Hatten’s widowed mother had refused to leave the ranch that she and her husband had built. No amount of enticements of travel or city life interested her. But she’d been a quiet woman and she’d needed to get away from her bigger-than-life son and her two energetic grandsons. Burke had built her a cabin about a mile from their main house.
One room and a bath was all she wanted. The windows looked out over the fields with their grazing cattle. After her death, Burke had locked the door and no one used the cabin. Until, as teenagers, Adam and Vera had claimed the place as their own. They’d cleared it of mice and spiders, repaired the leaky roof and used it whenever they could escape their families. If Burke Hatten knew where the teenagers were spending their afternoons, he never let on.
Adam parked to the side of the house. It was a plain little place, with a porch along the front.
They got out, stepped onto the porch, and Adam swept Vera up into his arms. Like a groom carrying his bride over the threshold.
She snuggled her head into his shoulder. So familiar, yet it had been so long that it was almost new.
When he tossed her onto the bed, she gasped, expecting dust to encase her. But it was clean. She raised herself on her arms. The familiar place practically sparkled. The bedsheets felt new. “Is this—?” That was all she said before he fell on top of her.
As they tore at each other’s clothes, Adam said, “Forey,” and she nodded. Fortunata was Vera’s mom’s best friend and she had cleaned the cabin for them.
They made love quickly, waited just minutes, then did so again more slowly. They didn’t say a word until after the second time and Adam fell back on the pillow beside her.
“I should have—” he began.
“Shh,” she said. She knew he meant that he should have used protection. She didn’t want to tell him that she’d started on the Pill weeks ago. She planned to fly to Kenya the minute Kelly graduated and she wanted to be prepared. Since it was barely legal for women to use birth control and the Pill was considered dangerous, she hadn’t told anyone.
Birth control was the last thing she wanted to talk about. What she really wanted to do was jump up and down on the bed and shout, “When do we leave? When do we leave?”
She needed to control herself. She snuggled in his arms, bare bodies pressed together. “How’s Robbie?”
She knew the answer to her question but she wanted to hear Adam’s reply. Actually, she wanted to know what he planned to do about his eighteen-year-old hellion of a brother.
Adam groaned. “I don’t know what Dad was thinking. He created a monster.”
Vera and Adam had a code of honesty between them. They didn’t lie and didn’t hold back. “Your dad blamed himself for your leaving. He told my dad he was too hard on you.”
“So he went soft on Rob?” Adam sounded angry.
“I think so.”
“Dad bought him cars. How many has he wrecked?”
“Two,” Vera said softly. Her hair had come loose. Brushing it aside, she looked at him. “He’s going to college in the fall. Until then he can stay with my mother.” She’d thought a lot about this problem.
“And you think your mother is strong enough to control him? Ha! The way he is now, I wouldn’t want him near your little sister.”
“Kelly will sic a dog on him.” She meant it as a joke but Adam didn’t laugh.
“That won’t work.”
She knew him well enough to know that he had a plan. “What are you going to do?”
He moved her hair aside and kissed her forehead. “I’ve not had time to think about anything much, but I don’t believe Robbie wants to run the farm. He wants to do something in a city. I don’t know what it is, but...” He took a breath. “I need to stay here until he’s in college.” Adam ran his hand through his hair, dark brown but with sun streaks through it. “I need to get back to Kenya. We’re putting in wells and I’ve been teaching classes on crops and—”
She turned to him. “I can help.”
He kissed her. “I want to plan for you, too. I’ve told everyone about you. Showed them your photo.”
Vera began to relax again. Everything was still on. Everything was going to be all right.
“Let me figure this out,” he said. “I’ll get Robbie settled, then...”