Charlie laughed. "You'd think you'd learn, Fo. You gotta hold on like this." She demonstrated how to hold the cookie with just her pointer and tall man. As she went to dip the cookie, she lost hers too and they all laughed. "Okay, so maybe not. When I grow up, I'm going to design the perfect Oreo dipping cup. It'll be wide and short."
She drained her glass and then tapped on it to get the soggy cookie to come out, which it promptly did and plopped onto her face. "Aahh!" She tried to catch the remnants before they dripped onto the cowhide couch as Fo jumped up and grabbed a paper towel. When he helped her wipe her face, he smeared mushy Oreo all over her cheek and they both laughed while Luke looked on placidly.
Getting to her feet, she sniffed tentatively. "I now have Oreo in my right sinus. I think that means I should call it a night."
She took her glass to the sink and just as she made it to the paper towel roll, she gave a dainty sneeze and a small scream. She wiped her face with a paper towel as she headed for the door with Fo laughing and Luke wondering what was up with these two. At the door, she turned and waved. "It was nice to meet you, Luke. Night, Fo." She went out the door and the screen slammed behind her in the quiet Montana night.
Fo chuckled and Luke got up to put the cookies and milk away. "You two act more like brother and sister than friends. I still can't believe Charlie is a girl. What’s her real name?"
“Charlene, but don’t you dare tell her I told you. She’s always hated it, but then several years ago when that song came out about the guy who wrote “Billy Bob loves Charlene” on the water tower in John Deere Green, she was thoroughly disgusted and now she hates it even more.”
Luke laughed. “That is a pretty deep, thought provoking song. How did I miss the fact that she was a girl all these years though?”
"She's not just a girl. She's a machine. You'll find that out. Your family will never be the same. In a good way. You'll see. Even Chase will wonder what happened."
****
Charlie woke up that first morning to the birds just beginning to sing in the dark before dawn and felt alive on a whole new level. She paused for a second to breathe in deeply of the breeze coming in her bedroom window. The air smelled of the woods and river and a farm, and was a smell she was sure she would always remember as the aroma of Montana.
As she stretched like a kitten she thought about the man she’d met last night in the bunkhouse. When she'd finally realized there was someone standing there when she'd been looking for Fo, she'd been almost star struck at the vision in front of her. The sight had been fairly breathtaking honestly.
Luke definitely had the physique of the ultimate male. She still wasn't sure if he had black hair or just dark brown because the lights in the bunkhouse had been low, but she knew he had quietly topped Chase's proudly displayed muscles without even trying. Luke's mellow, understated demeanor had been far more intriguing than Chase's obnoxious and pushy self-superiority. Luke had a discrete but powerful sense of self that left no doubt that he was incredibly competent, not to mention incredibly good looking.
Suddenly working here in the mountains of Montana felt a whole lot more like an adventure.
After lying there for a few minutes, she read her scriptures and prayed and then hopped out of bed. Changing into a pair of running tights and shoes, she quietly slipped out of her little cabin and began to stretch on the porch in the first light before heading out for a morning run. It was brisk in Montana and she went back inside and dug out a jacket before heading out into the early morning crispness.
It was wonderful to be able to run here without feeling the slightest bit guilty. Her mother hadn't felt that athletics were a positive use of her time. Charlie had actually become an NCAA champion cross-country athlete, but had never dared to even mention it to anyone in her family.
She had no idea where she was headed and simply went up the gravel road and across the bridge for a couple miles before turning and heading back to her cabin to shower and dress for the day. It was her first day and although she had no idea what she would be doing for sure, she felt really good about being here. The indecision of a week ago that had been stressing her out was marked in its absence. She donned a pair of jeans and a knit shirt and headed up to the main house.
She hadn't gotten any groceries for her little cabin yet and hoped she could beg some breakfast before starting her workday. As she headed up the drive, she texted Fo good morning and asked him if he would bring her some basic groceries for her new little home on his way from town tonight. Then she focused on trying to remember all the people she’d been introduced to the evening before at the dinner table. The Langstons were quite a family.
Upon hesitantly entering the house, she was nearly knocked over by the two little girls and a handful of dogs of all sizes. She followed the herd through the great room toward the kitchen, noticing they left a veritable swathe in their wake of muddy footprints. Madge met them at the door of the laundry room and before Madge even started swatting, the dogs knew they were in trouble and headed back out the way they had come. Evie and Elsa didn't seem to take notice and simply wondered what was for breakfast as Madge fussed.
Jamie went past in his underwear, and Tuckett breezed in in a baseball cap and with three inches of his underwear showing above the waistline of his pants and below his T-shirt. Charlie stood looking around for a moment, wondering if breakfast was always this wild and if she was right in her assumption that these were the kinds of issues that Luke said needed some mothering influence. It certainly couldn’t hurt. But how in the world did a complete stranger to this family start to go about calming and organizing?
Just then, Richard came to the door of the kitchen carrying a platter of sausage and pancakes and a pancake turner in his other hand. The dogs went past him on the run and only Charlie's quick reflexes saved the entire platter from flying across the room like a Frisbee. When the platter was securely sitting on the table, she closed her eyes, took a deep breathe and dug in. She pulled Tuckett’s ball cap off and tossed it toward the mudroom. "No hats at the table, Tuck. Would you do me a favor and bring me a pair of shorts for Jamie? And a T-shirt?" She ruffled his wild hair and smiled her best smile at him. "Please."
Next, she snagged Jamie where he was trying to climb into his high chair by himself and helped him in as she spoke to the girls. "Evie and Elsa, would you two go put all those dogs out, and then wash your hands and come in for breakfast?" She turned to Richard. "If you'll point me toward dishes, I'll set the table."
He gave her a huge smile. "Charlie, something tells me this family has needed you for a long, long time. Dishes are in the first set of cupboards this side of the dishwasher."
The table was set and she was mixing a can of orange juice when the dogs came racing back through again. Charlie looked at the little girls. Elsa shrugged her shoulders and said, "We put 'em out. They just let themselves back in."
Charlie smiled at them. "Okay, girls. The goal was to get the dogs out of the house. So if they can let themselves back in, maybe you'd better lock the door behind them until we can fix the door so it's dog proof. Try again please." Obediently the two girls began to herd the unruly canines out again. Tuckett came back in and was helping Jamie to dress himself before putting him back into his highchair. Charlie set the orange juice on the table and then turned and gave Tuckett's pants a big tug to cover up his underwear. He looked up at her in surprise and she said, "Sorry. Get used to it, Tuck. Nice people don't show up to dine with their unmentionables hanging out." She turned back to the kitchen and Tuckett looked to Richard.
He shrugged and said, "She's right, son. Can you see the prophet or the president showing up with their underwear showing?"
"Dad! I'm not exactly the president."
"You might be someday. Would you bring the butter and syrup in? And then help Madge and Charlie with their chairs."
The girls came back and while Richard helped them, Tuckett did indeed help Madge and Charlie be seated. Luke came in from outside just as Chase showed up shirtless and yawning from the back hallway. Immediately upon seeing Luke, Jamie started to squeal with his arms outstretched, "Lukey, Lukey!" Luke went to his highchair and tickled him and hugged him for a minute before he sat down. Tuckett looked at Charlie. She could tell that he was wondering what she was going to say about Chase's lack of apparel.
Not sure what to do, she ducked into the nearby laundry room and grabbed a shirt that looked to be about the right size and headed back in to the table. She draped it over Chase shoulders and then sat back down and bowed her head to pray. Chase looked around bewildered for a second as everyone stared at him, then slipped the shirt on and began to button it, smiling at Charlie. Richard bowed his head and said the prayer himself and they all began to eat. Charlie said a prayer of her own that things would continue to go smoothly as she tried to help this nice family get a handle on things.
Looking up, Luke caught her eye. He gave her a smile of encouragement before hurriedly eating his breakfast, squeezing the three little ones and high fiving Tuckett before heading back outside to get busy again. When the rest finished, Charlie and Madge began to clear the table and Richard talked to Tuckett about working with him that day. Charlie came back in with a wet cloth and wiped Jamie's hands and face and then set him to wiping down his own high chair tray, which he thought was just great. Next, she took Evie and Elsa and went in search of cleaning supplies. She got rags, cleaning spray, and a mop and sent the little girls to clean up the dog tracks as she and Madge cleaned up the last of the breakfast dishes.
When that was done, she found out the little ones had swimming lessons in town and she got directions for how to get there and then set out with the three of them for Kalispell. They were almost late because she insisted they round up a car seat and boosters so the kids would be properly buckled in before she headed out.
By the time they got back, Jamie was asleep and both girls were looking decidedly blinky in their own seats. She took them all inside, fed them lunch and then put Jamie down for a nap while she read a story to the other two in their own beds. When they were asleep too, she went in search of Madge. Charlie finally told her what Luke had suggested and they discussed a list of duties and ideas for Charlie to look into for the future. She spent the balance of the afternoon doing various things around the house while becoming better and better friends with the three little Langstons.
Angela showed up for dinner. Seeing her without her lips all over another man, she truly was an exceptional beauty, and Fo was right. She had a wonderful laugh that made you join in. It made Richard's decision to marry her slightly more plausible. Charlie did her best to keep an open mind until Angela caught her alone in the kitchen later and in a positively venomous voice braced her. "You might be working here for the time being, but if you even think about getting near my husband that'll end in a way that definitely won’t be pretty. Do you understand me?" Charlie looked at her in utter disbelief. This woman had a lot of gall. A whole lot of gall!
When Charlie could finally close her mouth, she assured Angela in her most diplomatic tone, "Of course, Mrs. Langston. I would never dream of such a thing. You can be sure."
The dark haired beauty gave her a brittle smile. "Good. See to it that it stays that way." She turned on her heel and left Charlie to finish putting the rest of the dinner things away in complete amazement.
She must have still looked shell shocked when she met up with Fo that night because he asked, "Are you okay? You look a little weird. Has something happened?"
Charlie recounted what Angela had said in the kitchen and Fo tried to reassure her, "Try not to let it bother you. She's just paranoid because of her own lifestyle. Just don't be too floored when she even hits on her stepsons when she's been drinking. It can be fairly shocking."
"Sheesh, I can imagine. Poor Richard. He's a genuinely nice guy, too."
That night, before she went to bed, she sat down and tried to brainstorm about what kinds of things a good LDS mother would encourage in this household. The kinds of things she had wished for as a child who had all manner of worldly things, but not a lot of hands on mother time, and ended up with a whole long list. She decided to start by checking with Richard the next day about dance lessons for the girls and planting a vegetable garden with the children.
He agreed wholeheartedly and told her to make whatever arrangements she wanted for the lessons and said he'd see about having someone get a garden plot ready to plant as soon as possible. Charlie took the kids with her to the nearby farm and ranch supply and let them pick out their own seed packets to grow their favorite vegetables. She had never done this before and she prayed before buying her own seeds that they'd have at least moderate success to encourage the kids to do as the prophet had asked again in the future.
Luke himself saw to the plowing and then tilling of the little garden and he smiled his mellow smile at her as he went past once they got started with their planting. Charlie had them singing the Primary song about gardening as they worked to make the rows the way she had researched on the Internet.
She remembered his comment that first night about teaching the kids to make piecrust and she put that on her mental list for the next day. When they were through planting their little garden, she let them all change back into their swimsuits and took them out to the pool for an hour to cool off after their work. After they swam, they had lunch again and Jamie napped while Charlie and the girls sorted through their closets and pulled out the clothes they'd grown out of and packed them up to go to the Good Will.
That afternoon, the three kids took Charlie for a walk to show her around the ranch. They explored for more than two hours and Charlie exclaimed about how it all reminded her of Charlotte's Web. The three of them just looked at her as if she was slightly nuts and she put renting the movie on her list as well. Every child should see Charlotte's Web, shouldn't they?