Not on Her Own

“I thought…” Penelope frowned.

“I’m taking a shortcut. This comes out near my uncle’s—your land.” The correction ate at him. He forced himself to be civil and polite. “What brings you here?”

“Well, the land, of course. I’d found the house, oh, ages ago, on the Internet, believe it or not. It came from North Georgia, and the owners were selling it cheap to anyone who would move it. But I needed a square of dirt to put it on.”

Square of dirt? Thirty acres of the best cropland on this side of the county was more than a “square of dirt.”

“And you’re originally from…?”

“Portland, Oregon. You know, I can’t get over how flat everything is here. No peaks. No mountains. No hills, even. But the pine trees look like home.”

“Oregon, huh? What, you hear about the land on the Internet or something?” Brandon’s curiosity got the better of him. He’d tried, without success, to dig up information on Langston Holdings and the people behind it.

Never in a million years would he have thought the people behind it would be just this slip of a woman.

“Oh, no. Family.” She didn’t offer more in the way of explanation, instead pointing. “Look! They’re turning in! Wow! Oh, I want to get another picture!”

He turned back onto the paved road and parked on the shoulder. “Well, uh, where are they putting the house? They’re not putting it there, are they? They’re putting it farther back, right?”

She paused in the act of opening the car door. “Yeah. That’s the prettiest spot on the whole thirty acres. Why? Do you know something I don’t? It’s not wetlands. I checked it out. And, see, there’s a rise, but it’s not high on a hill.”

“That’s the best part of the tract, the most fertile. Heck, we didn’t even have to put half the fertilizer on that section that we did on the rest.”

“You worked for Grandpa Murphy?”

His head snapped around from his view through the windshield. “ Grandpa? You mean Richard Murphy? You’re related to Richard Murphy?”

“Of course. That’s how I knew about the land. He’s my mother’s dad.” Penelope hopped out of the car. She ducked her head back in. “And anyway, as far as the land’s fertility goes, it doesn’t really matter. I mean, can you see me farming?”

Her laugh bubbled up, rich and throaty. The double whammy of the day left him numb to it.

It was bad enough Penelope was indifferent about putting something as permanent as a house on the best farming land in the area.

But to find out she was the granddaughter of the guy who’d forced Uncle Jake off his land?

She slammed the door and crossed the pastureland. The breeze caught the skirt of her sundress and with each step the heels of her shoes dug into the earth.

Two years ago, Brandon had planted soybeans here, soybeans that had produced double what the rest of his uncle’s farm had produced. Now, danged if he didn’t see a pine seedling or two popping up out of the ground. Another two years lying fallow, and this land would be a piney thicket.

Suddenly the confines of the patrol car closed in on him. He had a good job, sure. He liked being a deputy, helping people.

So what if it wasn’t farming? So what if most days he spent writing out speeding tickets along the interstate and the only time he felt the wind in his face and the sun on his back was when he was changing some traveler’s flat tire? So what if the only thing he grew these days was the odd tomato plant on the excuse of a back deck he had at his apartment? He was hardly there, anyway. He spent so much of his time off at Uncle Jake’s. Probably he should give up the cramped little place altogether.

Being a deputy paid the bills, right? It took care of Uncle Jake, and Lord knows Uncle Jake didn’t have two cents to rub together these days.

Face it. This farming gig was just a pipe dream. You’re thirty. It’s time to grow up, put away childish things.

Brandon blew out a sigh and heaved himself from the cruiser to cross the field he’d once plowed.

Penelope stopped short of where the transfer truck was backing across the roughed-in driveway the county had put in. She stretched out her arms and spun around. “My dream! Dirt and a house! I’ve finally got dirt and a house!”

CHAPTER TWO

P ENELOPE GRITTED her teeth and stretched to reach a huge glob of glazier’s putty from the window. The distance between the top of the ladder and the far edge of the pane seemed insurmountable.

If she were normal height, with normal legs and normal arms, this job would be a piece of cake.

Aaargh. If God wanted me to be short, why didn’t He at least give me elastic arms?

Penelope set her jaw. She would not quit.

Just think: do this, and you’re done with the windows. Two weeks here, and you’ve got the house livable. Before you know it, you’ll get your studio up and you can start on your project. Just think. In two months, she’d have fifty grand, and she could hire someone to finish up the house. She could do this. She could prove them all wrong, Mom, Dad, everybody who said this was nothing but a fantasy.

Her pep talk gave her that last, vital half-inch of stretch.

“Hey! You’re gonna fall!”

Startled, Penelope screeched and nearly did fall. The tube of putty careened off the ladder, along with the caulking gun. Her putty knife fell to the ground, where a million blades of grass and a couple clods of red Georgia clay stuck to the sticky white putty she’d just saved.

Penelope spotted the cause of the upset: the grouchy deputy, this time sans uniform. He wore jeans, paired with a cotton tee that showed off his chest in a way that his browns hadn’t. And now that he was without the Smoky Bear hat, she could see that his dark brown hair was clipped short.

“Didn’t mean to scare you. Brandon Wilkes. I was the deputy who—”

“Yes, I remember you. Sorry. I don’t usually startle that easily, but I didn’t hear you.”

“You were busy applying that putty. Need a hand?”

“I think I’ve got it. It’s high back here.”

Brandon put his hands on his narrow hips and surveyed the bungalow. “You’ve had a lot done to the place in the past week or so.”

“I’ve done most of it myself. Except, of course, for the foundation and the roof. The movers put a pier foundation under the house, and I hired a roofer.”

Penelope climbed down from the ladder and joined him. She inspected the house, ticking off the progress she’d made. A new foundation, a new roof to replace the old one messed up by the move, electricity and well pump hookup, new locks.

The house was still in sore need of a paint job, but the pressure washing had improved the looks of the house immensely. A thousand more jobs awaited her.

“I—my uncle lives next door, just up the road. I figured I’d check up on you.” Brandon grimaced. “I mean, check in on you. To see if you needed any help.”

Penelope decided his slip was Freudian. Since when did grouches with badges offer assistance? She started to say something snarky about being perfectly capable of looking after herself. She stopped short, though. Maybe she should give him the benefit of the doubt. This was the South, she reminded herself. After bouncing around big, impersonal cities like L.A. and New York, that would take her some time to get accustomed to.

“Thank you.”

“I would have called…but I couldn’t find a listing for you.”

“I haven’t bothered with a landline yet. I have a cell phone.”

“You really need a landline. Our E-911 system doesn’t pick up the location of cell phones. A woman like yourself, living alone out here…” Brandon trailed off. His attention dropped to her bare left hand. “I mean, I guess you’re living alone out here.”