Just One Thing (The Alexanders 6)
Page 6
He skidded to a halt but not in time to avoid colliding with her. Katie grabbed him so he couldn’t run off again and then held him on her lap while she wrestled his shoes on. Her oldest son, Hunter, stomped down the stairs carrying a soccer ball and what looked like a plastic snake.
“Uh uh, no way. You’re not taking that plastic snake with us and playing pranks on everyone.”
Hunter’s face fell but he put the plastic snake on the edge of the couch. That was when she noticed the small stain on his T-shirt. Katie hung her head. If she sent him upstairs to change it, it would be another ten minutes before he came back down. They were already late as it was. Maybe no one would notice it? It wasn’t that big and it was on the hem.
“Okay, everyone to the car. I’m sure Ms. Julia is wondering what is taking us so long.”
The boys ran out the door and raced to the car. Over their squeals of I’m first! No, I’m first! Katie managed to lock the front door while carrying the peach cobbler she’d made that afternoon. It hadn’t seemed like it would throw them that far off schedule when she’d decided to make it but as usual, she’d underestimated how long it took to get the kids cleaned up and under control.
Ten minutes later, they pulled into the long drive leading to the Alexander-Bennett Co-op. She’d heard the story from Jackson before about how his parents had joined the farmland they’d each inherited and then built a home right in the middle of it. It almost sounded like a fairy tale to her, to find someone who was so perfectly matched that you could actually work and live together. But the Alexanders made it look so easy.
As soon as the car was parked, Hunter took off his seatbelt and pushed open his door.
“Look! I see a horse!”
Before Ka
tie could even respond, Hunter took off at a run across the yard. She sighed.
“Hunter, wait for us please!” she called out to him as she got out of the car. When there was no response, she hurried around to the other side of the car and made short work of getting Matthew out of his booster seat. He scrambled down, eager to follow his brother. The first time they’d come here she’d been so worried they’d get into something but Julia had quickly reassured her that the farm was used to wild little boys running around.
It was hard to imagine Jackson and his brothers being the age her sons were now but she bet it was a lot of fun. Just thinking about it made her miss her own siblings. Nelson traveled so much because he was a musician. He was living in London now. Mari actually lived close to her mother in Barbados but over the years, she’d gone home less and less because Don had always complained about the expense. She talked to her family on the phone frequently but it wasn’t the same as being there.
It hit her at the strangest times, this feeling of homesickness. She missed the food, the dancing and the sense of belonging. Most of the people born in this part of Virginia carried a faint southern accent but it was nothing like home. There were times she picked up the phone and called her mother just to hear the lyrical rhythm of the accent she’d grown up with instead of the flatter American sound.
Katie grabbed her purse and the covered pie plate from the passenger seat of the car before walking in the general direction the kids had run toward. She was already late so she didn’t bother worrying too much. Instead she took the opportunity to enjoy the view. The Alexander farm was acre after acre of rolling land so green it practically sparkled. In the distance several large red barns broke up the vista, looking postcard perfect. There was a large tractor in front of one of them. She sped up her steps. Even though the farmhands who worked here were used to little boys being around didn’t mean they weren’t in the way. Katie didn’t know a lot about farming but she figured springtime had to be a pretty busy season for them.
“Hunter? Matthew?” She turned around to go back the way she’d come and slammed directly into someone. The pie plate in her hand smashed against the front of her shirt and it startled her so much that she fell, landing hard on her backside in the dirt.
“Oh my god!”
“I am so sorry!”
She looked up from the ground at the tall man standing over her. Silhouetted against the sun she could barely make out his face but she didn’t need to see his features to know who he was. No one else around was that tall or had that voice.
No one except Bennett Alexander.
The oldest of the Alexander siblings, he was the one she’d seen the least. The others spoke about him like some kind of mystery. He’d been called many things in her presence: strange, brilliant, different and antisocial. But the one thing no one ever called him was the word that Katie thought every time she saw him. Magnetic.
“Hi. I didn’t see you.”
She could have kicked herself for the obvious statement. Of course she hadn’t seen him. No one bumped into someone else on purpose. But Bennett didn’t seem annoyed at her clumsiness. He knelt next to her and picked up her handbag which had landed in the dirt next to her.
“That was my fault. I was on my way into the house for dinner and I wasn’t looking where I was going either. Besides, it looks like you got the worst of it.” He looked down at her shirt pointedly, where the peach cobbler was now smeared all over.
Katie’s shoulders drooped. “So much for dessert I guess.”
Bennett made a sound that could have been a laugh. She snuck a peek up at him. He was the palest one of his family and had a smattering of small freckles across the bridge of his nose. She’d never noticed before this but his eyes were hazel, a blend of green and gold and brown. A flush went through her when she realized she was staring at him.
And he was staring back.
“I should probably get cleaned up.” Then she remembered the reason she’d been walking back here in the first place. “I just have to find my sons. They ran back here because they saw a horse.”
Bennett nodded to something over her shoulder. She turned to see Hunter and Matthew trailing behind an older man who was leading a horse slowly across the wide yard toward them.
“Hey Grady. I see you found two new farmhands.” Bennett spoke easily to the other man so Katie figured he must be one of the men who lived and worked on the farm.
Grady grunted out a response and stopped walking. He tipped his hat in their direction.