Good question. There was just something in the air, like some kind of nervous energy that stirred the leaves and had me slightly on edge. “Remember when I showed you what a maple tree looks like?”
“Yeah. It’s that one over there.” He pointed to a tree in the front yard that was visible through the window.
“Good job. See how the leaves are kind of turned upward? So that you can see the bottom of them?”
Iain’s forehead furrowed as if he were in deep concentration. “Sorta.”
“Well, that’s a sign rain is coming.” That, and my gut that I’d learned to trust over the years, agreed.
A feminine chuckle came from behind me. “You still using those old folklores to predict the weather?”
I turned to face Em. “Don’t mock. It worked for Uncle James. It’s never failed me yet. I’ll bet you a sink of dirty dishes it’ll rain tonight. Heavy, too.”
“Sounds like an easy bet, given we’ve already cleaned up from dinner,” she huffed.
I winked. “It’s a safe bet anyway, dear cuz.” I glanced down at Iain, who was alternating glances between the sky and the leaves.
“I dunno, Uncle Chase. I don’t see any clouds.”
I tapped him on the nose. “Just wait until later. Either way, I need to get back to the farm and secure things for the evening. Thanks for dinner, Em. It was delicious as always and a break from my own miserable cooking.”
“I hope you know you’re always welcome here, but I know you miss Marta. How’s the search going to replace her? It’s been a while.”
I sighed and ran my hand through my hair. The housekeeper who’d been part of the farm since I’d come to live in Sterling Mill as a kid retired several months ago and moved to Florida to be closer to her family. “Not that great. They’re either too inexperienced or flirt with me or my crew. But I have a couple of new applications I need to go through. There just aren’t that many people willing to cook for a bunch of dirty men and clean up after them.”
Amusement lit up her eyes, and her mouth opened, but I held up my hand to cut her off.
“I don’t meanthatkind of dirty. Get your mind out of the gutter.” I sighed. “But I can’t hold off much longer, either. And it’s not fair to Mama Rae or you, although we really appreciate the casseroles and other goodies you send out. But it’s too much for y’all to keep doing that, especially once I hire more guys for the season.”
Emalee ran the family bed-and-breakfast called The Dogtrot, which was named after the old house style typical throughout the Appalachia Mountains. Several years ago, she took every penny she could come up with andrenovated all of the rooms with the help of my twin sister, Cameron, who owned a construction company and was an interior designer.
Em shrugged. “I don’t mind helping. Seems the least I can do after all the years you’ve brought me fresh flowers for The Dogtrot. Plus, it’s easy to make and freeze until you come into town, so it’s not like I have to leave the house.”
I leaned down to kiss her soft cheek. “You’ve been a godsend.”
She hugged me in return. I might have lost some people dearest to me—my grandparents, who helped my dad raise me and my two sisters, and my great-uncle James. All three of them were killed in a tragic bus accident on their way home from Nashville while on a church trip. And then my dad died in a plane accident just a few years ago. But thank God I still had my sisters, Cam and Bristol, as well as Em. And now their husbands had become like brothers. It helped to ease the sting.
“You know, if you were married, you’d have someone to help you without needing to hire someone,” Em said. She might have used a teasing tone, but the women in my life worried about me being lonely, especially now that we spent less time together as they focused on their own families. And now that they were all happier than a pig eating slop, all of their attention was focused on me.
“Honey, leave the man alone.”
I looked up, happy to see Zach, Em’s husband, join us, carrying Olivia. We might have had our differences in the past, but we were close now, and I couldn’t ask for anyone better for my cousin.
“I’m just saying,” Em defended herself.
“And you’ve said it a thousand times before. The man’s not deaf. He’s also not desperate enough to marry the wrongperson just to have a built-in hostess.” He softened his chastisement with a kiss on the top of her head. Em leaned her head against his chest, the picture of contentment.
I threw Zach a grateful smile. “I better go. It really is going to rain. In fact, I bet it will storm.”
Em winked at me. “I’m going to enjoy getting out of dish duty at the next family breakfast.”
I shrugged and smiled. “We’ll see.”
The first flash of lightning, followed by a low rumble of thunder, sounded around nine o’clock, only two hours after I left Em’s house. Even though no one was there to see it, I grinned with satisfaction.
My phone buzzed from somewhere under the piles of papers strewn across my desk. I’d been working on balancing my books for the month. It was a job I hated, but a necessary evil in business. Then there was all the inventory of seedlings and flowers I had to track: orders in and orders fulfilled, shipping dates, and more.
A housekeeper might not be the only help I needed.
