The same stubborn, angry core.
She took a deep breath, not willing to share Kelly’s hope. He hadn’t heard Trey’s flat, unemotional no. Heard Trey list all the reasons—most of them dead and buried to everyone but Trey—that he couldn’t move back here. It wasn’t that she had no hope, just that her hope had grown smaller. It wasn’t enough to hope Trey turned around about the farm. He had to forgive his father before he could consider being on the farm.
She hadn’t realized that when she’d asked him to move, but she knew it now. And she was still glad she’d asked. Whether or not Trey forgave his father, she’d always know that she had asked for what she wanted. That she’d known she might be turned down and she’d taken the risk anyway. There was satisfaction in that knowledge that no empty farmhouse could take away.
“Don’t be a stranger just because I own the farm and I’m not technically family.”
“I won’t be.” They made plans to meet for dinner. “Do you want the will? So that you know?”
“No. I think you should keep it, so that you know.”
His acknowledging grunt over the phone sounded so much like his brother’s that Max’s heart hurt. “Have a good night and a happy Thanksgiving, Max.”
“You, too, Kelly.”
When a dial tone sounded through the handset, Max stood and walked across the room to put the phone in its cradle. She looked around the kitchen that had been Hank’s kitchen in the farmhouse that had been Hank’s farmhouse on the farm that had been Hank’s farm. It wasn’t his anymore. The bones of the place still looked like his, but she was slowly changing the flesh, and soon it would even be unrecognizable to Hank as the same place.
Poor Hank. He’d died before he could be a good father to his sons, but he’d died trying, and that was probably all anyone could expect out of him.
The sky outside the kitchen windows had gone from twilight to night while she’d been on the phone. She called Ashes and fed him his supper. Then she opened her fridge and began making her own.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
T
REY
STUMBLED
THROUGH
WORK
. Not only was his heart not in the job, but his heart didn’t want to be on the work, or even in D.C. His mind might want to be on his work, but his heart wanted to be on the farm. And his heart was winning.
Worse, he couldn’t think of the farm without thinking of his father.
Have a little compassion for him,
Kelly had said about Sean. But when Trey had looked at Sean, he’d seen a younger version of his father and still didn’t understand how Kelly managed to look at his boyfriend and see a man who had struggled, and was still struggling, with pain. Had Kelly also seen a man struggling when he’d looked at their father?
Trey stared at his computer screen. He was supposed to be drafting a rider on the budget. He had the research in front of him. He knew what it was supposed to say. The congressman’s aide was expecting it in by Monday. And he could do the work in his sleep, so instead he opened a new tab in his browser and searched for information on alcoholism and Vietnam veterans. Nothing he read surprised him, but neither did it help him find compassion for his father. Alcoholism had been only one of his father’s many bad qualities, though it had exacerbated all the others.
In the end, he’d kept a promise to Max.
The reminder hurt, but it was also confusing. How did he understand who his father was if the man had died keeping a promise? And then there was the uncomfortable follow-up desire to discover that his father had kept a promise he’d made to Trey, especially when he knew no such treasure awaited him.
You’re not a little boy who needs his father to read you a bedtime story like he said he would on the nights he was sober.
How do you find compassion for someone who did nothing but disappoint you? Trey leaned back in his chair and replayed the conversations he’d had with Kelly about their father. Kelly had asked Trey to have compassion for Sean, but had only said that Trey should learn to accept their father for the man he had been.
Accepting didn’t require him to like his father, or even to agree with him. And the man was dead, so accepting didn’t even require Trey to defend his own views to his father. Acceptance didn’t require Trey to
do
anything.
He rubbed his hand over his chin. Shaving was one more thing he’d let slide, and the stubble was starting to itch. A coworker would comment on the growth soon—or a congressman, God forbid. Looking the part was important and the ten-o’clock shadow he’d developed wasn’t the part.
He shifted his chair forward again, going back to his computer. But he didn’t go back to his work. Instead of staring down at a screen full of white and text, he was navigated away from a study on alcohol and veterans to the Carolina Farmers Association website. There was a bill in the local legislature regarding income taxes on businesses. Over a certain size, business income tax was being phased out. Under a certain size, business taxes were being raised. The bill rewarded employment. Hire lots of people, no income tax. Be a small operation, get taxed. Max’s Vegetable Patch’s taxes would go up because of this bill.
Her struggling and admirable existence was about to get harder.
The bill had been written by lobbyists. If Trey spent more time reading up on North Carolina politics, he would probably even be able to say which businesses have pooled their money for this. Since large hog and poultry farms were exempt from the people/tax ratio, he was certain agribusiness had some hand in the bill. Maybe at one time he would have been impressed at the craftsmanship evident in the bill.
Instead, he was just tired.
He minimized the screen and stared at the half-formed bit of pork that would add extra money to the kitty of his client. According to the aide, the congressman was drooling at the thought of this little add-on, due to Trey’s encouragement. Trey had found the man at a couple Washington events, shared a few key facts with him and gotten enough constituents to call and email the congressman’s office that this pork had to be cooked and served. It was going to be a major point in next year’s primary election.
Or that was what the constituents had said.
The congressman was right where Trey wanted him. Right where Trey’s client wanted him. Trey reviewed his emails and it exhausted him. He couldn’t even say if the pork he was creating would have a net good, be neutral or damaging. He didn’t care, couldn’t remember the last time he’d cared.
A few clicks and Trey was back on the farming association website. As he read more about the bill, the anger that had become so familiar to him over the course of his life roared into new life. The sense of fighting injustice, caring about the little guy—all the reasons he’d decided to enter the world of government in the first place. He’d lost that anger somewhere along the line.
Not lost. He’d tossed it out into the world and the anger that had returned wasn’t the same. This returning anger was no longer focused on him being right and the other guy being wrong, but that the world could be made to be better. This was a long-burning anger, one that provided warmth to a family. Heat to cook a dinner. Power to turn metal into tools. An anger to construct rather than an anger to destroy.
This anger left room for other feelings.
Trey navigated around the website a little longer, checking and rechecking a few resources until he found the information he was looking for. Then he opened up his personal email and crafted a letter. He read over his words, let their import sink into his bones, gave himself a chance to second-guess, then hit Send.
Rejuvenated, Trey turned back to the piece of legislation he was crafting and finished it. When he was done, he read over his words. They were as tightly written as he’d ever composed, with little room for interpretation by outside parties and enough presents to counter objectives of people who didn’t stand to win or lose too much. It was some of his best work.
He had one more letter left to write. On the blank screen, Trey typed the date and his boss’s name. Only a few sentences were required.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
M
AX
TOOK
A
slow breath in and paused, then pushed all the air out of her body. She’d read about this precise manner of breathing against stress in some magazine at a dentist’s office. It helped with the stress, she supposed, but it also helped with her aim. Up until the moment she squeezed the trigger, her body was still. The breathing even helped with the recoil of the rifle against her shoulder.
Another slow breath in and she shifted—a smidge, not more—to the left for the next can. As she breathed out, the skin on the back of her neck tingled. She took her shot anyway and missed. Not only didn’t the can fall over, but it didn’t seem to have been dinged. The next breath that huffed in and out of her body was not at all relaxing. She turned to see the trunk of a familiar sedan in view from behind the farmhouse. Walking toward her, upright and stick straight, but with a relaxed slope to his shoulders she didn’t remember, was Trey. His loosened manner wasn’t the only thing different about him. Instead of a neat wool sweater and shiny loafers, Trey had on a drab, army-green zippered sweatshirt and work boots. By the weight of the clothing on his body, she could tell that his sweatshirt was thermal lined. His boots weren’t scuffed, but they looked sturdy enough that he probably wouldn’t begrudge them a scratch or two. If she didn’t know better, and his haircut and jeans didn’t look so expensive, she’d almost say he looked like a farmer. Almost.
His mouth was moving. She popped the earplugs out of her ears, letting them bounce against her own sweatshirt. “What are you doing here?”
He gave her a half smile, then gestured to the cans in the field. “Would you like help cleaning up?” His tone was polite, but his eyes were watchful. Cautious. He was on her land now. This was her farm.
She considered pointing out that fact, but instead asked, “Are you staying?”
“Long enough to answer your first question. After that—” he shrugged “—I suppose after that depends on you.”
She didn’t try to parse what
that
meant because she might only get her hopes up. From the barking leaking out from the farmhouse, Ashes didn’t have the same worry, though her dog probably had the same hopes. “Yes. I’d like some help.”
They picked up the cans in silence. She didn’t know what to say. He, apparently, was waiting until they were inside to explain what he was doing here. It didn’t matter if they weren’t talking or looking at each other; she knew he was here on her land because she could feel him next to her. Her entire body buzzed with awareness. She picked up the box this time, all too aware of the déjà vu from the first time she’d met him.
Passing his sedan on her way to her truck, she noticed suitcases piled in the backseat. “Visiting Kelly?” She nodded toward the suitcases.
“No. Why? Does he live here now?”
“No, but...” Her heart crawled and clawed its way up her throat, threatening to burst out into something resembling joy at the sight of Trey here on her farm. And wearing work boots. But she also remembered the stillness of waking up in a house where she had expected another person and found only Ashes.
That
memory kept her heart restrained, if not actually under control. Trey opened the tailgate of the truck and Max set the box of cans in the bed, closing the top of the box before pushing it closer to the cab. No matter what Trey had to say, she would be likely to forget about the cans the next time she drove the truck. Then she’d have whatever baggage Trey left her with
and
cans strewn over the road to clean up after.
But he had on that sweatshirt. And work boots.
Ashes’s barks were sharp and insistent. He was an old dog now and expected to have his whims catered to more than he desired to prove his worth. At least that was her understanding of why he kept moving his bed to sit in front of the heating vent—and in the middle of a walkway—no matter where she put it. She sighed and opened the door so her dog could greet Trey.
Ashes eased and stretched his way out of the house before he limbered up enough to bound up to Trey. Still a good dog, even if a good old dog, Ashes didn’t even try to jump on Trey’s jeans, but sat and waited for his ears to be scratched. When Trey sat on the steps, Ashes leaned up against him, a big doggy smile on his face.
For several seconds, the birds singing and Ashes panting were the only sounds she could hear. Trey had always played his cards close to his chest. She couldn’t even hear him thinking.
“I quit my job.”
“Oh?” She kept her tone light, still afraid of anything that felt like hope. She had to raise her hand to block the glare of the sun off the shine of his car, but she couldn’t stop looking at the suitcases she saw through the window.
“I’m not unemployed—or at least I don’t think I will be. I’ve got a pretty good hook into another job. It’s similar to what I was doing, but I think I’ll like it better.”
“Oh?” Why was he here? She wanted to ask, but having asked the big question once, the smaller questions seemed out of her reach.
Still, the winter sky seemed a bit bluer today.
He smiled at her, a soft smile, full of promise and warmth that matched the relaxed set of his shoulders. “I think you’d approve of the job. I’d be working for the Carolina Farmers Association, running their grassroots campaigns.” He shrugged. “Lobbying when they need it.”
“So you’re moving to North Carolina?” She nodded again to the suitcases, the movement keeping a check on her rising hopes.
He left without even a note.
Somehow that didn’t seem as important right now, with him sitting on the porch steps. He was here now.
“Yes.”
“But you don’t yet have the job?”
This new smile was sheepish. Like he’d overstepped some boundary, or was unsure of his footing. “I’ve got enough money to keep me fed for a while. And keep a roof over my head, even if I don’t get the job. I’m pretty employable, though I’d like to be able to pick my job, rather than be forced to take one.”
“And why are you here? On
my
farm?” Listening to him dance around his point was getting irritating. He had a point somewhere. A point that involved the farm.
His sigh was deep enough for even the dog to look up at him. “I originally started working for government because I believed I could do some good. It didn’t have to be big, just good. Provide one returning vet with better mental health services so alcohol doesn’t become a way to self-medicate. Or give one young mother the ability to finish college so she can work forty hours for the same amount of money it was taking her eighty hours to earn without an education.”
She didn’t interrupt him. So many words were bubbling up inside her, but she felt that his needed to come out more.
“Somewhere along the way I stopped caring—in any sense of the positives of the word. Someone paid me money and I convinced someone with a vote where it counts to care. I was just the go-between.”
He rested his elbows on his knees and chin in his hands, looking out over her land. “Maybe that wouldn’t have been so bad, but I was still angry and it wasn’t going anywhere good. I wasn’t helping anyone with my anger. And anger is great. I’ve motivated a lot of people by making them really, really angry. So angry they couldn’t see straight. When you’re angry, you’re convinced you’re right and the rest of the world is wrong. About everything. It’s satisfying not to ever be wrong. God, it’s like a drug.” He rubbed at his cheeks and the bridge of his nose with his fingers.
“But anger is a hard beast to maintain. You have to feed it. Take it out every hour or so and examine it. If you leave it alone, it dies. And if it’s all that’s sustaining you, having your anger die is frightening because you don’t have anything else. But it’s also exhausting. Anger leaves no room in your life for any other emotions. It takes everything you’ve got and leaves you with nothing. Just ashes—” her dog raised his head and wagged his tail at his name “—that a puff of wind could blow away. Not even any warmth.”
Trey clicked his tongue. Ashes lowered his head back to Trey’s knee. The dog looked blissful as his ears were scratched. Max could sympathize. Trey had great fingers.
Ashes’s eyes nearly rolled back into his head when Trey hit a good spot. Trey’s smile was soft as he looked down at the dog. “There’s warmth here. My anger kept me from fully understanding it, but I felt it. It’s why I couldn’t stay away. It’s why I didn’t counter your invitation for me to move here with an invitation for you to move to D.C.” He shrugged. “I don’t want to be in D.C. any longer. I want to be with you, here. I’m so stupid. I didn’t realize it earlier, but I love you. And I want to be a part of the warmth and life of this farm.”
Max opened her mouth to argue with him. To tell him that if he really loved her, he’d be happy with her in D.C.—he’d be happy with her anywhere. The words wouldn’t come. She couldn’t separate herself from this farm. He knew that as well as she did and he’d quit his job, packed his bags and come down here anyway.
“Can you be happy here?”
“I don’t want to be happy anywhere else.” Her face must have given away dissatisfaction with his answer, because he continued, “I left Durham and this farm originally because I was running away. Away from Dad, away from a future I didn’t want, away from being trapped. I had all sorts of negative reasons for action. This farm is now a positive reason for action.
You
are a positive reason for action. Working for an organization struggling to make their voice heard is a positive reason for action.”
He sighed and went back to scratching Ashes’s ears.
Trey looked tired. Normally he stepped out of his car after his five-hour drive as crisp as a freshly picked cucumber. Today his jeans were rumpled. He had lines at the corners of his eyes that puffiness couldn’t quite get rid of. She closed her eyes. When she reopened them, Trey looked different. Still tired, but the lines at the corners of his eyes could be laugh lines. The wrinkles in his jeans could be the sign of a man who was finally ready to relax. Between helping her with the cans and sitting on the front steps, he’d acquired a smear of red clay on his boots.
“What’s with the sweatshirt?”
When he looked down at his sweatshirt and then back up at her with a smile in his eyes, his laugh lines had deepened. “Do you like it? I wasn’t sure how to arrive and communicate ‘I’m serious,’ so I drove west from D.C. until I found a hunting-and-fishing store. They also helped with the boots.” He held out a booted foot for her to admire. “But my regular clothes are packed in those suitcases.”
Suddenly, his vulnerability made her angry. “Am I supposed to open the door and let you in? Just like that?”
“Supposed to?” His eyes were serious again, but the laugh lines were still present. “No. I’ve got a reservation at a hotel in town. I’m hoping to cancel it, but I’m moving down here whether or not you let me in today.” When she sat on the steps next to him, he looked sideways at her, full of mischief and hope. “Though if you send me packing, I’ll call you up and ask you out on a date.”
A date. Imagining him showing up at her house in his nice clothes with a bouquet of flowers in hand was a nice thought. Being taken out to dinner was better. Maybe a movie or to Chapel Hill for a play.
“You wouldn’t take me out for a date anyway?” Just because she was the farmer didn’t mean Trey didn’t have to work for the cows, or the milk.
“I’m a new man. Maybe I’d expect you to take me.”
He’d finally made her laugh and she gave him a shove. When his body returned to upright, she rested her head on his shoulder. “We can trade dates.”
“Does this mean you’re letting me in the house?”
A brief flurry of panic rose in Max’s breast as she considered all the ways taking a chance on Trey and love could go wrong. Before the panic could rise any higher, she stopped herself by thinking of all the ways this could go right.
Max stood and offered Trey her hand. She had to brace herself to help him up off the porch steps, and Ashes gave her a dirty look for interrupting his petting session, but once the man she loved was standing, Max turned to her house, opened the door and walked in. When she heard heavy footsteps on the stairs and then the door shut, she smiled.
Trey was home.
* * * * *
Keep reading for an excerpt from ONCE A FAMILY by Tara Quinn.