the moment.
She withdrew her hand and turned. “Lucia. This is Trooper Harrison. He lives...?” She raised a brow again and made a face. “I have no idea where he lives because I never gave him the chance to say so. Sorry, Officer. This is my stepmother, Lucia McKinney.”
Zach nodded politely. A hint of distrust marked the older woman’s eyes. She swept his uniform a furtive glance, as if she’d had less-than-happy run-ins with police before. That would be something to think about later. “Nice to meet you, Mrs. McKinney.”
“Lucia is fine,” she told him. Her voice, a touch gruff, sounded work-worn. Zach understood that. Farms were life-draining occupations. He’d seen that firsthand, hence the pledge to work somewhere else. A pledge he’d kept from the day he graduated from the academy.
Lucia turned her attention toward Piper. She jutted her chin toward the back. “Chas is grumbling about the new pasteurizer.”
“Of course he is.” Piper offered a bright smile that stopped short of her eyes. The resignation in her gaze made Zach want to have a word or two with Chas.... Whoever he was.
Her expression called to the protector in him. And while this woman’s straight-on gaze said she needed little protection, something in her stature said otherwise.
Piper shifted her focus to Lucia. “Are the girls still in the back room or did they escape again?”
Zach waved toward the door. “That way. With a goat.”
“Ach, those girls!” Lucia flapped her apron in Zach’s general direction, as if it was his fault the two miscreants had performed another vanishing act. The college-age girl behind the counter took care of the next milk customer while Zach shifted his attention back to Piper.
Her expression defined the current chaos as normal. Zach wasn’t sure if that was good or bad, especially where kids were involved, but he remembered some early escapades from his youth on the family farm. And he’d survived.
“Are you here on a case?” Piper interrupted his musings.
“No.”
“Have we done something wrong? Maybe you need milk. Or eggs. Unless you’re waiting for Ada Sammler’s daily baking of bread? It should be arriving any minute.”
He had no idea who Ada Sammler was, and while fresh bread sounded great, he wasn’t about to store bread that would only go moldy in days because his busy schedule meant he wasn’t around often enough to eat it. Even with his father there. Dad wasn’t eating all that much. Another source of concern.
He simply wanted peace and quiet. The sooner the better. “It’s the rooster,” he said again. “Roosters,” he repeated, stressing the plural.
She frowned, not understanding, and waved to a young family as they strode through the doors, then again to an aging couple. “Albert, don’t think for a minute I’m letting you haul jugs of milk to the car on your own,” she scolded, but her grin took the sting out of the reprimand. “You hang on to Edna so we don’t have another broken hip on the prayer roster and we’ll handle the bags, okay?”
The old man smiled, and the peaceful look on his aged face made Zach wish that kind of contentment for his father. But they’d have to find a way to redistribute a wagonload of Marty Harrison’s anger, and Zach had no clue how to do that. You there, God? I’m open to suggestions these days. Not nearly as stubborn as I used to be. If you’ve got any bits of wisdom to throw my way, I’m ready for them.
Piper pulled her attention back to him, and smiled as if what he had to say mattered. The smile almost made him forget his request, she was that engaging. Bright green eyes sparkled beneath thick brows, and her classic athletic look said she stayed in shape to do her job, not just to look good in a dress. Though Zach was pretty sure she’d look great in a dress.
Another rooster crow brought him back on track. “Him. Them.” Zach waved a hand to the right. “I bought the house around the corner on Watkins Ridge, and I need the roosters to quiet down during the day when I’m sleeping.”
She stared at him, then tried to hide a grin by coughing into her hand. “You want quiet roosters? There’s a novelty.”
“I’ve been working nights...”
“Close your windows.”
Brilliant idea, except for the extreme summer temperatures. “Too hot,” he shot back.
“Get a fan. Install air-conditioning.”
“A room air conditioner blocks sound. That’s not safe. And I’ve got hot-water baseboard heat, so installing central air would be crazy expensive.”
She tapped a finger to her jaw, contemplating him. “Let me get this straight. You want the roosters to be quiet because you can hear them, but you don’t want to install a room air conditioner to block the noise of the roosters because then you can’t hear things. Right?”
Okay, it sounded preposterous put that way, but essentially, yes. He wanted to be able to hear a home invader, so the idea of a noisy air cooling unit wasn’t on his list. But he didn’t want to hear annoying birds that refused to respect his backward sleeping habits. “Kind of.”
She threw him a bright smile that said “conversation over” and started to back away. “I’ve got a cutting of hay to bale and get pulled in before this afternoon’s possible thunderstorm, so Zach―” she raised her index finger to her cap and tipped the brim in a gesture of respect “―I’m going to take what you said seriously right after I get in acres of forage, oversee the afternoon milking and pray this drought doesn’t ruin an entire year’s corn crop or I’ll be feeding cows with nonexistent funds. I’ll be doing that while keeping two little girls alive although they seem determined to tempt fate, running a busy dairy store, and keeping a neat and tidy farmhouse. I may or may not be lying about that last one.” She turned and strode away, but not without one more parting shot. “Sleep well.”
Grudging respect rivaled frustration for his sleep-deprived emotions. He had sounded somewhat absurd, and she wasn’t afraid to call him on it. And the teasing grin she sent over her shoulder as she walked away was a look that said she’d be looking forward to “round two.”
That was enough to make him eager, too. Right until the roosters let loose again, reminding him that in nine short hours he’d be back at work. He’d really like to spend half a dozen of that sleeping.
* * *
Piper dragged herself into the house just before nine that night. Lucia rose from a side chair as Piper slipped through the back screen door. She bustled to the kitchen, a fast-moving woman despite her wide girth. “You go wash. I’ll warm supper.”
“I can handle it, Luce. Sit down. Relax. You work every bit as hard as I do. I don’t need you to wait on me.”
“I’m older and bossier,” the middle-aged woman shot back. “Therefore I give orders in the house. You give them on the farm.” She lifted her shoulders in a gesture of agreement. “And we share bossing people in the store and the dairy. It works, no?”
“It does.”
Piper climbed the creaky stairs. The thought of fresh-smelling cotton pajamas called to her, but first she peeked at the
