Radclyffe - Homestead

The puffs of smoke from the diesel engines, the distant whine of heavy machinery, and the occasional rumble of male voices on the wind were foreign to the usual chorus filling her days. She sometimes felt as if an invading army had camped on her land while she waited behind flimsy barricades for the first volley to sail overhead and shatter the harmony of her life.

She feared the peace she might lose could never be reclaimed, and yet could think of no other course to take. She’d told Clay she would trust her and fretted she might have been a fool to think she could. She hadn’t spoken to Clay except in a brief phone conversation two days after the dinner where they’d declared a temporary truce. Clay had confirmed she would be bringing her crew that day, and they’d been at it all week since. Clay had been polite on the phone, completely professional and carefully distant, and Tess hadn’t known how to ask her if she’d recovered from the hit-and-run.

She heard the distinctive roar of a motorcycle engine most mornings and saw Clay’s Harley parked at the foot of the hill, but Clay didn’t pull up to her porch in a spray of gravel and grit the way she once had, offering her a spin into the freedom of the road. Whatever fragile personal connection they’d forged hadn’t lasted beyond the dinner they’d shared. She’d made it clear she hadn’t wanted anything more, and apparently Clay had heard her.

She should have been happy about that, and she was—or she would be, if the nagging sense of something missing would stop plaguing her. The only thing missing in her life was rain.

Annoyed with her annoyance, Tess turned her back on the activity on the hillside and looked out over the fields as she did almost every hour, as if expecting to see something different. The crops were browner every day, and her feed reserves were growing slim. If she had to supplement by buying feed, she’d need to cull the herd after a few weeks. She simply didn’t have the money to feed the number of cattle she had, and she’d have no choice but to slaughter the cows near the end of their fertility cycle or those who didn’t produce as much milk as others. She’d lose all the way around if it came to that—dairy cows didn’t bring as high a price as beef cattle when slaughtered, their muscle mass being proportionately less, and she’d lose the milk that she would have profited from as well.

Tess sighed and leaned her head against the porch post, wondering if perhaps she ought to consider the rain dance Cliff had suggested. Out of better ideas and not quite ready to bare her behind to the moon, she turned to go back inside and stopped when she saw a black open-topped ATV barreling down the slope toward the house. Ella pulled up a minute later and jumped out.

“Busy?” Ella called, somehow looking fashionable in jeans, ankle-high black boots, and a tan linen jacket over a white T-shirt. Her hair was caught back and clipped at the base of her neck, accentuating the long elegant lines of her face. Despite the heat, she looked cool and, as always, calmly confident.

“I suppose I should pretend to be doing something,” Tess said, motioning Ella up to the porch, “but all the pressing work is done and the heat is making me as lazy as my cows. How about you?”

“The crew has another day or two up there, and while the view is beautiful, I think I’ve had enough of it for a while. I was wondering if you’d like to have lunch?”

Tess’s immediate reaction was to say no, her usual response to personal invitations. But watching Ella watch her out of friendly eyes—beautiful eyes—Tess couldn’t think of a reason to say no and several to say yes. Ella had an openness about her that made Tess feel safe—and a directness that made her feel like Ella was totally focused on her. That she was beautiful was a bonus, and as Ella slowly smiled, Tess registered a warm stirring that was a pleasant surprise. Impulsively, she said, “Lunch would be great.” She hesitated, took a breath, and decided to be daring. Everything in her life was so carefully calculated and controlled—the farm budget, the milking-feeding-vetting schedule, the planting and harvesting schedule. For once, she wanted to just follow her urge. “In fact, if you’ve got time for more than just lunch, we could drive up to the lake. Ever been?”

“No,” Ella said, and the golden timbre of her voice was like honey rippling over Tess’s skin.

“My friend Leslie has been asking me to come up, and it might even be cooler up there. Of course, if you don’t—”

“I think it’s a great idea.” Ella glanced at her watch. “Let me make arrangements and we’ll go. Say, half an hour?”

Tess nodded, refusing to second-guess her decision. Ella awakened a spirit of adventure she’d lost, and Ella didn’t scare her deep down inside the way Clay did. She might lose herself to Clay, but Ella she could trust. The excitement felt good, and maybe she’d even be able to forget about those dark lumbering metal beasts tearing up her land, and the woman who’d brought them. “Yes. That would be perfect.”

* * *

“Kelly will stay on-site and drive you back when you’re finished,” Ella said, “if you’re good with that.”

Clay pulled off her navy ball cap and wiped her forehead on the sleeve of her once-white cotton shirt. Clean that morning, it was streaked with dirt, sweat, and machine oil. “I told you to take the day off—you didn’t even need to come over here this morning. Believe me, I’m safe from cows and wildlife. Besides, Kelly is more than enough help if I need any.”

Ella didn’t bother explaining for perhaps the five hundredth time that being out in the field, even a literal field, was infinitely preferable to sitting around a hotel or even a charming bed-and-breakfast, waiting for a meeting to end or a protectee to decide he or she wanted to go to a movie. She’d had plenty of that endless waiting during her time in the Secret Service. Part of what she liked about this job was the fluid schedule, and the chance to be where she wanted, when she wanted, as long as Clay had adequate protection. Once Kelly had arrived from New York City and Clay’d started working on Tess’s property, keeping watch over both Tess and Clay on the outside chance someone would try to threaten them was a simple matter. Tess rarely left the farm, and when she did it was usually for a quick trip to the Agway or the country store, and Kelly easily followed her at a distance. Ella, perched in one of the ATVs with her iPad, stayed with Clay. No one had seemed particularly interested in what the crew was doing on Tess’s farm, and nothing out of the ordinary had happened since Clay’s accident. Maybe it was just an accident and whoever had been involved had run off to avoid an entanglement with the law. Maybe. But Ella was paid to be suspicious and on guard, and she couldn’t risk another incident in which Clay or Tess might be injured.

“I should be back by this evening,” Ella said. “If—”

“It’s your day off,” Clay said again. “You don’t need to be back until tomorrow morning.” She grinned. “In fact, if I were you, I’d try very hard not to be back until lunch tomorrow. I hope you’ve got something more interesting planned than watching them set up for the balloon festival in the morning.”

Ella smiled. “Actually, I’m getting a guided tour of Lake George.”

Clay’s expression shuttered closed. “Oh? Who’s the guide?”

“Tess,” Ella said.

“Tess.” Clay glanced from Ella down the hillside toward the farmhouse. A few seconds passed, and Clay jumped into the cab of a small backhoe they used to clear scrub before taking a core sample. “Well, she’ll be a great guide.”

“I didn’t think that would be a problem,” Ella said slowly, keeping her voice down so those around them wouldn’t hear. The day after Clay and Tess had had dinner, Clay had explained they’d known each other in the past but hadn’t kept in touch. She’d made it sound as if they were old friends and nothing more, and Ella had been glad. They were likely to be here three or four months, and Tess was intriguing. “Because if I’m misreading—”

A muscle in Clay’s jaw jumped. “Ella, you asked Tess out. Presumably, she said yes.”

“That’s right.”

“Then that’s between the two of you, isn’t it.”

Ella respected Clay, more than respected her, liked her very much, and there was more to the story than Clay had told her. All the same, she had no reason not to take Clay at her word, that Clay and Tess had no current relationship. “Okay. I’ll have my cell if you need me. Kelly will—”

“Go, Ella.” Clay started the engine, the grinding gears nearly obscuring her words. “I’m fine.”

Ella didn’t argue. She wanted to spend time with Tess and didn’t think she was mistaken about the interest she’d seen in Tess’s eyes.

Tess ended the call and slid the phone into the pocket of her blue and yellow plaid shorts. “Leslie said they’re at her parents’ lodge—about five miles up on the right. Her parents are out of town for the weekend, and Leslie and Dev are watching the place. You’re sure this is okay?”

“It’s beautiful up here,” Ella said, smiling over at Tess. “I can’t believe how undeveloped it still is. And I’m looking forward to meeting your friends.”

Tess looked out the window as Ella drove north on the twisting two-lane road skirting the west side of the lake. Once past the village of Lake George proper, bordering the extreme southern end of the thirty-six-mile-long lake, the tourist areas quickly gave way to less crowded stretches of lakeside homes, cottages, and lodges. Intermittent breaks in the pine forest allowed teasing glimpses of the wide lake with its deep blue waters and hundreds of islands. The temperature was easily fifteen degrees cooler than it had been at home, and the air smelled of wind, water, and pine. Tess’s heart ached at the timeless familiarity. “It never seems to change.”

Ella glanced away from the road for a second, her gaze sliding over Tess with gentle warmth. “Do you spend a lot of time up here?”

“I worked at Leslie’s parents’ most of one summer,” Tess said. “The place we’re going now.”

“Did you live there too?”

“Yes, along with a couple of other girls. We’d just graduated from high school. It was pretty exciting at the time.”

“I can imagine. Just out of school, alone in a place like this—oh yeah.”

“You sound like you would have enjoyed it.” Tess grinned.

Ella’s expression changed and the calm composure drifted into sadness. “I probably would have. My father died suddenly the summer after high school, so I don’t remember a whole lot before I finally looked around and I was in college.”

“Oh, Ella. I’m so sorry.” She brushed Ella’s bare arm. “That’s so hard.”

“Thanks. It was pretty awful—he was a great guy, a fireman. It was on the job—” Ella cleared her throat and her features lightened as she breathed in slowly. “I was lucky to have had him for a dad.”

Waiting for the sadness to drift away on the breeze, Tess finally said, “Well, I was a little too green to really take advantage of being up here, and working too damn hard, but I managed.”

Ella laughed softy. “Is this where you met Clay?”

Tess tensed. Ella was very perceptive and maybe Clay had told her more about their past than she thought. “Yes. How did you know?”

“Just a guess. Clay doesn’t talk very much about her past, but I know once she graduated from Stanford, she hit the ground running with NorthAm. I don’t think she’s stopped for a real vacation since.” Ella slowed for a long line of motorcycles pulling out of a roadside tavern. “Since the company doesn’t have any interests up this way—or didn’t use to—I just assumed she’d met you during college.”

“Before that. Right before…she left.”

“You two do go back a ways.”

“So long ago, I don’t really know her anymore.” Tess tried to keep her tone light. She didn’t want to discuss Clay or the past with Clay’s colleague. Especially this afternoon, when what she wanted to do most was escape the activity up on the hill behind the house and the constant wondering if one of the figures etched against the sky was Clay.

“I suppose none of us really changes too much, do we?”

“I hope you’re wrong.” Tess smiled wryly. “I hate to think I’ll keep repeating my mistakes.”

“I don’t think we’re destined to repeat ourselves over and over again, but who we are at the core?” Ella shrugged. “I’m not sure we can do much about that except maybe make better choices when faced with similar situations.”