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She frowned, not understanding, and waved to a young family as they strode through the doors, then again to an aging couple. “Albert, don’t think for a minute I’m letting you haul jugs of milk to the car on your own,” she scolded, but her grin took the sting out of the reprimand. “You hang on to Edna so we don’t have another broken hip on the prayer roster and we’ll handle the bags, okay?”
The old man smiled, and the peaceful look on his aged face made Zach wish that kind of contentment for his father. But they’d have to find a way to redistribute a wagonload of Marty Harrison’s anger, and Zach had no clue how to do that. You there, God? I’m open to suggestions these days. Not nearly as stubborn as I used to be. If you’ve got any bits of wisdom to throw my way, I’m ready for them.
Piper pulled her attention back to him, and smiled as if what he had to say mattered. The smile almost made him forget his request, she was that engaging. Bright green eyes sparkled beneath thick brows, and her classic athletic look said she stayed in shape to do her job, not just to look good in a dress. Though Zach was pretty sure she’d look great in a dress.
Another rooster crow brought him back on track. “Him. Them.” Zach waved a hand to the right. “I bought the house around the corner on Watkins Ridge, and I need the roosters to quiet down during the day when I’m sleeping.”
She stared at him, then tried to hide a grin by coughing into her hand. “You want quiet roosters? There’s a novelty.”
“I’ve been working nights...”
“Close your windows.”
Brilliant idea, except for the extreme summer temperatures. “Too hot,” he shot back.
“Get a fan. Install air-conditioning.”
“A room air conditioner blocks sound. That’s not safe. And I’ve got hot-water baseboard heat, so installing central air would be crazy expensive.”
She tapped a finger to her jaw, contemplating him. “Let me get this straight. You want the roosters to be quiet because you can hear them, but you don’t want to install a room air conditioner to block the noise of the roosters because then you can’t hear things. Right?”
Okay, it sounded preposterous put that way, but essentially, yes. He wanted to be able to hear a home invader, so the idea of a noisy air cooling unit wasn’t on his list. But he didn’t want to hear annoying birds that refused to respect his backward sleeping habits. “Kind of.”
She threw him a bright smile that said “conversation over” and started to back away. “I’ve got a cutting of hay to bale and get pulled in before this afternoon’s possible thunderstorm, so Zach―” she raised her index finger to her cap and tipped the brim in a gesture of respect “―I’m going to take what you said seriously right after I get in acres of forage, oversee the afternoon milking and pray this drought doesn’t ruin an entire year’s corn crop or I’ll be feeding cows with nonexistent funds. I’ll be doing that while keeping two little girls alive although they seem determined to tempt fate, running a busy dairy store, and keeping a neat and tidy farmhouse. I may or may not be lying about that last one.” She turned and strode away, but not without one more parting shot. “Sleep well.”
Grudging respect rivaled frustration for his sleep-deprived emotions. He had sounded somewhat absurd, and she wasn’t afraid to call him on it. And the teasing grin she sent over her shoulder as she walked away was a look that said she’d be looking forward to “round two.”
That was enough to make him eager, too. Right until the roosters let loose again, reminding him that in nine short hours he’d be back at work. He’d really like to spend half a dozen of that sleeping.
* * *
Piper dragged herself into the house just before nine that night. Lucia rose from a side chair as Piper slipped through the back screen door. She bustled to the kitchen, a fast-moving woman despite her wide girth. “You go wash. I’ll warm supper.”
“I can handle it, Luce. Sit down. Relax. You work every bit as hard as I do. I don’t need you to wait on me.”
“I’m older and bossier,” the middle-aged woman shot back. “Therefore I give orders in the house. You give them on the farm.” She lifted her shoulders in a gesture of agreement. “And we share bossing people in the store and the dairy. It works, no?”
“It does.”
Piper climbed the creaky stairs. The thought of fresh-smelling cotton pajamas called to her, but first she peeked at the girls.
Dorrie and Sonya shared one bed despite efforts to separate them. With no father in their lives, and their mother’s abandonment nearly three years ago, the girls clung to each other. They would enter kindergarten this fall, in separate classrooms, and Piper and Lucia had wrestled with that decision for weeks.
Was it right to split them up? Would it instigate more trauma? Could they handle being apart?
Piper had no idea, and the published experts disagreed, so she and Lucia followed their common sense and decided separate classrooms were in the girls’ best interests. But neither woman pretended the girls would embrace the concept. They’d shared a Sunday school class the past two years. But pricey preschools didn’t fit the farm budget and Piper’s schedule left little time for playdates, which made the girls more dependent on each other. With their first semester of school approaching, Piper wished she’d given the girls more play time with other children. That would have prepared them better for September.
“You made soup?” The scent of spiced beef greeted Piper as she descended the stairs fifteen minutes later. She met Lucia’s matter-of-fact gaze with a smile. “In this heat?”
“Crock-Pot.” Lucia nodded toward the cooling bowl on the table. “And one of Ada’s loaves from yesterday, toasted. I turned the rest into croutons for selling.”
“You’re a marvel, Lucia.”
The older woman shrugged. “Waste not, want not. The hay is in?”
“The front fields, yes, and good quality. It’s dry, though, and that might make our second cutting nonexistent. The lower field of alfalfa gave a great first yield, but the lack of rain is worrisome. The girls managed to stay alive, I see.”
Lucia’s expression soured. “What one doesn’t think of, the other does. And so beautiful, those smiles...they flash them as they plan one more way to turn my hair gray. Bah!” She raised a hand of dismissal as she changed the subject. “You cannot worry about the weather. Your father never learned this lesson. His daughter should.” Lucia sent her a stern look tempered with love. “God is, was and ever will be. Weather is not of our doing. So we deal with it as it comes, no worries, because people of faith do not worry about what they cannot control. But this problem.” She hooked a blunt thumb north and her gaze narrowed. “The policeman. He will make trouble, no?”
“Because of the roosters?” Piper scoffed at the idea, then shrugged. She’d cringed every time she made a tractor pass along the hay field that day because either Raven or Starlight seemed determined to crow along the fence that bordered the trooper’s backyard. “I advised him to block the noise. He was less than appreciative. So yes, he might make trouble. And I get his point, Luce, about sleeping, but really?” She made a face of disbelief that drew the other woman’s nod of agreement. “Don’t move to the country if you can’t handle the country.”
“I can handle the country.”
Piper turned, chagrined.
Lucia straightened. Alarm darkened her features.
Six feet of square-jawed good looks stood beneath the porch light at the back screen door, dressed in uniform. Piper clapped a hand to her mouth. “Oops.”
“But there’s no reason to have those birds outside my back door, crowing at each other all day,” Zach continued. Raising a hand, he waved light-seeking bugs away from his rugged, handsome face. “You’re not raising chicks, you’re selling eggs, and you don’t need a rooster to do that. What use are they on this farm, Miss McKinney?”
Piper stood and faced him, then waved him in. “We’re neighbors. Don’t stand on the porch, swatting bugs. Come in. And call me Piper. Want coffee?”
“You have coffee on? It’s almost nine-thirty.”
She nodded to her one-cup brewing system. “Twenty-four/seven. I don’t have the patience to wait in the mornings. This is easy. And perfect.”
“Then, yes. I’d love a cup. And a rooster muzzle to go with it.”
She laughed. Even when serious, he was funny, and she liked that in a man. Guys who could laugh at themselves? That kind of man was rare in her experience.
Regardless, she was keeping her birds, no matter how cute the trooper was in his gray serge uniform with a freshly shaved face and somewhat sleepy eyes.
Guilt mounted, but only a little. The girls loved the roosters―they’d raised them right out of the egg―and no way was she parting with them. Dorrie and Sonya had enough on their plates. The roosters stayed. End of discussion.
“So. About the birds...”
“Cream? Sugar?” She held out both in matching stoneware after she handed him a mug of fresh, hot coffee. “This is real cream, straight from the dairy. Unless you’d prefer milk?”
“I love cream in my coffee.” He sat, raised the little pitcher in big, broad hands and handled it with a dexterity Piper appreciated. “And sugar. And I have to sleep sometime, right?”
He stared right at her, letting those blue eyes sparkle with charm, their brilliance tempting her to smile back. But she’d dealt with irksome neighbors in the past. These days it was a common farmers’ lament, as if running a weather-dependent business wasn’t work enough. No, today’s farmer had to deal with keeping the neighbors happy, and dealing with calls from the town officials listing a litany of complaints.
Folks wanted fresh food but not the work, noise and odor that came with farming. Her father had caved now and again.
Piper wouldn’t. She’d already put heart and soul into saving this place. Give an inch and folks wanted a mile. Not on her watch. And avoiding Zach’s flirty look was easier when she remembered how good Hunter had been with those long, intent gazes.
She’d been young then. She felt plenty old now, with her father gone, the farm to run, kids to watch and her brothers haranguing her on a regular basis. “There must be some way to block the noise. Or switch shifts. You could work days,” she suggested.
Lucia coughed a sound of warning. Cops made her nervous. The twins’ mother had gone to jail as a teen, and that never sat right with Lucia. Going toe-to-toe with a trooper who now happened to live next door would worry her.
“We’re shorthanded at the moment, so my schedule varies,” Zach explained. “Days. Nights. Afternoons.” He shrugged. “It will be like that for a while. That’s a long stretch to work on no sleep.”
He was being nice. Not demanding. Simply stating his case, and that made Piper more willing to compromise. For the moment. “I’ll put the boys in the far pen tomorrow. On separate sides, or they’ll fight. But I can’t put them in the hutch in these temperatures. They’re heat-sensitive.”
“Me, too.” Zach stood, smiling. Upright, his presence filled the room. His height, the broad shoulders, the uniform that made him stand out in a crowd...
He stood out here, too. Piper rose and followed him to the door. He glanced at his watch. “I expect you need some sleep yourself. Milking comes early.”
Did he know that from personal experience, she wondered?
“It does.” Piper offered her hand, glad she’d gotten cleaned up as soon as she came in. Although why she should care was something to examine later. Much later. “Let me know how tomorrow goes. If having the roosters in the barn pen helps.”
“I will.” He tipped his gaze down, his expression warm. Grateful. A little teasing.
She didn’t want to smile back. Hold his attention. But she did, and for long, pointed seconds neither one breathed, caught in the moment, her hand melded with his.
Lucia coughed again.
The sound brought Piper back to reality. He might be the nicest guy in the world, but she’d learned her lesson. Cops were in her “high risk” category, and flirting with a neighbor?
If things went bad, you still lived next door. No way could the situation end well.
She extricated her hand, stepped back and pasted a small, polite smile into place. “Have a good night.”
He swept her outfit a quick glance and a grin. “You, too.”
Tired and surprised by his unexpected visit, she’d forgotten the faded Scooby-Doo pajama pants and matching T-shirt.
Great. She looked like a twelve-year-old. And her hair was half wet, half dry, a bedraggled mess.
She shut the door and turned.
Lucia rose from the recliner in the adjoining living room. She shot a dark look toward the door as Zach’s engine rumbled to life outside. “You want trouble again? Another broken heart?”
“Luce—”
Lucia’s firm gaze stopped Piper’s argument. “I know, I am not your mother.”
She spoke the truth. Piper’s mother had divorced her father when Piper was still in grade school. She’d moved away with a massive share of the heritage farm in her pocket, a share that put the farm in the red from that day forward. She’d never looked back.
Her father married Luce months later, his quick remarriage inciting plenty of small-town talk. He adopted Rainey as a child, bringing the beautiful girl into the fold. But when Rainey went on her wild-child sprees as a teen, tongues wagged faster. Chas and Colin were in college by then, but Piper had been here, helping hold down the fort. It hadn’t been easy.
“We have had our differences,” Luce acknowledged. “But that does not change my love for you. You had your heart broken once by an officer. And I had mine broken when they took my daughter to jail.”
“Luce, you can’t blame the police for what Rainey did.” The last thing Piper wanted to do was hurt Luce’s feelings, but where Rainey was concerned, Luce’s judgment proved faulty. “She broke the law. But she paid her price, and who knows?” Piper closed the space between them and embraced the older woman. “Maybe she’s clean now. Maybe she’s gotten her act together and she’ll come back, ready to be part of the family again.”
Luce didn’t return the hug. She stood stiff and straight, fighting emotion. “And what do we do if this happens? Trust her? Welcome her? Hand the girls over as if it is okay to leave your babies for years?” Eyes wet, she stepped back. “I don’t know what to wish for. My daughter to return? Or my daughter to stay away and leave those babies in peace?”
Piper understood the dilemma. Rainey’s teenage antics had finally resulted in prison time. She’d straightened herself out and started her associate’s degree in prison. She’d stayed squeaky-clean, no drinking, no smoking, no drugs, obeying her parole. She’d gone to church and sang with them, her beautiful voice soaring on the words of ageless hymns.
Then something had pushed the headstrong girl beyond her limits. She got pregnant, had the twins, then disappeared before the girls’ second birthday, leaving only a short note.
They’d heard nothing since. Three years of not knowing. Was she alive? Safe? Straight? Or had she fallen back into the vicious cycle that had claimed her teen years?
Piper kept it simple. “We pray. God’s bigger and stronger than any force on earth. We pray for her and for the girls. And us.”
Luce nodded, fighting emotion. “All right.” She dashed an apron to her eyes and moved toward the kitchen. “If you and Berto need help in the morning, call me.”
She said that same thing every night, because she didn’t trust Piper’s brother to show up. Chas hated the farm.
He despised being in the fields, so she put him in charge of the milk production room, where fresh, ultrapasteurized dairy products were bottled for sale under cool conditions while she labored in the hot sun. He had two people working with him, and still whined about it all, the narrow profit margins, the uselessness of tempting people with vintage-style glass bottles of fresh milk products.
Piper knew that thin profit margins beat zero-profit margins. She bit her tongue on a regular basis, not wanting to fight with her older brothers.
She loved the farm.
They didn’t.
But they couldn’t sell without her permission. Unless she went under. And no way was she about to let that happen.
Chapter Two
“Missing something?”
Zach’s questioning voice rumbled, ripe with wry humor.
Piper forced herself to maintain an outer calm she didn’t feel and looked up from a tractor seal that seemed determined to give her a hard time. She saw Zach holding the girls’ Nigerian dwarf goat, a favored pet. The brown-and-white miniature creature looked quite content in the big man’s arms. “Beansy? Where did you find him?”
“In what used to be my vegetable garden.”
First the roosters. Now the goat. Piper winced until she read the humor in Zach’s eyes. “You haven’t lived there long enough to have a vegetable garden.”
“It appears he didn’t know that. How’d he get out?”
“The better question is, where are the twins? And did they engineer his escape or escape right along with him?” She jumped down from the huge wheel and strode toward the barn door as she spoke, using the sides of her jeans as grease rags. Thin streaks of motor oil left telltale marks. “He was in your yard? And before you answer that, why aren’t you sleeping? It’s after twelve. Too hot? Or did the roosters wake you? Because I penned them and I haven’t heard them crowing, but I can block the sound. Was it them? They wake you?”
“My current dilemma is which question to answer first,” he drawled, his slow talk making a valid point. She tended to jabber in stream-of-consciousness fashion. Maybe she’d slow down someday when she didn’t have to cram thirty hours of work into a twenty-four-hour day.
“Yes, he was in the yard,” Zach continued. “My father noticed him. And I did catch a quick nap, but something’s come up. I’m taking the next couple of weeks off, so I didn’t need to get more than that today.”
“You’ll be ruing that choice tonight,” Piper supposed over her shoulder. “Dorrie! Sonya? Where are you?”
Silence answered. She reached into her pocket and withdrew her cell phone. When Lucia answered, she put out an APB on the girls.
“Berto’s got them,” Lucia assured her. “He’s giving them a ride on the hay wagon before lunch. Why? What have they done now?”
Piper wasn’t sure they’d done anything, but from the look on Zach’s face, she figured the two girls may or may not have been trying to catch a glimpse of their new favorite policeman.
