He finally pulled away, and Lenore tucked herself into the warmth of his chest and the sincerity of his embrace. He simply held her, the Texas Panhandle wind flowing around them and the scent of paint riding it.
Feeling safe, Lenore said, “I know this is dumb, but I thought you might not come back this morning.”
Brandon stepped back, forcing her to look at him. “You thought I wasn’t going to come back?” He searched her face, clearly confused. “Why would you think that?”
“Because I have problems,” Lenore said with an unhappy laugh. She sighed and backed away from him further, tucking her hands into her back pockets.
“Because when my daddy went to the hospital, he promised he’d come back,” she said, her memories flowing thick and fast. “And he didn’t. He never came back. And I know it’s dumb, and I know he was sick, and I know it wasn’t his fault, but….”
She paused because she loved her parents dearly.
“You felt abandoned by him,” Brandon said, no question mark in sight.
“Kind of,” Lenore said, frowning, because it didn’t quite fit. “It felt like he broke a promise, for sure.”
“What about your momma?” Brandon asked gently. “If you don’t mind sharing with me.”
“They both really died out here,” Lenore said, her voice faraway and hardly her own. “My momma was trying to fix a fence, and she ended up driving a nail through her finger. Daddy had to drive her to the hospital, and they got in an accident on the way there. My momma didn’t make it, but Daddy was in the hospital for about a week before he passed.”
Lenore turned around and faced the patch of land that bordered the fence near the entrance of the homestead. “They’re buried right over there. I lost them both so fast, and sometimes I’m still angry about it.”
Brandon’s hand slipped into hers. “I’m real sorry, Lenny.”
She drew in a deep breath, which drove out some of the negative feelings. “We all have something, don’t we?” she asked, and she looked at Brandon with hope.
“Yeah, we seem to,” he said. “I mean, my parents didn’t die, but I’ve been looking for a change in my life and feeling like it hasn’t been coming.”
“You mentioned that,” Lenore said.
“Yeah. I’m searching for, you know, the things I think all men want. A wife, a family, and land of their own.” He grinned at her. “That’s why I said I was serious about you. I’ve done the dating-for-fun or to have a friend. And this isn’t that.”
Lenore swallowed, because she wasn’t sure what he was saying.
“Anyway, I better get back to work.” He swept a kiss across her cheek and returned to the paintbrush and paint tray he’d left behind.
Lenore watched him work for a moment, and then she said, “Come get me when you’re ready to do the barn,” because she had never stained a barn, and she needed to learn how to do that too.
“Will do.”
She left him to finish the chicken coop as she went back into her cabin to do a little more research on growing strawberries. The website she’d been reading said they could planted anywhere from late September to early November, and she wondered if the second week still counted as “early.”
She’d also been thinking about what she could do to try to make money with the homestead. She knew she needed to get it to the point where it could sustain her first, but then, why couldn’t she sell lumber, or hay, or even eggs?
Her daddy had raised turkeys and sold them for a lot of years, and Lenore had definitely added that to her list as well.
She sat down at her dining room table and looked at the things she’d been brainstorming: raising chickens to sell, or peafowl, or honey, strawberry jam, lumber, turkeys, alfalfa. And she could do all of that from right here, if she got the land functioning the way it should.
She picked up her pen and wroteBrandonat the bottom of the paper. She put a question mark after it, her mind a runaway train of thoughts.
Brandon?
What did he mean when he said he was serious about her? Was it because he likedheror…because he wanted her land?
The next morning,Lenore woke earlier than usual, which wasn’t good for an early bird like her. She ate her breakfast of eggs and coffee and went out to get the animals fed and more staining done on the barn. Brandon wouldn’t be outside for hours yet, and his family wouldn’t be either.
Something seethed inside Lenore, this need to show them how much she had also done here at the homestead. That she could take care of herself and her land, that she’d just gotten behind and had needed a little help to get caught up.
When her shoulders ached from running the roller along the breadth of the barn, she left that chore and picked up a chainsaw to fell more trees. Calvin had left his planing machine for her to use, and she wanted to get as much lumber cut as she could. She could now store it in the dry, airtight barn for use later. “Or to sell.”
