11. Angie

Chapter 11

Angie

T he orange juice shook in my hand, and I tried to hide it from my parents, who were both fixated on me. Cold scrambled eggs and a half-eaten piece of sausage remained on my plate. They often made breakfast for me for dinner since that was the real start of my day. I wanted nothing more than to crawl back into my bed and sleep for a week.

Medical bills kept arriving in the mail. We would drown in them. Papa had taken the risk of not insuring himself or my mother. He’d kept Jared and I insured while we were kids, and as an adult, I had coverage through the hospital. Of course, after the initial hit of his diagnosis, he’d gotten health insurance, but we still had to foot sixty percent of the cost.

If we didn’t have a good harvest this year, we’d go bankrupt. It was the rhinoceros in the room we never discussed. I picked at the peeling, light-orange finish on our round oak table, a product of the early nineties. Like most of our furnishings in our hundred-year-old farmhouse; it was ‘antique.’

“We’re worried about you, dear,” Mama said, continuing a conversation we had started before my nap. “You can’t keep going like this. Let Remi help you more. Having him feed the chickens is great, but that’s something I can manage.”

She and I both knew she couldn’t do anything aside from care for Papa. She’d given up running the grocery store, turning it over to one of her managers until she found a buyer. If she could make sacrifices, so could I. As independent as Papa desired to be, he couldn’t be left alone.

Remi had proven to be my challenge the entire week and a half since he’d entered my life. He’d managed to let the cows out twice, given the pigs the chicken scratch and the chickens the pig feed, bent the truck’s tailgate when hooking up the cow trailer, and he’d sunk the four-wheeler in the creek.

Even with me having to stop and save Remi from himself, I’d managed to get the last of the fields planted except the corn field. And not a moment too soon, as water was due to start running in a few days. Thankfully, corn didn’t need watering for at least the first month it was in the ground. The hay and winter wheat had been planted last fall. Seed and fertilizer costs exceeded my expectations, but I didn’t have any choice.

With all this on my shoulders, it was no wonder I hadn’t had time to worry about my date with Dan. It was tomorrow, and I hadn’t even had time to practice throwing axes. I got three hours of sleep on the days I worked at the hospital. In the mornings, I planted the fields, then I’d come in for a late lunch and nap before my shift at seven … which didn’t leave much time to do anything else.

“Would they let you go down to part-time, just during the farming season?” Papa asked.

He’d eaten less than usual tonight. Even with the fire raging, he wore his red flannel fleece. I missed Papa’s large belly, as his willowy form seemed out of place at our table of two robust women. The red fabric drowned him. It had holes in it from burning weeds and snags from barbed wire, yet he wouldn’t let us buy him a new one. The jacket was so old, I remembered holding onto it as a little girl while I trailed behind him moving pipe. I treasured those days.

“I’m sure they would, but we need the money.” I stifled a yawn and waited to speak until it passed. “I’m doing okay. I wouldn’t risk my patients’ lives if I thought I was a hazard.”

Mama stood and started clearing the table. “Okay. As long as you promise to take care of yourself, we’ll let you keep working.”

I ground my teeth together. Let me work . Although my parents’ hearts were in the right place, they made comments like this all the time, as if I wasn’t a grown woman. I only lived here with them because Papa needed my help to run the farm—and now I was the one running the whole crap-tastic operation. I threw the rest of the orange juice back down my throat, but it didn’t burn like I wanted it to.

“Mama. What was the point of me going back to school if I don’t work as a nurse?” Walking to the sink, I rinsed my cup and put it in the dishwasher. I started to do the same with my plate and froze.

“Here. Let me do that. I don’t know where we would be without you, Angie darling.” Mama grabbed the plate, but I didn’t let it go.

My focus had shifted to the backyard, where Remi swung the splitting maul high above his head and slammed it down. The log split in two, and he retrieved the pieces, placing them back onto the stump.

The problem was—or possibly as luck would have it—he was doing this … shirtless. The day had been atypically hot for early April. My jaw sagged as the water continued to flow in the sink.

“What are you lookin’ at?” Mama bumped me over so she could see out the small window above the sink too. “Oh.” She shut off the faucet but kept her eyes glued on Remi. “Holy bats.” Mama’s expletive exited her mouth with a soft rush of air, almost inaudible.

I raised her holy bats to holy guacamole … then to a full-on holy shit . This guy actually worked for me? Cords of muscles flexed in unison with Remi’s repeated motion. He surprised me by being proficient at splitting wood since he’d struggled with other simple chores on my list.

His skin glistened in the evening sun, and his muscles were as glorious as Thor’s. If possible, he was even more beautiful than another hot Chris, Chris Hemsworth. Remi was real and in front of me—something I could touch, not just an over-the-top celebrity crush. Heaven only knew I had plenty of those.

I’d already determined Remi, and I could never have a future together with his distaste for marriage and how much he irritated me, but while I was stuck with him, I could still appreciate the view. As much as I hated to admit it, I’d come to admire far more than his looks. First: I respected his dogged determination. Second: his sense of humor, as I doubted he was ever serious. Third—Gah! He even had me making lists in my head.

I stood on my tiptoes to get as close to the window as possible. “Do you suppose I should tell him we have a hydraulic log splitter?”

Mama shook her head with wide eyes. “Why would we do a silly thing like that?”

Remi paused, wiping the back of his hand across his forehead, and glanced in our direction. We ducked to either side of the window, the plate crashing into the sink, cracking in two.

“What was that?” Papa asked from the table.

“Nothing,” I said.

“I dropped a plate,” Mama called to him at the same time.

And then we both peeked out the window at Remi one last time. He’d leaned the splitting maul against the stump, and much to my disappointment, he’d slipped back into his T-shirt. Mama cleaned up the plate while I walked back into the dining room, where Papa was still trying to eat.

He set down his fork and met my gaze. Mama walked into the room, wiping her hands on a towel.

“We’ve decided to hire a nurse to come by every day and take care of me,” he said. “Our insurance will pay for forty percent of the expense, and we’ll be able to pay off the rest with the harvest,” he finished in a rush.

A dark cloud settled over me, and all thoughts of a shirtless Remi fled my mind. More dire issues pressed their way to the forefront.

Mama must not have told him about the other bills coming in. Otherwise, he wouldn’t be doing something so stupid and unnecessary. Years of my life had been devoted to school so I could care for him, and he went and hired someone else anyway.

“I am a trained nurse.” I took the chair opposite him, the words squeezing through the tightness in my chest. “I can take care of you. That’s why I chose to go to nursing school.”

“I won’t have you dumping out my poo bag and emptying my urine any longer. Your mother doesn’t need to be doing that either.” He rubbed his thick white hair. His cancer meds hadn’t made his hair fall out, but they hadn’t saved his life either. “I’d like to go to my grave with a little dignity intact.”

The dripping from the faucet in the kitchen plinked in the sudden quiet. We didn’t talk about his death or his grave. It made it too real. Mama started breathing funny behind me, like she was crying, but I couldn’t look at her, or my floodgates would open before I started my twelve-hour shift.

Runny mascara and red, puffy eyes weren’t welcome in a delivery room. The muscles around my jaw tightened, and I glanced at my watch. One more hour and I’d start my commute to a place where I could make an impact instead of staring at an unconquerable mountain. Nothing I did would keep Papa here longer, yet a part of me still believed a miracle would happen. That he didn’t have cancer.

“I better get going,” I hedged.

“Hold on.” Papa met Mama’s eyes, communicating without words, a superpower gained by thirty-nine years of marriage.

Mama cleared Papa’s plate.

“You’re going to leave without challenging the reigning Farm Frenzy champion?”

Mama returned with a double deck of our custom-made cards. I’d forgotten. Thursday night was family game night, yet I fought the urge to escape the reality of my father’s failing health this minute.

Papa shuffled the cards and gave me his characteristic smirk: eyebrows raised, smile wide, nose scrunched in his grin. “What do you say, Muffin? One game?”

Dagnabbit. I was going to miss him. Shoving the tears from my eyes and voice, I relaxed back in my chair. “Forty-five minutes.”

“Deal.” His grin widened.

Mama gave a little cheer and joined us at the table. The front door opened and closed. We all looked toward the sound.

“It’s just me, Ms. Nora.” Remi’s thick Texas drawl reverberated in our house, sounding foreign. “I’m bringing y’all a stack of wood if you don’t mind.”

“Come on back. Fireplace is in here.”

Our fully clothed, far too good-looking farmhand walked into the room less than a minute later with an armload of wood the size of a small calf, bringing the scent of the outdoors with him. He strode to our wood bin and managed a controlled descent of the logs. Hard as I tried, I couldn’t resist watching his biceps strain against his sleeves.

“You should join us for game night.” Mama’s voice rang out from her mouth at a higher pitch than normal.

I focused my narrowed gaze at her.

“I’m all sweaty.” He gestured to his midsection where sweat darkened his dirty white shirt.

“Nonsense. Deal him in, Tony.” Mama tapped Papa’s shoulder.

Papa stopped shuffling and began dealing four stacks of cards. “You got it.” He lifted his eyebrows at me twice in rapid succession.

I dropped my forehead into my hands. I should have left for work when I had the chance.