Bethany Campbell - The Baby Gift

She said, “Was it a problem, getting time to come here?”

He shook his head. “No. Gave up a couple of short assignments. Nothing major.”

“Where do you go next?”

He tried to sound casual. “I’m not sure.”

“Are you still tied up with that crazy Adventure magazine?” she asked, an edge in her voice.

“I’ve got one more assignment,” he said. “That’s all.”

She tossed him a displeased glance. “Where?”

“Don’t know. Maybe Burma. An outside chance of Pitcairn Island.”

“Burma?” she asked with alarm. “Pitcairn Island? Josh, those are dangerous places. When would you have to go?”

He shrugged. “Burma? Probably not for a month, maybe more.”

“Burma has terrorists,” she said. “It has land mines.”

“I’ll be careful. Besides, a few weeks in Burma beats months on Pitcairn.”

Briana had said he needed to be in Missouri for at least three weeks. He’d told Carson he wasn’t touching anything for three weeks, and Carson had been bitter because there was money at stake, a lot of it.

From the unhappy look on Briana’s face, he decided the subject needed changing. “So how’s the seed business?”

She seemed relieved to talk of something else. “It keeps me busy. We’ve got a Web site now. And I computerized as much of the business as I could.”

One corner of his mouth pulled down. “Computerized? Didn’t Poppa object to that?”

The ghost of her smile flickered again. “Until he saw the results. He liked the profits.”

“So it’s the same as just after his heart attack. Larry’s the brawn, you’re the brains. In fact, it’s the same as before his heart attack.”

Her mouth went grim. “That’s not fair. He’s never been the same since my mother died. I told you that when we met.”

“Sorry,” he said, but he felt little true sympathy.

Briana’s mother had died two years before Josh came to Missouri. She had been the one with the business mind. She kept the books, made the payments, studied new directions to take the business.

Leo Hanlon had neither the patience nor the sort of mind to take over the job his wife had done. It fell to Briana to do, and she did it brilliantly.

Leo’s bachelor brother, Collin, a true workhorse of a man, died shortly after Leo’s wife did. He had done all the farm’s heavy work.

Without his wife and brother, Leo was nearly helpless. His back bothered him, his joints ached, and he was lonely. He wore his depression like a badge that exempted him from responsibility. He hired out more and more of the physical work. He was a genial man, sweet-natured, but he seemed to Josh to have drifted into a sort of privileged laziness.

“So what exactly is your father doing these days?” he asked, trying to quash the sarcasm in his tone.

She detected it anyway. He could tell by the way her jaw tightened. “He’s owner and president, same as always. This whole business started with his vision.”

His vision, his brother’s sweat and his wife’s smarts, Josh thought. Leo Hanlon’s shaping dream had been a simple but good one. Most important, it came at exactly the right time.

Twenty-five years ago, the time of the small farmer in America was nearly over. People were not merely migrating to the cities, they were swarming there. Big farms gobbled up the small ones, and corporations bought out the big farms.

But America had begun as a country of farmers and settlers. Many who had gone to the cities missed the cycles of planting, growing and harvesting. They missed the feel of dirt between their fingers and the taste of tomatoes fresh-picked and still warm from the sun.

Leo Hanlon might not have succeeded as a farmer, but he prospered as a nurseryman. He supplied seeds and seedlings and potting mixtures to those city-dwellers who still yearned to garden.

But Leo’s true stroke of genius was not to sell just any seeds and plants. He specialized in the old-fashioned varieties with old-fashioned flavor. He was in short, one of the pioneers in heirloom gardening.

The big seed companies often didn’t offer the older classic breeds. Instead, they came up with new, improved, scientifically developed strains. They grew fast, uniformly and well. They just didn’t seem to taste as good.

Heirloom varieties were in vogue again, and across the country a few dozen places like Hanlon Heritage Farms kept gardeners in supply. Leo Hanlon’s mission was good. It was even noble. Josh sincerely admired it.

But Leo himself was a different matter.

When they first met, Josh had thought Hanlon likable, well-intentioned and slightly comic. But Josh had underestimated him.

Leo Hanlon had proved to be the strongest adversary he’d ever met.

The two of them waged a stubborn war, and Hanlon won, hands down. What he had won was Briana.

THE TRUCK PASSED between the gates of Hanlon’s Heritage Farms. We’re home again, Briana thought.

At least she and Nealie were home. She wondered how the farm looked to Josh’s worldly eyes.

The main farmhouse, where Leon lived alone, stood on the hill, a stark shape against the gray sky. Set in the valley was the ranch house Larry had built for his family. There were the old greenhouses as well as two new ones, modern and utilitarian.

Her house was on the next rise, clearly visible through the winter-bare trees. Her brother would be in one of the sheds, tinkering with the tractors. It was that time of year.

Her father would be in the room that served as his office, pottering with his endless notes. Was he watching? Did he suspect anything?

She glanced at Josh, who peered at the landscape, frowning.

“It looks pretty boring to you, eh?” she said. “It’s not exactly Moscow or Paris.”

“That’s not what I was thinking.”

“Oh?”

“I was thinking of the fields. They’d make a nice shot. A black and white abstract.”

Briana looked at the familiar fields. Snow filled the furrows but hadn’t stuck to the black ridges of dirt that ran between. The effect was like a painting, a great, complex design of sensuously rolling stripes.

How wonderfully he sees things, she thought. I think Nealie sees things that way, too.

Nealie stirred. “Are we home yet?” She rubbed her eyes with her fists. Josh took her glasses from his pocket and helped her settle them on her nose. “We’re home, Panda.”

The girl looked out the window, then settled against him with an air of contentment. “You’re really here,” she said to him. “I thought maybe I only dreamed it.”

“No dream, kid.” His voice was gruff. He kissed her tousled hair.

Briana’s emotions made a hard, painful knot in her throat.

“How long can you stay?” It was the third time Nealie had asked him the same question.

“I don’t know. As long as I can. A while, I guess.” For the third time he gave her the same answer.

“Then you have to go back to work,” Nealie said with unhappy resignation.

“But for now, I’m here,” he said. “With you.”

Briana pulled into her driveway, pushed the button to open the garage door and drove in. “I guess we can leave your things in the back,” she said to Josh. “There’s no sense unloading them. You’ll be going to the motel.”

He said nothing. He gave her a look that clearly said, We’ll see about that.

THE MOMENT CAME that Briana had dreaded.

Josh came down the narrow stairs. “She’s asleep.”

Briana stood by the couch, nervously folding the afghan. Josh had been upstairs for almost an hour. He had promised to read Nealie to sleep.

He crossed the room and stopped, looking at Briana. She felt threatened in a dozen conflicting ways. She was glad they had the couch between them, like a barrier.