AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Do what?” she inquiries, trying to look innocent. It may work form some, especially the men around town, but I’ve been given that look for years and it stopped working after the first dozen times.
“That sneaky shit. Can’t you make your presence known?”
She laughs at my answer. “It’s my special power.” She replies in her villain voice. “Muh-ha-ha-ha-ha,” she starts the ridiculous laugh, but we both end up in fits of laughter.
“No seriously,” Dani starts, “what were you talking about when I walked in?”
I roll my eyes at her and take a seat at the kitchen table with my coffee. “My mom, she did it again. Signed me up for some Christmas charity for the town. Something about me being an elf for Santa at the Christmas festival downtown.”
I get she is over a lot of the activities for the town since she works directly with the Mayor. But just because they expect her to be at these events does not mean that I want to be dragged to them. Usually she checks to see if I’m available, but this time she signed me up and took me off the schedule for one of the days I was supposed to be working at the family farm. It’s one thing to mess with my spare time, but to mess with my ability to make extra money pisses me off.
“When is the festival?” Dani questions, looking over my head at the wall—something she does when she is deep in thought. “Wait, that’s this weekend. Aren’t you working at the farm?”
“Ding, ding, ding. And the prize goes to the lady in red,” I tell her, pointing my finger at her obnoxious, ugly Christmas sweater. “Apparently, I have to meet everyone Friday afternoon to go over our jobs and clothes.” I raise my eyebrows at her as I take in her outfit from head to toe. “Hopefully, I look better than you do,” I tell her with a smirk.
She stands with her hand on her hip and poses like she is the next Miss America. With one foot in a green converse and the other in a red converse, her outfit already gives me a headache. The black dress pants are the only thing normal in her outfit. The red ugly sweater has silver tinsel thread through every opening of the cable knit. Her brown hair is pulled back in a ponytail with an antler headband keeping her loose hairs intact.
“When I come home with that fifty-dollar gift card, you’ll change your tune.” She tells me as she fills up her travel mug and grabs her lunch from the fridge. “Later, chick. Gotta run, see you tonight.”
She’s out the door before I can reply. While Dani heads into her job at the local credit union, I clean up the kitchen and prepare myself to confront my mom. I know she means well, but she doesn’t understand that I don’t want to be involved. It’s just not for me. Let me be on the outside, looking in. I don’t want to be involved in all the town’s outings and functions. I get enough of that from my day job as an elementary teacher. On my time off, I’d rather be out at the family farm, working in the barn and out in the fields.
With everything put away, I head outside, lock up the first-floor apartment I share with Dani, and climb into my car. The wind whips my blonde ponytail here and there as I make the trek across town to my family farm.
The fifteen minute drive gives me plenty of time to have imaginary conversations between me and mom. Stuck in my head, I make the drive on autopilot as I contemplate the different ways the impeding discussion can go.
I pull into the driveway and pass the white farmhouse where I grew up and continue down the side driveway. Taking a left at the fork in the path and parking next to the first barn. I see dust settling down the other drive and know that mom has headed that way to clean out the cabin that was rented for the last few days.
Years ago, Mom had the idea of turning the far side of the property into a side job. She had five cabins built and started to rent them out to tourist. You wouldn’t think that many people would be interested in visiting our small Georgia town, but with our proximity to the Blue Ridge Mountains, there is hardly a time that we don’t have a rented unit.
The rumble of four-wheelers approaching has me turning around and watching to see who is approaching. With my hand on my forehead shading my eyes from the blazing sun, I watch as three blurry dust clouds speed forward. The dust settles slowly, revealing two of my brothers, Jake and Damien, and James, Jake’s long-time friend and ranch hand.
They slow as they get closer, and I walk forward to meet them. For them to be coming in this early tells me one of two things: they either didn’t have much to check today, or something has gone wrong.
Dirt flies as Jake comes to a halt in front of me and dismounts. “You got a minute?” He hollers over the other engines while he turns his off.
“Sure, what’s up?” I answer on instinct. Something in his tone tells me that this is not a time to play around.
“Follow me,” he instructs as he turns and walks into the barn. When Damien and James turn off their engines, the only sound left is the thud of boots on the concrete floor.
I rush to follow him to the back of the barn, while Damien and James head to the side of the barn and begin the gathering fencing and posts. In the back stockroom, I find Jake loading up the additional things he needs. He throws me a pair of gloves and a flannel shirt from the hook by the door. “Fence down?”
“Yeah, and a fourth of the herd is through the fence. Ben and Dad are trying to wrangle them back.”
“Where?” There are only a few spots that would cause much concern if the herd got through the fence. Most of the time, a fence down is not this time sensitive since the area where the herd escapes to is just another pasture that we use for them.
“Back corner,” Jake replies.
“Shit,” that’s one place we don’t want a downed fence. The back corner he refers to is where our property ends and the Phillips property begins. “Ben and Dad should have them back in the fence by the time we get back there,” I mutter to myself as I follow behind Jake and help strap things down on the four wheelers.
Ben is my oldest brother and the one that will take over the farm once Daddy is ready to hand it down. It’s always been him, and he wants it. Something that my other brothers and I aren’t as committed to. Jake and Damien love the farm just as much, but they have their own jobs and we all have interests that occupy our time.
Jake and Damien take off as James starts his engine. He looks over at me and gives me his grin. The grin that brings me to my knees and I think he knows that fact, but plays it off. “You coming?” he yells.
“Yeah,” I answer just as loud.
“Hop on, Holls. We got cattle to save.”
2
