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Just like yesterday they walked out to the old barn, but today Sunny ran with them for most of the distance—and then he’d dash off again. Sometimes he’d bring Zach a stick to throw, but most of the time he just seemed to be checking in before he ran off again. Grass crunched under her boots and Lucy pulled in a deep breath. The rain had left the air fresh, smelling of damp grass.
Inside the barn, Lucy picked up a pitch fork with worn tines. She headed down to the other end of the barn to bed down the stalls with fresh straw. They worked well past the morning hours. The day heated and Lucy pulled off the long-sleeve tee, leaving herself only in a white wife-beater. Sweat trickled down her back and dampened her forehead. She hummed one of the songs that Charlie had been singing this morning, but that didn’t drown out the awareness of Zach.
He stripped down as well, pulling off his shirt to leave his skin bare to the sun. Oddly enough, he didn’t have the usual farmer’s tan of bronzed arms and neck, and pasty everywhere else. Instead, he looked a little pale all over, as if he didn’t really get out in the sun all that much. Had he been ill? She couldn’t believe that, not with muscles like his—and she didn’t see any scars. The mystery behind the man was starting to get to her.
Around noon—at least Lucy figured it had to be close to that with the sun overhead—Zach called out, “Break time. Come and cool down.”
She came out of the barn to see him sitting on a bale of straw. He still had his shirt off and his Stetson pushed back on his head. Lucy took in those long, jeans-clad legs and all that bare skin and her mouth dried.
He glanced up, held up a bottle of water, and asked, “What?”
Shaking her head, she took the water from him. “Nothing. You just look more like one of those ads—you know the ones that are selling image and some kind of outdoorsy cologne.”
Instead of laughing, he grimaced. “Ads—never believe ‘em. Most of it’s lies anyway.”
“Most of it.” She grinned. “Not all.”
He patted the bale next to him. “I think a few folks try to hang onto their integrity.”
She sat and stretched her legs out into the sun. “So you know about advertising then?”
“Enough to know this is better.” He waved a hand out at Charlie’s farm. “Land, sun, sky—these are real. Don’t you feel more alive out here?”
Reaching up, she plucked a straw from his hair. “I think I’m going to feel my aching back tomorrow. This barn’s big enough to hold twice the number of horses you have with room left over for hay, a few pigs and a couple of dairy cows.”
He smiled. “That what you’d like to see here?”
She tipped her head to the side. “Just what’s your story, Zach Collins? You seem to know your way around a farm—most of the time. But to really work this place you need a crew—a dozen hands or so. Are you playing at being a cowboy?”
Pulling off his hat he slapped some of the dust off it and settled it on his knee. “You want to trade questions? Why not tell me what’s up with you and that black car that came by yesterday?”
She looked out at the fields. “It’s late in the year to be getting a crop in.”
“Oh, there’s time. A couple of months at least—and you don’t want to talk about your past any more than I do it seems.”
She glanced at him. “Guess we all have things we’d rather not air in the light of day.”
“And what about nights? Do you have bad dreams or good ones, Lucy?”
She shook her head and stood. “We all have dreams, too.”
He stood as w
ell and faced her. Taking one hand in his, he asked her, “What do you dream of, Lucy?”
“Oh, simple things—you’d think them foolish.”
“Would I?”
She nodded. “Good land... a good man to work it. I’m not looking for much.”
“You’re not looking for gold.”
Head tipped, she stared at him. “Oh—you’re thinking of what Maggie said. No, I’m no gold digger. I know better. Most gold out there’s fool’s gold—nothing but a lie, like those ads we were talking about. But...well, it’s hard to get by in this life without money.” She stared at him. “I expect you know about that.”
“Better than you may think. But money’s not everything.”
She kept watching him, trying to see past the smooth answers to what might be underneath. “Zach Collins, I know your type. You’ll come...and you’ll leave again. You’re the drifting type.”
