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“There’s a flashlight at the top of the stairs,” she said. “I’ll get it.”
“No, stay here,” he said, holding tight to her hand.
“Are you afraid?”
“Yeah, I’m kind of creeped out. I saw that movie Twister. I’m just waiting for the house to disintegrate around us. Are the goats going to be all right?”
“Yes,” she said, her voice coming out of the dark. “They’ll go in the barn. The stone foundation is strong. They’ll huddle up in a corner.”
He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close, the two of them listening to the storm raging outside. And when it was over, they climbed the stairs and walked outside to survey the damage from the porch.
Small branches and clumps of maple leaves were scattered over the yard but all the buildings were still standing, their roofs intact. The cushions from the wicker chairs on the porch had disappeared and one of the hanging pots had fallen into the garden, but that was the limit of the damage.
He turned her to face him and kissed her softly. “That was kind of scary,” he admitted.
“I told you. Flying monkeys all over again.” She drew a deep breath of the cool air. “Smell the ozone? It’s from the lightning.”
Dermot slipped his arm around her shoulders and they walked back inside. A breeze now drifted through the screen door, taking the humidity out of the air. The storm was a reflection of their relationship, he mused. All the wild, crazy emotions one minute and the beautiful calm the next.
And yet, there was a danger there. He couldn’t predict the weather and he didn’t know exactly what was lurking just beyond the horizon—fair weather or the storm of the century?
7
THE TWO TEENAGE BOYS stood in the yard, staring at their mother’s car as it pulled out onto the road and drove off. Rachel held her breath, trying to think of something to say that might erase the fearful expressions from their faces.
She hadn’t seen her nephews in six or seven years and she barely recognized them. Trevor, the eldest, was nearly sixteen, and as tall as Dermot, well over six feet. Taylor was a year younger and appeared to be the more sensitive of the pair, tears swimming in his eyes as he tried to be brave.
Rachel glanced over at Dermot. He’d been a teenage boy at one time. Maybe he knew what to say. The last thing she wanted to do was cause them more emotional upset. She drew a deep breath and pasted a smile on her face. “Why don’t I show you your room. You can get settled and then I’ll make you something to eat. Are you hungry?”
Trevor shook his head. “No. We ate lunch on the road.”
“I—I’m kinda hungry,” Taylor said.
“No,” Trevor whispered. “We’re not hungry. It’s all right. We can wait until dinner.”
“Come on, then,” she said.
Trevor picked up the single suitcase they’d brought along and then hitched his backpack onto his other shoulder. Taylor had a backpack of his own.
“I’m going to check the goats,” Dermot said. “We could really use your help in the barn, guys. If you’re up for it, why don’t you change and come out after you’ve had something to eat.”
“Okay,” Trevor said. He put his arm around Taylor’s shoulders as they climbed the porch steps.
Rachel held the screen door open for them. When they reached the top of the stairs, she pointed to the room across the hall from her bedroom. “I hope you don’t mind sharing. It’s the only room with two beds.”
Trevor stood in the doorway, taking in the surroundings. “It’s good,” he said.
“Good,” Taylor repeated. “Do you have Wi-Fi?”
“Wi-Fi? No,” Rachel said. “There’s a cable hookup in the kitchen. That’s usually where I work. You’re welcome to use my computer to write to your friends or go online.”
“We brought our own laptops,” Taylor said. “I can hook up Wi-Fi if you want. I brought along my router and modem if you have broadband.”
“All right,” Rachel said with a smile. “That would be really nice. You sound like you know what you’re doing with computers.”
Taylor returned her smile. “I’m pretty good at computers. I built my own CPU. I couldn’t bring it along, though.”
“So are you going to do your school work on your computer?” Rachel asked.
“We stopped at the school and mom enrolled us,” Trevor said. “Didn’t she tell you?”
Rachel shook her head. Jane had been so distraught that she’d barely said a word. She was doing all she could to keep from breaking down and Rachel could do nothing but reassure her that she’d take good care of the boys. “That’s good. It’s Friday. We could go to the football game tonight. Maybe you’d have a chance to meet some of the kids?” Trevor gave Taylor an uneasy look and Rachel quickly shook her head. “Maybe it’s best to just get to know the farm first. Why don’t you unpack and then come down when you’re ready?”
She walked out of the bedroom and hurried down the stairs. Dermot was pacing the porch as she stepped outside. “I have no idea what I’m doing. They seem so fragile and terrified. I don’t know what to say.”
“Just leave them alone for now,” he said. “Let them lean on each other. Their whole world has been turned upside down. They don’t know who to trust.”
Rachel grabbed his hand and held it to her heart. “I’m so glad you’re here.”
Dermot pulled her toward him and kissed her forehead. “Why don’t you make them something to eat. Even though they say they’re not hungry, boys that age will always eat if you put something in front of them. I’m going to go work on replacing that window in the milk house that got broken in the storm.” He kissed her again, this time on the mouth, his tongue teasing at hers. “What are we going to do about this?” he murmured.
“I’ll meet you right here, after they’ve gone to bed. I’ll bring the wine. You bring yourself.”
“It’s a date.”
He walked down the steps and Rachel smiled to herself. There had been so much going on at the farm lately that she’d forgotten he’d be leaving in another week. If she had the power to stop time, she’d turn off all the clocks at this very moment.
She was happy and hopeful and only a bit worried about the decisions she’d have to make about her future. And she was falling in love with Dermot Quinn. Rachel giggled, then spun around and went in to gather things to make sandwiches. It was apparent that Dermot was just as smitten as she was. And she had to believe that once he left, he’d realize the depth of his feeling for her.
“Absence makes the heart grow fonder,” she reminded herself.
Rachel was counting on that. Their relationship was like dream, a fantasy come true. And though they both lived in the real world, the passion they shared was something very special. Would a life with Dermot ever be “normal”? Would their desire for each other fade over time?
A shiver prickled her skin. Just the thought of him touching her caused an instant reaction. Rachel arranged sliced ham on whole-wheat bread. She’d have to ask if the boys liked mayo or mustard. “Potato chips.” She grabbed a bag that Dermot had brought home from the grocery store, then set the cookie jar on the table and peeked inside to see that it was well stocked with the chocolate chip cookies she’d made a few days before.
Rachel walked to the stairs, but stopped herself from calling to Trevor and Taylor. She’d follow Dermot’s advice when it came to the boys. He’d been exactly where they were years ago. He knew what they were going through.
She grabbed her sketchbook and sat down at the kitchen table, then turned to the illustration she’d been working on. Beavers. Rachel smiled. With their funny teeth and flat tails, they made for a humorous image, one that would find its way onto a greeting card sometime next year.
“What are you drawing?”
Rachel glanced up to find Trevor standing in the doorway of the kitchen. She held out the sketchbook. “Beavers,” she said. “I mostly draw animals. I’ve been working on squirrels, too.”
“Wow,” he murmured. “These are good.”
“Do you like to draw?”
He nodded. “I mostly draw robots and alien creatures.”
“I’d like to see your drawings,” she said.
He shrugged. “I left them at home.”
Rachel pushed back from the table and crossed to the desk at the far end of the kitchen. She grabbed a fresh sketchbook and her box of colored pencils, then returned to the table. “Here,” she said. “Take these.”
“Really?”
Rachel nodded. “Yes. You should pursue your drawing while you’re here. When I was younger, I used to draw all the time. You never know where it will lead. When I got out of high school, I went to art school in Chicago. And now I draw greeting cards.” She shrugged. “Well, why don’t you have something to eat. It will be a while until dinner. We have to do the milking first. Where is Taylor?”
“He fell asleep. He was really upset in the car. All the crying kinda wore him out.”
“It’s good that he has you,” Rachel said.
Trevor nodded, then sat down at the table and grabbed a sandwich. He gobbled it down in huge bites and Rachel quickly poured him a glass of milk. He ate a second sandwich, then polished off a handful of potato chips and four cookies, before he was sated.
“Feeling better?” she asked.
He nodded. “I’m gonna go out and see the goats.”
Rachel wanted to tell him to change his clothes, but then decided against it. “There are some rubber boots in the milk house. Take off your shoes and find a pair that fits before you walk through the barn. You don’t want to step in goat poop your first day on the farm.”
Trevor headed out the door and Rachel cleaned up the mess from his lunch. Then she put a plate together, poured another glass of milk and took it upstairs to Taylor. As Trevor had said, he was sprawled across the bed, sound asleep. She set the meal on the bedside table, then pulled the shades against the afternoon sun.
As she watched him sleep, she thought about Dermot and everything he’d gone through as a kid. It was difficult enough losing her parents and they’d lived a long and happy life. But Dermot’s parents had just sailed away, never to return, leaving four young boys to grieve their loss.
Tears pressed at the corners of her eyes and she swallowed the lump of emotion in her throat. Until Jane returned, she’d do her best for Trevor and Taylor. She’d try to be a friend and a confidante, and someone they could trust with their feelings.
She walked to the bedroom door and took one last look at her nephew. He was family. And though she’d once thought she’d lost most of her family, she realized that wasn’t true. She had two nephews and a sister who needed her. And she intended to do everything she could to make their lives happier.
DERMOT STOOD BACK and watched as Trevor guided a goat into the milking stanchion. “There you go,” he said. “You’ve got it now. Show her who’s the boss.”
Trevor locked the goat into the stanchion, then stepped away, a smile on his face. The goat bleated, the sound startling the boy. He jumped back, then turned to Dermot. “Did I hurt her?”
“Nope. She knows what she’s supposed to do. But goats can be stubborn and willful. They’re very clever, too. I was standing next to one of the goats a few days ago, and before I knew it, he’d eaten a hole in my shirt.”
“Don’t they eat everything?” Trevor asked.
“Pretty much. You have to be careful to keep the extra feed out of their way. They’ll overeat and then they get bloat, which can be pretty serious. They’ll find a way to crawl over a tall fence if they think it means more food. We lock everything up. That’s very important.”
As he explained some of the rules to Trevor, Dermot realized how much he’d learned about goat farming in a very short time. Rachel could leave Clover Meadow in his hands and he’d be able to run it on his own. He smiled to himself. Maybe he could treat Rachel to a day off before he left for good.
“How’s it going?”
Rachel and Taylor walked in the door of the milking parlor, dressed in their rubber work boots. She walked over to Trevor and pointed to his brand-new John Deere hat. “I see Eddie has given you the proper uniform.”
Trevor nodded, then grabbed another hat from a nearby shelf. “Here, Taylor, this one’s for you.”
The younger boy put on the cap, then stood waiting for instructions. “Go ahead,” Dermot said. “You show him what you learned. You know what you’re doing.”
Dermot moved to Rachel’s side and watched as the boys brought the next ten goats into the milking parlor and locked them into the stanchions. Eddie then guided them through the steps on how to attach the milking machines, and by the time they got to the last goat, the first one was ready to move out the opposite door.
The two boys fell into a good pace and Eddie glanced over at Dermot and gave him a wink. “They learn a lot faster than you,” he said with a grin.
“They had a better teacher,” Dermot shot back.
“It looks like you’ve been made redundant.”
Trevor glanced between the two of them, a worried expression on his face.
Dermot chuckled then pulled the brim of Trevor’s cap over his eyes. “Hey, I’m happy to pass my responsibilities on to these two. I can spend more time putting those new downspouts on the old homestead.” He grabbed Rachel’s hand and pulled her along behind him, out of the barn and into the evening sunshine.
“Shouldn’t we keep an eye on them?”
“Eddie’s watching them. They’ll be fine. They certainly don’t need all three of us hovering over them.”
“So, I guess we have some free time,” Rachel said. “What are we going to do with ourselves?”
He draped his arm around her shoulders. “Let’s take a walk.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know. Let’s just see where we end up.”
She slipped her arm around him and they walked past the barnyard and then turned north, toward her favorite spot on the creek.
“I think they’re doing all right,” Rachel said. “What do you think?”
“I think you’re worrying far too much.”
“This is a lot of responsibility,” Rachel explained. “I’m the adult in charge. What if something goes wrong? What if they… do something bad?”
“Just what would you consider bad?” Dermot asked. “I’m very interested to hear this.”
“I don’t know. What if they get an F at school? Or they get in a fight? Or they swear at a teacher? There are a million things that could go wrong. God, being a parent must be sheer hell. No wonder my sister looked like such a wreck.”
“It can’t be that bad,” Dermot said. “Most people seem to come through it without major problems.”
“I don’t know. Maybe I’m not cut out to be a mother. There’s just too much that could go wrong. I’d be a bundle of nerves.”
He dragged her into his arms and gave her a hug. “Rachel, you would be a fabulous mother.”
“How do you know?”
“Because you’re kind and compassionate and loving. A child would be lucky to have you for a mother.”
She pushed up on her toes and gave him a quick kiss. “Have you ever thought about having children?”
“No, not really. Not until this afternoon. I was talking to Trevor and I was thinking, maybe I could do this. I think I’d have a lot to teach a kid.”
