Page 3 of Take Me Home

I couldn’t yet see his face, but he was making quite an entrance. Uncle Bill wouldn’t tolerate someone who showed up late and made a big show of it, particularly when the job offer was so good. The pay was competitive and they could live on the farm for free. Since I was jumpy as hell every night with any noise I heard, it’d be nice to have some company. Just knowing someone might hear me scream as wolves devoured my body (a common fear for me) would be a relief.

The truck’s driver hopped onto the runner board, hanging on the door frame as his feet met the ground with a thud.

“Sorry I’m late!” came his cheerful call, along with a sheepish but wide and white grin. He spoke with the ease of a guy who either didn’t need coffee or had already had his coffee 5 hours ago before the sun came up. He pushed his dusty blue baseball cap up a touch so he could see the group better. A 70’s style red and white ringer tee adorned his muscled chest, a pair of beat-up light wash jeans hanging from his hips.

As he got closer, the realization dawned on me. Olive skin, that smile, those caramel eyes — this was the guy from the sports bar. The one I ogled and who for sure definitely ogled me back. The Jack/Noah/Alex guy. The one who most likely had a kid and maybe a partner he went home to.

That last part was a mental splash of cold water to the face.

“Nice of you to join us!” Eli teased, slapping the newcomer’s hand and bringing him into the circle. “Everyone, this is Jake.”

Jake. Didn’t even think of that one in my Jack/Alex/Noah guess, but I was close. Such a hot name. Why was I being tortured like this?

I steeled myself with a breath, clearing my throat and feeling his gaze on me. I wondered ifJakeremembered me, too, or if he just ogled girls at sports bars on the regular. Again, I didn’t know what to do with my hands, so I shoved them in the back pockets of my jeans to appear casual.

“Like I was saying,” Jake made an ‘oops’ face, “I’m Darcy. Appreciate y’all being here. It’s gonna be a busy summer and I’ll need the help.”

“I’m Caleb,” from the quieter guy.

“Becca,” from my new potential friend.

I walked them through loading up the four-wheelers with what we’d need for the day and got them out to the orchard.

The sun blazed down from a clear blue sky, making me grateful for my sports bra. The boob sweat was abundant, not that it really mattered. I was out doing farm work, not working in an office. Boob sweat was just an expected occupational hazard in my new life. Still, it was an adjustment to not care about my appearance, particularly after a life where appearance was everything to my fiancé.

Damp mammaries or not, I kept feeling Jake’s gaze on me. Did he recognize me? Was he attracted to me? Was he maybe a creep in a handsome figure? Wouldn’t have been the first time I met that combination. Sometimes the nicer packages came with the least desirable features, like a nasty mean streak or never caring about what I got out of an encounter in the sheets.

At least I knew Jake was a friend of Eli’s, so perhaps he wasn’t too bad.

I met his eyes a few times. I both hoped and didn’t hope that I was imagining the “lion spots prey” hunger in his expression. The thought of it made me doubly sweaty, half for the deliciousness it stirred up inside me and half for fear of what that might mean.

Because was that his kid at the sports bar? Was he taken? In a messy split with someone? And most of all, what were the ethics of me being this guy’s boss? My stomach really turned at that part. Did ethics like those matter for summer farm work?

Even if it didn’t matter on a farm, it mattered for me. I’d been burned before and knew from experience that the man always comes out squeaky clean while the woman is left to clean up the mess of her life.

When it was time to break for lunch, I was all too eager to cool off in the house’s AC and take a breather from the steamy heat and steamier gazes that were going around outside.

* * *

It had only beena few months since I broke off my engagement with Rob. It was a gut-wrenching decision — standing up for myself and what I really wanted deep down. But hard as it was, it was for the best. The more I started doing the math of what a life with him would be like, I just couldn’t stomach it. He loved me, and I didn’t doubt that, but something was always off. He expected me to put everything on hold so that he could succeed, wanting me to be his country club sidekick as he schmoozed his way to the top.

Of course, none of that was ever stated outright. It was assumed.

When he proposed to me when I was 28, I felt relieved. We’d been together for 2 years, which wasn’t really all that long. But we both kind of knew it was altar or bust for us, and I wasn’t quite ready to be done with him when he proposed. If I wanted to see where it could go, I had to accept the embarrassingly large emerald-cut ring and soldier on.

Rob was the last in his family to settle down, but he wasn’t the youngest child. His career had been the most impressive, but Rob was in an intensely competitive race with his 5 siblings. Who could have it all first and most? Who could be the most worthy child?

Money wasn’t an issue. Not only did Rob come from wealth, but his job has no shortage of perks. Half the job was romancing doctors at dinners and flying to Scottsdale or Palm Springs for rounds of golf with surgeons. Sometimes I got to go with him. In the early days, that had been fun and thrillingly sexy. I still looked back fondly on some of those nights we spent together at fancy resorts, even if he’d had more whiskey on his breath than I’d have liked. We couldn’t keep our hands off each other, his ice-blue eyes forever stripping me down to my barest self. He made me feel like I was the sun and he was just a helpless planet drawn to me. But alas, that was only behind closed doors.

He’d be out for long days closing deals, but he’d pay for me to spend the day at the spa or shopping for a dress to wear with the surgeons’ wives. Much to my chagrin, he’d often ask me to get a blowout of my wild ringlets to “look the part.”

“You know I love your curls, baby. It’s just these doctors expect a certain look,” he’d whine, handing me his credit card with puppy dog eyes.

So I got the blowouts, sipped the spa water, got the mani-pedis, sat in the saunas, and eventually shared bottles of rosé with women whose greatest career aspirations were to get up and do the same thing the next day. Not that I could blame them. Who wouldn’t want to be a kept woman whose biggest worry was whether her body would be the same after bearing heirs? Not like there wasn’t an expensive fix for that anyway. To each their own, and I always just hoped those women were happy. It wasn’t the life for me, though.

My job paled in comparison to Rob’s. I generally liked what I did, and the money and insurance weren’t bad. Plus, writing for a bedding company meant I got to try out whatever new sheets came out. I could work from home, or wherever Rob needed me on his arm, pretty much at will.

I was just a girl who liked to write, raised in the mountains of the Kanawha Valley, and born to a deeply West Virginian family. I always had to code-switch around Rob’s family and colleagues, making sure only the “cute” parts of my accent showed. Even though we worked in Raleigh, the accent was a different inflection than what Kanawha County had instilled in me. And anyway, rich people always either talk super sophisticated or like they’re from Savannah (go figure). The Southern accent was more a badge of honor there, a sign of cotillion and golf course breeding, something that came with old money.

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