To Thine Own Self Be True (2 page)

Chapter Two

It took me forty-five minutes to get home, a trip usually done in twenty. My truck plowed through the snow okay, but visibility wasn’t worth crap. I finally pulled into a cleared-out space in my tractor barn and sat for a moment to close my eyes and rub my temples. I’d be seeing snowflakes that night in my sleep.

I hunched my head down toward my chest to make the trek to the house. Icy shards spat into my face, and I jogged through the snow drifting across the driveway. I flung the door open and scooted inside, slamming the door behind me.

“Glad to see you home.” My farmhand’s eyes were shadowed with concern, but she was smiling.

I shook the snow from my hat and slid my jacket off, pounding the snow off my boots. “Glad to be here.”

A flannel shirt hung warm and cozy over Lucy’s jeans, and she held out her foot to show me her wool socks, an early Christmas gift I’d given her to ward against the cold wooden floors of my house.

“Let me see! Let me see!” Tess flew out of the kitchen, her nose, chin, and shirt dusted with flour.

“Cookies?” I said.

Lucy made a face. “Just don’t look in the kitchen. Eight-year-olds aren’t exactly the neatest chefs.”

“As long as I get to eat whatever you made, I don’t care how messy she is.”

“Where is it?” Tess asked, hopping on one foot.

“Well, it didn’t exactly get finished. Give me a second and I’ll take the bandage off. Then you can see it better.”

“What happened?” Lucy asked.

“Not sure. Wolf and Mandy disappeared right in the middle of the sitting. Couldn’t find ’em anywhere.”

“That’s strange.” Lucy frowned.

“I know. But then, they’re not exactly your run-of the-mill folks.”

“But to take off in the middle of your tattoo…”

I slipped off my boots and walked to the bathroom, Tess hopping along behind. At the sink, I gently pulled off the tape and tossed it and the gauze into the trash can. I held out my wrist so Tess could see it.

“
How
?” she said. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It’s going to say ‘Howie,’ for the man who was my farmhand before your mom.”

“I didn’t know him,” Tess said.

I regarded her sadly. “No. You didn’t know him.”

We rejoined Lucy in the living room just as the timer on the stove hummed. Lucy padded back into the kitchen. “Oh,” she hollered out. “Abe called.”

“What did he want?”

“Said he’s coming home for Christmas. Wants to know if you’ll be around this week.”

“Where would I go?”

“That’s what I told him. Anyway, he said you can call him or let Ma know. Either way.”

I thought about my once-upon-a-time-could-be-boyfriend, Abe Granger, now back in the regular-best-of-friends category, and realized how much I’d missed him since he’d returned to New York in August. I’d for sure make time for him this Christmas.

“Take a load off,” Lucy said from the kitchen. “I’ll bring you some milk and cookies.”

“Sounds great.” I dropped onto the sofa and set my feet on the coffee table. I had a few minutes till I needed to get out to the cows and freeze my ass off again. I was running a bit late, but it wouldn’t take long to set up the cows in the milking parlor since they’d been there all day. Icy barnyards make for broken legs, so we weren’t chancing it with the herd.

“Did the tattoo hurt?” Tess sat beside me, stretching her legs like mine; but she could only reach the coffee table with her toes.

“A little. When he’s got the needle against my skin it stings, but as soon as he lets up the pain goes away.”

She wrinkled her nose. “Was there lots of blood?”

“None at all. The needle doesn’t actually poke through to my insides. It just goes through the top two layers of skin, so I don’t bleed, just kinda ooze a little, like if I get cut.”

Tess glanced over her shoulder toward the kitchen, then leaned toward me. “Can I get one for my birthday?”

I hid a smile, not wanting to dash her hopes too harshly.

“You know, that would be great, but you have to wait a few more birthdays.”

She pouted. “How come?”

“It’s the law. You have to be sixteen before the artist is allowed to give you a tattoo. And then only if your mom says yes.”

“Says yes to what?” Lucy set a plate of candy cane cookies on the table between Tess’ and my feet, along with three mugs of milk, her fingers hooked through the handles.

“For me to get a tattoo,” Tess said.

I laughed at Lucy’s expression. “When she turns sixteen. No sooner.”

Lucy raised her eyebrows. “And even then we’ll see.”

“Oh, Mom.”

I grabbed a cookie and licked buttery crumbs off my fingers. “Wow, these smell great.”

Lucy sat across from us, a cookie in her hand. “I don’t know. Tattoos aren’t the safest thing.”

“If you go to the guy breaking the laws,” I said. “Come with me to Wolf Ink sometime, and you’ll see another side. He’s a pro all the way. And Mandy could pierce you anywhere you like.”

“Oh, gross,” Tess said.

I laughed again and picked up a couple more cookies. “I’m heading out.”

Lucy stood. “I’ll be there in a minute. I have to put a few more things in the crockpot.”

“No problem.”

We usually took turns with the milking—me in the morning, Lucy in the evening—but during this frigid weather neither of us wanted to be outside any longer than we had to, so we made it a joint effort. I went out to the foyer, where I pulled on my warm coveralls, dry boots, and a different stocking cap. I shoved another cookie in my mouth before pulling on my gloves. My remaining cookie I stuck in my pocket wrapped in a napkin for a mid-milking snack.

The barn was warmer than outside, but a pervasive chill leaked through the old timbers. Queenie, my collie, wriggled out of her nest of straw in the corner, and stuck her nose in my hand.

“Hi, sweetums,” I said, rubbing her head. “Can’t blame you for not meeting my truck today.”

The cows were lethargic, half of them lying in stalls, half of them standing, and only a few of them bothered to glance my way. I turned the radio on to Temple University’s classical music station and started down the row, clipping the cows’ collars to the chains on the pipes. I didn’t bother to make the cows stand yet. I was just about done when Lucy came out, her face ruddy and wet from the short trot to the barn.

“Gee whiz,” she said, then stopped suddenly. “Is it just me, or is it too warm in here?”

I thought about it. “I think it’s just you, but go ahead and check the temp and the airways.”

She headed toward the thermometer. It wouldn’t do for the air in the barn to get too warm or confined. That was asking for trouble. Pneumonia, diarrhea, any kind of airborne illness—those bacteria love the damp warmth of the big animals.

“Looks okay here,” Lucy called. “I’ll check the vents.”

I finished clipping the cows into their stalls and ran warm water and soap into a bucket to start cleaning their udders. I’d sponged off the first two when Lucy came back.

“Vents are working fine. I guess I was just sweating from all my layers.”

I nodded. “Good.”

She stayed there, and I glanced up at her. “What?”

“Aren’t you curious where your tattoo guy went? I mean, what if he and his wife had an accident or something?”

“It
was
bizarre.” I thought about the tray and the bags of tubes on the back room’s floor. “All I could imagine was that some emergency came up, like with Billy or something, but that doesn’t make any sense. The phone didn’t ring, and Mandy didn’t come back in for her purse.” I rested my elbows on my knees. “I’ll try calling them after milking. Maybe they’ll be back by then.”

Lucy moved away, her coveralls swishing like corduroys. “I’ll start on the feed.”

We went through the motions, and about an hour and a half later I was switching the milker to the last cow. Lucy came and leaned on the cow’s hip as I stood up and stretched my back. She sucked her lips to her teeth, avoiding my eyes.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

She sighed and looked down at her boots, kicking a clump of dirty newspaper back into the stall. “You know I’d talked about visiting my folks over Christmas?”

“In Lancaster.”

“Yes.”

I nodded. “Sure. When are you going? I’ll be fine here.”

She crossed her arms. “I’ve decided not to go.”

“Oh. Okay.”

“Is that all right?”

I laughed. “What do you mean? Of course it’s all right.”

“We won’t be spoiling Christmas plans of yours?”

“What plans? I only have plans by default. I figured on heading over to the Grangers, and I guess I’ll see Abe sometime.” The Grangers had been my adopted family since I was eleven and saved Abe from drowning. My throat tightened. “There wouldn’t be anyone else here, since Howie’s gone.”

“So we can stay?”

I blinked, hoping the tears in my eyes wouldn’t show. “I’d love it if you’d stay.”

Lucy smiled, and the lump in my throat lessened.

“Well, good,” Lucy said. “Because this has become home, and it just seems right to spend our first Christmas here with you.”

She glanced up and her mouth dropped open, her eyes widening as she stared toward the door. I whipped around, wondering what on earth had happened, and saw the man standing in the doorway.

“Hello, Stella,” Nick Hathaway said.

Chapter Three

My throat went dry, and I stared at Nick dumbly, like an idiot. My hormones, however, did anything but shrivel, and heat rushed through my body just as it had in July, when he’d first driven up my lane. I could see Lucy out of the corner of my eye, and I didn’t have any trouble interpreting her expression. I had mentioned Nick maybe once since hiring her, but I knew she’d remembered. Not too many men like Nick would pass through my dairy barn.

Queenie charged out of her corner, her feet dancing on the concrete. Nick squatted down to ruffle her fur, and laughed while she covered his face with kisses. After this rush of frantic welcoming, Queenie settled down, panting happily.

Nick stood up, his hand entwined in her fur. “Hope I’m not barging in at a bad time.”

His smile, although tentative, was as milky white as I remembered, and his body looked just as delicious, at least what I could see of it under his ski jacket. I still couldn’t find my voice. The last time I’d seen Nick was after a hellishly emotional kiss during the same week as my motorcycle accident and Howie’s death. Hellish in that I wasn’t sure at that point if I should be hating Nick or loving him. I still wasn’t sure. But it was absolutely amazing to see him standing in my barn.

“Um,” Lucy said. “I think I’d better go check on dinner.” When neither Nick nor I answered, she scooted down the row and left through the far door.

Nick and I looked at each other for about a minute before I took a step around the cow beside me. A step closer to Nick.

He tried out another smile. “I’m on my way back home for Christmas. Was up in New York state visiting a college buddy who owns a nature preserve. I’d played around with the idea of stopping here, but hadn’t made up my mind till this storm hit. Seemed as good an excuse as any to drop in and see how you were doing.”

Still nothing from me.

“Okay,” he said. “You have a couple of options. You could say ‘hi.’ You could say, ‘Get the hell out of my barn.’ Or you could come up with something on your own.”

I looked at him and swallowed. “You never called me. Never wrote.”

His eyebrows rose. “What? The phones and mail don’t work from your end?”

He was right, of course. It was as much my fault as his. But that didn’t mean I had to admit it.

“It’s good to see you,” he said.

I breathed through my mouth, then closed it, nodding, not sure what to say. I was facing my most recurring and secret daydream, and realized I had never gotten to the point in my fantasies where I actually had to respond. I was no help to myself, whatsoever.

“You want to help me finish up milking?” I finally asked. “Supper’s waiting.”

He smiled. “Why not? Last time I was here was in the role of employee.”

My eyes shot to his, wondering if he was teasing or complaining, but his gaze was pleasant. I handed him a pitchfork, and together we cleaned out the stalls. It was more of a job than summer cleaning, since the cows had been holed up in the barn all day and now we had to move around their huge bodies, so we had our work cut out for us. Forty-five minutes later we took a last look at the clean barn, made sure Queenie was comfortable in her warm straw nest, and carefully orchestrated our exit so we didn’t touch at the doorway.

Holding our hands at our faces, we fought our way toward the house as quickly as we could through the blizzard. Nick’s Ranger, a familiar sight, already cowered under a couple inches of snow. I had a disconcerting feeling Nick wouldn’t be going anywhere else that night.

Tess met us at the door, her eyes wide and bright. “Are you Stella’s boyfriend?”

Nick opened his mouth, but I said, “No, Tess. He’s just a friend stopping by to say hello.”

Tess’ brow furrowed. “But Mom said—”

“Ah! There you two are!” Lucy sailed in from the kitchen. “Come on, Tess, let’s give them room to take off their coats and boots.” She threw me an apologetic glance.

I pointed the closet out to Nick. “Plenty of room for your coat in there. And you can leave your boots on that mat.”

He was done first, since I had to struggle out of my coveralls. I was glad when he took a step into the living room, so I wouldn’t accidentally lose my balance and brush against him.

He smiled at Lucy and Tess, holding out his hand. “Nick Hathaway.”

Lucy shook his hand, smiling back, her cheeks pink. “Lucy Lapp. Stella’s farmhand. And this is Tess.”

Nick leaned over, his hands on his thighs. “Hi, Tess. Very nice to meet you.”

Tess giggled and held a hand to her mouth.

I closed my eyes, sighing. Even eight-year-olds were at risk when around Nick. I shut the closet door louder than necessary. “I’m starved. Anybody else?”

“Me!” Tess squealed. She grabbed Lucy’s hand and pulled her toward the kitchen.

I snuck by Nick, averting my face. The way my damn hormones were acting you’d think I was a teenager. Especially seeing how I was still mad at him—and myself—for how things had ended last summer.

“Stella,” he called after me.

I turned.

“Lucy took over for Howie?”

I swallowed. “Yes.”

“And she cooks for you?”

I glanced toward the kitchen. “Actually, she lives with me.”

He was startled at that.

“You can’t see it tonight,” I said, “but the garage, along with their apartment, is gone. Tornado took it in August.”

His mouth dropped open.

“So,” I continued, “the best option was for Lucy and Tess to move in here.”

“With you.” He sounded doubtful.

“What? You don’t think they could tolerate me?”

“I was thinking more the other way around.”

I shrugged. “We plan to build a new garage this spring. So it’s temporary. Until then, I enjoy the meals.” I turned toward the kitchen, and Nick followed.

Lucy and Tess waited for us at the table, where a fourth setting lay, looking awfully normal. It actually
was
normal, since Lenny Spruce, Lucy’s boyfriend and my biker buddy, often joined us. But tonight the fourth person was there for my benefit. Or detriment. I wasn’t sure.

I focused my eyes on my plate while Lucy gave the blessing. Once she said ‘Amen’ I did my best to act like usual. I filled my plate and ate while Tess kept up a running monologue about snow, school, and Christmas. Her voice faded in and out of my thoughts until I heard the word, “tattoo.”

I looked up.

“So she only has half of it,” Tess was saying. “The guy left right in the middle of giving it to her. It says, ‘How.’”

Nick looked at me, a question in his eyes.

“It’s true.” I held out my wrist, displaying the aborted design. He leaned over my arm, and his breath made my hair stand up.

“Where did he go?” Nick asked.

I put my hand back on my lap. “I have no idea. One minute he and his wife were there, and the next… Well, twenty minutes later, actually, since I fell asleep—”

Lucy blinked. “Fell asleep?”

“Those chairs are comfortable. Anyway, Wolf and Mandy were just…gone.” I glanced at the clock. “I’ll call them after supper, see if they’re around.”

“That’s awfully strange,” Nick said.

“Tell me about it.” I chewed my final bite of beef stew and swished it down with milk. “Actually, I’ll call now, since I’m thinking about it.”

All I got for my effort was Wolf and Mandy’s answering machine. I hung up on it.

“Not there?” Lucy asked.

I sat back down at the table and took one of the candy cane cookies she held out. “Huh-uh. But then, they did tell me they were going to a meeting tonight and wouldn’t be back till late.”

Lucy glanced toward the window, where frost had obliterated any view. “Hope not too late, or they won’t be getting home at all.”

“Will I have school tomorrow?” Tess asked. “We’re supposed to have our Christmas party.”

“Holiday party,” Lucy corrected. “And we can check the news, see if they’ve called it off yet. I kind of doubt you’ll be going.”

“But I didn’t give Mrs. Albrecht her present.” Tess’ lower lip stuck out.

Lucy patted her hand. “She’ll still like it after Christmas. Maybe even better then. Come on. Let’s watch the news.”

Lucy walked to the living room, the rest of us following. I stopped behind the sofa, and while I couldn’t see Nick, I could feel that he stood a few feet behind me to my left. I willed myself not to move.

The TV channels were snowy, but clear enough we could see that the blue band declaring school closings was already sliding across the bottom of the screen. We watched as the listings worked their way through the alphabet to the P’s.

“Well, there you are, honey,” Lucy said. “Pennridge schools are closed tomorrow. Guess you’ll be home with us. It’ll be fun.”

But I stopped listening to her then, because the newscaster was saying something new. Our county’s roads had been designated a Level Three emergency. Anyone caught driving a non-emergency vehicle would be arrested. Or at the least, left to freeze. I snuck a glance at Nick. It looked like he would be staying, whether I was comfortable with that, or not.

“I gotta go make sure everything’s okay outside,” I said.

Lucy raised her eyebrows. “But you just came in.”

“The heifers. I need to check the heifers.”

She looked ready to say something else, but the glare I gave her was enough to silence her.

I went to the front closet and yanked out my coveralls. Nick followed me over. “Okay if I come? I’d kind of like to see your new heifer barn.”

I groaned inwardly. I’d thought for sure he’d opt to stay warm in the house, but I’d forgotten how much time he’d put into fixing up the old heifer barn before someone had burned it to the ground.

“Fine. There’s an extra pair of coveralls, if you want them.”

He pulled them off their hanger and put them on. By the time we were all bundled up, it would’ve been hard to recognize either of us.

“Kind of reminds me of another outfit of yours,” I said.

He laid a hand over his eyes. “Oh no. Not the painting stuff.”

Remembering the multiple layers of clothes and eye protection he’d worn when powerwashing, I had to grin. But that memory quickly merged into the one where Nick had discovered me holding a near-lifeless Howie in the milking parlor’s feed room. Nick had raced to call the ambulance, and had sat with me through the next horrible hours. He’d been a rock. I’d almost fallen apart.

Swallowing the pain of my memories, I opened the door and stepped into the night. The task of protecting our faces from the sleet and snow kept any conversation at bay until we made it to the heifer barn, where we keep the female cows who are still too young to be milked. Inside, I flipped on a light, and Nick stared at the beautiful new building. The heifers blinked sleepily at us, cozy and safe in their cocoon of straw and insulated steel.

“It’s something, huh?” I said.

“Amazing. And it’s practically warm.”

“Never gets below fifty or fifty-five. Thermostat controlled.”

“Wow.”

“The best thing is the tunnel ventilation.” I led him to the six-foot fan at the end of the barn. “No way air will get stale with this baby working.”

Nick shook his head, his face still registering his shock. “Can’t say the fire was a good thing for you, but this is quite a step up from what you had.”

“It is.”

We stood for a few moments watching the cows, and Nick turned to me, his eyes searching mine. “Stella, can we—”

“Uh-uh, Nick. I can’t. You have to at least give me until tomorrow.” It would take me that long just to believe the man was back, let alone talk about it intelligently—if at all.

He watched my face, probably looking for signs of weakening, but he smiled gently. “I at least had a few days to think about stopping in. I guess I blindsided you.”

A heifer stepped close to the gate in front of us and mooed loudly.

“Okay, girl,” I said, rubbing her nose. “We’ll turn the lights out and let you get some sleep.”

I tromped back toward the front of the barn, flipped the switch, and put my hand on the door.

“Ready for this?” I said over my shoulder.

“I’m ready for anything,” Nick said.

Lord help me, I wasn’t even close.