The question of property and assets was mentioned but quickly dismissed to be discussed later. I’m assuming Howard and I would split the sale of the land unless I wish to buy him out, which I can’t afford. Jedd comes to mind. Maybe I should sell it to him. He’s already built a stable and gone to Nashville to purchase horses. The land is more his in spirit in less than two months than it has been mine in decades. I’d be sad to part with my home, but it’s time. It’s time to move forward, as Naomi reminds me.
“Speaking of time,” I begin, swallowing back the next big decision. “I was wondering if you could teach me how to search for something on the computer.”
Naomi’s head swivels as she drives, but she quickly returns her attention to the road. However, I don’t miss the look of shock on her face.
“What do you need help with?”
“I’d like to learn how to make soap.”
“Soap?” Naomi questions.
“Yes, soap.”
“Soap,” she repeats.
“Soap,” I state, finding this conversation strangely reminiscent of the one with Jedd when I first mentioned the interest. I have no idea if it really will interest me, but I don’t want to dismiss his efforts to help me find something other than Hannah’s assigned hobbies.
“Jedd. He…uh…he thought I’d like to learn to make soap, and he bought me the ingredients. He also ordered some essential oils to fragrance the bars, and I’d like to try…” My voice fades. It sounds silly, right? But Naomi smiles, her hands gripping the wheel at a perfect ten and two while she drives.
“Bev, I can teach you how to make soap. I do it all the time.”
“You do?” I ask, never having recalled this about my sister. It makes sense that my tree-hugging, book-loving, sews-her-own-clothes sister could also make soap, but as snarky as I sound about my sister’s interest, I give her credit for knowing who she is and living by it. I swallow back the difficulty in asking the next question.
“Naomi, could you teach me how to make soap?”
My sister’s lip trembles, and she rolls them inward, fighting off some emotion.
“Beverly, there’s nothing I’d like more than to teach you how to make soap.”
Chapter Twenty-One
[Jedd]
It’s late when I return to the farm. I should tell Beverly I’ve returned. Maybe warn is a better word. I was able to get out of my head for a few days, reveling in the thrill of horse purchasing and traveling back to Green Valley with a sense of pride. I owned these horses, my heart pinching only once or twice in memory of the one I last rode.
Damn activists. You want to stand up for a cause, be educated about it.
I dismiss the thoughts of my final buck ride as I drive the horse trailer over the bumpy gravel leading to the new stable. With the help of others, the new building holds stalls from recycled materials. I’d been over to Hasting’s on a couple of occasions, never finding Boone present or any evidence he’d been back until my most recent visit. Something struck me as off. I couldn’t place my finger on it, but my mind kept drifting back to the kitchen. What was different? What stood out of place?
My mind wondered as I groomed the horses after getting them out of the trailer. Chattering softly to them, I ask them if they liked their new home. The soothing strokes of brushing their flanks, fetching fresh water, feeding them oats and hay, and a final check for the first night gave me untold satisfaction.
Still, something niggled at my brain when I finally rolled myself onto the cot in the darkness after midnight. I’d taken a quick soap-and-rinse shower, which was shockingly frigid in the cold air of the barn. Mid-November was turning down the thermostat, and I didn’t know how much longer I could handle sleeping in the drafty, antiquated structure. I’d built up my room good and solid, but I’d need a little wood stove or something to stay warm, and the thought of adding the necessary chimney stack and flue was just one more thing on my growing list of things to be done.
My mind skittered all over when I first hit the pillow, but my body was tired from another day of hard work. It seemed like a dream to go out on my own. Find land. Purchase horses. Raise them right. But there was a moment on the ride home and more than once while I was struggling to get the darn Quarter Horses out of the trailer when I wished I’d had another set of hands. I’d come to terms with the hands I have, and I manage just fine, but I’d been thinking in a more metaphorical sense, like a partner in my pursuit of happiness, and not just the financial sort.
I’d decided this was the reason I’d asked Beverly to marry me—a rash and hasty, spur-of-the-moment suggestion which turned into THE question—and she’d turned me down, with good reason.
She was still in love with her husband. Her missing, deserting, disloyal husband.
I don’t understand that kind of love. That selfless, never-ending kind Beverly must hold for a man who clearly did her wrong. My momma was like that with Hasting. Whether I like the idea or not, I’d have to get over myself. Going after a woman whose heart belonged to another, especially one whose heart remained with an absent husband, was not my kind of quest. She rejected the notion of marrying me, plain and simple, and it stung.
However, my dreams were filled of Beverly—so much for the pep talk to let her go—and when a gentle tickle traveled up my arm and my name was whispered, I thought my brain was playing a trick on me.
“Bee?” I hissed, when my eyes flipped open startled at her presence leaning over the cot. “What’s wrong?” Like a jack-in-the-box springing upward, I sit up, which startles her, and she stumbles backward. On reflex, I reach for the back of her neck, which almost topples her onto me. Scanning her body for harm, I find her dressed in an extra-large Irish-knit cardigan and what looks like a long slip plus cowboy boots.
“I…I…” She seems to swallow, words escaping her as she stands in the darkness of the cold barn, and it is dark. Too dark. I can only make out the outline of her body, and I want to see more.
“You shouldn’t be wandering around outside this late.” I have no doubt Beverly can take care of herself, and she’s never suggested she was afraid of being out here in the middle of so many acres without a neighbor. Still, that niggling feeling about the old house raises my hackles when I think of Beverly traipsing around on her property after midnight.
“I wanted to make sure you were back okay. Wanted to know if you needed anything.”
Needed anything? In the middle of the night? My brows pinch, but she can’t see me in the pitch black. My hand slips from her neck to stroke up and down her sweater covered arm.
“I’m okay, Beverly.” The words hang in the air, lingering with more but left unsaid.
Are you okay? Are you really still in love with him?
“Okay, well, then…” She pulls back, but I lean forward, following her retreat.
“Whatcha need, honey?” I ask, my voice dropping. Her face lowers toward the bed. Without an answer, I flip open the sleeping bag, which isn’t zipped. I’m only dressed in my skivvies and a T-shirt, preferring to sleep with the blanket she made me against my skin, which prickles with the possibility of Beverly climbing on this cot. It’s going to be a tight fit, and that’s just what I want.