Susan Crosby - An Early Christmas Gift

A glimmer of hope touched Jenny’s heart as she waited to hear the rest of what Annie had to say.

“I know that it wouldn’t be using your degree in the way you want to,” Annie said, “but you helped out at Christmas, and we worked well together, and I thought you had fun, too. I’d pay you.”

Hope burst into happiness inside Jenny. “I’d love to!” Annie’s organic farm was ideal in Jenny’s book. Annie had taken the deserted property and turned it into a business that was growing so fast she almost couldn’t keep up with it. “When do I start?”

“Tomorrow?”

Jenny crushed her. “Does this constitute a group hug, with the baby in the middle?” she asked Annie, laughing. “Do you know if you’re having a boy or a girl?”

“Don’t know and don’t care,” her brother Mitch said, coming up beside Annie and sliding his arm around her waist. “Did she say yes?”

“Enthusiastically,” Annie said. “Austin will be happy, too. My eleven-year-old son would rather be working on the ranch than the farm during his summer vacation. Imagine that. And next Monday is the first farmers’ market of the season. If you could help with that, I’d be grateful, maybe even take over for the rest of the season?”

“That would be fun.”

The relief in Mitch’s eyes told Jenny everything. He’d been worried Annie was doing too much. She probably had been.

Jenny’s mood improved after that. She felt wanted and needed. She would have someplace to be every morning and work to do.

Later, after the dishes were done and the company gone, Jenny slipped into her twin bed with the denim bedspread she’d bought while in high school. The photos and posters on the walls were the same. Her yearbooks were stacked on a bookshelf. She’d grown up a lot the summer after graduation, but even that wasn’t reflected in the room, not to mention her years of college.

She didn’t have to give much thought to why she’d made love with Win today. It was another thing that hadn’t changed—she was still in love with him.

And for him it was still just sex.

The more things change, the more they stay the same. Whoever said that couldn’t have been more right.

* * *

Life on Annie’s farm, The Barn Yard, was like a constant family reunion. Jenny’s brothers Adam and Brody had moved into the farmhouse when Mitch and Annie got married last October. In exchange for rent, they’d remodeled the kitchen and bathroom then painted every room.

They weren’t much on keeping house, but their only other choice would’ve been to move back into the homestead or the old bunkhouse. At ages twenty-seven and thirty, they were too old to move home, and the bunkhouse had been commandeered by their newest sister-in-law, Vaughn’s wife, Karyn, who was overseeing a remodeling of that structure for a new tourist venture for the ranch.

The brothers left the farm early each day to work at the ranch, twenty miles away. Mitch dropped in frequently to make sure his pregnant wife was okay and to do any heavy lifting, often bringing Annie’s son with him. And the parents came by, as well.

Win could stop by, if he chose. Something he couldn’t do at the ranch. But would he? How could he? she reminded herself. He didn’t know she was working at the farm. Just another fantasy, one she wasn’t sure she wanted to become reality, anyway.

“Do you mind having so much unannounced company?” Jenny asked Annie as they planted fingerling potatoes and artisan lettuce, mainstays of the farm.

“Not at all. My family wasn’t close like yours. For me it’s a dream come true. When I first took over the farm, people used to stop by unannounced and I didn’t like it, but that’s because they wanted to buy my property.”

“I remember you telling me that. Shep Morgan, right?” Win’s father was one of the orneriest men around. Even Jenny would have found him scary to deal with on her own. “And I think you said Win stopped by sometimes, too?” she asked hopefully.

“And your father and Vaughn,” Annie said, shaking back her blond hair. Even though it would only be about seventy degrees at the day’s peak, it was easy to work up a sweat working outdoors, especially inside the high tunnel greenhouses, which were much warmer, as sheltered as they were. “But that was before Mitch and I got married. The Morgans know there’s no way I’d sell this land now. No reason to stop by.”

“How long could you have held on if Mitch hadn’t come along?”

“Mitch has made my life a whole lot easier, with much less stress and pressure, but I was starting to succeed on my own.”

“He seems to let you run the show here just fine.”

“Does he?” Annie smiled. “He has impact on my decisions, because he often brings a different perspective to a situation, and I find that helpful. He doesn’t have the same emotional connection to this land that I do, which keeps him clearheaded. But he also amazes me, how he can work all day at the ranch and still help me out here. Austin has learned so much from him, too.”

Jenny nudged Annie aside and took over planting the potatoes, which required more bending. “Maybe you could pour us some iced tea and we’ll take a little break.”

“Okay. Can we talk about Win Morgan?” Annie asked over her shoulder as she walked away.

Jenny jolted a little in surprise, then thought it over. She would love to confide in someone, but should it be Annie?

A few minutes later they were sitting on the porch, hands washed clean of soil, sipping iced tea and eating oatmeal-raisin cookies.

“Why do you want to talk about Win?” Jenny asked.

“Mitch tells me that you used Win’s phone to call your dad.”

“Only because he stopped to see if I needed help, and I haven’t switched to a satellite phone yet.”

“He was being a Good Samaritan?”

“That’s right. Why?”

“Because almost every time I’ve seen him, he’s asked about you. And at Christmas, you avoided him.”

“I’ve always found Win to be the strong, silent type.” Which was not really an answer.

“People tend to romanticize the strong, silent types, but actually they usually have nothing to say,” Annie commented. “Win has things to say.”

“It sounds as if you like him.”

“I do. I think he’s a victim of his father’s bad press. But I think you like him, too.”

Jenny stared into space for a few seconds. “I do.”

“But?”

“We had a summer fling that our parents weren’t aware of four years ago.” She bit into her cookie before she said any more.

“Really? And how was it?”

Jenny smiled. “Everything a girl’s first love affair should be.”

“Made more exciting because your families would have hit their respective roofs.”

“Probably. Until yesterday I hadn’t seen him in all that time.”

“How was it?”

“Look, Annie, I don’t want to put you on the spot by telling you things I don’t want you to share with Mitch, and I don’t want my brother to know.”

“I’d keep your confidences. I have to tell you that Karyn has been curious, too, ever since you avoided Win here at Christmas. She plied me with questions I had no answers for.”

Jenny felt as close to her two sisters-in-law, whom she barely knew, as her sister, Haley. “I think we should keep it that way. Nothing can happen between Win and me, you know?”

“Why not?”

“Our families—”

Annie interrupted. “I don’t know about Win’s family, but yours love you, and they would accept him if he’s your choice.”

“Accept isn’t the same as love and welcome.”

“In time it could be that. You’ve got 150 years of bad blood to get past first.”

“Well, that’s a snap, don’t you think?”