One
Tears crested Maizie’s eyelids as she gazed out at the old weathered barn. One great wind and the whole thing would come tumbling down, along with all the memories attached to it. Swimming through the grain, taking care of the sick calves, discovering the inevitable litter of kittens that appeared regularly behind the haystacks. Now it was home to only a few old bales of hay and a family of mice.
But the rest of the barn was hers.
Her safe place. Her stage. If this were a normal day, she would hide behind the rickety doors, crank her music loud, and dance until the world disappeared. But today she couldn’t. There wasn’t any time.
Two more minutes left of this watering turn before she could switch the sprinklers and head to the milk barn.
The old barn caught her gaze one more time. They should have torn it down years ago, but her dad had been too busy for something like that, so her stage remained. It was the only thing that kept her from falling over. And she kept it from falling over in return.
The timer rang. Maizie flipped the switch on the pivot, closed off the water valve, and jumped on the four-wheeler, racing across the field to turn on the other pivot before enough pressure built up in the line to bust a pipe. Her dad would be mad if he knew she was doing it this way, but she liked the challenge. And sometimes she was just too lazy to make the long trip first.
Maizie hopped off the four-wheeler before it had come to a full stop and opened the water valve slowly, careful to release the pressure in increments. She flipped the correct switches, then took off again before the sprinklers soaked her to the bone. She had to wear these clothes for four more hours. She didn’t have time to run home and change. But even if she did, it would be pointless. Milking cows was a dirty job, and she’d be covered in crap soon enough.
Maizie sent one last sweeping gaze over her barn before it disappeared out of sight. She would return to it later.
* * *
“Working hard or hardly working?”
Maizie jumped at her Grandpa’s voice and smiled as he entered the milk barn. It had been a long two hours without anyone to talk to, and her Grandpa was one of her favorite people.
“Hey, Grandpa.” Maizie finished with the cow and planted a kiss on his leathery cheek.
Grandpa fell in line next to her, taking care of the next two cows. They finished the batch in silence. Jay Jensen was the strong, silent type, not one for many words, but a whole lot of passion for his work and his family. Which is how he’d built this farm and raised his ten children.
Maizie’s dad was the middle child and the only one who had wanted to take over the farm. So here Maizie was. Milking cows like any other normal eighteen-year-old girl.
Yeah, right.
“That bull in the first herd been giving you any trouble?” Grandpa asked, grunting when a cow kicked at him. “Don’t be a Lucy.” The cow’s name wasn’t Lucy—they had way too many cows to keep names straight for them—but they affectionately gave the moniker to any troublemaking cow.
“No, Grandpa.” Maizie smiled at his concern. He was protective of her, but if it became necessary, Maizie had a better chance of getting away from the bull than Grandpa did.
“You let me know, all right?”
“Of course.”
Grandpa leaned against the corner wall with a grunt and a tiny stabbing pain started in her heart. The man that used to do everything on the farm by himself had now been reduced to only helping out, and it killed her. But it killed him even more. Nothing lit up her Grandpa’s eyes quite like the farm did.
“Jayce should be here in about an hour,” Grandpa said.
Maizie’s hand hovered over a milker.
“How long is he staying?”
“For the summer.”
She didn’t bother hiding her smile. She still had a month of high school left, but this summer was already shaping up to be a great one. Having Jayce here meant she could shove half her daily chores onto him. That would give her more time to perfect her dance routine and spend time with her boyfriend, Turner, before leaving for college.
Jayce was her cousin but also one of her best friends. Even though he lived four hours away, he’d spent many summers on the farm helping out. He was a city boy but a total farm kid at heart. She couldn’t wait to hear about his first year of college.
Grandpa went back into the house for the rest Grandma Rose always insisted he take, and Maizie brought in the next batch of cows, her restlessness growing with each passing second. She needed her barn and her music.
She dropped onto an overturned bucket and propped her legs up on another. She hadn’t sat down in three hours. Cow poop covered her rubber boots and jeans. Milk, iodine, and other unmentionables spattered her clothes. She couldn’t wait to shower and put on yoga pants again. She pulled out her phone from its hiding place in the barn—the one and only safe and clean place in the vicinity.
A text from Lindsay had been waiting for her attention for the last two hours.
