Home > If You Hold Me(8)

If You Hold Me(8)
Author: Ciara Knight

“Yet, you’re out of farm shape. You know this life is different than all others. Your father was strong and active for many years because of his work.” His mom spoke with pride in her voice. There was nothing more important than work ethic to farmers.

Tanner sipped the bitter, hard-core, man-coffee they always drank on the farm. What he wouldn’t do for a softer pick-me-up with a hint of promise drink. Maybe he was city boy soft now. He choked half of the vinegarish-tasting blend down while sitting in the rocker next to his mom.

“Your father would be devastated to have you back here.” Her words were strangled and full of sorrow.

Surprised at her moment of uncharacteristic emotion, he studied the trees near the driveway that swayed with a burst of wind coming from the mountains, sending leaves raining over the front lawn. He hunched over, resting his elbows to his thighs, the bitterness of regrets stronger than the coffee. “I know he didn’t want me here, but I’m all that the farm has right now.”

“Gee thanks.” Her tone switched faster than hay igniting from one carelessly tossed match.

He softened his tone. “Sorry. I didn’t mean it that way. I meant that Pops made it obvious he never wanted me here.”

Her brows knitted tighter than a clove-hitch knot. “That’s not true. Your father would’ve loved to have you here.”

He let out an exasperated chortle. “Had a funny way of showing that. He made it obvious that my life wasn’t here since I was big enough to climb into a tractor. It was all football, all the time.” A spasm in his shoulder challenged his next sip of coffee, but he managed to raise the cup to his lips and take one more swallow before he could force his voice not to catch. “I know I let him down.”

His mom leaned forward, the chair creaking with the movement. “You didn’t let him down.”

“Yeah, right. That’s why he never came to see me after I lost my college scholarship? I wish he could’ve seen me as more than a failed football player.”

She shot forward. “Is that what you think?” She didn’t say anything else. She only looked down her nose with a hurt, narrowed-eyed expression.

“What was I supposed to think? You never came to visit me, and there was always an excuse for me not to come home. In a decade, I’ve only seen you a handful of times. Most of those times were for events in Hawk’s life. I knew he was Dad’s favorite, but I thought that I could make up for not playing in the NFL by getting a college coaching job.”

“I know you’re a capable, talented, and smart young man, but you’re an idiot.” She marched to the screen door. “Your father never cared about football. He only cared about you. He cared that you weren’t stuck here, that you’d have choices he never had. Your father wanted to give you the world, not take it away from you.”

He opened his mouth to argue further, but when she fled inside the house, he didn’t have the energy to chase after her, not if he wanted to get enough work done to make a dent in the ever-growing chore list. Not to mention the fact that when his mom walked away, the conversation ended. Nothing he said or did would ever change that. She was as stubborn as Mary-Beth.

The rooster crowed, announcing the workday needed to begin, so he abandoned his cup in the kitchen sink and set off for a crop and orchard evaluation. Walking the grounds, he tried to focus, but his mom’s words kept creeping in, fouling his attention. How could she say that? Did his father really send him away out of some false sense of giving him a better life? What better life could exist than being with family and working alongside them once he’d ruined his big chance?

It didn’t matter. This place only offered bad memories and lost family.

After deciding there was enough to harvest between the corn and apples, he headed to work on the old combine. Without it, there wouldn’t be any harvesting of corn unless he did it by hand one stalk at a time. He snagged the old toolbox from the barn and went to the outer edge of the field, where Gobbles—his brother Hawk had named her when they were kids—sat broken and rusted.

A car rumbled along the front drive, but he didn’t care who came for a visit. Most likely his mom had invited Mayor Horton out to discuss wedding plans. The ones designed in parallel with what he and Mary-Beth had discussed years ago. Did she even remember their relationship and promises to each other?

How things had changed since they were young—the once high school principal turned second mother to a bunch of teenage girls now ruled the town and, at the moment, his life on the farm. Wedding planning had taken over his mom’s life and turned everyone in town crazy with decorating and beautifying the farm, but that wouldn’t pay the bills. The crops would.

That stirred his determination to fix Gobbles, so he set to work assessing all the mechanisms, hoping to fix it himself without having to pay a mechanic. Belts, feeder house, and elevator chain needed replacement, some cracks needed to be welded… All that he could do. A few bearings needed some TLC, but the real problem area appeared at the feeder house floor. It would have to be replaced completely. Great… How much would that cost? He crawled under to check the sieves and straw chopper and realized they needed some attention, too.

“You look like you could use a pick-me-up.” Mary-Beth’s voice startled him, causing him to hit his head, luckily not on any blades.

He rolled out from underneath, rubbing his skull and blinking through the sharp pain. “What are you doing here? Trying to kill me now?”

“No. I brought you coffee. A special blend just for you.” She shoved a cup in his face as if it were medicine for his now-aching head.

He stared up at her, realizing she really had brought him coffee. The aroma covered the odor of oil and rust and disappointment, so he took the proffered drink and leaned against the tire, allowing himself another minute to see straight.

“You need some help with this?” Mary-Beth sounded strange, her voice in the I-want-something tone that she’d reserved for getting her way when they were kids.

He took a sip and grimaced at the overly sugared flavor that made it taste more like a butterscotch milkshake than coffee. “Uck. What’s in this? A pound of sweetener?”

“No.” Her face turned sunrise pink. “You love caramel.”

“Not since high school, and not in my coffee.” He handed it back to her.

She snatched it from him with a glower and a huff.

He watched her expression turn from agitated to nauseatingly sweet like her coffee. “What do you want?” he asked, with no room for her to question that he was on to her antics.

She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and then opened them again. “I forget how well we can read each other. We always could. You’re right, I need to ask you for a favor.”

“I don’t have much time for favors right now. As you can see, I’m a little overwhelmed trying to get this place running again.” He removed his cap and wiped his brow. “I don’t understand how my father let it get this bad.”

“You don’t know?” She took a step back and looked at the house, then back to him. “Seriously?”

“Know what?”

She took another step backward until she ran into Gobbles. “It’s not my place to tell you. I just assumed you knew.”

Hot Books
» House of Earth and Blood (Crescent City #1)
» A Kingdom of Flesh and Fire
» From Blood and Ash (Blood And Ash #1)
» A Million Kisses in Your Lifetime
» Deviant King (Royal Elite #1)
» Den of Vipers
» House of Sky and Breath (Crescent City #2)
» The Queen of Nothing (The Folk of the Air #
» Sweet Temptation
» The Sweetest Oblivion (Made #1)
» Chasing Cassandra (The Ravenels #6)
» Wreck & Ruin
» Steel Princess (Royal Elite #2)
» Twisted Hate (Twisted #3)
» The Play (Briar U Book 3)