“I can only say that I’m sorry and I’ll try and keep closer tabs on him.”

“Your mother was a good neighbor. My mother thought the world of her.”

“She wrote to me about your family.”

Julie glanced at him. He was looking straight ahead. Her mind went blank for a minute. When she began thinking again, she realized that he was having as hard a time making conversation as she was.

“She was there when most of my brothers and sisters were born.” Julie spoke without looking at him.

“Mama would have made a good nurse.”

“She talked about you. It worried her to death when you went to war.”

“I’ll not forgive myself for leaving her with
him
. She wanted me to go to my grandparents’ long before I did.”

“I’m sure that she thought it was best for you.”

“Now she’s gone.”

“None of the neighbors knew when she took sick. We didn’t know until the doctor came by and told us that she had passed away.”

“Then he did call in a doctor?”

“Toward the end, I guess. He never asked for any help from the neighbors.” When Evan remained quiet, she said, “Everyone who knew your mother liked her. There was a large turnout at her funeral.”

“But her son wasn’t with her.”

“You were away fighting the Kaiser. She was very proud of you.”

“When I received word she was gone, I decided never to come back.”

“But you have.”

“Yes. I got to thinking about how much she loved the farm. It was given to her by her grandparents.”

“You’re back to make sure that your father doesn’t squander it.” Julie didn’t know why she had said such a thing. She glanced up to see him turn and look down at her.

“He has charge of it until he dies. Then, if there is anything left, it goes to me. I’m here to see that there’s some of it left.” She knew that he had revealed more about himself than he intended.

They had passed the grove. Julie looked into the dark, shady depths and shivered. Evan noticed.

“I’ll keep an eye on him,” he said firmly.

Julie shook her head. “I don’t know how your mother lived with him.”

“She had her reasons.” His voice was quiet, soft.

They walked on in silence, broken only by the soft thud of the horse’s hooves on the dirt road.

“Jason said you were coming to the ball game tonight.”

“Joe asked me to come. Do you mind?”

“Heavens, no.” She looked up at him with a puzzled frown.

“The neighbors have been coming to our place to play ball for several years. The flat pasture between our house and the road makes a good ball diamond. You’re welcome to come.”

“Thank you.” He almost smiled but didn’t. “We Johnsons don’t get many invitations.”

They reached the lane leading up to the house. He stopped the horse and handed her the shopping bag. She looked up to see him gazing at her face.

“Thank you again.”

Evan was not used to having such a strong and immediate reaction to anyone. He looked at her more closely. She was not breathtakingly beautiful, but pretty. Her eyebrows were high, straight and heavy, her nose slightly pinched, her mouth wide and full. Huge, clear eyes, direct eyes, met his. She had no idea how utterly feminine and defenseless she looked. His breath caught for an instant. Suddenly he was stricken with an adolescent longing.

He was either hornier than he thought or he was reacting to more than her appearance.

He was shocked that he had an almost irresistible urge to kiss her brow, her eyes, the bridge of her nose, her cheeks, her chin and last of all her sweet mouth.

But all he said was, “I’ll see how the work goes.” Then, to himself,
I’ll come if that old son-of-a-bitch drinks himself into a stupor and passes out
.

She smiled to let him know that she really had recovered from the ordeal with his father.

“My sister Jill plays sometimes.”

“And you? Do you play?”

“I haven’t for a long time. They usually have enough players without me. I’m better at running than batting. I keep in practice chasing after my little sister Joy.”

She wanted to make him smile back at her because she was certain that his smile would soften his grave features, make him look younger and not quite so formidable. She almost succeeded. His eyes brightened but his mouth remained unsmiling.

“I’d like to see that.” He wanted to stay and talk to her but didn’t know how to prolong the conversation without making an utter fool of himself. So he turned and mounted his horse, looked down at her and nodded. “Good-bye, Miss Jones.”

“Good-bye, Mr. Johnson.”

Julie walked up the lane toward the house. She had already decided not to say anything to her papa and the boys about being accosted by the bully of the county. She wouldn’t put it past Joe and Jack to catch him alone sometime when he was drunk, waylay him and work him over with their fists or a piece of stove wood. Not that she cared if he was beaten, but she didn’t want the boys to get in trouble.

She had never given Evan Johnson much thought but had assumed that he probably thought he was too high and mighty for the farm folk around Fertile. After all, he had been to college, served as an officer in the army, and had lived in France. Today, however, he hadn’t acted high and mighty. He seemed to be sincerely concerned for her and sorry for what she’d had to endure. His father’s behavior was obviously an embarrassment to him.

The screen door banged and Joy came running down the lane to meet her.

“Julie, Julie. I been good. Did ya bring me somethin’?”

Julie felt an overpowering wave of love for the strikingly beautiful child coming toward her. She couldn’t imagine life without her.

Chapter 3

E
VAN RODE SLOWLY UP THE ROAD
that curved over the hill to the high country above the river. When he’d decided to come back to Fertile, he had planned to keep himself aloof and focused on looking after his interest in the farm until Walter finally drank himself to death. When that happened, he intended to install a good tenant farmer on the place and go to St. Joseph, Kansas City or maybe even back to France. He’d been surprised to discover that he liked it here. He had taken to the land, and if Walter were not here, he could be happy and content on the farm.

Evan had not expected the hostility he had encountered from the townspeople when he returned to Fertile. The banker, Amos Wood, had given him a cool reception until he discovered the amount of money Evan planned to transfer to his bank. The man had then fawned disgustingly. Only the neighbors— the Jones family, the Taylors, the Humphreys and the Birches— had been able to separate him from Walter and treat him with civility.

The Jones property adjoined the Johnson farm on the west side. Evan had met Joe and Jack Jones on the property line when they came to repair a fence because one of their milch cows had strayed over onto Johnson land. Walter had gone out with the shotgun to accuse the brothers of letting the cow graze on his grass and of taking tree limbs from his land to use for fence posts.

Evan had arrived in time to smooth things over and had stayed to help Joe and Jack. He liked them both. They were hardworking, decent young men. They also seemed to take pride in their family farm. He had not noticed the Jones family when he was younger. He had been too busy keeping out of the way of Walter’s fists. Later, he had learned about the Joneses from the letters his mother had written him. He especially knew about Julie. His mother had been fond of the girl, who had been forced to leave school to take care of her ailing mother and the rest of the family when she was just fifteen.

Now he had met her. He had expected her to be a rather dowdy, work-worn girl. He had found instead a warm, intelligent, pretty young woman.

Walter, in Evan’s estimation, was little more than an animal. Evan could just imagine what he had said to Julie Jones. Walter thought of women as people to bully. When Evan came out of the grove and saw the woman running back toward town, he knew that Walter had been speaking indecently to her, and anger had made him want to horsewhip him.

Even now, as Evan approached the house where he had been born and had spent his early boyhood years, he could see in his mind’s eye the girl’s tear-filled eyes and the proud tilt of her chin when she looked up at him.

The wagon, with the team still hitched, was standing in the yard in front of the barn. He unsaddled his horse, rubbed him down and turned him into the pasture. After backing the wagon into the shed so that he could unload the barrel of kerosene, he unhitched the mules and turned them into the lot at the side of the barn, where they immediately rolled in the dirt.

At the pump, he put his head under the spout and let the cold water flow down over his head. After shaking off the excess, he ran his fingers through his thick sandy hair and then pumped water into the trough that flowed into one of the water tanks. He needed to work off his anger at Walter before he faced him.

Incredibly, Walter had not trashed the house during the time he lived there alone after his wife died. Evan had found his mother’s belongings just as she had left them. Walter had lived in the kitchen of the big frame farmhouse: doing his drinking there, sleeping there on a couch at the end of the room. He was sitting at the kitchen table, drinking from a long-necked bottle, when Evan crossed the porch and entered the house.

Walter was angry. His face was red and he was well on his way to getting falling-down drunk.

“Goddamm ya fer the bastard ya are. I ort to whip yore ass.”

“You’ve got about as much chance of whipping me as you have of pissing all the way to Kansas City,” Evan retorted as he hung his hat on the peg beside the door.

He stood just inside the kitchen door, his hands on his hips, and looked at the man he had hated for as long as he could remember. His slate-blue eyes reflected that deep-seated hatred.

“Ya always thought ya was better’n anybody.” Walter’s lips were loose, his eyes bloodshot. He was downing rotgut whiskey as if it were water.

“You are a sorry excuse for a man. I should have taken the whip to you instead of the mules.”

“Ya ain’t got no right ter be tellin’ me what to do. Ya try usin’ that whip on me and I’ll blow ya to hell and back.”

“It’s been tried by better men than you. You were talking nasty to that woman. You haven’t an ounce of decency in your whole body.”

“Decency? Ha!” Walter took a drink from his bottle and slammed it back down on the table. “Decency don’t make ya feel good—don’t empty yore balls.”

“I don’t care what makes you ‘feel good.’ Just keep away from decent women. Hear?”

“Ya got a itch fer Miss Hot-tail Jones? Hell, she’s gettin’ too old fer me anyhow. But she’d do in a pinch. I’d rather have that young one, or the gimpy kid. The girl must be twelve or thirteen—”

“Good God Almighty! You dirty old son-of-a-bitch!” Evan reached him in two strides, jerked him up out of the chair and slammed him against the wall.

“You stay away from those kids …any kids! Hear me? I’ll kill you just as I’d kill a rabid dog if I hear of you molesting a woman or a kid. You’d better believe me because I mean every word of it. Do you understand me?”

“Yeah, I ain’t deaf. Might be willing to chance it to get me a good piece of ass fer a change.”

Evan shoved him away. Walter sat down heavily on the couch, his bottle still in his hand.

“You’re not worth the dime’s worth of powder it would take to blow you up.”

“Ya ain’t got the guts to do it nohow.”

“I saw enough killing in France. When I think of the good men who died over there in the trenches and you not worth doodley-squat sitting over here warm and cozy with your belly full, I wonder if there is any justice. Why didn’t you join up? You’d have made good cannon fodder.”

“Ya know why I didn’t. Yore maw needed me to work the farm. ’Sides, I was too old.”