Never Let You Go (3 page)

Megan backed up a little farther until she stumbled against the porch steps. She grabbed at the railing to keep from falling.

“That’s right, better come up here, girls,” Linda said. “He gets agitated so easily.”

Megan scurried up the three steps, but Anna leaned against the truck, one foot flat against the door, knee bent, as she picked idly at a scrape on her knee.

“Anna, come up here.” Linda spoke more sharply.

Anna still didn’t move.

“Anna!” Megan hissed.

Anna rolled her eyes. “Calm down, Megan. You’ve only been here five minutes and you’re already freaking out.”

Megan flinched at Anna’s words and glanced quickly at Linda, wondering if she agreed. But Linda was still frowning at Anna.

Samson passed the truck, his hooves crunching on the gravel, and headed slowly down the long driveway toward the road.

Megan let out a breath she didn’t realize she’d been holding. Her first interaction with a bull—well, sort of—and she hadn’t been trampled. Things were starting off well.

Linda buzzed her wheelchair over a few feet. “I’m Linda, by the way. You must be Megan. We’re so glad you could help us out this summer.”

“Oh, me too. I’ve never been on a farm before, though—I hope that’s okay.” Megan smiled sheepishly, but the older woman looked unperturbed.

“You’ll catch on fast, I’m sure. Anna will show you everything you need to know. She’s practically an expert!” Linda raised her voice in enthusiasm, but the words rang hollowly. Anna just stared off toward the barn.

Megan’s cheeks flushed with embarrassment at her friend’s rudeness. Megan focused on the end of the driveway, where a figure had appeared, walking toward them, alone. The girl with braids panted up a few minutes later, still holding her stick. She was wearing a man’s button-up shirt untucked with the sleeves rolled up and a pair of paint-splattered khaki shorts.

“Whew!” She dropped onto the porch step next to Megan and wiped her dripping forehead with the hem of her shirt. “Well, I’m glad that’s done for the summer.”

“Did they get him in?” Linda asked with a touch of anxiety.

“Yeah. Dave’s reinforcing the gate right now.” She turned to Megan. “I’m Sarah. The other guy with Samson was Dave, my boyfriend. We help out Thomas and Linda on the farm. He’s heavy machinery, I’m cooking and housekeeping.”

“And honorary daughter.” Linda patted Sarah’s shoulder. Anna was still pointedly ignoring the conversation.

“Hi. I’m Megan,” Megan said, waving a little.
That probably looked stupid
, she chastised herself, but Sarah just nodded.

“Want a muffin? I made them this morning—green apple.” She was already halfway into the house.

“I’m okay. Um, what’s that?” Megan pointed at the stick now lying on the porch. It was about three feet long and had a small fork at one end, kind of like a blue devil’s pitchfork.

Sarah stopped and looked back. “That’s an electric goad. To shock the panties off Samson in case he feels like misbehaving.”

Linda turned her wheelchair around, and Sarah held the door open for her. “Thomas will show you around when he gets back, Megan,” Linda said over her shoulder. “He likes to do a tour whenever we have new help.” The screen door slapped behind them.

“Bzzz,”
Anna said, finally joining Megan on the porch. “I touched one once when I was little. For a minute, I thought I was dead.”

Megan eyed Anna, trying to figure out if she was still pissy about Linda. But her friend just picked up the electric goad and flipped it around in her hand.

“I remember that. I had to pick you up off the barn floor,” a voice said behind them. Megan turned to see Thomas, minus Samson. Dave stood beside him, holding a hammer in one dirt-stained hand.

“Uncle Thomas! I’m glad Samson didn’t gore you!” Anna flung herself off the porch and wrapped her arms around the older man’s waist. Megan blinked in surprise. That greeting seemed a little over the top.

Thomas must have thought so too, because he patted Anna’s back and gently extricated himself. “Now, now. He doesn’t have any horns, doll.”

“Oh, yeah. I forgot.” She offered her uncle a charming smile.

Thomas lifted his eyebrows toward Megan.

“Oops, sorry. This is Megan,” Anna said, gesturing as if Megan was a kid tagging along for the day.

Megan shook his hand, which was so rough and hard, it felt like rhino skin. His fingernails were cut short and rimmed with dirt. “Glad you made it down here, Megan.”

Dave broke in. “If you need me, I’ll be harrowing the oats.” He had a bushy black beard and black eyes that were hooded but alert.

“Be sure to get the northwest corner,” Thomas told him. “Big stand of skunkweed. Jordan’s back there.”

Anna drew in her breath sharply, then poked Megan in the side.

Dave nodded and waved to the girls as he left.

“Let me show you around, Megan.” Thomas led the way past the house, where the gravel drive cut through the farm itself, dividing it in half. He walked with a long, effortless stride, and Megan had to quicken her pace to keep up. Her feet slid in the gravel, and she wished to God she’d worn anything except sandals. She glanced longingly at Anna’s sturdy sneakers and Thomas’s heavy rubber boots. Thomas was going to think she was some kind of silly city girl. She hoped they wouldn’t meet anyone else until she could change her shoes.

Beside her, Anna swung her arms energetically as they walked. “Isn’t this place gorgeous?” she chattered. “I seriously think this is, like, my favorite place on earth. After Dad left—”

“Here are the horses,” Thomas interrupted smoothly. They approached the red barn. Its cream trim was neatly painted, and there was a fenced pasture to the left. A mud puddle stretched in front of the open double doors. Megan eyed it cautiously, tiptoeing around the edge as Thomas splashed straight through.

The barn was vast inside, with empty stalls stretching down each side and the ceiling soaring at least fifty feet overhead. A crammed hayloft stretched high along one wall, but the barn floor was neatly swept.

Two huge brown horses poked their heads out of their stall doors as the three walked down the aisle. “Awww,” Megan couldn’t help breathing. They had massive heads and necks and thick blond forelocks. Beside them, a gray donkey bobbed his head up and down in greeting.

She’d never outgrown her little-girl love for horses, though she hadn’t been near one for years. Even now she wished it wasn’t babyish to have horse pictures in her room the way she used to when she was younger. Those glossy ones with the horses running across mountain meadow or grazing in fields of buttercups.

Anna patted the donkey’s head briskly. “Hi, Cisco.”

“These are Belgian draft horses,” Thomas told Megan. “Rosie’s on the right and Darryl’s on the left. I’ve decided to try horse-drawn plowing this year, as an experiment, so they arrived in the spring.” He stepped up and rubbed his hand under Rosie’s heavy blond mane. “Rosie here came in foal. She’s going to be having a baby very, very soon.” He pointed, and Megan noticed the mare’s bulging sides.

“Oooh,” she breathed, enchanted. “When is she going to have her baby? Is Darryl the father?” Tentatively, Megan patted the mare’s warm nose, which was pricked with a few stiff whiskers.

Anna laughed and twisted around from where she was sitting on a nearby bale of hay. “No, dork. Darryl’s a gelding.” Darryl snuffled as if agreeing.

Megan flushed and glanced hesitantly at Thomas.

“A castrated male horse,” he supplied. “No, the father’s on the other farm. And she’s due sometime this week, I think.” He walked back toward the door. “The summer hands trade off stall cleaning, and feeding and watering twice daily. The horses get turned out onto that grass.” He pointed to the opposite door, which led directly out to the fenced pasture.

Then Thomas led them out of the barn and past an open shed where a large tractor and several small tractors were parked. A dizzying array of pitchforks, rakes, shovels, hoes, and wheelbarrows were against one wall, while another was lined with labeled metal trash cans.

“Machine shed,” Thomas said. “This is also where we keep most of the animal feed. Shavings for bedding are in a shed behind the barn, and the manure pile is beyond the horse pasture.”

Megan’s temples were beginning to feel tight with all the information. She nodded, trying to look capable and enthusiastic. Manure pile. That’s something she wouldn’t have encountered working at the mall.

Thomas must have noticed her worried expression. “I know it seems like a lot now, but you’ll be amazed at how fast you’ll
get into the routine. Anna only comes up in the summer, but the minute she’s here, it’s like she never left.” He looked affectionately at Anna, who pursed her lips in an “aw shucks” way.

Megan could tell she was eating up the praise. She looked away, tasting a familiar feeling of sadness and irritation. Anna could act so
needy
around men. Needy and puppyish. She was always like this at home, with their other friends’ fathers and the track coach and the teachers at school.
God, do you have to have constant attention?
Megan always wanted to shout at her.
Can someone
not
admire you for one second?

About fifty feet ahead, a large wire pen held ten pigs, all stretched out in the dirt, eyes tightly closed.

“Naptime,” Thomas said.

The smell was intense. Megan resisted the urge to pull the collar of her shirt up over her nose. Anna didn’t seem to notice, though, as she leaned on the fence.

“They get kind of aggressive at feeding time,” she said cheerfully. “You just have to be careful they don’t knock you down. You’ll get trampled.”

Megan cleared her throat and leaned against the fence beside Anna. “Right. I can handle that.” She
sounded
confident at least.
Please, don’t let me do anything stupid this summer.
She didn’t want to spend the next ten weeks slipping in the mud and getting trampled by hungry pigs.

Thomas continued up the drive. “Come on, girls. We’ll go up to the fields and the sheep pasture.”

Anna rushed to her uncle’s side. Megan wondered at her
hurry until she remembered that the mysterious Jordan was in the fields. Hurrying to catch up, Megan turned from the pigs, but her sandal caught on a piece of wire sticking out from the fence, causing her foot to slip out. She stumbled and brought her bare foot down in a mucky puddle. “Shit!” Megan whispered to herself as she tried to scrape the mud off on the edge of the fence. Great. She stuck her foot back in her sandal anyway, then hurried after Anna and Thomas, who were now far ahead.

“What happened to your foot?” Anna asked loudly the minute Megan caught up to them.

“Nothing, I just stepped in a little mud.” She could tell Anna knew exactly what had happened, but pointing out Megan’s blunders was one of her favorite activities. It was a kind of hobby, like stamp collecting. This time, though, Anna didn’t say anything more.

They were approaching a large field of tall plants. Megan figured that must be oats, since it didn’t look like hay or corn. She could just make out someone on a tractor in the far corner. There was another person lifting something on the ground nearby.

Anna grabbed Megan’s upper arm and squeezed painfully. “That’s him!” she hissed.

Megan squinted. “He looks like a dot,” she murmured back.

“But a really cute dot, right?” Anna gazed adoringly into the distance.

Thomas glanced at his watch. “You won’t have to do much with these crops, but oats, hay, and corn are in these three fields.” He strode over the long grass, navigating the big matted clumps
skillfully. “But sheep are in this far pasture.” He gestured to a flock nibbling grass. A long, open shelter was built into one corner of the pasture.

“Here, Megan, hose your foot off in the pump.” Thomas stopped and indicated an old-fashioned hand pump on a pad of concrete nearby. While Megan washed, he went on. “You all will come up here every day to check their water and throw hay.” He turned around and fixed the girls with a stern but not unkind look. “It’s important that these chores get done well and get done on time.”

“Uncle Thomas,” Anna pouted. “Don’t lecture us. . . .” She smiled at him winsomely. “We
know
.”

“Well, it’s the obligatory mean-boss talk.” He waggled his eyebrows at them, and the girls followed him along the fence line.

Megan struggled along in the long grass, the sharp blades scraping her calves.
How big is this place?
It felt like they’d been walking for miles. The sun blazed down, sending up the nutty scent of toasting seeds.

To Megan’s surprise, there were several more buildings laid out in front of them: a barn silvery gray with age with a partially caved-in roof and some smaller sheds that leaned precariously, with most of the glass in the windows broken or missing. A rail fence around the perimeter was mostly knocked over.

“This is the old section of the farm,” Thomas said, gazing at the abandoned structures with his hands on his hips. “Megan, Anna already knows this, but when I bought this place back in the seventies, it was a much larger conventional farm. When I decided to go organic, I just couldn’t keep up with all the
maintenance. So this part is abandoned. At some point, we’ll knock all this down, but for now, I don’t want anyone back here. These old buildings are dangerous.”

“Yes, all right.” Megan wondered if she should be calling him “sir.” He reminded her of the supervisor at the food bank where she used to volunteer: serious in a “don’t mess with me” way, but not mean. She liked that—it seemed right for a boss.

Anna sighed. “I think it’s lovely back here. So quiet and peaceful.”

Thomas fixed her with a stern look. “Stay away. I mean it.”

“I know, I know,” Anna conceded, which seemed to satisfy him.

They turned down a little dirt footpath carved into an open field back toward the farmhouse. Thomas stopped, and Megan almost ran into his back. To their left, a little wooden cabin with a sloping tin roof and a minuscule front porch stood as if it had sprouted directly out of the field. Megan half expected to see one of the Seven Dwarfs step through the door.