CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Reese
I worked on the farm. I finished the roof, completed the barns. I painted the walls. But I couldn’t forget about her.
Two weeks went past. I hadn’t heard from Kelly and my heart was sore for that.
“Boss?” Grady spoke into my ear, startling me out of my thoughts.
“What?” I asked abruptly. We were in the barn, trying to finish waterproofing the walls.
“I just asked if you’re still interested in that harvester.”
“Oh.” I shook my head, feeling my anger dissolve. “Well, it seems a good price, eh?”
He nodded. “My uncle said it’s a good make. Can’t go wrong with a Deere. Sounds good.”
I nodded. “I’ll see about a loan,” I said.
That was the only way I’d be able to start my farm, I had decided. I needed to by a serious load of equipment, stock and packaging. I had to take a loan before my dream of becoming a wealthy bean supplier would take wing.
“Okay. That sounds good.”
I nodded. I breathed in the chemical smell of sealant and straightened my back. We’d been at it all day and it was getting on for early evening, the sky beyond the door touched with the haze of purple dusk.
“We’re almost done, guys,” I said.
A general positive noise echoed off the walls and I had to chuckle. We were all really finished.
When I dismissed the workers and drove them back to town, I couldn’t help the fact that my mind kept walking back to the same issue. How was Kelly?
I considered dropping in next door to visit her grandfather. He had returned home earlier this week—I had seen someone drop him off and the same someone returned three days later to visit. It wasn’t Kelly. I’d seen a tall man with a head of snowy pale hair and a shorter woman with a sweet face. But no sign of her.
At home, I sat down on the lounge table and took out my phone. I considered messaging, but I’d already done that three times and not heard anything. I guessed she wasn’t wanting to keep in touch.
My original worries about a partner came back and I did my best to blank out the anger that made me feel. It wasn’t like she’d fooled me—I had been the one who assumed she was alone and it wasn’t like she’d lied to me. I just hadn’t probed.
I just have to face whatever happens.
It had been two weeks and I should have forgotten her by now, I kept insisting to myself. Two weeks was usually the longest I let myself miss anything or anyone. By then it’d usually dulled enough to deal with, like the ache in the tooth that you had removed.
This was different. It got worse. In my experience, missing people got better, but in this case the hole just seemed to get bigger until it was in danger of drawing me in.
I found myself online, checking Facebook, something I rarely did. I didn’t want to keep connected to my colleagues from the forces and so I’d discontinued my Facebook account a while ago. Now I felt the need to reconnect, if only to find her profile. I did so.
There were uncountable Kelly Gowans, and among them I managed to find her picture. I looked at it with a smile on my face, missing her. I thought about messaging her now, but I guessed what the answer would be. Besides, she didn’t really use it—a brief perusal showed me she’d last posted about a year ago.
Not much use, leaving a text, then.
I scrolled back and ended up on another site where I found a picture—this one had her looking starched and surprised in a business-suit. It was such a different side of Kelly that I grinned.
She doesn’t look like herself in that setting. The Kelly I know doesn’t wear suits. She has loose wavy hair and outsize shirts and torn jeans. She laughs loudly and smiles often and sings.
I felt a familiar ache at that thought and shook my head, blurring it out. I went to the website, intrigued.
“Who we are: Friedman and Barnes, associates. Law firm.” I noticed that Kelly was the chief secretary. That seemed like a good job even if it didn’t really align with the wild, free-living Kelly. I went to her page on the company website.
“There’s her CV.”
Feeling a bit weird about taking a clandestine view into her personal life, almost like I spied on her unawares, I opened the file.
I found her list of qualifications and experience, her skills. I also found her address.
I sat looking at it for a long while, thinking. I guessed it must be valid since it was a current CV. But could I really justify flying to LA and turning up at her house, just outta nowhere?
I shook my head. I couldn’t possibly do that to someone.
It was tempting, though.
I got a pad and wrote down the address, just so I knew I had it. I thought about it. I laughed.
I couldn’t do that to her. But he temptation stayed with me. I kept the address in a safe place.
A week passed and I was working on the terrace, trying to fix the roof where a section of board had rotted through. I glanced across to the neighboring farm and saw someone on the terrace, looking out across the far-distant hills. I guessed it was Kelly’s grandpa. It was too far away to really make out anything about the person other than their tranquil posture.
I couldn’t help it—a part of me just wanted to go over and talk to him, ask if he knew what was happening in her life. Oddly enough, the first thought that came into my head when I considered it was how much she would hate me if I did.
I chuckled. If I bothered him she’d be spitting at me, that red hair a sparkling mane round her shoulders. But I had to find out how she was. I finished my job and went inside, rinsing off my hands and then deciding I might as well shower—I was covered in dirt from head to foot and I smelled like perspiration.
I headed over to the farm next door and knocked. No answer. I felt silly and had to strain not to just bolt away. I knocked again.
This time I heard footsteps coming closer. I was surprised by how nervous I felt at the thought of actually talking to the guy.
“Hello?”
I blinked. A small, stocky man of around seventy-five or a little older looked up at me. He was balding and he had deep lines carved in his skin. But the eyes below the wrinkled brows sparkled with a keen intelligence. They seemed to look through me.
“Hi,” I said hesitantly. “I…I’m your new neighbor,” I said lamely. “Moved in about…six months ago?”
He looked up at me with the same calm look. “Oh. Well, nice to meet you.”
We regarded each other levelly. I dried up. What was I doing here anyway? “Er…one of the guys mentioned you might have a tractor?” I said hopefully.
“Well, I have one,” he said calmly. “But if you want to borrow it, I’d say maybe ask someone else. Mine’s old and you need to know it to handle it.”
“Oh.” I grinned. “My truck’s like that.”
He chuckled. “What sort is it?”
“A Nissan.”
“Oh. They’re usually quite long-lasting.”
“Depends how long they have to last.”
He chuckled. “Well,” he said after a while. “Don’t just stand there…come in. Not often I get visitors.”
I gaped. Had he really just invited me in? I nodded. “Thanks.”
He went stiffly into the house and I noticed he carried himself bowed a little forward, as if his chest was sore. I wondered if, after the surgery, it still hurt. It wasn’t something I could ask since he didn’t even know I knew him, much less that I knew a bit of his medical news. But nonetheless I watched him carefully as he went to the kitchen, looking for any sign he needed assistance.
“I just got back…recently…myself,” he said, lifting up a hand to take the sugar off the second shelf. I winced and he turned to me. “Can I ask you to get that jar down?”
“Sure.” I lifted it down and together we set the tray for coffee. We took it out to the terrace. He joined me when the water had boiled, bringing out the cups.
“Thanks,” I said, taking mine and sipping appreciatively. “It’s good coffee.”
He chuckled. “I promised myself I’d invest in decent coffee one day.”
“Good plan.”
We sat and looked out over the hillside as he’d been doing when I saw him earlier.
“You been here long?” I asked.
“Oh,” he scratched his head. “About thirty, forty years now.”
I whistled. “Wow.”
He laughed. “Bought it when I got back,” he said. “Wanted to raise Jackie somewhere better than the city. Always my dream, anyway; having my own farm.”
“Mine too,” I said.
“When I was in Vietnam, I used to think of it often,” he said. “Little farm up here, big skies. Peace.”
I nodded. His words touched my heart. “I know how you feel,” I said.
“You ex-service too?”
“Yeah.”
He shook my hand and I smiled into his eager eyes.
“Which unit?”
“Fourth Combat.”
He grinned. “Great stuff. You were in Afghanistan?”
“Yeah.” I grinned appreciatively. “You’re up-to-date, mister.”
He chuckled. “I keep my hand in. Still miss it, in some ways. But in other ways, I’m glad to be out of it.”
“I get that.”
We sat quietly a while and I felt the peace of the fields sink into me. I could understand him better; why he had chosen to live here and why he still did, when all good sense would probably say to move somewhere smaller, less demanding.
“You bought the place when you left the army?”
“Few years later, yeah,” he said. “Brought the family up here. Wife, small daughter. Good place.”
“It must have been.” I sighed. I wanted to ask him about his wife, but I guessed she’d passed on about a decade ago at least: in all Kelly’s recollections, she never mentioned her.
“I miss her every day,” he said thoughtfully. I nodded. I didn’t want to imagine what that must feel like. Missing someone when they were in another state was entirely different to missing someone who was in another realm.
“That’s tough,” I said quietly. He sighed.
“It is. But then, life’s like that. I think you probably know that too, huh?”
I raised a brow but there was no inquiry in his eyes, no assessment. Only that pale, calm gaze that invited me to talk if I wished to. I coughed.
“Seen a few losses, yeah.”
“Uh huh.” He drained his coffee. “Never gets easier.”
“No.”
We sat quietly for a while, and I wondered how I could get around to asking him about his granddaughter.
“You get many visitors up here?” I asked after much thought.
“Sometimes,” he said. I heard a lightness in his voice and wondered if it was possible that he’d guessed why I asked. “Had one three weeks ago, as that goes. My grand-kid.”
“Oh.” I nodded, trying to pretend like I didn’t know that. “I see. She’s how old, now?”
He chuckled. “Well, gives my age away, doesn’t it, son? She’s twenty-eight. Not too much younger than you, I think.”
I smiled. “I’m thirty-five.”
He whistled. “You were young when Afghanistan started.”
“I was,” I nodded. “Just joined up that year, straight outta school. But I only went there later, though.”
“Ah.” He nodded and resumed staring out over the landscape. “She was eleven when that all started,” he sighed. “They grow up so fast.”
I chuckled. “Yeah.” I thought about how to continue the conversation about his granddaughter. “She come here often?”
He grinned. “Not often. This was a special treat for me.”
“Nice.” Now I could ask him the thing I’d been wanting to ask all afternoon. Why I’d really visited. “You hear from her often, I guess?”
He shook his head. “No. Not really. Heard from her twice since she got back. Once, to check on me and once to tell me she’s back safe.” He laughed. “Typical grand-kids.”
“I guess.” I shrugged. At least I knew she was back safely. “Maybe she’s busy?”
“Maybe.” He put his head on one side, thinking about it. “She’s always stressed.”
“Really?” That fitted with the Kelly I’d met—she was permanently wired.
“Yeah. It doesn’t suit her, that job,” he said slowly. “Being a secretary. I remember her as a tiny kid. She loves the outdoors, big skies. Being under a roof in an office all day doesn’t suit her. She’s like her mom in that—loves being outside.”
“That’s good,” I said, awkward. It felt at once slightly uncomfortable and slightly exciting to be learning about Kelly this way. No one knew her much better than her grand-dad, and hearing his view of her seemed precious.
“I hope she gets out of that job and into something better,” he said with a sigh. “Oh. Coffee’s finished. Want another?”
I sighed and shook my head. “I should be heading back,” I said. “Need to finish the roof before it rains again.”
He chuckled. “Good thinking. Good thinking. I should do something too. Got a bit of an old ache in my side. Still, can’t complain.” He winced as he headed to the kitchen. I followed hesitantly.
“Um, mister,” I said respectfully as I went to the door.
“Uh huh?” he asked, looking up at me questioningly.
“If you, er…need anything. Like, any help with anything, or something…please call me.” I gave him my number. He nodded.
“Thanks, son. Appreciate it. Always good to have some help.”
“Thanks,” I nodded.
We looked at each other for a moment and it felt like we shared something—by admitting he needed help, he had let me in. And I had walked into that space with respect. It was a level of regard I’d shared with few people. I nodded again.
“Bye,” I said awkwardly. “Thanks for the coffee.”
“Pleasure, son. Anytime. And…” he paused with a grin. “I reckon the Hensley’s have a tractor, if you want to loan one.”
I nodded. “Thanks,” I called over my shoulder. “I’ll ask.”
As I drove away, I found myself wondering how much he’d guessed about my motives and whether or not he knew the tractor was a ruse all along.
The short distance between his house and mine I spent thinking about Kelly and considering what he’d said about her. The description her grandpa had given: wild, free, outdoors-y, was exactly the woman I knew. I wondered if he was right, that she was unhappy and stressed out.
The more I thought about it, the more I found myself wondering if she would be terribly offended if I turned up out of nowhere.
When another two weeks had passed and I had no word at all from her, and when I found myself still missing her, I declared it a time for action to be taken.
I went online and checked flight prices. There was one in a week’s time that seemed reasonable and arrived at a good time. I booked.
I was going to visit her.