standing at the edge of a newly plowed field. She was a distance away, which gave him time to assess her and the monster dog Dave had mentioned, which hugged her side as she approached.
If she was the current property owner, she was younger than Adam had expected. Slender and willowy, she had a fresh-scrubbed face capped by curly hair, black as a moonless night sky. As shiny and black as her dog’s coat. And her gardens were more extensive than he’d pictured.
What gave him the biggest start was seeing she had young children working in raised dirt beds. Did she employ child labor?
The sound of laughing youngsters hit him like a punch to his gut. The kids looked to be about the age his daughter Lindy would be.
Last month she would have turned seven.
* * *
MOLLY STOPPED WELL short of the man seated astride his motorcycle like a cowboy sat his horse. Up close he looked big and brash in his threadbare jeans and motorcycle boots.
Edging nearer, she saw her own hesitant self in mirrored sunglasses he had yet to remove and she shivered. He held a helmet, wearing a narrow red, white and blue headband that held back taffy-blond hair curling around his ears and collar. He reminded her of a young Brett Michaels, and that wasn’t a bad image.
“I’m Molly McNair. May I help you?” She watched him unsnap a pearl button on the breast pocket of a blue Western-style shirt. She blinked as he extended a piece of paper.
The action was enough to make Nitro do something he’d never done before. He jerked his leash right out of Molly’s grasp and bounded up to the Harley.
She made a grab for him and missed. The next thing that happened was more shocking.
The man, who had yet to identify himself, stripped off his sunglasses with one hand and reached down with the other, murmuring soothingly until the dog dropped to the ground. Nitro rolled onto his back and wriggled in the dirt as the man laughed and scratched his exposed belly.
Molly’s jaw dropped. Impressed but wary, she crossed to the biker and took back her traitorous pet’s leash. It was then she saw the paper that had fluttered from the man’s hand. Her ad, torn from the newspaper. Bending, she picked it up.
“I came about the driver’s position.” The biker twirled his sunglasses by one arm. “Has the job been filled?”
Molly’s cell phone rang and she answered it before replying. It was Henry. He’d seen the man ride down the lane. “Are you okay?” he asked. “I’m two minutes away.”
“I’m fine. He’s an applicant for the job. Yes, I see you at the barn now. Good. I need to get back to the students. I’ll leave you to give him an application.”
“Okay.” Henry disconnected.
“My manager, Henry Garcia, has applications in the barn office.” She gestured toward the children in the field. “My class awaits.”
“By the way, I’m Adam Hollister,” the man said. He bent and gave Nitro a last few head rubs before climbing off the bike and striding toward where Henry waited.
Molly silently watched him leave. He certainly looked as if he could stand up for himself.
For the farm.
Still, she wondered about the newcomer. Adam Hollister. His eyes, more gray than blue, had roamed over her with disturbing ease. Unless that was her imagination...
Certainly the way he’d made friends with Nitro left her feeling jittery.
She wasn’t one to be smitten by the way a man looked. She’d grown up around good-looking cowboys. And she’d worked with a wide range of men in the Peace Corps.
Nothing had quite piqued her curiosity or affected her equilibrium as quickly as this brief encounter with Adam Hollister.
MOLLY WAVED GOODBYE to the children and teachers who’d loaded onto the school bus. For their first day at the farm they’d accomplished an amazing amount of work.
When she had first approached two elementary schools with her idea, she hadn’t expected immediate support. In her nine years with the Peace Corps she’d come to accept that every request got bogged down in tedious bureaucracy. So she’d gone to the initial school meeting armed with proof that programs of the type she proposed were successful in other areas, including in urban settings where kids grew flowerpot gardens.
Surprisingly she had found a dedicated staff already deeply worried about an excess of poverty-stricken families. She’d only had to mention that kids loved to eat what they grew and the principals and their staff were all in. In addition to arranging to transport third-graders out to her farm once a week, teachers at all grade levels asked if she might provide fresh vegetables for their Backpack Fridays, where they sent every child home with a backpack filled with foodstuffs. For some it was all they’d have to eat over the weekend.
Of course she’d agreed. But the meeting had opened her eyes to how many families in her area were in need. She hadn’t expected to hear that US families ever went without food. In truth, she’d like to give away everything she raised, but that wasn’t possible. She needed to sell enough to make ends meet and to pay her workers. She was still dipping into her savings and her dad’s insurance.
The bus stopped at the end of the lane, waiting for the automatic gate to open. After it drove out Molly watched the gate close again. She stood there thinking back to the other day when the man from some oil company had parked on the main road and hiked onto her land.
A closed gate couldn’t keep somebody out if they really wanted to get in.
She shivered.
Henry was probably right in saying the whole perimeter should be fenced. But fencing was costly. And what about the land sloping to the river? She irrigated from there. Yes she had seen people cross the river who shouldn’t. Her dad’s philosophy and that of her grandfather’s had been to live and let live. She did the same.
Now that the children were gone, she unhooked Nitro’s leash. He never roamed far from her side, but he liked being free to sniff out a rabbit or two.
“Come on, boy. I need to go to the barn to look at the latest application.” The man who’d ridden in on the motorcycle.
As she made her way to the office Molly wasn’t sure she should hire Adam Hollister, even if he ticked all the boxes. Something about him had thrown her off balance. It went beyond how easily he’d won over her dog—her supposed guard dog.
Revisiting the impression the man had left brought him squarely back into focus.
At thirty-two she could count on one hand the men who’d stirred her. A fellow Ag student in college. He’d changed his major to computers, eloped with his high school sweetheart and gone on to make his mark at IBM.
The other had been a doctor volunteering in Kenya while he did advanced studies on jungle fevers. She’d thought they’d had a future until a female physician had showed up to work as part of Molly’s extended team. Mark Lane, MD, had broken her heart when he and Penelope Volker, having snagged twin fellowships
