Page 3 of Where It All Began
“I’m a single man. You’re a single woman. We’re not shacking up.”
Phoebe looked over both shoulders. She had to be on one of thoseCandid CameraTV specials. “Do you have a calendar?” she asked finally.
“Not on me.”
“It’s funny because I could have sworn that it was 1985, not 1955. And that respectable, responsible adults who areworkingtogether don’t need chaperones.”
“You have no problem staying with a man you just met on a farm where the only witnesses to your potential screams would be a handful of chickens and a cow with a limp?”
“What kind of screams are we talking about? Murder or sexual?”
He didn’t look amused. John was back to quietly staring at her, his gray eyes nearly silver in the softening light as day wound down into evening. She tipped her head back. “This would be a lot easier if you had a sense of humor.”
“This would be a lot easier if you were a man.”
“Look, John. Can I call you John, or should I stick with Mr. Pierce?” She didn’t wait for an answer since he probably wouldn’t get the joke anyway. “I’m an adult. I’m twenty-three years old, not a virgin, and not looking to do anything this summer but work on your farm and my thesis.
“If you don’t think you can control yourself around me, say so now, and I’ll scramble to find another guy who just decided ‘Farming crisis, schmarming crisis. I think I’ll start a first gen produce farm and carve out a living after thirty percent of my brethren got foreclosed upon in the last five years.’ Shouldn’t be a problem. Shouldn’t throw off my thesis or push back my graduation at all and ruin my chances for a job in August.”
Sarcasm was another one of her finer qualities that John Pierce obviously wasn’t going to appreciate.
“I don’t like being manipulated into things,” he said.
“Who does?” Phoebe shrugged. “But if anyone did any manipulating here, it wasn’t me, and I resent being held accountable for someone else’s bad behavior.”
He studied her quietly, and Phoebe felt a little tingle race from her toes to the roots of her hair. She held her breath. She was so close to graduation, so close to a job that excited her, so close to finally making things right for her parents. She wasn’t going to let John Pierce—handsome devil or not—or anyone else wreck those plans.
Murdock let out a yip at John’s feet. His stump of a tail wagged in the dirt.
“Guess it’s close to supper time,” John said, squinting up at the sun as it eased toward the horizon in the west. He looked back at Phoebe, and she squirmed under his amusement. “Guess you’ll be wanting a place to put your suitcase.”
“I guess so,” she said, debating whether or not she should apologize for jumping down his throat. She was used to the razzing—and sometimes outright harassment—that came from her classmates and had come to expect it as an annoying downside to her chosen path. Technically, John didn’t seemasconcerned about a woman being interested in farming. He was more concerned about sharing a house with one, which to her was just as stupid.
“You gonna yell at me if I carry your suitcase?” he asked blandly.
Phoebe blew out her breath. “I think I can hold back on my verbal insults for the moment.”
He leaned around her and picked up the case. “Can’t ask for more than that. I’ll show you Allen’s room.”
Had the serious farmer just make a joke?Was he relenting and inviting her to stay?Phoebe couldn’t tell on either count.
Murdock bulleted toward the side door of the house and scratched at the screen, and John set off in the same direction at a more leisurely pace. Phoebe hefted her typewriter case and followed along behind him.
The kitchen was small and dark and hadn’t been redone since the 1950s. The refrigerator was original. The stove was a little newer, definitely an early 70s model in the same pea green as her suitcase. Orange and white linoleum tiles peeled up at the corners. The Formica dining table was a hand-me-down with rusty metal legs and a scarred top. Its four chairs boasted mismatched vinyl patterns of flowers, birds, and checkers.
“It’s a, uh, work in progress,” John said, looking around as if seeing his own kitchen for the first time.
“It’s nice,” she told him and meant it. The space was clean, and it was in better shape than her apartment off campus. Phoebe spent most of her time in the library, the lab, or the fields. Her shabby studio apartment was reserved for sleeping... and the occasional bottle of wine. This place felt like a home. An outdated home in desperate need of some sprucing up, but a home nonetheless.
Phoebe peered into one of the front rooms and discovered a dining room with peeling brown-on-brown graphic wallpaper that probably made dinner guests dizzy. Though judging by the fact that the room housed a table and no chairs, Phoebe assumed John didn’t do much entertaining. Opposite was a small living room with requisite couch and recliner. “How long have you lived here?”
“Bought the place a year ago. Should have seen it then. It was a real wreck.”
Before she could clarify if he was joking, John disappeared down the hallway toward the front of the house. She followed and grinned wistfully at the wallpaper here, black with orange and yellow flowers. It was a twin of the paper that had been in her grandmother’s laundry room on the family farm. She’d have to dig her Polaroid out of her bag and snap a picture to send to her grandparents.
She followed John’s remarkable denim-clad ass up the staircase and into a bedroom at the front of the house. It was small but cozy. There was a twin bed with a wrought iron headboard and no sheets near a dusty dresser that was missing four knobs, and she imagined the skinny door with the glass knob was a closet.
John stared at the bed for a long minute. “I don’t have sheets.” He sounded baffled as if bedding hadn’t occurred to him when he’d agreed to house a guest.
