Knocking at Her Heart (Conover Circle #1) (12 page)

The note she left on her kitchen
table was short and sweet.
Sam and I went to his sister’s farm. I’ll be home
tomorrow.
She didn’t bother with any additional details. Her mother would
fill in the blanks the way she wanted to.

Hell, maybe she’d beat her mother
home.

If she did, she hoped they didn’t
have to talk about it. There was a limit to how much a daughter was expected to
take. 

She’d hit her head on that limit
when her mother had whipped out her box of condoms.  She’d managed to come
down and then, bingo, bounced right back up when her mother had bid on Tom Holt.   

She went into her bedroom, hauled
an overnight bag out of the closet, and threw in some necessities. She stripped
off her stupid matching sweater and skirt outfit and slipped into some jeans
and a casual shirt. 

Then she went back to her kitchen
and checked Snowball’s food and water dishes. She filled both to the rim. “It’s
going to be kind of quiet around here tonight,” she said to the cat who wound
around her legs. “You’re going to have to eat the dry stuff. There won’t be
anybody around to open tuna cans. I’m going to the farm.”

She realized how crazy that
sounded. She sat the heavy bag of cat food down with a thud. Snowball raised
his tail in the air in protest. “It seemed like a good idea at the time,” she
said.

He sniffed at the dry food, as if
he was wondering how anybody could think
this
was a good idea.

“He’s a nice man, I’m a nice
woman. He’s mine, fair and square, and we had to find something to do. It’s not
like it’s a real date.”

Except that her stomach had the
same kind of feel that she’d had the night of her senior prom. Funny, how a
person never did forget that
I’m so excited, I’m just about to throw up
kind of feeling.

She’d managed to avoid hurling on
Bobby Brinkman’s leather interior. She hoped Sam’s vehicle fared as well.

The downstairs doorbell rang. She
picked up Snowball and kissed him. “It’s show time,” she said. “Keep the light
on for Frances.” She put the cat down and picked up her overnight bag.  At
the last minute, she grabbed a paper sack from the drawer and stuffed it into
her purse. There was no sense being too optimistic and she sure as heck didn’t
want to throw up in her lap.

“Ready?” Sam asked, when she
opened the door.

As ever.  “Did you talk to
your sister?”

“Yes. Said she can’t wait to meet
you.”

“You have a nice family. Even if
you didn’t get to pick them.”

He opened the car door and threw
her bag into the back seat. “I’m sure your parents are nice,” he said, very
politely.

She waited until he had shut her
door and climbed in his own side. “They’re doing their very best to hurt each
other in every imaginable way possible. It’s hard for me to see this. Even
harder I guess, than seeing them live in the same house but basically ignore
each other.”

He drove for a few minutes in
silence. They hit the outskirts of Conover and he picked up speed on the
highway. “Maybe they’re both hurting so badly that the only thing that feels
good is inflicting some small measure of pain on the other.”

Maddie sank back against the seat
and closed her eyes. “I’m so glad I’m not married.”

Sam didn’t respond.

She didn’t want to think about
her parents. She wanted to simply look out the window and watch the world fly
by. She wanted to wave to the dairy cows and whistle at the crows sitting on the
wire fences. She wanted to feel the sun on her face and smell the freshness of
spring.

She wanted to pretend that she
and Sam were on a secret mission. She wanted to be the sultry, sexy woman who
would help him save the world.

She closed her eyes again, turned
her head toward the window, and snuggled down against her seat. “I think I’ll
catch that nap you promised me.”

*

“We’re here,” Sam said.

Maddie opened her eyes. Sam was
turning the car onto a gravel lane, leading up to a two-story white farmhouse.
It had forest green trim, matching shutters, and a wrap-around front porch. It
was lovely. “I guess I was tired,” she said. She really, really hoped she
hadn’t snored or drooled in her sleep.

“Looks like we’ve got a welcoming
committee.”

Maddie looked to where Sam
pointed and her heart skipped a beat. Two huge dogs, their glossy black coats
rippling in the spring sunshine, ran full speed toward the car. Maddie stared,
unable to move, unable to breathe. Their ears were flat against their heads,
and she could see their sharp white teeth. When the one in the lead took
flight, just feet from the car, Maddie closed her eyes and waited for the pain
to rip her apart.

“Maddie?” Sam said. “What’s
wrong?”

She could hear him. Somewhere far
away, Sam said something.

“Maddie, sweetheart. You’re
scaring me.”

If she opened her eyes, the dog
would be in the car. She’d be able to smell it, to feel its breath on her face,
its heaviness against her chest.

“What the heck?”  

She heard Sam and then felt his
strong hand on her arm. “Open your eyes, Maddie. Talk to me.”

She couldn’t.

“Goddamnit,” Sam said, his voice
loud.

She opened her eyes. Sam had
turned off the car, unbuckled his seat belt, and moved next to her. He had
three fingers on the inside of her wrist.

“What are you doing?” she
squeaked.

He stopped and stared at her.
“Where the heck have you been?” 

“I’m sorry,” she said. She could
hear the dogs barking, racing around the car. She pushed his hands away and put
her own hands over her ears, blocking out the sound.

“Christ Almighty. You’re afraid
of dogs,” he said.

She managed a nod.

She heard the sound of the window
being rolled down. “Duke. Duchess. It’s okay. It’s Sam. Be quiet.”

And as suddenly as that, blessed
quiet returned. The dogs flopped on to the ground, rolling over and over.

Sam rubbed his forehead, like he
had a bad headache. “Are you okay?” he said.

“Yes.” As long as she didn’t look
at the animals.

“You’re afraid of dogs,” he
repeated, like he couldn’t quite believe it. 

Terrified was more like it. “I got
bit by a dog when I was a little girl,” Maddie explained. 

“I’m so sorry,” Sam said. “I’d
have warned you.”

“It’s okay,” she said. Another
week or so and the shaking would stop.

“You’re sure?” he asked, still
looking worried.

“I’ll be fine. I just need a
moment to get used to them.”

“Duke and Duchess are siblings,”
Sam explained. “I believe mostly German shepherd with a little of something
else thrown in. John's had them for a couple of years. He got them for—”

Before Sam could finish, a slim
woman flew out from the house, the screen door slamming loudly behind her. The
dogs got up and automatically placed themselves between her and the car, once
again starting to bark.

Sam looked at Maddie, one eyebrow
raised.

“I’m fine,” she assured
him. 

The woman yanked open the
driver's door and grabbed Sam by the front of the shirt, literally pulling him
out of the car. He hugged her close. "I thought you would never get here,”
she said. “I've been waiting a month to tell you and the last hour seemed like
it lasted three days." Her words rushed together. Sam laughed and kissed
her soundly on the lips. 

"Tell me what,
sis?" 

Before she could answer, Kelsie
ran up to the car. “I’m going to have a cousin," she proudly stated, both
hands flat on the car door. “A real live cousin. And Mommy’s going to be an
aunt.”

Sam looked at his sister. The
wind played with the reddish blonde curls that brushed her shoulders. Maddie
could see the light sprinkle of freckles that graced her pretty face.

“You’re pregnant.”

“I am. I mean, we are.” She
waived her hand in the direction of the man coming from the barn. He was tall,
maybe a few years older than his wife, and his stride was long and confident.
“I didn't want to tell you over the telephone,” Amy added.

Sam whirled around and extended
his hand to the newcomer. “I see you finally got tired of practicing.” He
sounded happy.

“Just wanted to make sure I got
it right,” the man replied, his smile broad.

Maddie wondered why she had come.
They were family. She didn't belong. She hadn't even belonged to her own
family. What had made her think that this would be any different? 

“Hi. You must be Maddie. I'm Amy.
This is my husband John.” The woman slid into the driver’s seat and stuck out
her hand. “We’re so glad you could come.”

“Thank you.”  Maddie
returned the shake. She smiled at John.

“Are you okay? You look a little
pale. Do you need some water? Are you car sick?” 

“I’m fine,” Maddie said, the
minute she could get a word in. She started to relax. Maybe she wasn’t family. But
she doubted Amy had ever met a stranger.

“Congratulations on the
pregnancy,” she said.

Amy’s face lit up with a smile.
“Thank you. Sam tells us you just had surgery. Don’t worry, you won’t have to
do a thing while you’re here. You can sit on the couch and read or watch
television.”

“Oh, no,” Maddie said. “I want to
see everything.”

Amy smiled. “We put off doing
afternoon chores just in case. But the cows are sensitive to a schedule so we
better get started,” Amy said.

“Wait ‘til you see the chickens,”
Kelsie added. “Eggs come out of their bottoms.”

The five adults and Kelsie walked
the short distance to the milking barn. Kelsie skipped ahead, flanked on either
side by Duke and Duchess. Sam and John fell into stride leaving Maddie, Amy,
and Jean to catch up the rear. Maddie felt quite content having a little space
between her and the dogs. One had gotten close enough to sniff at the back of
her knees, and she’d managed to keep herself upright. She’d counted that as a
victory. 

"When is the baby
due?"  Maddie looked at Amy's still flat stomach. 

"Not until early November.
It was quite a shock. Not that we weren't trying. Sam actually told us to stop
trying so hard, to stop worrying. He got us an appointment with a gynecologist
who specialized in infertility. I guess she knew what she was
doing." 

The women walked in silence for a
few minutes before Amy turned her head to look at Maddie. “You know, he's never
brought a woman here before. I wondered what you'd be like."

"It’s not like that,” Maddie
protested, remembering Sam’s comment that love had turned Amy into a
romantic.  “I…I wouldn’t want you to get the wrong idea. We’re
just…friends. He’s just Kelsie’s uncle.” 

“I guess I was just curious to
see if you would be like Gwen or totally the opposite."

“Amy!” Jean sounded
shocked. 

Amy stopped in her tracks. 
“You know,” she said, sucking on the corner of her upper lip, “sometimes I talk
way too much.”

“Who’s Gwen?” Maddie asked.

Amy and Jean looked at each
other.  “You should probably ask Sam about that," Amy said, finally.
Then she made a point of looking at the two men who walked a good hundred feet
ahead of them. “Hey, you two,” she yelled. “Wait up."

Maddie wanted to grab her arm, to
hold her back, until she explained. She figured John would deck her first and
Sam would be standing in line. Then the dogs would have her for lunch.

Gwen. Who was she? A former
girlfriend? A former lover? A recent one? Yikes.

John turned around. “Hey, Maddie.
You want the five dollar tour?”

Gwen was really none of her
business. She hurried to catch up. “Absolutely.” 

The tour ended up being worth way
more than five dollars. John showed her how the portable milking machine worked
and they followed the pipeline that took the milk through a filtration system
that purified it. Via gravity, the milk ran through the pipeline into large
storage tanks that got emptied daily by trucks that ultimately transported it
to the local dairy for processing.

"How much milk does one cow
produce?" asked Maddie. The process amazed her. She knew the kids would
love it.

"About fifty pounds,"
replied John patiently. "Of course, the weather has a lot to do with
that."

“The weather?" questioned
Maddie.

“Absolutely," Amy
interjected. "We're hoping that we don't have the heat this summer that we
did last year. When it's hot, our cows produce about twenty-five percent less.
They have to expend so much energy just to stay cool that it affects their milk
production. Also, cows don't eat as much when it's hot which also has an
effect."

"I had no idea,"
admitted Maddie. "How can you increase milk production?"

"By keeping them
pregnant." John winked at his wife who blushed.

“What?" Maddie figured they
were teasing her now.

"Cows always produce the
most milk after having a new calf. Each year, we artificially inseminate our
cows in an attempt to make sure they bear a calf."

“So, you have cows that are
incredibly frustrated," Sam teased his brother-in-law.  "Aren't
there any bulls around here that would volunteer for stud service?"

"I asked John the same thing
when I first came to the farm," laughed Amy. "He told me that his
cows weren't allowed to date until they were eighteen."

“I pity your daughter," Sam
consoled her. "She'll probably have to go to the convent."

"How do you know it's a
daughter?" John stopped in his tracks.

"I'm a doctor. I know these
things."

"Well, if she's as pretty as
this one," John said, scooping Kelsie up so she could ride on his
shoulders, "I'm going to have to lock her in her room and throw away the
key."

Kelsie squealed, content to ride
on his big shoulders. They passed a large pen of pigs and it made Maddie
remember the comment Carol had made about her parents at the auction. By now,
her father should be on a plane and her mother…well…it was hard to say.

Maddie pushed the thought aside
and focused on the pen where the new calves were kept. Kelsie slid down John’s
back and grabbed Maddie’s hand. They petted the calves while the others looked
on. Maddie wondered how the calves could stand on such thin, fragile legs. When
she voiced that concern, the others laughed, telling her that calves were a lot
like babies—stronger than they looked.

John patiently answered Maddie's
questions about the feeding process, even going so far as to explain the
automatic, heated, watering system and what a difference it had made to raising
livestock. When he explained that during the winter his father had had to chop
through ice so that the animals could drink, she began to appreciate how tough
the dairy business could be. 

"I can't imagine getting up
at four in the morning on a cold January day and knowing that I had to spend an
hour chopping through ice before I could begin my regular chores," Maddie
concluded. 

John wrapped an arm around his
wife’s shoulders. "Thank goodness, it's a little different now."

When Amy and Jean wandered inside
to cook dinner, she offered to help, but they insisted that she remain outside.
She and Sam stood side-by-side, silent, as more than a hundred cows were
milked. Granted, John and his helpers did it with the assistance of
sophisticated equipment, but it still looked like a lot of work. As she watched
the milk rush through the glass tubes to the holding tanks, she turned to Sam. “I’m
going to be a little more appreciative the next time I grab a gallon of milk
off the shelf.”

“That’s exactly how I felt the
first time I saw this.”  He slung a casual arm over her shoulders. “Come
on. Let’s go see what’s for dinner.”

Dinner was mounds of roast beef
and potatoes and carrots followed by strawberry-rhubarb pie with ice cream.
Maddie ate every last crumb and debated picking up her plate and licking it.
“That was delicious,” she said. “Would you mind if I came back every day for
dinner?”

Amy beamed. “Jean was telling me
about your daycare. It sounds very nice.”  She turned to look at Sam.
“Just think. The two of you have been working next door to each other for over
a year, and now you suddenly meet. That’s like fate or something.”

Sam dropped his knife. “Yeah,
fate,” he said, as he bent down to retrieve it.

Maddie could sense his sudden
discomfort. But it was hard to fault Amy for being a romantic. After all, she
was living her dream. 

“So how long have you had your
business?” John asked.

“Almost four years. I’ve been
living in the house for six years. I had moved to Conover when my Aunt Jayne
got too old to live alone. I got a job teaching first grade. Liked it but knew
that what I really loved was the nurturing side of teaching, not the teaching
itself. I had applied for just a few jobs before Aunt Jayne died. I didn’t
expect to inherit the house but after I did, I realized it was a rare
opportunity.”

Sam was tapping his finger on the
table. Loudly.

“The hospital must really
appreciate having your daycare so close,” Amy said. “I imagine a lot of your
customers are employed there.”

“Yes, many of them.”

“What a relief to a parent to
know that your child is next door,” Amy continued. “If they need you, you’re
just minutes away. I know that would be incredibly important to me.”

Sam pushed his chair back so
suddenly that he bumped the table. Water glasses shook and a fork slid off the
meat platter.

“What’s wrong?” Amy asked.

“Sorry. Nothing.” He smiled at her.
“I just figured I’d get a start on the clean-up.”

“I’ll help,” Maddie said. 

“If I wasn’t pregnant and
absolutely exhausted, I’d argue. But now? Well. Knock yourselves out. When
you’re finished, we’ll be in the living room, watching movies.”

“I can help,” Jean said.

Sam shook his head. “I think
Kelsie’s needs a bath more than we need help.” He patted the little girl’s
head. “What exactly did you step in out there?”

“Uncle John called it a cow pie,
but I think it was just poop.”

Jean shook her head at her
daughter. “We don’t say that word at the table.” She smiled at her sister.
“This is what you have to look forward to.”

Amy slipped her hand into her
husband’s. “We can’t wait.”

*

Maddie and Sam carried a stack of
dirty plates into the kitchen. Maddie pulled a quarter out of her pocket. “I’ll
flip you for the pans,” she said.

“I’ll do them,” Sam said.

She smiled. “That was easy.”

Sam ran water into the sink and
dumped in a liberal amount of soap. His stomach felt slightly ill and he was
sure it had nothing to do with Amy’s dinner. The look on Maddie’s face when
she’d talked about her house and the daycare had been pure love.

And he and his partners were
trying to buy that away from her.

“I guess I never realized exactly
why the location of your daycare is so important to you,” he said, trying to
figure out how to broach the subject. “You really care about those kids and
their families, don’t you?”

“I do.” She seemed to hesitate.
“My father was always working. Mother was always volunteering. So I spent a lot
of time with caregivers. I loved some of those people. And to this day, I miss
them. They filled a big hole in my life. I’d like to think that I’m doing the
same for the kids who come to Kids Are It
.

“Those kids will remember you for
a long time.”

She laid her towel on the
counter. “I hope so. It’s sort of crazy, but lately I’ve been thinking about
how important the daycare is to me. There’s this attorney in town who keeps
contacting me. Somebody wants to buy my property. Somebody who doesn’t even
have the guts to approach me himself. I’ve told the attorney that I’m not
interested. It’s not only my business, it’s my home.”

A soapy pan slipped out of his
hand and clattered against the edge of the sink.

“Hey,” she said.  “Be
careful. They’re slick when they have soap on them.”

Sam nodded and rinsed the pan.
 He should tell her about Tom and Donald and about their plans. He should
tell her that there were lots of good reasons why her house had been identified
as the best option. He should.

But it had been forever since
he’d felt this comfortable with someone. When it had been this good.

She held out her hand. “Give me
that pan before you rinse the enamel off. The movie will be over before we get
out there. What will they be watching?”   

“Uh…” He stood there, holding his
pan. He was going to have to resolve this situation. He would talk to Tom and
Donald and help them understand that they needed to find another location.
Percy wouldn’t need to make any more calls or send any more letters.

Feeling better, he grabbed the
towel from her hands and dried the pan himself. “It’ll be something sappy.
Amy’s favorite channel is
Lifetime
.”

“I knew I liked your sister.”

He stared at her. “She likes you,
too. I can tell. And Jean thinks you walk on water.”

Her cheeks got pink. Adorable.

“Let’s go,” he said, tossing the
towel on the counter. He could handle this.

In the living room, Sam and
Maddie settled in with the other adults while Kelsie played with her doll in
the corner of the family room. There was some movie that Sam almost recognized
the actress but quite frankly, he didn’t care.

All he could think about was the
conversation that he needed to have with his partners.

Within minutes of the ending
credits, John stretched his arms wide and yawned, his mouth open wide and his
eyes closed. Amy chuckled in response and slipped into her husband's gentle
grasp. "I suggest we call it a night,” she said.

“Do you still have the obnoxious
rooster?” Sam asked.

“He’s part of the family,” Amy answered,
as she let her husband gently pull her up from the couch. 

“He’s a pain in the…” Sam turned
to see if Kelsie was listening.

She was. “In the butt, Uncle Sam.
A pain in the butt?”

Sam rolled his eyes. “Yes. A
royal pain in the
gluteus maximus.
”

“The gloot what?”  Kelsie
asked.

“Never mind, pumpkin,” Amy said.
“He’s just trying to impress us with doctor words.  Come on.  Jean,
you and Kelsie can take the blue room. Sam, I put you in your usual space, and
Maddie can have the room next to the bathroom. Last one upstairs needs to turn
off these lights.”