Chapter One

"I wish I could go, John. But the Rothchild account's taking up so much time these days, I just can't," Phillip Anderson said, looking out his 37th story window onto the Chicago skyline as the phone dangled at his ear. "I know it's important, but now's just not good for me. Can't you go? … Yeah, I know…" He closed his eyes and sighed heavily. "Okay. Well, I'll see what I can do. Yeah, I'll get back to you… I will. 'Bye."

The phone hit the cradle with a clang, and Phillip shook his perfectly-groomed head before looking across the expanse of desk into the questioning eyes of his son, Jaxton, who sat with pen poised, listening.

"Bad news?" Jaxton asked indifferently.

His father swiped the glasses off his face and frowned. "It's your grandfather again."

Grandfather Snyder. During the past two months more than one conversation about him had bounced across the phone lines between Jaxton's parents in Chicago and Uncle John Snyder in Los Angeles.

Phillip leaned forward, stressing the pinstripes of his silk suit. He squeezed the bridge of his long nose with two fingers. "That stupid man's going to ruin us all."

"How could he do that?"

"It's just the whole Kansas thing-you know how those people are. They wouldn't know an asset if it jumped up and bit them on the behind."

"Mom can't talk to him?"

"You know your mother. She wouldn't call him if the earth was going to spin off its axis," Phillip said in exasperation. "And John's not much better. He thinks someone should go down there and at least make sure the estate's in order, but do you think he'll go? No way. He'd sooner go to hell on an ice floe."

"You can't get somebody in Rayland to look it over?"

Phillip rubbed his temple with the edge of his glasses. "Are you serious? I wouldn't trust anybody down there with something like this. We'd really have a disaster on our hands then."

Jaxton nodded, seeing in his mind his only brother, a few personal possessions in a box under his arm, boarding the elevator and slipping out of their lives three years before. "Too bad Blake isn't around anymore. He'd have been perfect."

"Yeah, no kidding," Phillip said with a slight shake of his head.

Jaxton dismissed the memory and looked back to his notes, already tiring of the subject. He tapped his pen on his notebook three times and then moved back to the real reason he was in the office on Memorial Day weekend. "So, what do you think about the Manning books? Did you get a chance to look at them yet?"

***
Over the rolling green of the Kansas Flint Hills, the sky hung painted in color combinations only God could get away with. Periodically the scene outside the balcony doors caught her gaze, and Ami Martin would pause to take in its beauty for a moment.

Beyond the nearly full-grown red cedar trees, the land stretched in an endless parade of emerald until it rolled right off the earth's edge. That land, this house, those tree-together they comprised the only true home she'd ever known. Even now with her life devoid of any real family, the safety of those hills enveloped her like a warm hug.

She returned to her task, carefully pulling books off the shelf and stacking them onto the tiny coffee table. The books were a link-a precious, priceless link to the past. The sadness in her chest expanded with each volume she took down. How many times had she and Grandpa Martin sat in this room, the balcony doors open to the sunset beyond, reading the works of the great ones? Emerson, Thoreau, Keats…Even when she couldn't understand the words, he had seen fit to share them with her. In this room, sitting by his side, she could always pretend, if only for a moment, that this someone would never abandon her. That he would be there for her even if it wasn't convenient for him, even if she made his life more difficult, even if he didn't really like the idea-he would stay. That had been her one and only lifeline for 24 years, until last Thanksgiving.

She pulled the black-bound Emerson anthology off the shelf and ran a loving hand over it. Even now if she listened hard, she could almost hear his low baritone lilting over the words.

The sunset beyond the doors blurred, and she brushed a stray brown tendril out of her face. Slowly she dropped the book to the table.

The wisdom of Grandpa Martin's years was tucked safely in her soul. However, as she pulled another volume off the shelf, she couldn't help wondering what his advice would be at this moment. It was true Grandpa Martin was only a simple farmer, but she knew in her heart that he had been much more than that. He was the only person who'd ever welcomed her into his home and insisted that she stay-no questions asked.

Not even her mother had done as much. She had left before Ami was two, and her father wasn't much better. His decision to send her to Rayland wasn't about making her life more stable-it was about making his less complicated.

She pushed that thought away. Don't think about him. Not here.

Absently her hand ran the dust cloth over the book in her hand. If she could just hear Grandpa Martin's assurance that everything would be okay, then somehow she would have the strength to keep fighting. But with the money dwindling, and her father calling every other day to ask if she was ready to give up and simply sell the place, her determination was waning quickly.

She pulled the Poe volume down and laughed softly. If only her scariest problems were ravens and casks of amontillado, as they had once been when she was tucked safely in the crook of Grandpa Martin's arm. Yes, this was the only place that had ever truly been home, and it was the place she wanted to spend the rest of her life-right here in Rayland, Kansas.
***
"I know you've got Manning," Phillip said the next morning as he watched Jaxton pace the room in front of him, "but your mother and I discussed it, and it's the only thing that makes any sense."

"You can't be serious about this," Jaxton protested. "What about Easley?"

"Linda can take it."

"Linda?" Jaxton raised a sarcastic eyebrow. "Easley'll bury her the first day, and you know it."

"Okay, then we'll get Bob."

In a slow crawl the room began closing in on Jaxton. "What about Chambers?"

"Karen can handle it for a few days."

Jaxton scrambled for any excuse that might change his father's mind. "Dawson. Now, you know I know more about that account than anyone else here."

"Look, Jax," Phillip said, his voice suddenly hard as stone, "I didn't say I was happy about this, but Fowler called me again last night. He says the old guy's going fast. We need to get this done, and we need to get it done now. Uncle John can't go, your mother won't go, I can't go, and Blake's gone. So the next most logical person is you."

Anger coursed through Jaxton, but, with one look at his father's rigid face, he knew better than to argue. He was the good son, and he wanted it to stay that way-although the thought of having to go to Rayland pulled him much closer to Blake's side of the table. But Jaxton was the one who would never question a direct command, and his father knew that as well as he did.

"I really don't think it'll take very long," Phillip finally said, softening only slightly, and Jaxton felt the yank of the puppet string. "And I promise you'll get your accounts back the second you walk back through that door. Besides it's not like you can't keep in touch. You can take your fax and your laptop…"

Jaxton laid a heavy hand against the wall, set his jaw, and examined the painting hanging there without seeing it. At one time, he could have discoursed for hours about the artist's brushstrokes and brilliant use of subtle back lighting, but now all he wanted to do was yank it from the wall and rip it to shreds.

"So, that's it then?" he finally asked.

"Here's your ticket to Kansas City." His father pulled the thin sheaf from the desk drawer. "Your plane leaves at two. It's a two-hour drive from Kansas City to Rayland. You can rent a car when you get to…"

Jaxton didn' hear the rest of the itinerary. His mind pulsed with red hot flashes of anger, and a bright resolve to get this job done the quickest way possible so he could get back to his real life-back to something other than fields full of nothing but dust and old, worthless dreams.

***

Ami surveyed her to-do list over her sandwich, marking each entry with a one through ten. The pickup sitting immobile in the garage received a one; painting the porch got a three; repainting the guest rooms, a four; hanging wallpaper, a five; cleaning the chicken coop, a two. By the time she got to the end of the list, she was exhausted. There was so much to do. So much to get ready before she could even think about putting her plan into action.

She pulled out her calendar and check book and laid them on the table next to the to-do list. September 1, circled in purple, stared back at her. She had less than three months to get the place in order and a dwindling amount of funds to do it with. In March the money her grandfather left her along with the place had seemed like plenty, but it didn't take long for the bulk of it to evaporate.

In frustration, she replaced the to-do list in the calendar and closed the checkbook. Sitting here worrying about it wasn't getting anything finished any faster. She carried her lunch dishes to the sink and ran water on them. The dishes could wait; the pickup couldn't.

Minutes later she crawled into the pickup cab and hit the starter. "Rrrennerrr. Rrrennerr. Rrrenner," the pickup engine sounded, and exasperation escaped from her throat in a low growl. Three days and $150 down the drain and still all she got was Rrrennerrr. Rrrennerr. Rrrennerr. How many times had she watched her grandfather do this? Apparently not enough.

"Stupid thing." She hit the steering wheel as the sickening sound continued. "Okay, think. The battery's got to be good-I just changed it. The cables are connected. What else could be wrong?"

She slid out of the driver's seat, went around to the front, and leaned over the pickup's front grill to examine the maze of wires and metal. With a slow finger, she traced the battery cable away from the starter. There was a trick to this, and Grandpa Martin knew it. All she had to do was figure out what that trick was, and she was home free. But the trip to home free was looking more impassable by the second.

***
Jaxton had only been to Rayland twice, and he hadn't been overly excited about the trip either time. But this time was worse. He'd been building a client list for six years, and to be told that someone else could just take it over no questions asked made his blood percolate. Karen'll never be able to handle Paul Chambers. No way. He'll go to Franklin & Capshaw so fast it'll make Dad's head spin.

Then he snorted. It'd serve his father right if Chambers did move it. How many times had he hammered the lesson into Jaxton's head, "You take care of your customer before you take care of anything else"? I guess that means until you get in trouble, he thought. And then it's "Who cares about the customers?".

He swiped that the right turn signal of the little red sports car he'd rented at the airport. Renting a cool car was supposed to make him feel better, but it wasn't working. How dare they send him to do what they should be doing? He didn't even know his grandfather. In fact, he was as much of a stranger as anyone else his father could've sent.

This is what I get for trying to be the good son. I knew Blake knew something I didn't. He's not following that stupid dream of being a welder; he's hiding out so Dad can't send him to Rayland. He snorted at that thought. Welding? Blake was insane. Nobody would ever catch Jaxton doing something that demeaning-dream or no dream.

The tires kicked up dust billows behind him as his thoughts raced back to the office. If anything happens to those accounts, heads are going to roll. I'm not the president's son for nothing. Bob better not screw up, or I'll personally hand him his walking papers.

Jaxton had always prided himself on being able to find any address in Chicago, no matter how bad the directions were, but with a glance at the clock he realized he'd been driving up and down what might as well be the same stretch of farm road for 45 minutes. Narrowing his eyes, he gazed from the driver's window and to both sides, but there was nothing but fields-yellow fields, brown fields, green fields-punctuated only by a distant tree or two. How can people live like this? I'd go nuts in like two seconds.

As the car sped down the road, he looked back over his shoulder, wondering where the little town had disappeared to, but he could see nothing. His tired brain tried to sort through all the turns he'd made since departing the relative safety of the highway, but somewhere around the eighth or ninth one, it got lost. In fact, if he'd been forced to choose between giving directions back to the main highway or sitting in an electric chair-the chair would've won.

"Whose stupid idea was this anyway?" he asked in frustration as the car crossed a little bridge. At some point the fields to his left had been replaced by a small forest, and he wondered for a second how all those trees had suddenly grown there without him noticing. He braked to a stop and gazed down a driveway to a dilapidated farmhouse tucked in the middle of the trees.

With an exasperated sigh he turned into the driveway and wove the car through the trees, but the closer he got, the more he wondered if anyone actually lived here. The house's wooden shutters, broken and sagging, hung under a roof with several patches of missing shingles. One of the barns, off to the right, was leaning so close to the ground that Jaxton wondered why a breeze hadn't already blown it over. Don't these people know the old-house-in-a-cornfield painting's been done? Jeez. Someone ought to take a wrecking ball to this place and put it out of its misery.

He parked the car and crawled out, stretching as his legs reminded him he'd been behind that wheel for almost four hours. Stiffly he climbed the steps to the front door that had been blue at one point, but the chipped paint exposed so much wood, the structure now looked brown. He knocked, hoping the door wouldn't come crashing down from his touch.

When no one appeared after several minutes, he peeked through the window. A sofa and a chair sat by the far wall, but the house seemed abandoned.

"I should've known I couldn't get that lucky," he said to the car as he returned to it. "This whole rotten day's just another notch in my whole rotten life. 'Yes, Dad. Whatever you say, Dad.'"

However, as he reached for the car door, his ears picked up something he hadn't noticed before. Music. Instantly he turned and headed for the sound.

A decrepit green pickup sat forlornly in the middle of an old cinderblock garage. The tune on the radio made him think of hoe down music although he wasn't sure exactly what a hoe down would be. He looked around the garage, but there was no sign of anyone-only the small radio on the workbench crackling something about a broken heart.

"AHHH!"

Before his brain had a chance to register the sound, a wrench flew out from underneath the pickup and hit the cinderblock wall next to his foot with a clang. Instantly he jumped out of the way, and for a moment his head said he should just turn around and get out of there before the farmer had a chance to throw something else at him. But then he thought better of it. After all, all he needed was some information.

"Excuse me, sir…Sir?" He rapped a knuckle on the side of the pickup.

"What?" Yeah," the farmer said in a voice like an angel's whisper. "Something I can help you with?"

"Oh," Jaxton said, thrown totally off-guard when a brunette with a set of legs like he'd only seen on cocktail waitresses pulled herself up from the floor. "Oh. Umm. I'm sorry. I didn't mean…I thought…I'm sorry."

She wiped the grease from her hands. "'S okay."

"I…I was looking for the owner," Jaxton said, wishing the embarrassing farmer's daughter jokes would stop running through his brain.

"That would be me," she said as she extended a hand.

"Oh, I'm sorry," he said again, and the heat began to creep up his cheeks as the voltage of her touch slid up his arm. When she looked at him strangely, he swallowed hard. "I mean, I'm not sorry you own the place. I'm sorry I didn't realize…"

"You're not from around here, are you?" she asked, cocking her head to one side. Her smile danced circles around his heart.

"Uh, no. How do you know?"

"Your shoes." She pointed to his feet before returning to the pickup. "They're too shiny to be a farm boy's."

He looked blindly down at his shoes, and when he looked up again, the only thing he saw was the space just above her shorts which the grease-stained T-shirt didn't quite stretch far enough to cover.

"Well, sir," she said casually, "I have a full set of encyclopedias, and I'm not in the market for insurance." She slammed the pickup hood, making him jump slightly.

"Oh, I'm not selling anything," he said, watching her move from the pickup to the workbench as though she was floating on air. "I was just looking for the Snyder farm, and umm, I…I seem to have gotten lost."

"The Snyder farm?" she asked instantly turning a gaze on him that sent his own searching for a safe place to look.

"Yeah." For some reason there was a hard ball of air in his chest, and he swallowed to push it down. "I'm Mr. Snyder's grandson; well, one of them. I was supposed to come help him out, but I can't do that if I can't find him." It was supposed to be a joke, but it thudded like a lead brick on the dusty floor between them.

Her smile evaporated as she turned back to the workbench. "Well, if Mr. Snyder's your grandfather, seems to me you should know where his farm is."

"Yeah…well, it's been a few years since I was around here, and I wasn't driving the last time," he said. The brown ponytail at the workbench swung side-to-side as his gaze slid down it to the squared slender shoulders and then all the way down to the curve of the long, tanned legs.

She straightened the tools on the wall absently. "You're from California, then?"

"Chicago," he corrected.

"So, your mom…"

"Elizabeth," he supplied.

"She sent you down here?"

"Yeah. Sort of."

"Uh-huh." She replaced a wrench on the wall. "Why didn't she come?"

"She's busy."

"Too busy to come see her dad?" she asked incredulously.

"She said she might come later." He shrugged, struggling to keep his mind on the conversation and away from those legs. "But my grandfather needed someone to come down now."

"I see." She glanced over her shoulder and then back to the workbench.

"I don't know if you know it, but he had a heart attack about a month ago," he said, wondering why he found it necessary to explain himself to this girl. "This was the first chance we had to come and see him."

"I see," she said again in that tone that was beginning to grate on his nerves.

"Look, I really didn't mean to bother you. I'll just drive back to town and see if someone there can help me." He turned and started out.

"Go out to the road and turn right," she said just before he broke through the sunshine.

Instantly he turned and found her leaning on the workbench, arms folded, with nothing but ice in her brown eyes. "About two miles down the road off to the left," she said, "you'll see the Snyder place. It's the other one with trees. You can't miss it."

"Thank you," he said formally.

"No problem," she said and turned back to her workbench without another glance.

He felt heat drain down his face. What had he done that was so wrong? He was just following orders-like always. Sullenly he turned back to the car, wishing he could just drive away from all this. It wasn't his fault his family didn't come to Rayland. There was nothing to do here anyway. A million miles from nowhere, Rayland, Kansas, was the most boring, backward place on the whole earth, and the second he got the estate in order, he was gone.

Ami heard the car roar out of the driveway, and she wondered which one he was. She remembered the last time Mr. Snyder's family had come to visit-how they sat around complaining because it was hot and whining about how boring everything was. Most of all she could hear them saying how they couldn't wait to get back to their big city and "reality." To her, Rayland was safety. To them, it was a maximum-security prison.

She had hated them then, but she hated them even more now. Mr. Snyder had never been anything but kind to her. When her own grandfather had gotten sick, it was Mr. Snyder who tended the cedars and the rose bushes and kept them alive despite the worst drought Kansas had seen in fifty years. It was also Mr. Snyder who had encouraged her to take what her grandfather had given her and chase her dream. It was Mr. Snyder who showed up every day for the first month she was back in Rayland just to check on her.

And she was sure his visits would have continued, but then the heart attack had almost taken him out two months ago. There was no way to count the hours she'd spent at the hospital sitting by his bedside, reading to him, and assuring him that his family would be there soon.

But her assurances made little difference to him. He said more than once that she was the only real family he had left and that the others would just be glad when he was gone. He'd even insisted on naming her his power of attorney in case he needed someone to make any final decisions. Although she hadn't liked the idea at all, he had insisted, and she had reluctantly accepted the responsibility.

Even thinking about it now made her head pound as she yanked the hedge trimmer from the wall. In this state she would make the pickup problem worse, but she couldn't do too much damage to the hedges. In any case, they could always grow back.

***
Jaxton whipped the red sports car into his grandfather's driveway, and he noticed with a hint of pride that the Snyder farm looked much better than that girl's place did. Not one building was even remotely rickety, and although the house couldn't compare with ones he was used to in Chicago, at least it didn't look like it was about to fall down.

He parked the car and crawled out as his nerves shifted from her to the task at hand. Reluctantly he squinted at the old farmhouse. What am I doing here? Jeez, I should be meeting with Easley right now.

However, he forced himself to step onto the front porch, lift his hand, and knock. He had come this far, and he wasn't going to back down now.

Minutes piled up while he watched for signs of life. A sickening feeling hit the pit of his stomach-what if his grandfather had already died? What if he was lying somewhere waiting for someone to find him? What if--?

The squeak of the door brought Jaxton back to reality, and he found himself staring into the eyes of a grandfather had hadn't seen in fifteen years. The old man was broader and taller than Jaxton remembered. Silver-white hair fell in a shock down the sun-baked forehead and surprise sparkled through the faded gray eyes.

Jaxton tried to put a smile on his face. "Hi, Grandpa."

The old man pushed the screen door open with one swing. "Jaxton? I thought they were pulling my leg when they said you wanted to come see me, but here you are."

Jaxton attempted another smile as he shifted his weight to the other foot. "Yeah. Here I am."

"Huh." The old man's gaze appraised him. "Well. Come on in, then." He led Jaxton into a front room and gestured at a table littered with papers. "I was just making out next week's work schedule."

He sat down on the threadbare, gold recliner, leaving Jaxton standing in the middle of the room. "Nice place," Jaxton said, a little too heartily.

"Thanks," his grandfather shrugged as his wrinkled fingers formed a triangle in front of him. "So, to what do I owe this little visit?"

Slowly Jaxton lowered himself onto the frayed nylon couch and smoothed out the lapel of his suit coat. "Well, we-I mean, I wanted to come see how you're doing."

"Oh, well," his grandfather said with a slow nod. "I'll be better once I get this wheat harvest out of the way. Ed says we should make 80 bushels this year. That'd be about the best I've ever seen. ' Course it's still a month out, so anything's possible."

"I'm sure it is." Jaxton's gaze fell to the green and gold shag carpet. An unpleasant silence seemed to be growing there.

"So, how's your mom?" his grandfather asked tentatively. "Staying busy?"

"She is." Jaxton attempted another smile. "She says hello."

The silence grew as Jaxton surveyed the frayed curtains hanging at the windows.

"So how long are you planning to stay?" his grandfather asked.

Jaxton rubbed his hands together. "Oh, a few days; a week, maybe. Then I'll have to be getting back to Chicago."

"You're working with your dad now?"

"Yeah. I've been there about six years."

Mr. Snyder sighed and shook his head. "Seems like just yesterday when you and Blake came down for the summer. I was trying to remember how long ago that was."

"Umm, almost fifteen years," Jaxton said uncomfortably.

"Fifteen, huh?" Mr. Snyder said slowly. "Time sure get away if you don't keep hold of it."

Jaxton nodded, unsure of what else to say. He chanced a glance at his host sitting in the shadows of the fading sunlight, and it occurred to him that had they met on the street he wouldn't have even recognized the old man.

"Tell you what," Mr. Snyder said suddenly pulling himself out of the chair with a deep grunt. "Why don't you take your bags on up, and I'll go make us some supper?"

His hand smoothing the front of his suit as it had done a million times, Jaxton stumbled to his feet. "Oh, I'm not all that hungry."

"' Course you are. You just flew all the way from Chicago. I've got just the thing."

"You really don't have to," Jaxton said uncertainly as the old man crossed past him into the kitchen.

"You can have the room at the top of the stairs." His grandfather pointed up the narrow staircase. "I would have gotten somebody out here to clean it if you folks had given me a little more notice."

"I'm sure it'll be fine," Jaxton said and straightened to his full six feet.

"Then why don't you go on up and get settled? I'll call you when it's ready," the old man said, and with one stiff smile he disappeared around the corner.

Slowly Jaxton picked up his suitcase and threaded himself between the dust on the handrail and the dirt on the wall as he climbed the stairs. The grit on the doorknob slid across his palm as he twisted it and pushed the door open. Ugh.

The revultion in his gut threatened to send his feet running, but Jaxton forced himself to step into the room. He pulled out his handkerchief and wiped a thick layer of dust off the dresser before carefully setting his fax machine in front of the mirror that threw no reflection.

Cord in hand, he sat on his heel to plug it in but immediately stopped cold. Slowly he turned and surveyed the room for a plug as a rock dropped to the pit of his stomach. There wasn't a phone jack to be seen anywhere. How was he going to get any work done with no phone jack?

"Supper!" his grandfather's voice cut into the frustration rising in him.

"Oh, you're going to pay for this one, Dad," he said to the empty room as he dropped the cord on the floor and crossed to the door. He tromped down the stairs, and with each step the anger in his chest grew until by the time he stepped into the kitchen, it wrapped like a tight band around his lungs.

"Chicken-rice casserole," his grandfather said, looking up as he set the steaming pan on the table. "Best food in Kansas."

Jaxton took one whiff, and in spite of his anger, his mouth began to water. "It smells delicious."

"It does more than smell delicious, my boy." Mr. Snyder handed Jaxton a plate and filled his own before sitting down. The first fork of food was halfway to Jaxton's mouth when his grandfather said, "Shall we say grace?"

"Oh, umm, yeah," Jaxton set his fork down reluctantly. He bowed his head and listened as his host said the words he hadn't heard in years.

"…Amen," his grandfather said.

"Amen," Jaxton echoed, and this time he waited for his grandfather to start eating before he picked up his fork and took a bite.

However, when the first bite was in his mouth, the thought crossed Jaxton's mind that his grandfather was right, this was about the best food he'd ever eaten. It was so good in fact, that for a moment he forgot about all the complications in his life.

After several bites, he noticed he could hear himself chewing. Even in his apartment, eating by himself, he always had something going-the television, the computer, the stereo. His comfort zone had never included silence. As thoughts of Chicago, home, and normalcy enveloped him, he decided that it was as good a time as any to start the process he'd come to finish.

"So, how's the farm?" Jaxton asked between bites. "You said the harvest should be good this year?"

His grandfather's face brightened immediately. "Yeah. Ed thinks The Old Camdon place will be ready in three weeks."

"Who's Ed?"

"Fowler, of course," his grandfather said. "Been my right hand man for more years than I care to count. You should remember him from the last time you were here. Anyway, he said the boys from upstate should be ready to harvest on the 15th so long as we don't get any rain the week before."

Jaxton nodded. "So it's just you and Ed, then?"

"Me and Ed and Chris Porter," his grandfather said. "I'm hoping to hire some school kids during the summer, but you never know how that'll turn out."

"And Chris?"

"Oh, he used to work for Murphey Gray-'til Murph lost the farm a few years back."

"Lost it?"

"The bank took over-sold the land right out from under him," Mr. Snyder said with a sympathetic shake of his head. "It happens a lot these days. Everything's getting too big. The little guys just can't compete anymore."

"What happened to Murphey?"

"He moved to Emporia and started selling fertilizer, but his workers were left to fend for themselves. Chris had no real hankering to move away from here. I hated to see them have to leave, so I got him to work for me. Rayland only has 250 or so folks, so we need every person we can hang on to."

"I'll bet," Jaxton said with a condescending laugh, and immediately his grandfather's face fell.

"So, how's that chow?" his grandfather asked with a grunt.

"Oh." Jaxton looked down at the empty plate in front of him. "Excellent. If you ever stop farming, you could run a restaurant." He reached over and put a second helping on his plate, and the next two bites were in his mouth before the plate was even on the table again.

"Wasn't me," his grandfather said with a smile. "Ami brought it over."

"Ami?" Jaxton asked absently as he forked another bite into his mouth.

"Yeah. You remember Ami, Hank Martin's granddaughter. She was around here all the time, your last visit. She lives just east of here. You probably passed her place on the way in."

Jaxton flicked the image of the grease-stained T-shirt away, but in seconds it was back. He pushed her away again, but again she was back. In frustration he dropped the fork to the plate and shoved her from the canvass of his mind, but in a heartbeat she was back.

"I can't believe you don't remember her," his grandfather continued. "Seems to me she would be a rememberable person."

Jaxton grabbed the glass and took a long drink as he tried to recall the meetings. He was sixteen then; how old was she? But all his mind could see was those legs.

"I wish I had a granddaughter like her," the old man rambled on. "Such a sweet girl. Not that I'd trade you boys, of course. But sometimes it'd be nice…" His voice trailed into silence before he looked back across at Jaxton's plate. "You full?"

"Uh, yeah." In triumph Jaxton forced the picture of the denim shorts from his mind and stood. "I've got some work I need to get done-umm, that is, if you don't mind."

"' Course I don't mind." His grandfather smiled. "I'm sure your father's got you working on all his biggest accounts."

"Yeah," Jaxton said instantly feeling sorry for himself and then reflexively forcing that down, too. "Uh, I noticed there isn't a phone line in my room. Where might I find one?"

His grandfather let out a little snort as he pointed to the old dial-around phone on the wall. "That's it."

"That's it?" Jaxton's eyes widened incredulously. "You're kidding."

"Only one. But you're welcome to it." His grandfather reached for Jaxton's plate. "You finished with this?"

"Yeah," Jaxton said, trying to figure out how he could plug both his laptop and the fax machine into the same outlet and still use the phone-if, in fact, he could actually get to the outlet. He walked over to get a better look at the stained receiver which he was sure had been white at some point.

He wished he could take out his handkerchief to pick it up without his grandfather noticing, but the old man was still standing at the table scraping food off the plates and watching him intently. Slowly Jaxton inspected the phone from as many angles as possible, and then he sighed and looked at his watch. 9:30 already.

His brain began shutting down. Maybe if he went to bed right now and gave it a few hours, when he woke up, this would all be just a really bad dream. "I think I'm going to call it a night."

"So soon?" his grandfather asked, taking the plates to the sink. "Thought you had work to do."

"I can do it tomorrow," he said as the fatigue yanked on his eyelids. "It's been a long day."

"Well, there's towels in the bathroom upstairs. If they aren't clean enough, let me know. Cleaning was always Mama's department. About the only thing I get done anymore is the dishes."

"I'm sure I'll be fine," Jaxton said, wanting only to escape the kitchen. "Well, I guess I'll see you in the morning?"

"Yeah." His grandfather smiled without meeting Jaxton's gaze. "Have a good night."

Jaxton nodded and slipped past the old man, careful not to touch him. Once around the corner, he fled up the stairs.

"I just need a nice shower and some sleep," he said to himself. He pulled his suitcase from the floor and dropped it onto the bed, which immediately sent a noxious dust cloud into the air.

Ugh. Dust. Everything in this place is so disgusting. Clicking the suitcase latches open, he yanked his sweats out and slammed the lid closed again, generating a fresh could of dust. No wonder we never visit.

His shoes made tracks across the hardwood floor as he stalked into the bathroom and reached for the light, but nothing had prepared him for the sight of that bathroom. Moldy rust wormed a path down the back of the sink, which rose on a pedestal from the decaying tile floor. As he looked at it, all his senses wanted to do was run-far and fast. "What did I do to deserve this?"

Warily he forced himself to step into the bathroom. He glanced into the toilet, and nasty mold stains stared back at him. "Ugh." He covered his nose and backed away. When was the last time anybody cleaned this place?

Fear snaked through his mind as he squinted at the shower curtain. "Oh, this can't be good." He pushed down the churning of his stomach before reaching for the curtain. The sight of the tub-mold crawling up the back wall and the sickening green slime covering the part of the curtain his hand held-conquered the last of his resolve. Without another thought, he dropped the curtain and fled from the bathroom without bothering to turn off the light.

Ami spent the entire afternoon trying to forget the stranger from Chicago. If only she didn't feel such loyalty to Mr. Snyder, she could've dismissed him from her mind. But she couldn't think about Mr. Snyder without thinking about the visitor, too.

A picture of the stranger's shiny shoes flashed through her mind, and she shook her head to clear the thoughts away. But those shoes and their annoying owner weren't going anywhere.

Next to her grandfather, Mr. Snyder was the only person on the planet who'd ever believed in her. In fact, in a strange way she knew more about the Snyder family than she did about her own, and she didn't like a single one of them. The myriad of phone calls she had placed from his hospital bedside to California and to Chicago had gone unanswered and unreturned. Only Ed had ever actually gotten through to them, and she suspected that was because he wouldn't cow to secretaries and maids telling him they "weren't available right now."

It was true she had caved then, but she wasn't about to now. If that jerk upsets Mr. S, he's going to have to answer to me. It's not like he's even fully recovered yet.

On top of that why was he here now anyway? Was he here to assess how long it would be before the farm changed hands? A shiver crawled up her spine at the thought. Surely Mr. S would see right through that and send him packing.

"I could call," she said to the empty chair across from her as she sat in the living room, an open, unread book on her lap. "Just to make sure supper was all right."

Then she shook her head vehemently. As much as she wanted to check on Mr. S, the last thing she wanted to do was appear interested in the jerk who happened to be his grandson. Tomorrow she would call, or maybe if she biked out past Jacob's she'd get lucky enough to catch Mr. S there. She needed to check on him anyway, and she was sure the jerk from the big city would do everything he could to avoid the fields.

She could get the full story then. Now she needed some sleep. "Dear God," she prayed silently on her way to her room, "please take care of Mr. S. I think he needs Your help now more than ever. Be by his side and protect him from all evil. Amen."