My Lucky Stars (34 page)

“You know I like you better than the pigs,” Deb said.

“I don’t know.” Ben shook his head as he watched Josh take a sausage from a plate on the counter and down it in one bite. “Sometimes there isn’t much difference.”

* * *

Ben slowed his steps so Tara could keep up as they walked across the grass toward the cornfield. He was pleased the shoes she wore were far more sensible than the heels he remembered her wearing last December. But though she was trying to fit in, she still had
city girl
stamped all over her. The way she was picking her way across the yard—side-stepping areas that appeared wet or dirty—amused him.

Oh the fun I could have
. Possibilities for practical jokes and fun at her expense rolled through his mind before he could stop them.
But I will stop them
, he vowed. Tara wasn’t the same woman he’d met last December who needed taking down a notch or two. Instead, Ben worried he was the one in need of self-improvement.

He glanced at her from the corner of his eye. She caught him looking and smiled. A new happiness seemed to radiate from her. She seemed younger, as if she’d shed years of burdens and had discovered the joy of life.

Noticing all this, Ben swallowed uncomfortably. Most of the joy he’d previously known seemed to have fled in the past few months. He’d been able to ignore the loss pretty well—until yesterday. Having Tara around had opened up his wounds again. She reminded him of what he would never have.

There’s no reason to take it out on her.
Silently, he vowed to be nicer, to display whatever good she’d seen in him ten months ago.

“You chose a great time of year to visit,” he said. “October is the absolute best month here.”

“Why?” Tara asked. “Because of the weather or the harvest?”

“Neither,” Ben said. “The weather is nice, but October is nice in a lot of the country. And I don’t do much with crops. Just the garden mostly. October is the best because of Halloween.”

“Huh?” Tara followed him as they left the lawn and headed up a dirt road to the corn.

“My favorite holiday,” Ben explained. “And it’s only gotten better since I’ve been an adult and had my own place.”

“Aren’t you a little old for trick-or-treating?” Tara asked.

“Never.” Ben’s mouth quirked mischievously. They reached the corn, and he stepped aside, his hand held out, gesturing for her to go ahead. She stepped through the wide gap between stalks. Ahead of them four separate paths led off in different directions.

“It’s a maze.” A look of wonderment lit her face as she walked deeper into the rows. “I’ve heard about these, but I’ve never actually been to one.”

“I have to use that tractor I bought for something,” Ben said. “This is my fourth year. It’s getting to be pretty popular. We’ve already had a lot of traffic and it’s only the first week of October.”

The sound of an approaching ATV drowned out his voice. He and Tara watched as Deb drove up to the entrance. She killed the engine and climbed off, a clipboard in her hand.

“So today we have a preschool coming at ten o’clock then two Girl Scout troops at three. A birthday party at four, and we open to the public at five. Does that sound about right?”

“I think I said yes to a youth group this afternoon too.” Ben tried to remember when, exactly, the All Saints Community Youth had said they were coming.

“Be-en,” Deb whined. “You can’t do that. You’ve got to write this stuff down. You know we can’t be three places at once. And are any of those groups paying?”

“The birthday party is,” Ben said. “And it’s a big group. Fifteen, twenty kids.”

“Well that’s something,” Deb said. “Though, if you keep letting groups in for free, we’re never going to make enough.”

“You worry too much,” Ben said. He’d pledged five thousand to the Ohio Family Care Association this year, to help with recruiting and training foster families. Last year he’d made just under $3,500 during the month of October, with the cornfield and other Halloween activities he’d set up. With the new things they’d added this year, plus word of mouth, he felt certain they could donate that much more. “Just watch. We’ll do fine.”

“I hope you’re right.” Deb held up the key to the ATV. “You want to do a drive-through or should I?”

“That depends.” Ben looked at Tara. “Want to ride around in the maze on an ATV? We go through every morning, just to make sure there are no surprises inside.”

“Or at least not ones we didn’t put there,” Deb said, a sly grin on her face.

“What sort of surprises
do
you have in there?” Tara asked.

“The usual.” Ben grinned. “Snakes. A skeleton or two, Big Foot, guy with a chainsaw . . .”

“And preschoolers around here enjoy that sort of thing?” Tara was giving him her you-are-so-sick-and-twisted look again. The same one he’d gotten at breakfast when he allowed Persephone to sit beside him at the table.

“The younger kids take the left fork,” Deb explained. “It’s completely tame. There are silly ghosts and decorated pumpkins. And, of course,
Farmer Ben
is there to guide them.”

“It’s a chance to be a kid again,” Ben said defensively. He wondered what Tara would think if she saw him being goofy with the little kids. That act had never won him any dates before, though most preschool moms seemed to appreciate his corniness. Somehow he didn’t think Tara would. Maybe if he were lucky, she’d be off painting or something during that time.

“What do you think? Will the maze be too much for your claustrophobia?”

Tara glanced uneasily at the paths that disappeared into the twelve-foot-high corn. “I guess it might be okay. If we keep moving . . .”

Deb started walking toward the house. “Call me if you need me,” she said. “Otherwise I’ll see you a little before ten.”

“You’ll see to the pigs?” Ben asked.

“I’ll try. Seph is in a temper again.”

“Thanks,” Ben called.

“Thanks?” Tara asked. “You just sent your sister to milk the pigs—or whatever you do with them—and all she gets is a ‘thanks’?”

Ben stroked his chin as he studied her. “I’m wrong again. Thought for sure you were one of those equal rights types.”

“When it comes to farm work, I think a little chivalry is in order. After all, your sister baked the biscuits last night. She’s already doing the feminine thing. Why should she have to do both?”

“
I
baked those biscuits,” Ben said. He’d noticed how Tara had seemed to be enjoying them—before he’d driven her away from the table, that is.

“It’s actually important for Deb to work with the pigs. Persephone thinks we’re married or something,” Ben grumbled. He walked over to the ATV and Tara followed.

“You almost treat that pig like you are. So of course she expects it.” She waited for Ben to get on then climbed on behind him. “You let her sit beside you at the table. You rub her belly. You feed her treats and pamper her. You even let her sleep in your bed!”

He turned around to see her face. “How do you know that?”

A slight blush crept up Tara’s cheeks. “I went the wrong direction in the hall this morning. It was early. I was still half asleep. Your door was partway open, and for a minute I thought it was the bathroom.”

“Good thing I was decent,” Ben said.

“I wouldn’t have known if you weren’t,” Tara said. “Aside from your hair and forehead, all I could see was this huge pig covering the bed.”

“She’s had a rough life,” Ben said. “So what if I do baby her a bit.”

“A bit?” Tara choked.

Ben frowned. “Nothing wrong with it. Pigs are God’s creatures too.”

“I know,” Tara said. “I’m just saying—”

He started the engine. “You’re saying if I treat her differently, she’ll act that way?”

“Yes.” Tara had to shout to be heard above the motor. “The way you treat people—or pigs, apparently—is important. Kindness will be returned with kindness and the like.”

“Really?” Ben thought back to the all-about-me Tara he’d known last December. He’d witnessed firsthand her being more than a little
un
kind to a couple of unfortunate airline employees. A lot must have happened to change her so much.

If, indeed, she really was changed. He still wasn’t completely convinced.

“Hang on.” He clutched the gas, and they zoomed forward, down the third path, the one with the most snakes—some that dropped on you.

“Let me know if you’re getting uncomfortable, and we’ll turn back.”

“Okay.” Her arms tightened around his waist and she scooted forward, pressing up against his back. Before a minute had passed, Ben was acutely aware of every part of her that was touching him. It wasn’t that it was unpleasant—the opposite was true. But it bothered him all the same.

He’d invited Tara to stay because Deb was right. He had been a jerk last night, and he wanted to make up for that. But he didn’t want to think about Tara as more than a visitor. He didn’t want to
feel
anything for or about her—a near impossibility at the moment.

He would do as she advised and be nice and hope it came back to him.
Though sparring with her is kind of fun.
But it ended there. He had no desire to start something, to get involved when it would surely end badly.

He’d treat her nice. He’d go to Seattle. He’d baptize her. Then they would part ways.

For good.

Forty-Three

The second night of her stay, Tara found herself waiting up for Deb, wishing she’d hurry and finish lingering longer on the porch with Josh. When his truck finally pulled away, Tara stepped back from the window, letting the lace curtain fall in place. She jumped into bed but sat up with a book, so it would be apparent she was still awake. Yesterday she hadn’t wanted to talk; tonight she could hardly wait.

A few minutes later Deb came in, changed into her pajamas, and sat on the bed. “Did you have a good day?” she asked.

“Yes,” Tara said. “Ben showed me most of his property, and seeing him in action with the preschoolers was . . .”
Highly amusing.
“Fun.”

“Just stay away when he’s playing Freddy Kruger,” Deb advised. “If you ask me, Ben gets a little
too
into that role, sticking that creepy hand out of the corn and grabbing kids.”

Tara grimaced. “I’ll be sure to stay far away when the teen groups are around.” She closed her book and set it on the floor beside the bed while pondering how best to lead into what she wanted to talk about. She was glad that Deb showed no sign of planning to go to bed right away but had started folding a basket of laundry.

“We had a nice picnic today too,” Tara said. “Up on the back ridge—or whatever you call it. I guess it’s not actually very high.”

“Slope,” Deb suggested. “It is nice up there. And high enough you can see pretty far.”

“It was a good way to get acquainted with the place,” Tara said. “Ben pointed out just about everything up there. I even got the scoop on all your neighbors.”

Deb laughed. “’Cause they’re such an interesting bunch—not.”

What she said was true enough. Ben’s closest neighbors—distant specks from the vantage point of the back slope of his property—were mostly older families who had farmed for generations, were set in their ways, and stuck to them. Josh was the most interesting person who lived close by. But earlier in the year, McKenzie had been here too. Ben had let that slip out accidentally when telling Tara all there was to know about the homes and families in the area.

She decided just to throw the name out there now and see what reaction she got from Deb.

“Ben told me about McKenzie,” Tara said.
Not a
complete
lie.

“Oh?” Deb’s voice and brow rose together. But she said nothing else and continued hanging shirts in the closet.

Tara tried again. “I see why he was so upset and suspicious last night. Nothing like having two women from the past show up out of the blue in the same year.”

“McKenzie didn’t show up out of the blue. Ben invited her.” Deb’s lips pursed suspiciously.

“I didn’t mean here.” Tara hurried to cover her blunder. “I meant last December. At Dallin’s house. Ben wasn’t expecting her then.”

“Oh.” Deb seemed to consider for a second then went back to the laundry basket and the pile of loose socks on the bottom.

“I can see why he’d be bitter,” Tara said. “I had a guy do something similar to me once. Before I’d realized what had hit me, he’d cleaned out my bank account.”

“Ten thousand hardly cleaned Ben out,” Deb said. “But he was really hurt.” She looked up at Tara. “He still is.”

So be careful.
Tara read the warning in Deb’s eyes. “I’m sorry to hear that,” Tara said. She was more than sorry. She was mad too—at McKenzie for messing with Ben’s heart again.
For messing it up for me.

Tara couldn’t think of a way to get any more out of Deb, so she knelt by the bed and said her prayers then got back under the covers. A few minutes later, Deb turned out the light.

“Good night,” she called across the dark room.

“Night,” Tara said. All was quiet for several minutes, and Tara felt herself beginning to drift off to sleep when Deb spoke again.

“Ben will be okay eventually,” she said. “It’s his pride that was hurt as much as anything.”

“How so?” Tara asked. Since Deb had initiated the conversation this time, it didn’t seem wrong to pry a little.

“Well, McKenzie
did
take his money,” Deb said. “But more than that, she used him. Ben knocked himself out to help her and her children, when all the while McKenzie was just playing him. Ben was part of a ploy to get her husband back.”

Kids were involved? Her
husband
? She was still married?
Tara realized this was a lot bigger deal than she’d thought.
Poor Ben.
“Poor Ben,” she said out loud.

“Yeah,” Deb agreed. “But like I said, he’ll be all right.” She sighed and rolled away from Tara. “It’s just a good thing he didn’t really love her.”

Forty-Four

Hiking all over Ben’s property must have worn her out more than she realized, because it was nine thirty before Tara woke the next morning. She rolled over in bed, surprised by both the sunlight streaming through the window and the numbers on her travel alarm clock.