The Sweetest September. Liz Talley

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      Shelby turned and peered over the overgrown sweet olive bush to find a young sunburned guy in sagging jeans and a flat-billed cap staring at her with suspicion. She stood. “Oh, hey. I wondered if anyone was around.”

      “If you’re sellin’ something, we don’t want it,” he said, wiping his brow with a soggy blue bandanna.

      “Well, how do you know you don’t want it?” Shelby asked.

      “If I ain’t offered nothin’ I don’t have to choose whether I want it or not. Stands to reason it’s easier to say I don’t want to buy nothin’.”

      Roundabout logic, but it made sense.

      Shelby walked down the five concrete steps. The guy with the bowlegged gait, stained T-shirt and bright blue eyes narrowed his gaze.

      “I’m not selling anything, but I am looking for John Beauchamp,” she said.

      “Out there on the tractor.” He pointed at the big green tractor. It was so far away Shelby could see only the outline of a figure inside the cab.

      “Oh,” she said, licking her lips, trying to look calm.

      “You here from the church, then?” he asked, shoving the bandanna in his back pocket.

      “The church? Uh, no.”

      He lifted his brows. “Well, the boss—”

      “But I do need to speak to Mr. Beauchamp. It’s important,” she interrupted.

      The kid shook his head. “We in the middle of harvest and don’t quit for nothin’. Not even a pretty lady.”

      Shelby didn’t know what to say. Seemed evident the worker wasn’t about to fetch John off the tractor. “But this can’t wait.”

      “Guess I can take you out if you want. Boss will have to stop then.” He gestured to a golf cart on steroids. “I’m Homer. Been working for the Stantons forever. Reckon I can decide you’re all right and take you out to do whatever business you got with Boss Man.”

      Boss Man? Had she entered a time warp? “Thank you. I’m Shelby.” She stuck out her hand, but Homer waved it away, lifting his hands and showing streaks of grease on his palms.

      “I’ll just say how you do.” He bobbed his head.

      Southerners were weird sometimes. And charming. But mostly weird. “You called Mr. Beauchamp Boss Man but you said this land belongs to the Stantons?”

      “The boss married a Stanton and runs the place for the family. Ain’t nobody works this land the way Boss Man do. Even ol’ Mr. Stanton, who died right there in that tractor of a heart attack, didn’t love it like Boss, and there ain’t nobody left to run this place, which is a shame since this land’s been worked by Stantons for long as I can remember and way past that. Boss’s wife died last year in an accident.”

      “Oh,” Shelby said, not really wanting the history lesson, not really wanting to soften over John losing his wife. She wanted to get on with telling John about the baby and go back to a place that made sense to her.

      Homer cracked another smile. “You ain’t from here, are you? You talk funny.”

      “I’m from Washington State.”

      “Well, tell the president ‘hey’ for me when you see him.”

      Okay, she wasn’t touching that one. “Will do.”

      “I’ll get a towel outta the barn for you to sit on. Don’t want to mess that fancy dress up,” Homer said, loping off toward the barn.

      Shelby waited, fiddling with the key chain and double-checking she’d locked the rental car since she’d left her purse on the floorboard. Of course no one was around to make off with it, but living in Seattle most of her life had ingrained certain precautions.

      But then, sometimes taking precautions failed. She stood here living proof about to climb into a cart and bump out to a tractor operated by a man who was going to get the shock of his life. Yeah, sometimes in spite of a best effort, shit happened.

      Like getting pregnant.

      When Homer came back around, he carried a faded striped beach towel, which he placed on the seat of the cart. “Here ya go.” He patted the towel.

      Shelby eyed the new boots she’d bought before peeing on the pregnancy test stick and learning her life would go from single, focused substitute teacher to single, unfocused mother. Somehow the sleek knee-length boots she’d bought to make her feel better about the whole Darby fiasco seemed frivolous for her new role, but that didn’t mean she wanted them spattered with Louisiana mud.

      Minutes later they took off, rolling over ruts in bone-jarring fashion. Shelby clung to the handrail attached to the roof of the cart and focused on not sliding out since the seat belts looked to have been cut out.

      She watched the green tractor in the distance grow larger. It still chugged along, workers scurrying behind. Finally, when the motorized cart Homer called a mule got within a hundred feet, the big tractor stopped. Seconds later the stranger from the bar climbed out, looking tired and puzzled.

      Homer hopped out of the cart and jogged over to John Beauchamp whose edges looked sharper than she remembered. Sobriety did that. “Brought you a pretty lady who says she needs a word with you. I’ll come back for her in a few. Gotta get this part over to Henry.”

      John glanced over to Shelby, his eyes narrowing, face bewildered. Shelby wondered what he thought. Probably had that same sinking feeling she’d had when her boobs had grown heavy and achy and the telltale crimson flow hadn’t appeared. Pure dread.

      “Thanks, Homer, but you better give me the part. I’ll drive it over to the combine. Can you take over here for me?”

      Homer saluted before scrabbling up the tractor into the cab. He called down, “Sure thing, Boss Man.”

      John frowned, shaking his head. “Stop calling me that.”

      Homer cackled. “Hey, it’s what you are.”

      Shelby sat still as a puddle, watching John walk toward where she held a death grip on the handle. This wasn’t going the way she’d planned, but then again, things were all over the map in regards to plans lately.

      Readjusting an old ball cap on his head, John stopped beside the driver’s seat, glancing back at the men standing behind the tractor, drinking water. They all stared, questions in their eyes, at the woman dressed for brunch sitting in a mucked-up cart in the middle of a cane field. “Go on, fellows. We need to finish this field today. Already late on this planting.”

      The men leaped into action as the tractor lurched forward with Homer at the helm.

      Shelby took a moment to take stock of the man she hadn’t seen since he’d slipped out of the bathroom that fateful night. John’s boots were streaked with mud and his dusty jeans had a hole on the thigh. A kerchief hung from his back pocket, and the faded chambray shirt he wore stretched across broad shoulders. He looked like a farmer.

      She’d СКАЧАТЬ