23. Remi

Chapter 23

Remi

T he green, hulking, metal machine stood in front of me, waiting to be tamed. I’d driven every recreational machine under the sun, but I hadn’t branched into heavy equipment. Angie kicked at the soil beside me and chewed on her nails.

The dirt rose in the air and blew away in the stiff breeze. A few months before I came here, Myles complained often about the winds. I found them refreshing, not stagnant and filled with car exhaust or heavy fast-food byproducts. My eyes focused past the dissipating dust to the ground, still mostly brown, but it was broken up by tiny bright-green sprigs of—corn? The only way I could identify the plants pushing out of the ground was the location of the fields and the direct connection to helping Angie load the planter with the kernels.

Corn I’d help plant. I left the tractor behind me and crouched near my baby plants. “Look, Angie.” I peeked up at her with what I was sure was a goofy grin and her face softened into a smile. “The little baby corns. They’re growing. ”

I couldn’t describe the pride washing over me as I looked down the rows of green fledgling sprouts. I had a part in their existence. Leaning onto all fours, I put my face right next to the row and brushed my fingers over their delicate leaves. I’d never experienced anything like this.

Angie let a funny laugh out her nose. I was surprised I even got that much of a reaction from her. She tried to stay cold and indifferent with me since seeing the letterhead, but the chemistry between us didn’t budge.

I sat back onto my knees. “What? I had to touch them. They’re so cute.”

Squatting with her elbows on her knees, she joined me. “It never gets old. Watching the miracle of life every season.” She took the delicate leaf between her fingers.

Our knuckles touched, and she jerked her hand away as if she’d been burned. I’d spent more time with this woman than any other, even possibly, my own mother. Yet she’d taken to treating me like a prickly cactus.

I stared into her eyes and licked my lips. Slowly. Deliberately. For the briefest second, she focused on my moistened lips. Yeah. She still wanted me. “I understand why you love doing this. It’s hard work but with such a great reward. I mean you can see your work grow. Not many career fields are like that.”

My eyes followed the arch of her eyebrow. What would it be like to trace its subtle curve with my finger and brush my thumb along her high cheekbones, flushed pink by the wind. My hand would then move to the back of her neck and then I’d pull her close and solve the mystery of what it’d be like to feel the warmth of her full lips beneath mine.

I shook my head. I was a masochist. She literally tortured me from dawn until dusk, and I kept coming back. The only thing I wanted from Angie was her land. Smoot could have her.

“Remi?” She tilted her head, and I recentered my focus, doing my best to ignore her parted lips. “What’s it like to travel?”

I stood and dusted off my knees. My jeans no longer looked new and were now spotted with oil stains and small rips where they’d caught on barbed wire. I turned to go back to the tractor. “Magical. And exhausting.”

Angie caught up to me, placing her hand at my elbow. I paused and stared at where her palm rested on me. The hair on my forearm stood up, chills raised by her simple touch.

“Wait. You have to give me more than that.” Her hand fell away from my arm. “You see. I’ve never left Idaho.”

“For reals?”

“Yeah. Why is that such a surprise? I’m a farmer. I can’t leave.” She folded her arms over her abdomen.

“You want your life to be this way?” Even with the miracle of the plants I’d grown, the desire of owning a massive farm like this flared out within the first twenty minutes of working it. Yet, Angie didn’t know anything different. Life could be so much more than pigpens and chicken coops, or day after day spent dealing with all forms of excrement.

“Yes.”

I believed her answer about as far as I could spit. “Sure, you do. Sounds more like a prison to me.”

“Not all of us have the luxury of being a nomad with a helmet on our backpack.”

I paced toward the tractor but then spun back to face her, ready to call her on her bluff. “If you’re so satisfied with your life, why did you lie to Smoot?”

Her mouth opened and closed without any words coming out. I had her in checkmate.

“And you’re the expert in honesty, huh?”

So, she wanted to go down that road. Okay, Angie. I’ll see your argument and raise you one. “And you’re looking for meaningless sex? I’m sure there are a lot of guys around here you could put a lot less effort into, and they’d give you what you want.”

“You’re awful.” She left me by the tractor and marched back to the truck.

But I wasn’t about to let her off that easily. “What about my tractor lesson? You can forget about dirt biking …”

She stopped. I had her trapped. In a few more weeks, I’d have her maneuvered into a corner, begging me to buy her land. This thought didn’t give me the pleasure it should have. Tearing Angie’s entire life apart was never my intention. Would I be willing to destroy her to make my dreams come true?

“Fine.” She shoved me toward the tractor. “Get in.”

I climbed into the cab. Dirt puffed into the air as I sat on the cloth seat.

“Make sure that level is pulled to the N—that means neutral.”

I laughed. I’d driven a Formula One race car, and here I was being told what the big N meant on the gear shifter. Angie continued to describe all the nobs and symbols to me, taking pleasure in treating me like my brain was a piece of leather not even big enough to saddle a flea.

But when she sat in the small cab on the armrest next to me, I couldn’t focus on anything but my arm grazing her thigh anytime the tractor bounced. Doing her best to avoid all contact, she was coiled as tight as a rattler about to strike. Formula One or not, I kept mixing up the forward and back pedals, giving us both whiplash.

My abysmal driving couldn’t be blamed on me; it was Angie’s fault. Her and her distracting softness, smell-goodness—her absolute lack of patience. She wouldn’t stop talking. Telling me to watch out for this and watch out for that. We traveled at a breakneck speed of five miles per hour, in danger of premature death.

She told me about her expectations of how the tractor was to be parked. Bucket flat on the ground. Gear in neutral. Implement lever on zero. Key off. Words constantly spilled from Angie’s mouth, a habit I’d become accustomed to. Usually, it indicated she was uncomfortable. I took my hand off the wheel, brushing it across her thigh in the process of reaching for the lever that lifted the attachment being drug behind the tractor.

Instead of slowing down her instructions, more words poured from her. “… you’ll want to be comfortable raising the implements behind the tractor while you keep forward progress. The more you keep the tractor moving ahead, the more you get done in a day. I always listen to the radio or something while I’m doing tractor work. Of course, you don’t have to … You can do what you want. As long as it’s not reading … we don’t have those radar automatic …”

She spoke ten words a second with gusts up to fifty. Yet another piece of the Angie puzzle I’d figured out. The tractor bumped back and forth, causing my hand to shift to a higher position on her thigh.

She jerked from me, and our heads cracked together in a particular jostling turn.

“I think I’m done.” Angie pinched the bridge of her nose. “Shut it off.”

I rubbed the side of my head, which had connected with her forehead. I cut the engine and lifted Angie’s chin to see if I’d caused another wound on her eye, praying at the same time there wouldn’t be blood. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

Why did I feel like I’d be saying that again on a much grander scale? The hard edges around her eyes softened under my scrutiny. I carefully shifted her hair from her eyebrow, checking the cut and for any other damage. My rough, tan fingers stood out against her porcelain skin, near flawless in complexion.

The cab grew smaller as I ran my fingers along her forehead and down her cheek. The pulse in her neck picked up pace. It was all I could do not to tilt her head back and … her breaths shortening into smaller gasps gave her away, no matter how she tried to pretend she wasn’t affected by me, no matter how much she pretended to be pissed at me.

Her mouth dropped open, and I couldn’t resist the pull between us any longer. I tugged her close to me and dipped my lips toward her.

But she stopped me with a hand to my chest. “Remi. I … uh … I …” She stammered but didn’t attempt to move.

My lips hovered an inch from hers. Her breath fluttered against my skin. “Am I good to help with cutting the hayfield next week?” I whispered.

“Oh.” She shoved me against the opposite window, snatched the keys, and climbed out of the cab.

“I take that as a yes!” I hollered after her, laughing as she ignored me and stomped the entire way to her truck. Guess I’d be walking back to the house again.