar next to his beer. “Very well, and how are you and the kids doing? How’s Scotty?”

Carrie smiled and launched into a tale of weekly FaceTime chats with her long-distance husband, the boys being troopers at school by keeping their grades up and helping with chores at home, while her sister watched them so she could manage the bar. She seemed relieved to talk about it. Most likely she spent her nights listening to the woes of the local farmers, complaining about banks, complaining about massive hog feed lot factory farms encroaching on all sides, or watching community college students lurking around for somebody to catch their eye and distract them from their so-called boring lives. 

The way Jack saw things, life was only boring if you make it boring. Life could be just as full in rural Iowa as in New York City. And he supposed a person could be as bored, lonely and unfulfilled in New York City as here. It’s all a state of mind, the way he figured. A person accusing a place of being boring had only one place to look to solve that problem: inside himself. 

Jack had never desired to go to the big city. He’d lived in Iowa all his life, and though he might like to climb to the top of the Eiffel Tower one day to kiss his wife, he’d be thrilled to have his little farm to come home to, to his house, his bed, his truck, his bathrobe, his sheets, his wide open pastures, his animals, his dog and his woods. Because it was his, there was always something to do. A kid wants to complain about working two jobs and putting himself through community college? Then they should have chosen a different path. He never understood complainers and he never would.

Besides, if anybody earned the right to complain, it was Carrie. She ran a business, helmed the PTA and ran two young boys ragged between school and wrestling practices, all with the specter of a foreign war and an absent husband looming over her head. But did she complain? No. Not ever. Scotty had himself a good woman.

“Anyway, enough about me. What you up to tonight, young man?”

It was sweet of her to say, but he was older than her by about ten years, most likely. Scotty and Carrie had married right out of high school and had babies almost immediately, as far as he could tell in the short time he’d been in Middleburg.

“Oh, just shooting up the damn coyotes. Birthing baby goats. Fixing fences, digging wells, bush-hogging, baling, you name it, I do it.”

“Sounds like you got it all working like a well-oiled machine.” She grinned, wiping the bar down with her microfiber towel. It was one of those home party things, for which she was also a distributor and had sold him a linen closet full of fancy bath sheets when he’d let the cat out of the bag about his luxury master bath project.

“Yes, ma’am, it’s going pretty well… I got a contract with a small organic operation out of Sioux Falls to buy my goat’s milk, so that’s a start.”

“Jack, that’s awesome. You know, you’re gonna need some extra hands around there pretty soon.”

He shrugged, though he knew she was right. 

“Don’t go hiring one of these local dumbasses, please,” she said, nodding at the group of young beer-swillers from the college. 

“Shit, Carrie, those boys make twice as much money at a commercial farm than what I could afford to pay them.”

“Well, I mean a pair of feminine hands. On a person who already knows how to do what needs to be done around your place. Maybe somebody from here, looking for work. And maybe needs a friend at the same time.”

Jack was utterly confused at Carrie’s face, which seemed to be leading him in a specific direction with a wry smile and a wink.

“That is very specific and highly unlikely to find in Middleburg. I was thinking about taking an ad out in the Des Moines Register.”

She playfully whipped at him with the towel. “I’m talking about that one, right over here. Anybody getting crowded by Chet Easley definitely is gonna need a friend tonight.” She nodded to the far corner of the room.

At the name of Chet Easley, Jack swiveled around in his chair and stood up. There he was. The slimy son of a bitch was sliding into a booth next to a woman. Whoever it was, he couldn’t see, but it was obvious they were not together, because Chet was using his singular come-on posture: leaning way in and blocking the woman from sight. Every female within four counties knew to stay away from Chet. He may have money, but it didn’t make him a nice guy.

He left his beer at the bar and approached. The words came out before he could stop himself. “Ma’am, is this gentleman bothering you?”

Chet had that usual smart-ass, shit-head grin. But Jack hardly noticed because as soon as he saw the female who Chet was bothering, everything else in the room became echoes and blurs.

First, it was her hair. Thick, strawberry curls poured down past her shoulders, ending in pinkish tips. Her face was angelic, but also like a perfect sculpture. Her skin glowed even though she wore no makeup. Her piercing eyes were deep brown and her lashes long. Her cheekbones and jawline stood out as if she could use a couple of home-cooked chicken dinners, but her cheeks flushed as she stared back at Jack. Her outfit was nothing to write home about: a Hawkeye zipped hoodie and sweatpants. Probably a college student. Probably had a boyfriend back at school, Jack told his hardening manhood. But he couldn’t keep himself from noticing the zipper of her hoodie was open just enough to reveal a slight bit of cleavage. Not even cleavage. A shadow of cleavage. The letters “I-O-W-A” were stretched across her chest, which was blessed. There was definitely something magnificent to behold under those frumpy clothes, and that woman was making those frumpy clothes look downright sexy. 

Boyfriend or no, Jack was in trouble. 

He couldn’t even hear whatever smart-ass remark she was making, but it seemed to him she was mocking old Chet. Chet got a mean look on his face and stood up. 

“I don’t believe you were invited over, old man.”

Jack got his bearings again and replied, looking straight past Chet, “I do believe I was asking the young lady a question.”

She smiled at him. It was a flash of white teeth and lush pink lips that made Jack think of doing things. Things he hadn’t thought of doing in a while. Things that made him feel like he was the one harassing the poor woman. 

“Why, yes, he is bothering me. Thanks for asking.”

Her voice…that was it. Was it possible for a voice to sound the way that ice cream tastes? Oh god, that was a dip-shit pansy way of thinking about it. But when he had a raging boner only getting more ragey, he had weird poetic shit take over his brain.

He didn’t care if he had to rip Chet’s dumb-ass Garth Brooks hat off his stupid, fat head. Tonight was going to end one way and one way alone. This woman was leaving with Jack. He didn’t know how, but that was the end of it.

Sure, he wanted to get Chet away from her. He would want to pull Chet off of any woman, man, or creature no matter if Jack wanted that woman for himself or not. On principal, Chet was a nuisance. But this whole situation had escalated and now it was going to end in a fight. Testosterone was flying and he was the bigger caveman.

“Did you hear that, son? She said you ought to leave her be.”

“And I said, nobody asked you. We’re just a couple of old high school friends catching up is all. But you wouldn’t know that, since you’re a newbie around here.”

“That’s the difference between you and me, Chet Easley. I know when to fold ’em and walk away. I pick up on social cues. So I will be straight with you. It’s time for you to go. She said it. Carrie says it. And now I’m saying it. What more do you want, son?” Bringing Carrie into this was a bit of a fib, but hell, she couldn’t stand the son of a bitch either.

“Just because you’re 65 years old don’t mean you get to call me son.”

Well, that was uncalled for. This night was hurtling toward pain, quickly, for Chet.

“Well, now, you know I’m 42. But I don’t blame you for not being the best at math, what with dropping out of high school a few years back…” Chet’s neck and ears were turning pink. Jack pushed on. “And oh yeah, that other number problem you had a little bit ago, something about you and a 16-year-old girl from Des Moines you met online? I’m sorry, man, I know you have your troubles.”

Chet’s ears and neck were beet red now and his cheeks were flushed. “You better shut your mouth hole, you smelly old goat-fucker.” His teeth were gritted. 

“Well, it’s a good thing daddy had that big hog factory to hand over to you, young man. Good for you! It’d be a real hassle having to get a job and move to the city, what with having to tell all your neighbors that you’re a sex offender. See that? I know quite a lot for being a newbie around here.”

Chet’s eyes bulged and his hand flew. 

Jack was fast, and he caught the drunken fist in mid-air and countered with a jab right to the face. Chet cried out and stumbled backward, knocking over the young woman’s beer. 

“You broke my doze!” He dabbed at his face with the sleeve of his pristine denim jacket. 

“Probably,” Jack said to Chet. Then, turning to the young lady, he nodded and offered his hand to help her slide out of the booth. “Ma’am?”

She stood and he helped her wipe down her sweatpants with some napkins. “Awfully sorry about your beer.”

“Not a problem. These are just the only clothes I have besides my waitress uniform. I’d better get home and wash up.”

Chet had stumbled out the door. Jack turned and grabbed his hat, left a very large tip and covered his bill and the young lady’s. As he laid out a stack of bills on the bar, he could still feel the heat from the young lady’s hand in his from when he’d helped her slide out of the booth. Carrie still had that same wry smirk, and he now understood why.

He turned and offered his arm to the woman and insisted she let him walk her to her car. He felt every pair of eyes in the place on his back as he walked her out. Well, at least he would give the bored college students something to talk about for the rest of the night. And the old farmers would have something to gossip about over breakfast at the Gas & Sip tomorrow. Out in the parking lot, she turned to him, “I’m Maggie, by the way.”

Maggie.

He played the sound of her name in his head. He liked it.

“Nice to make your acquaintance, Maggie. I’m Jackson Clay, your bodyguard for the evening.” He winked. “Which one is your car?”

He liked the sound of her name in his mouth. He’d like to do more things with his mouth that involved Maggie. Tonight and every night. Get control of yourself, man. She’s probably 20 years younger than you.

“I don’t actually have a car. I walked here from home.” 

“And now I will be your chauffeur. Where is home?”

She protested, “Oh no, I’ve caused you enough trouble…”

“Ma’am, you’re not going to let an old man get in a fight for you and then completely drop the ball and let you walk home alone in the dark, are you?”

In the lamplight, her pinks cheeks grew pinker. “I guess not.” She smiled shyly. If he didn’t know any better, he would detect she had a flirtatious look in her eye. 

“Where can I take you? Where is home?”

“Morning Glory Farm? Do you know the place?”

Yeah, he knew it all right. That was his place. Or at least, that was the name of his place right before he’d bought the farm from Jane Blaise and changed it to Clay Enterprises, LLC.

Jack stood speechless for the first time tonight. He stared down at this small, intensely beautiful woman with the ice-cream voice and a body… Well, he was a 100 percent straight man and let’s face it…a body he could toss into the back of his truck and ravish ten different ways until they made that pristine truck bed liner exceptionally messy. 

He swallowed. He considered whether to have the conversation now or just let it play out. 

“Yeah. I know the place. Hop in.”