Nick…

I tossed and turned all night. My mind wouldn’t settle so the sleep could take me away from the pain in my heart. The thought of selling my home that was my past and my future at one time, has my heart torn apart. I grew up playing in the trees in the backyard. I shared my first experience with moonshine in that barn with my best friend Walter. My favorite dog is buried out behind that barn. I shared grief and love with loved ones. I met my Christine there, made her my bride and then said my last goodbye there. Each of my children were conceived and buried there—how can I let it go? No man or woman should outlive everyone in their family. Our extended family fell apart when we laid Christine to rest. She was the glue that held us together. She made sure we all stayed in contact during the year and we all sat down to break bread every Thanksgiving. The last time I spoke to any of my family was the day Marcus was buried. At first, I ignored calls from different family members and then when I felt up to returning the calls, no one knew what to say to me. There was no small talk to fill the time. I saw no reason to try and talk to people when most of the time we were on the phone it was dead air and the tension was thick enough it could be cut with a knife.

I don’t know Sage well enough to know if she will stick out the hard times on a farm. The disappointments in planting crops that don’t produce. The early mornings and late nights making sure all your animals are safe and not being attacked by coyotes and wild hogs. The lengths she would need to go to, so she can stay up to date with weather as the seasons change. Even if all she does is cut hay, the weather plays a critical part in it. Days run into weeks and then weeks run into months. It’s the kind of work you need the energy of a young person but the monotony that only an older person can put up with until their body just won’t take anymore.

Sage is a wisp of a girl. I call her a girl, but she is older than my Christine was when she gave me our first son, Nicholas. Times have changed, and people don’t mature the way they did in my day. Sage broke my heart with the sadness in her voice when she talked about her dad. I believe that she thinks she wants a farm but the part that has me hesitating is whether the girl has staying power.

If she had found her partner in life by now, it would help me make the decision. Then I would know they were like thinkers and they would be in it together. Sage is a pretty little thing and one day her smile will light up some man’s life but what if he’s some city slicker that doesn’t like getting up early in the morning? The thought gives me too many negative thoughts but then again maybe she can be nudged in the right direction of the kind of man she will need for farm life. That gives me something else to think about.

My neighbors at the farm will not be as welcoming as Haddie and I have been. Okay, the way Haddie has been. Joseph Hillhouse is on one side my property while Donald Stillman is on the other. Joseph and his wife, Dolly, are good people. They have two sons and the oldest, Botie, is still working with his dad. Joseph and Botie are up at daylight and work until the jobs on their ranch are done for the day. When the day is done, Dolly has a hot meal on the table. Hawkins, the younger son left home a few years ago taking along with him, Botie’s fiancée. That was a mess the women in town are still talking about. You would think it was the first family scandal in our parts. I know Dolly would take Sage under her wing and show her the ins and outs that women on a farm need to know but Sage being the woman and the man will be a little hard for Joseph to take. We’re old-fashioned around here and this is going to be a first for us in our part of Texas. Joseph will suck it up in time and do the right thing and Botie can help Sage out when he has the time.

Then there is Donald Stillman on the other side. His family is way different from most people around these parts. Donald is the most unfriendly cantankerous man I have ever met. He is going to be livid if I do sell my place. He has been after me for years to sell to him. He and his wife, Skeeter, have two sons and the youngest one is hell on wheels and is out of town most of the time—until he needs his dad to bail him out of some situation he has gotten himself into. He went off to Nashville to be a singer but has only gotten himself into get-rich-quick schemes that his dad keeps paying his way out of before he goes to jail. Then there are all his city women. If Donald doesn’t get a handle on Branton, then he is going to lose that horse ranch he is so proud of. Trask their oldest son is a steadfast hard worker, but he has the same taste in wild women as his brother Branton. Skeeter was a bit of a wild one in her day and still likes to watch the younger men in town. Could be why Donald is such a jackass at times or could be he just likes to hear himself yammer on. Sage needs to stay away from the Stillman family. Trask is the best of the bunch and I think if his best friend Botie steps up to help Sage so will he and then chemistry will do the rest. Botie or Trask, either one would be a good match for Sage depending on who she is drawn to. What the heck am I thinking about? I’m as bad as the women in our town trying to play matchmaker. The one thing I do know is that once those boys set their eyes on pretty little Sage, then my part is done. The birds and the bees will take care of the rest. I just hope Sage is ready for all this and I hope my heart will let me let go of the only place I ever wanted to call home.