“I definitely want to make a list of supplies,” Brandon said, but he didn’t lift his clipboard to write anything down.
She turned and walked to the end of the chicken coop, her hand trailing behind her, still in Brandon’s, as he followed.
“All of this needs to be cleaned out,” she said. “I think there’s some lumber out here and various other things.”
Brandon dropped her hand then and surveyed the land. It had literally been used as a dumping ground for pallets, buckets, lawnmowers that didn’t run anymore, and anything else that Lenore didn’t know what to do with or that wouldn’t fit in the barn.
“I’d love for all of this over here to be livestock pastures and enclosures with strong fences to keep predators out.”
The scratching of his pencil moving across the paper almost soothed Lenore.
“What’s the soil like?” he asked. “I can see it grows grasses and weeds. But what about alfalfa, potatoes, carrots, radishes?”
“I don’t know,” Lenore said. She did a one-eighty and faced the house. “I have that small greenhouse that my daddy started up against the side of the cabin. I’m only growing kale, lettuce, and some herbs in it right now, but I have good success with tomatoes when it’s warmer.”
She swallowed and told herself not to be embarrassed. “I have a hard time growing anything outside the greenhouse.”
“Not enough water.” Brandon cut her a look, asking but not really asking.
She shook her head because she couldn’t argue with him. Therewasn’tenough water to cultivate rows of potatoes and carrots and corn—all things she knew she could grow in the proper season, if she could get the things she needed.
“That greenhouse is on the wrong side of the house,” he said. “We need to move it to the south side. I think we should set up your whole garden area over there.”
She switched her gaze to the south side of the cabin, which was the area between the two houses.
“You can do outdoor gardening year-round here,” he said. “We can make some hoop beds, and we’ll be able to control the temperature in both the winter and summer. Can we go look at that?” He nodded toward it with his hat but didn’t take the first step until she did.
“Absolutely,” Lenore said, praying with every step she took that he would find at least one good thing about the homestead. Just one.
Admiral, as usual, led the pack. Susie-Q stayed right at Lenore’s side. She let her fingertips brush the dog’s head every so often as a gentle reminder that she wasn’t alone. She wasn’t a terrible person. She could do this.
“My dad started building it before he got hurt,” she said, opening the door and letting Brandon go in first. “I did my bestto finish it. I know it’s not airtight. I struggle to keep it warm enough in the winter.”
“Why’d you build it on this side of the house, if you don’t mind me asking?” Brandon peered around at the hanging parts in the corner and the beds down each side of the twelve-by-eight-foot greenhouse.
“It’s too windy on the south side,” Lenore said. “And these panes kept getting ripped out of the frames.”
“Are they polycarbonate?” Brandon asked.
“Yes,” Lenore said.
“What we need to do is build a wind blind,” he said. “Instead of using the cabin as one.” His pencil scratched, and a couple of minutes later, he tilted the clipboard toward her. “Like this.”
She stared at the drawing, recognizing the roof of her cabin and the rain gutter there. Her eyes drank and drank, and she couldn’t believe he’d sketched this out in only a few minutes.
Heck, she couldn’t believe this idea existed inside his mind.
He pointed with the tip of his pencil. “We should be collecting all the rain that falls,” he said. “All water right off the roof. We feed it into the greenhouse with a tube. It’s powered by gravity—as the rain comes down onto the roof, it naturally flowsdowninto the greenhouse, where we can distribute that along the beds.”
He looked around. “I don’t see a watering system in here.”
Lenore shook her head. “I come out and water it every couple of days.”
“With the bottled water you’re buying at the store?” he asked, such incredulity in his voice that a new round of stupidity burned through Lenore.
“Yes,” she said tersely. “I have no other way to do it.”
“Right now,” he said. “You don’t have any other way to do itright now.” He looked down at the drawing again, and Lenoredidn’t love the bite in his voice. She didn’t hate it either, because he wasn’t here to sugarcoat anything.
