A Family For The Farmer. Laurel Blount

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      The silence in the room was leaden. Emily wouldn’t look in Abel’s direction.

      “Did you know about all this?” she asked finally, keeping her gaze on the hands she held tightly in her lap.

      “Not until it was too late to do anything about it. Monroe called me the day after Miss Sadie passed and told me the basics.” He’d been looking for loopholes ever since, but he hadn’t found any, so he saw no sense in mentioning that.

      “Mr. Monroe didn’t tell me anything over the phone except that Grandma left some special condition in the will. I thought it had something to do with finding new homes for the livestock. You know how she was about her animals. I never imagined...” Emily massaged her temples again. “I wasn’t expecting anything like this. Mr. Monroe should have given me the same information he gave you so I could have been prepared.”

      “He was probably afraid to,” Abel said honestly. “I’ve been giving him kind of a hard time about all this.” The truth was, he’d hounded the life out of the lawyer, desperate to avoid this very moment. The look on Emily’s face made him wish he’d tried a little harder, although he didn’t see how he could have.

      “Really?” Emily’s voice chilled. “Why would you do that? As it stands, all you have to do is wait for me to fail, and you end up with Grandma’s farm. You’ve always been crazy about the place. It seems to me this is a pretty sweet deal for you.”

      His heart dropped to the bottom of his gut. This was exactly what he’d been afraid of, what had kept him awake half of last night. He’d worried she’d think he’d finagled this somehow, that he was the kind of person who’d have conned an elderly lady into something like this.

      She wouldn’t be alone in thinking it, either, and for good reason. He was the son of a man like that and the grandson of another one. He’d worked hard to build a different kind of reputation for himself in Pine Valley, but it had been uphill work. Easier, his younger brother, Danny, had said, just to move off and start fresh in a place where the Whitlock name wasn’t muddied up with generations of lies, bad debts and shady deals.

      Abel had argued, but Danny had had his heart jammed up by some girl who’d looked down her nose at him and he’d been in no mood to listen. His brother had left, and Abel had set his jaw and started the long, slow work of forging trust with his wary neighbors. One day Danny would feel the call of home. Everybody did, sooner or later. And when that day came, he was going to find out that the Whitlocks had a different reputation in this town. Abel intended to make sure of that, and he’d come too far to see it all crumble into dust just because Miss Sadie had come up with one of her crazy ideas.

      He met Emily’s eyes squarely. “I’ve already told you I had nothing to do with any of this. If I wanted Goosefeather Farm, I’d have asked Miss Sadie to sell it to me and given her a fair price for it. I’d have asked her straight out, too, like a decent man does when he wants something. I would never have gone behind your back and wheedled her into giving it to me and shortchanging yo—” He stopped short when he saw Emily’s bottom lip trembling. He was about to make her cry, which was just about the only thing that would make this situation even worse than it already was.

      “Emily,” he began helplessly but then floundered. He had no idea what to say. Words never came easily to him, and this was way beyond his skill level.

      She got up, pushing her chair back so abruptly it almost tilted over. “I can’t talk about this right now. I’ve got to find somewhere to think...and to read this letter. I’ve got to make sense of this somehow.”

      Abel reached deep in his jeans pocket, pulling out an old-fashioned key. “Here. Why don’t you go out to the farm? I’ve been locking up since...for the last couple of weeks and taking care of things.”

      Emily’s eyes flashed angrily, and her chin went up a notch. “I already have a key, thanks. It was my grandmother’s house after all.”

      Abel winced. He was trying to help, but he’d managed to put his foot in it instead. He felt like he was trying to plow a field blindfolded.

      “Emily,” he tried again, but she cut him off firmly.

      “Don’t try to talk to me right now, Abel, please. Just don’t. I’m tired, and I’ve got a lot to think about. You and I’ve known each other for a long time, and you were always nice to me when I came out for the summers. You looked out for me, and I haven’t forgotten that. You even used to sneak around and do my chores sometimes when Grandma wasn’t looking.” A smile flickered briefly on her lips. “You’re probably the only friend I have left around here. I really—” Her voice broke again, and she coughed and restarted. “I really don’t want to say something to you right now that I’ll regret later.” Her voice sounded thick, but whether it was clogged with tears or anger, he couldn’t tell.

      He sat like a stone, listening as she went down the carpeted hallway and gathered up her twins, who protested at leaving in the middle of their cartoon. He waited until he heard the outer office door shut solidly behind her. Then he sighed and rubbed wearily at his eyes.

      He had no idea what Miss Sadie had been thinking, but surely this wasn’t what she’d been hoping for. Emily was hurt and angry, and Abel felt like he’d just murdered a puppy. And he had a hunch things were going to get a whole lot trickier before they got any better. If they ever did.

      He got to his feet, folding up his copy of the will into a square that would fit in his shirt pocket. He was anxious to escape this stuffy office and get back outside, where he could breathe. Emily wasn’t the only one who needed to think. Maybe a walk in the woods and some time in his workshop would clear his head. He’d spend some more time praying, too. He always felt closer to God out alone under the pines or with his chisel in his hand than he did indoors crowded up next to other folks. It was something he’d had a hard time explaining to the new minister when he’d pestered Abel gently about his spotty church attendance.

      Yes, he’d have another long talk with God. Maybe this time the good Lord would give him some clear instructions about how to handle all this. He sure hoped so, because Abel was going to need all the help he could get.

       Chapter Two

      Phoebe fell asleep on the ten-minute ride out to Goosefeather Farm and had to be wakened when they pulled up in front of the white farmhouse. Even Paul’s eyelids looked a bit heavy, and he leaned against the clapboards on the shady porch as Emily twisted the metal key in the ancient lock. She was a little surprised when she heard the tumblers click grudgingly back into place. Although her grandmother had given her the key several years ago, Emily had never actually used it. The truth was she’d never known this welcoming red door to be locked, and she was amazed that the key even worked.

      She gave the children a snack of apple wedges and cheese at her grandmother’s big kitchen table and then took them upstairs and settled them in the spare bedroom for a nap. It was proof of their exhaustion that they accepted this arrangement without a fuss. Phoebe flopped on top of the blue-and-yellow quilt covering the bed nearest the window, cuddled her tattered stuffed rabbit close to her, sighed once and promptly fell back asleep. Paul arranged himself more carefully in the other twin bed, tracing the pointed stars of his matching quilt with a thoughtful finger.

      “Are you going to take a nap, too, Mama?” he asked.

      She wished. “No. I’ve got some thinking to do.”

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