“There’s a junk drawer in the kitchen. I’ll check.”
Christie went down the hall. There was the sound of rummaging. David wiped his brow with the sleeve of his plaid shirt. Why did Christie discombobulate him so? Yeah, he was better looking and more worldly than anyone David knew. He had multiple earrings in both ears, and his smile was white and perfect. Still, he was very friendly. He even tugged at David’s sympathy a bit, being so clearly out of his depth. There was something soft about him with that slender face and warm blue eyes.
Heck, he was just a kid, probably not much older than Joe, David reminded himself firmly.
When Christie returned he wore a determined look and carried a pack of nine-volt batteries. “Found some.”
David took one from the pack and replaced the dead battery in the smoke alarm. The little indicator light went green. He put the cover back on carefully, making sure to get it in the right grooves this time so Christie wouldn’t have any difficulty if he needed to change the battery again.
“Well, that should do it.”
“Thank you so much. I should have thought to check that.”
David shrugged. “There’s a lot to do when you move into a new place.”
“Yeah. I’ve been slowly boxing up all my aunt’s stuff.” His voice was a little sad.
David knew exactly what that was like—boxing up the pieces of someone else’s life. He’d packed away all of Susan’s things in their bedroom, but he still hadn’t touched her sewing room. Had no idea where to even start in there.
His sense of discomfort returned. They were standing together in the small hallway, which meant they were too close—again. “Well. If you want to think about the field and let me know. My contract with your aunt doesn’t run out until the end of the year, so you have time. I also wanted to let you know I’ll be taking the corn down next week. My combine is loud, but it won’t take longer than a day.”
Christie nodded. “Okay. No problem. Um….” He gestured over his shoulder toward the kitchen. “I put on some coffee.”
David stuffed his hands in his coat. “I should probably get going.”
“One cup?” Christie’s face screwed up hopefully. “I can’t leave you with the impression I’m completely helpless!”
The anxiety in David’s stomach tightened some more. He wanted to escape, but Christie’s expression made him reluctant to force the issue. Maybe the kid was lonely. He probably didn’t know anyone in the area.
“All right. One cup. Thank you.”
Christie smiled gratefully and led the way to the kitchen. The coffeemaker was on the counter, hissing and percolating away. It was probably Ruth’s because it looked ancient. Christie took two china cups and saucers from a cupboard, humming happily. “Do you like cookies? The ones I burned were the last of the batch. I have some good ones from earlier.”
It seemed rude to refuse, though the lingering smell of burned pastry and his own nerves left David without much of an appetite. “I’ll try one.”
Christie poured the cups and put them on the table with saucers and spoons. He put out a small carton of half-and-half and a bowl of what looked like sugar. Then he loaded up a plate with cookies that had been cooling on a rack. David took a seat at the small pine table, and Christie brought the plate over and sat down too.
He looked up at David and smiled shyly. “I found Aunt Ruth’s box of recipe cards and decided to try a few of them. There’s not a whole lot to do around here.” He pushed the plate a tiny bit closer to David. “I thought these sounded interesting. They have coconut, cherries, dates, and walnuts in them.”
They looked delicious, lightly golden and chock-full of the ingredients Christie had mentioned.
“Your aunt was a good cook. She baked cakes for weddings and such.”
“She did? I didn’t know that.”
“Yup. She had a good reputation. Do you bake a lot too?” David was having a hard time getting a handle on Christie. None of the men in David’s family—his father, himself, nor his son—ever did more than boil water and grill meat on the barbeque. But then he already knew Christie wasn’t like anyone he’d ever met.
Christie shrugged. “I can cook. I took home ec in high school, and I really liked it. But when I lived in New York, I just did the basics. Pasta. Salads. Things like that. It’s kind of fun, though, to get into it with this bigger kitchen. And, I don’t know… it just feels like the homey, country thing to do.”
He said
the homey country thing
as if it were a novelty. David took a bite of a cookie. It was actually quite good. He hadn’t had decent home-baked cookies lately. Susan hadn’t felt well enough to do much in the kitchen her last few years. After the funeral the church ladies inundated him with food for a few weeks. But lately the only one who tried to feed him was Evelyn Robeson, and her food was practically inedible.
David finished the cookie and drank a sip of coffee before saying anything. He still felt awkward. “The cookies are very good.”
Christie’s smile was wide and genuine and so immaculate it looked like an advertisement. “Thanks. Would you, um, like to take some with you? For your kids? Your wife?”
Christie licked his lips nervously. David’s eyes flickered down to follow the motion then back up to Christie’s eyes. “I live alone,” he said stiffly. “My wife passed a few years ago, and my son and daughter are both in college.”
“Oh.” Christie’s smile faltered. “I’m sorry to hear about your wife.”
“Thank you.” David stood up. “Well. I appreciate the coffee and cookie. I really should be going, though. I have a lot of work to do.”
“Okay. Hang on a sec.” Christie got up, grabbed a plate from the cupboard, and started piling cookies on top of it. “Please do me a favor and take some of these. I’ll blow up like a balloon if I eat them all.”
“Nah. I shouldn’t.”
“Honestly. Please take them.” Christie’s big blue eyes implored.
David’s resolve crumbled. “Well… if you’re sure.”
“I am
so
sure!” Christie brought the plate over to David with an odd little sashay in his hips. “And I’m sorry about the whole burning oven thing! I got distracted in the backyard and totally forgot I’d put in a sheet of—”
David suddenly gasped. His jaw dropped open.
“What’s wrong?” Christie asked.
“I have a TV dinner in the oven! I have to go!”
David grabbed the plate and ran out of the house. He ran all the way back to his place on the farm lane, trying not to spill the cookies. When he got close to his old fieldstone house, he could hear the shrill of the smoke alarm.
He yanked open the kitchen door to the acrid scent of smoke. His two dogs fled the house and the horrible noise, nearly knocking him over. He tossed the cookies on the counter, grabbed an oven mitt, and pulled the silver tray of blackened food from the oven. He took it outside, coughing, and threw it in the trash can by the garage.
His coughs became chuckles and those became laughs. Holy Toledo! How could he have forgotten the TV dinner? He and Christie Landon had better avoid each other from here on out. Or as Christie foretold, they might end up burning down half the state of Pennsylvania.
Chapter 4
CHRISTIE’S PEN
flew over his Wacom tablet in a blur. His sketch took life on the large monitor, and it was good. The rolling farmscape and the swirling clouds above it had a woodcut feel.
He’d been put on a brand identity campaign for a young organic dairy company. His boss joked it was appropriate given where Christie was now living, and today, looking out the window, he’d been inspired to just sketch.
It had been a while since Christie used serious sketching as part of his design work, but this brand wanted something old-fashioned yet hip. The Wacom filter he was using made his strokes look like a fine charcoal pencil. It was fucking
awesome
.
He saved, considered, erased, redrew. He liked thick lines for this, almost a Grant Wood style, but modern. He wanted to
feel
the life in the soil on the foreground, making it look solid from a distance but actually comprised of a dozen swirling lines and a few cool-looking beetles too.
He looked up photo reference for a cow on the net, then started sketching it on a new layer.
The hours flew by as he worked. When he finally became conscious again of his surroundings, it was thanks to the loud sound of a motor. Christie blinked and looked out the window. He could see the top of a tractor approaching through the towering stalks of corn out back. Right. David Fisher said he’d be harvesting the corn soon.
Christie paused his pen over the Wacom tablet. He watched as a green tractor came through the corn like a land-eating monster, made it fully into view, and turned. Through the glass window in the cab, Christie could see David manning the wheel and watching the side mirror as he drove. He was dressed in a tan canvas jacket that was unbuttoned. Underneath he wore a green plaid shirt buttoned to the collar.
Nothing about this outfit should have been remotely sexy. But damn, it was. The
man
was hot, that was all.
Christie put his elbow on his desk and his chin on his palm and watched the tractor. He should not be perving on his farmer neighbor, but then entertainment was a bit scarce here in Amish country. When David came by two days ago to talk about the field, Christie probably hadn’t been subtle about his immediate attraction. Luckily David was too clueless to get it. He was hetero with a capital H and probably unaware of what a silver fox he was or that Christie was even gay. Talk about different worlds!
David Fisher was the first man to give Christie honest-to-god butterflies in ages. He had an attractive, honest face with full lips framed by a short brown-and-gray beard. His smile, which made only a few brief appearances, was shy and real. He was butch and earthy, so different from the metrosexuals and club types Christie knew in New York. He found that unpretentious manliness super sexy.
David was in good shape too. His hips were narrow and his thighs toned in his baggier jeans. And when he took his coat off—mama mia. He had the body of a hard-working man, lots of upper body strength, way broad shoulders, and a trim waist. There was something to be said for working on the land, Christie decided.
He sighed. Then he frowned with worry. David’s belt was cinched to within an inch of its life too. He’d obviously lost weight recently. When did he say his wife died? Two years ago? Sad. Really sad. David lived alone and he was eating TV dinners. It was surprising some lucky woman hadn’t snatched him up already.
The tractor had by now driven back toward the other end of the field. Christie returned to his sketch. After trying to work on the cow and not feeling it, he created a new layer and added the small figure of a farmer walking through the field in the distance. He had very broad shoulders.
CHRISTIE’S BOSS
adored the sketches. They had a conference call about an approach for the dairy company’s logo and website. Christie was going to move forward with a white, black, and red design with a modernized woodcut feel and his original farm sketches. He had a week to put together clean mock-ups for the client, and he was excited about the direction.
It felt good. No, it felt fantastic. It had been several years since he’d been this engaged with his work. This was just what he’d hoped for—that getting out of the city and moving to the quiet countryside would be inspirational. That and help him back off the partying. So far it was working.
He didn’t miss the booze, thank God. His episode of “scared straight” had definitely worked. He didn’t miss the clubs or even the city so much, but he did miss Kyle. He missed company. It was
awfully
quiet here, and the house was so empty. He’d been reading in the evenings or watching Netflix and drinking lots of coffee. He joined a local gym so he could work out. But it wasn’t enough.
On Saturday morning he decided to tackle some of the house. Aunt Ruth’s house—now
his
house—was a modest single-story ranch with three small bedrooms and one bathroom. One of the bedrooms was his aunt’s hobby room, full of plastic flowers and baskets and drawers of cloth and thread and all sorts of things Christie would have no use for in his entire life. It would make a nicer office than the little table he was using in her bedroom, but first he had to clean it out.
He enjoyed seeing the evidence of his aunt’s creativity. She was religious, just like his parents, but she had a sweet and generous nature. He remembered the way she “loved up” Christie when he was little—her words for it. She would tickle and hug and kiss him until he could hardly breathe for laughing. The two weeks he spent at her house every summer were some of the best memories of his childhood. She continued to write to him regularly over the years—actual letters with actual stamps—even after he came out, and his relationship with his parents was strained.
She was an artist too, apparently. He hadn’t realized. Her quilts and needlework were gorgeous. And he found a photo album of the fancy cakes she baked, which she probably showed to prospective clients. There were trains and ladybugs, tall wedding cakes, and tiers of cupcakes. Her attention to detail was epic, and she’d had an irreverent sense of color. It was nice to feel that connection to her, that some part of her lived on in him through his art. It also made him feel sad he hadn’t tried harder to come see her in the last five years.
After hours of packing up bags of craft stuff for donation—and putting aside the best finished pieces for himself—Christie finally got to the closet. On the top shelf were neat stacks of magazines. One stack was a craft magazine. The pile next to it was
Bon Appétit
.
“Huh.” Christie carefully pulled the entire stack of magazines off the shelf and took it over to the rocking chair by the window. The magazines weren’t old. The top one was dated only a year ago. It looked like Aunt Ruth subscribed for several years and kept every issue. They’d been used too. They were in good condition but definitely read, and there were dustings of flour or dried drops of liquid here and there. She must have tried at least some of the recipes.