“It will work just like any other arm. It holds. It grabs. It squeezes.” My eyes drop to those breasts I can’t discern but imagine exist under the oversized material. Her body quivers a second under my gaze, and my eyes pop up to meet hers.
Maybe I shouldn’t want this woman’s property.
Maybe there is somewhere else.
I shake my head. No, this is the land. It has to be here.
My sight drifts in the direction of the listing barn. “I’d be getting the short end of the stick if I stay. I’ll need to rebuild that thing before it collapses,” I assess. “Looks like an old hen house behind it. Then there’s the land. I’ll need a practice ring, and those back fields could be used for grazing. So don’t you worry about ‘my thing.’ I’ll have you know I’m plenty strong in all the places I need to be.”
She waves her giant needle at me, and thankfully, I’ve stepped out of her reach. “Your stick will need to be stronger than mine.” Her eyes spark again, and if I didn’t know any better, I’d think she was teasing me.
I have a stick for you, honey. The sarcasm whispers through my mind, but a false smile remains plastered on my lips.
“Where’s Howard?” I ask instead, driving the proverbial knife a little deeper. I’ve already been informed Howard disappeared years ago. Good thing to know or else he’d be the first person I sought. Running away doesn’t surprise me about him. He was a coward at his core. I’ll add it to the long list of infractions I already hold against him. Beverly bristles at his name, and her knuckles turn white on the door’s edge.
Interesting.
She’s definitely holding herself back from punching me in the kisser.
Wonder what would happen if I leaned forward and kissed her?
She’d slap me for certain this time, but my goodness, am I distracted by her.
It’s been too long since you’ve been laid, old man.
“Howard isn’t here,” she hisses. “I am.” I recognize the fight in Beverly. The push and pull of holding her own yet needing to be held, and by the way she’s gripping that door, I want to relieve her fingers, clasp them with my own, and tell her I’m here for her.
See? The kind of woman you change your plans for.
Goddammit, focus.
“Maybe I should speak with your Tripper? Or your daughter?” Vernon mentioned one. I remember the toddler holding Beverly’s hand.
“Speak with me about what?” I turn to find the spitting image of Beverly from twenty-something years ago looking up at me from the yard. I didn’t hear her come up the gravel drive—hazard of being hard of hearing and apparently my attention on her mother.
“You stay away from my daughter,” Beverly growls, mama bear claws at the ready as she points her wooden knitting utensil at me as though she’s about to knit me into something.
“Momma,” the girl warns, and I can’t take my eyes off the younger version of Beverly, complete with light brown, almost blond hair, and eyes the same shape as her mother’s. She’s stunning in a young and beautiful way, but I’m not into women twenty years my junior. No, daddy-issue role-playing here, thank you.
“Hi, I’m Jedd. Jedd Flemming,” I offer. Holding out my hand, I realize I never officially introduced myself to Beverly. Then again, I worried she’d know the name, and I wouldn’t have been able to share half my sentences with her.
She’d throw you off the porch if she knew your real intentions.
Beverly’s daughter steps up the risers and shakes my hand while her eyes drift to my left arm. I’ve grown accustomed to the swift drive-by of stares. The ones where people glance, look away, then drift back. Eventually, they fight to keep their eyes focused anywhere but on me.
“I’m Hannah.”
“Nice to meet you.” I turn back to Beverly, watching her face morph into shuttered eyes and steaming cheeks as I hold her daughter’s hand. The lines near her eyes etch deeper. Her lips flatten, and her face turns bright pink.
“Jedd Flemming, our barn isn’t open for your stick, and neither is my daughter,” Beverly snaps, teeth gnashing like a rabid animal.
“Momma!” the girl shrieks.
“Now, get off my porch before I skewer your ass with this thing.” She releases the partition, waving the knitting needle in my direction like she intends to spear me… and then, she disappears.
“Momma!” Hannah screeches, racing around me and attempting to open the barrier that her mother has disappeared behind. With her mother wedged behind the door, Hannah struggles. “Momma, scoot back a bit. Reach for your crutches.”
I peer over Hannah’s hunched back to see a set of arm-cuff crutches sprawled beyond Beverly’s reach.
“What the…?” Was this what she meant when she called herself lame? What happened to her? Did Howard do this? My insides rumble.
I’ll kill him.
Then, all questions are shaken from my thoughts as a stone of sympathy sinks in my stomach. “Let me help.” I step forward, ready to move Hannah out of my way when Beverly shouts from behind the door.
“We don’t need your kind of help. Go away.”
My kind of help? I can’t see her, but the edge in her tone brooks no argument.
“Please,” her daughter drones, turning cloudy eyes to me. Embarrassed by her mother’s sharp words, she’s begging me to walk away.
I’m not the gambler Beverly accused me of, but I’d bet on a horse race she’s mortified by her collapse. I remember the struggle and know the feeling all too well.
Meeting Hannah’s worrisome eyes, I hold up both hands in surrender. Taking a step back, I feel helpless and hopeless, but also a strange kinship with Beverly Townsen. She’s hurting, and it’s more than physical.
Fall seven times. Get up eight. It’s an old Japanese proverb, and one I accepted early on.
How many times has Beverly fallen?
“Okay,” I acquiesce, accepting their desire for privacy. “You think about my offer, Bee,” I holler over Hannah, not caring if my voice is too loud. I want her to hear me. “Sleep on my proposal. Knit a blanket for that sleep and maybe one for me as I’ll need it when I put my stick in your barn.”
With that, I nod at Hannah and hop off their porch.
Beverly will change her mind. She has to. This land needs me.
And so might she.
Chapter Three
[Beverly]
“Good Lord, Momma, what was that all about?” Hannah’s face remains flushed as the man—Jedd Flemming—excuses himself.
“He interrupted Tripper and Virginia,” I say by way of an explanation.
“That’s one big truck,” Hannah mumbles, ignoring me as the roar of an engine alerts us of his exit. She turns her attention back to me.
“As long as his stick doesn’t match,” I mutter. That man had me all kinds of flustered. He touched me, but then I noticed the look in his eyes when he saw my daughter. Instantly, I thought he wants her, and my mama bear claws sprang. Emotion took over, my body gave out, and I collapsed to the floor like a cripple.
“Crippled is a crippling word, Beverly,” my younger sister Naomi would admonish in her somber, sweet tone, trying to flip the coin to good. Life dealt her a toilet-flush hand of cards as well, so I don’t know how she can be chipper most days, but she’s a tree hugger and I write her attitude off to that.