“You scared me,” he said.
Lenore leaned against the railing and watched him pick up the saw. “What are you doing?”
“I’m building the base of the water tower,” he said. “Mitch said he’d get classes started and do his dog training, and then load up that water barrel and bring it on out. Figured we’d need this before then.”
“Yeah, probably.” She grinned at him, though he’d focused back on his task. “What time is everyone coming for the solar?”
Brandon looked toward the front of the house. “Any time now, I expect.”
“Any time now?” Lenore repeated. “You realize it’s not even seven yet?”
“I told them eight,” he said. “But I’d be shocked if they’re not all here by seven thirty.”
“Who else is coming?” she asked.
“Just Conrad, Henry, Finn, and Colt,” he said. “My brothers and everyone at Shiloh Ridge are doing their roundup for calving season today. It’s bad timing, but it is what it is.”
“We don’t need fifteen people here anyway,” Lenore said.
“Libby can’t get away from Three Rivers, and Paul and Brielle are still in the hospital. Angel will have to go to Lone Star, and Ty is still too injured to do much.”
Lenore followed along, picturing each of his friends in her mind as he spoke of them.
“Mitch is bringing the water barrel, but JJ’s wife isn’t feeling well, and Tate can’t leave the fields, so neither of them are coming.”
“Two of us and four of them,” Lenore said. “I think we’ll be okay.”
Brandon grunted, but she couldn’t keep the smile off her face.
“Do you want coffee?”
“Do I ever not want coffee?” he asked. “And that’s usually at nine a.m.”
“I have donuts and breakfast sandwiches out front too,” she said.
That got Brandon’s attention, and he looked away from where he’d been measuring another log. “Donuts and breakfast sandwiches?”
Lenore cocked her hip. “Did you really think Arizona wouldn’t leave her mark on today?”
He grinned and chuckled. “I suppose not. She did sound really sorry that she couldn’t be here.”
“Well, she’s still here,” Lenore said. “She ordered breakfast and lunch.”
Two dozen boxed lunches for six people, she thought.
“I’ll go get the coffee going.” She moved back into the house, deciding then and there that she wasn’t going to be upset about the help. If Arizona wanted to send seven or seventeen or seventy cases of water, Lenore would accept it and do so graciously and gratefully.
A sense of humility washed over her as she accepted that she could not do things on her own. And not only could she not—she didn’t have to.
Accepting help didn’t make her weak. When her stubbornness and pride pushed against that, she shoved it right back down.
You want the help,she told herself as she poured water into the kettle and set it over the flame on her stove.You need it, and you want it, and they want to help.
If the positions were reversed, Lenore would like to think that she would show up at someone else’s property and help however she could. She wouldn’t need to be paid, because she wanted to be a good neighbor and a good friend.
She took Brandon his coffee, a breakfast sandwich, and a whole box of donuts, and she held the legs of the water tower while he nailed them in place. She unwrapped the plastic tubing they would use to get the water into the greenhouse and out to the garden area, while he built the platform for it.
She hurried to feed the dogs and the chickens, collecting a dozen eggs in a variety of colors, before she returned to the house. No one had shown up yet, so she grabbed a few bottles of water and went to care for her strawberries.
