His Hometown Girl. Karen Rock

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      CHAPTER THREE

      AND WAR IT was, regardless of the fact that Jodi had been on his mind nonstop during his afternoon chores, his ever-present retriever, Goldie, at his heels. He could fool himself. Think he was strategizing. But the truth was he kept picturing the smile she’d given him when he’d rescued Tyler. And the way her blue eyes had warmed to him—even for a short while.

      He cranked off the engine on his feed blower, stepped out and pulled off his hat, letting the fans sweep his damp hair away from his forehead. Who was he kidding fantasizing about Jodi? Their short-lived relationship had left scars. She’d been right to accuse him of pitying her. He had felt bad about what’d happened to her family. It was the reason he’d put a stop to their rivalry and started being nice to her.

      But when their truce had turned to romance, it’d been hard to separate those feelings. To know where one emotion ended and the other began. When she’d asked him if he’d dated her out of pity, he’d struggled to express himself clearly.

      Looking back, he understood that he hadn’t been mature enough to handle the situation. It’d been complicated, and she’d run off, quit, before he’d figured out how to explain without offending her or revealing his own family’s secrets.

      Her father’s accident had left Daniel’s family in a bad place financially. Replacing the skid loader her father had broken had pushed Daniel’s cash-strapped family over the edge. That was the real reason he’d convinced her to keep their romance a secret—he didn’t want to give his parents another excuse to argue. After all, she’d been the source of his family’s strain. He rubbed the back of his tense neck. But that was a long time ago; they weren’t teenagers anymore.

      In fact, like Jodi, he’d moved on. He had dated other women, although none as seriously. He had too many things to focus on before settling down, his updated farm being one of them. He looked on with pride at the orderly rows of newly widened stalls. Brown jersey cows stuck out their heads and nipped at his homegrown organic silage, their lowing filling the barn. Besides sunrise, this was his favorite time of the day, when the last of his herd had exited the mechanized, circular milking parlor and returned to stalls heaped with sweet straw bedding, their eyes drooping from a long day at pasture, many on their knees already.

      “All set there, Daniel?” A gawky young man waved at him from farther down the center aisle. His hired hand was a decent guy who mostly kept to himself. Hopefully, this one would last out a full year. Colton was one of the best workers he’d found in a while.

      “Pretty much. I’m about to head up. Are you coming for supper?”

      “Yeah, if you don’t mind. I’ve got to set the timer on the mister and change out of these.” He plucked at his tan coveralls.

      “Sounds good. We’ll hold the meal for you.”

      A striped barn cat wound its way through Daniel’s legs and touched noses with a tail-wagging Goldie. Cat and dog. Natural enemies. Yet they’d found a way to get along. Would he and Jodi ever find that peace? He gritted his teeth. Only if she saw the light—like the mellow gold shafts striping the sawdust-covered floors. No business office could compete with this. It was majestic.

      And Jodi shared that quality. It had made her his fiercest enemy growing up, and the subject of many boyhood dreams—one of which had briefly come true. He paused to look at a mound of hay in the same place as the one where they’d kissed ten years ago. It was a memory best forgotten, especially now that they were locked in this “winner take all” battle.

      If she had her way, his jerseys wouldn’t be brushed nightly, given hours of outdoor time or slipped a carrot when they looked a little off, because yes, despite having three hundred head, he knew them all that well. Had birthed them and named them himself. They were a family of sorts and he never could look at them as pure dollar signs.

      He slopped milk into a trough left out for the cats. The orange tabby had already been joined by three calicoes, a gray short hair, a tailless Manx, and a rag-doll cat he couldn’t resist picking up and letting flop across his forearm. He rubbed its belly fast before its claws came out, then put it down where it shoved its way into the growing crowd. He noticed a Persian hanging back. Huh. He’d never seen it before. Must have been another midnight drop-off from a regretful pet owner.

      The skittish cat raced from him as he approached, but in minutes he had it cornered and in a pet carrier. He strode up the small knoll to his gray, plank-sided, two-story farmhouse where the smell of pot roast and onions made his stomach growl. For a moment he imagined what it’d be like to have Jodi there, waiting for him, but shook off the foolish thought. As soon as she left town, she’d disappear for another ten years, maybe forever.

      Feeling hollow, he trudged up the back porch steps, which badly needed a coat of paint, and pulled open the screen door. He shrugged off his plaid overshirt and stepped inside the narrow hallway lined with framed pictures of his ancestors, their smiles absent, but their eyes content. He grinned at his grandfather’s 1957 tractors calendar, glad they’d never had the heart to take it down.

      “Sue!”

      His sister appeared in the door frame, her glasses askew on her narrow nose, her short dark hair standing up in odd places.

      “Tell me you didn’t fall asleep and forget to turn off the oven.”

      Her hazel eyes widened and she tugged at the collar of a top she’d probably crocheted herself. “I’m sorry, Daniel. You know I’m useless in the kitchen.”

      He passed her the pet carrier. “Did you start the water on the potatoes?”

      “Ten minutes ago.” She peered into the plastic container. “Who’s this rapscallion? Don’t remember seeing it around.”

      He glanced up at the worn edge of the Scrabble box perched on the hall-closet shelf and whistled. Last weekend, their СКАЧАТЬ