Passing Through Midnight (12 page)

She held him near, easing some of the excited tension in
her breasts against his chest. She toyed with the hair on the back of
his neck, dallied with his tongue, and gasped for air when he pulled
her tight against him and deepened the kiss until she went weak and
witless in his arms.

"Umm." It was a deep, guttural sound of pleasure that
thrilled her beyond anything he could have said as he lifted his head
and perused her face, holding it between his palms. He shook his head
in wonder, then grinned happily and dropped his hands with a huge sigh.
"Oil."

"What?"

"I have to change the oil in the tractor," he said,
backing away from her. "There's no light in here or I'd… I'd
do it later, tonight, after…"

He stared at her a few more seconds before collecting his
thoughts. He cleared his throat and looked away. He knew what he was
feeling, but he hadn't expected it. He wanted her, no doubt about it,
but that was all he wanted. He didn't want anything strumming the
strings of his heart. He didn't want his desire for her leading him
into swamps of passion that would suck him in and crush the life out of
him again. He didn't want to get carried away and start believing that
he knew this woman—what she was thinking and what she wanted
from him.

"You must be getting ready to do something then," she
said, feeling a need to break the sudden and very uncomfortable silence
between them. "I thought the wheat was already planted."

"It is," he said, picking up the pan and tools he'd be
needing, and scooting under the tractor on his back. "I got a couple
fellas coming to work next week. We'll plant corn and after that
sorghum. For fodder."

"For who?"

"Fodder. Food. For cows."

Dorie crossed one leg over the other and leaned against a
big drum of something, while Gil retreated into farm talk.

Even a citified person like her knew there was more to
farming than throwing dirt over a seed and whacking off the results.
But to hear Gil talk, it sounded more like working the trading floor at
the Commodities Exchange than the age-old practice of cultivating food.
A delicate execution of knowledge, timing, and good luck.

For instance, Gil said he ran a summer fallow operation.
Which meant half the land he planted with wheat went uncultivated for a
year to build up moisture and soil nutrients, then it was planted the
next fall, while the other half went idle.

The hard red winter wheat was planted mid-September to
mid-October, sometimes as late as November, depending on the
weather—and this was where good luck came into play.
Normally, the wheat was planted early enough for it to grow five to six
inches tall before winter set in. Ideally, there was a snow cover to
protect the plants from the harsh winter temperatures as they went
dormant until spring. If all was well, the wheat would begin to shoot
up again by late March or early April and by the first to the middle of
May the plants "head out"—they got spikes or ears of grain on
the end of each stalk. Then barring disease, insects, heavy winds,
hail, torrents of rain, and other miscellaneous acts of God, there
would be a two-week period around the first of July in which to harvest
the wheat before it went to seed.

Then, to make it all the more exciting, bids were made on
wheat crops a year, sometimes two years in advance. The farmer would
accept the best price he thought he could get that year and sell the
crop before it was even grown.

Dorie thought it sounded like a gigantic crapshoot.

Well, it wasn't, Gil insisted. Most years the wheat came
in fine and was shipped off to flour mills or export markets in the
Pacific Northwest. Pretty simple really. However, most farmers in
Kansas had survived enough rough times to diversify their farms. Those
with water grew a second wheat crop after the first harvest; others
grew dry land corn and sorghum or irrigated corn and sorghum; some grew
sunflowers destined for the processing plant in Goodland. A brave few
grew dry beans —pinto, navy, and white beans for the food
market, but apparently this was a very involved crop and highly
specialized.

And what happened to the corn and sorghum? Was it bid on
in advance as well?

No, it was kept as feed grains and used almost exclusively
in local markets, stored in silos all over Kansas for feed lot.

"What's feed lot?" she asked, instantly wishing she
hadn't. She already knew more about farming than she had ever wanted to
know. It was fascinating, but it was also very scary, in a way. It
didn't seem as secure a profession as, say, a tax accountant or a
doctor or a banker… but then these days, what profession was
really secure? she wondered. She tried not to think of what would
happen to Gil and the boys during a prolonged drought or after some
other ungodly misfortune.

"Feed lot? Cattle," he said, shimmying out from under the
tractor and looking at her, not seeming to mind all her questions, not
seeming to think them particularly stupid. "A big portion of the cattle
I have grazing here and across the way I'll sell this year. I'll use
most of my feed grain and silage to fatten them up, the rest I'll store
or sell. Cattle are brought in from… well, from all over the
country really, and fed and fattened up here in Kansas before they're
shipped off to the meat-packing plants either here in Kansas or in
Nebraska or Colorado."

"Ugh." She groaned and grimaced at the thought. He found
her aversion to red meat amusing, rather than something he should
apologize for. People had been eating beef a lot longer than she'd been
a vegetarian.

"And you don't name anything that's going to get eaten,
right?" she asked.

He knew exactly where she'd picked up that bit of
information. "Right."

"What about Emily and her calf?"

"Lots of kids raise a calf, breed her, and show her at the
county fair a couple times. It's fun. They learn from it and then they
have to decide to keep the animal and breed it again, or sell it for
meat."

"What do most of them do?"

"Sell it and save the money for a car when they're old
enough, I guess," he said with a shrug, climbing onto the tractor.
"It's all part of the learning. Farm kids know early on that this is a
business, not a petting zoo."

He turned on the tractor to run the oil through, and she
stood thinking. Farming was indeed a business. For the most part a
solitary business; a back-breaking, risk-taking business that she was
beginning to feel didn't get the recognition it deserved.

He turned off the tractor and got down to fiddle with the
engine. She watched him. He didn't look like a gambler. Every move he
made was sure and purposeful. He always looked as if he knew what he
was doing, as if nothing would fail him—as if he didn't know
failure.

But, of course, he did. He'd said everyone in Kansas could
remember bad times and trouble. And there was Beth and his second wife.
He looked strong physically, with his broad shoulders and straight,
muscled legs, but as she watched she saw his inner strength, broader
than his shoulders, straighter and more powerful than his arms and
legs. He wasn't simply a man with a handsome face, he was a beautiful
man with courage and a strong heart.

Not like her. Not a coward. Not a quitter.

"There. All done," he said, turning to her with a smile,
wiping his greasy hands on a dirty cloth. "Thanks."

"For what?"

"Keeping me company," he said, closing the short distance
between them to plant a quick kiss on her lips. "And for giving me a
reason to hurry through it."

She smiled and looked away. Knowing what he was and what
she was, it was hard to look him in the eye.

"Do we eat now?" She was starving. Her appetite was
returning with a vengeance.

"Nope. Chores."

"More chores?" You also had to be a little nuts to be a
farmer, she decided. All they ever did was chores. She looked at her
watch. "Oh, it's six." He looked at her. "Seven and six? Morning and
evening? I know this one."

He chuckled. "You want to come? Or stay here with Matthew?"

She'd seen what they did at the Averback place. Sometimes
they threw bales of hay out for the cows, sometimes they filled the
trough full of water with a hose. One time they were gone so long, she
went out after they'd left and discovered they'd chased the cows
through a gate into a pasture with longer grass. It was never too
exciting.

"I'll stay here with Matthew."

He nodded, then let loose a piercing whistle through his
teeth that, after a couple minutes, had both Fletcher and Baxter
running from the house to the truck and climbing in to wait for him.

"Nice trick."

He laughed. "Old trick. Belonged to my dad."

"One of those things passed from son to son?"

"If they have chores to do."

"My mother had a silver whistle on a chain for calling my
younger brother, Bobby, and me. We used to hide it from her all the
time and make her crazy. She would have loved your whistle."

"Where's your brother now?"

"Minneapolis. He owns a bookstore there."

"And what about your dad? How did he call you?"

She frowned. "I don't know. I don't recall him
ever… He's been gone a long time. He passed away when I was
eight."

"I'm sorry."

"I am, too. But my mother has enough energy to be ten
parents, so I can't really say that I've missed him a whole lot. It was
just the way things were at our house."

"It must have been hard on your mother, raising two kids
without a second opinion to fall back on. I don't know what I would
have done all these years without Matthew."

"It was hard for her, I think. Sometimes. I know she still
misses him." She smiled. "But my mother has more opinions than any one
woman could possibly need in one lifetime. Believe me."

Baxter was insisting on riding in the bed of the truck
this time, because Fletcher wouldn't let him have the window seat up
front so he could wave good-bye to Dorie. They bickered louder than any
two radiologists she'd ever met, until Gil swore under his breath,
picked up his youngest son, and set him in the back of the truck,
commanding, "Down on your butt."

She laughed and waved until she thought her arm would fall
off, just to see Baxter's smile.

Gil watched her through the side-view mirror. When he
reached the county road, he looked back and saw her walking toward the
back door to join Matthew in the kitchen.

There was an odd feeling in his chest, like the one after
he'd kissed her. A feel-good feeling that was battling with suspicion
and fear.

He could hardly remember changing the oil in the tractor.
The time had gone so fast. He'd enjoyed telling her about his life,
explaining things to her as if she were really interested. She'd seemed
interested. But what if she was simply being polite? Being attracted to
her was… well, it was just plain great. But what if he was
misreading her motives and her needs? What if she was misreading his?
It was soul stirring to watch her wave good-bye from his side yard as
if she belonged there; to watch her walk over to the house as if she
lived there; to see her look at his son as if he were hers. But maybe
that was wishful thinking. Maybe he was letting his dreams get out of
control again. Maybe she'd be gone tomorrow. Maybe all she wanted was
what he thought he wanted—a friendly sexual affair with no
strings or regrets.

If they were going to have anything together, he'd have to
be very careful not to read anything into Dorie that wasn't there.
Everything would have to be made perfectly clear. For both of them. He
was no expert on friendly sexual affairs, but that seemed the best way
to go about it.

As it happened, Matthew turned out to be a one-man band in
the kitchen, and since it was Baxter's job to set the table, he
wouldn't let her do that either.

"If I were you, I'd go in and practice my pool game.
You're worse than Baxter," he said, teasing her easily. "Those pool
games can make or break you around here, you know."

"They can? How?"

"Well, we've been known to wager amongst ourselves on
occasion."

"Wager?" She felt her eyes light up. Alarms rang in her
ears. Dollar signs sprang up in her mind.

"For chores generally," he said, turning to stir something
in a pot. "Poor Bax gets plenty of incentive to improve his game, I can
tell you."

"Never money?"

"Sometimes. The boys get an allowance. Fletch beats the
pants off Baxter whenever he's broke."

"And what does Gil wager with?"

"Chores, generally."

Of course.

"And you?"

"Well now," he said, turning to face her with a sly smile.
"I like my games to be exciting—or I don't bother to play."

"How exciting?" She smiled.

"Well, I can get ol' Gil worked into a pretty good lather
occasionally. You barely beat him a couple times," he said, laying out
his secret strategy. "Then offer to spot him a couple balls. Gets real
cranky when you do that. You let him win one to get his confidence
back, and he's ready to bet anything that your two games were a fluke.
Then you take him to the cleaners. Last time I made him buy me that new
microwave there, and the time before that I got a new huntin' rifle.
And… oh yeah, a round-trip plane ticket to Baltimore to see
an old friend of mine and her family. Gil's a very generous boy." He
chuckled.

"So it seems." she said, looking impressed. "Maybe I
should go knock a few of those little balls around with the stick."

He nodded, smiling; his eyes held a twinkle. She was
almost out of the room when he said, "Watch your English."

"My what?"

"He knows good pool when he sees it. He would have noticed
how well you were blowing your shots last night if he hadn't been so
busy noticing other things about you."