Simple Beginnings Page 3

  I looked around at the kitchen with its antique white cupboards and butcher block countertop. The worn wooden floor boards that creaked practically everywhere you walked, and the lace curtains that framed the window that had slowly turned from white to off-white over the years. Anyone would have preferred to stay here over anywhere else in my opinion. There was something just utterly comforting about this old farmhouse.

  Nan started to hum softly, another evasion tactic. I could wait her out though and she knew it. There was only so much awkward silence she could handle before she’d give in. We’d been here plenty of times before for a multitude of reasons.

  So I waited. I simply watched her every step as she tried – unsuccessfully – to ignore me. I caught her glance at me from the corner of her eye a few times before she finally slammed her wooden spoon down and turned to face me. I couldn’t have stopped the grin from spreading across my face even if I’d wanted to. Point- Ella.

  “Yes?” I said sweetly, eyebrows raised.

  She sighed dramatically. “Fine, I should have told you. But I need the extra help, and Gage knows this farm just as well as the two of us do. Plus he needs the extra cash, and I trust him. The horses like him, and he knows how I like things done around here, so it just made sense.”

  My eyebrows arched further, waiting.

  “I’m sorry. I know I kept it from you and I shouldn’t have. I just knew you’d react like – this,” she said, gesturing at me.

  “Like what?” I asked innocently. “I’m simply sitting here.”

  “Oh don’t you give me that, young lady! I knew from the second you parked that death trap of yours that you were angry. I don’t even know why. The two of you were the best of friends growing up. You should be happy to see him again.”

  “Were, Nan,” I pointed out. “Were. That’s the operative word there. Gage and I haven’t spoken since I moved away. Things change. People change. The least you could have done was give me a heads-up.”

  “I still don’t see what the problem is. He’s a good boy. He might have had a rough few years there, but Gage has always been a big help around here.”

  A rough few years indeed, I thought. Lucky for me (not) I’d heard all about those years from Jaiden over the occasional phone calls we’d shared. It had never been easy to sit there and have to listen to all the stories about the field parties during high school, and the drunken antics of Gage Hunter. Why she’d thought I’d want to hear about them, I didn’t know, but I’d always had to laugh along and “ooh” and “ah” when I was supposed to. It had gotten to the point where I’d never even mentioned Gage to Olivia.

  Olivia was by far the best friend I’d ever had, and even with her I couldn’t bring him up. It was a sore spot, and Nan knew it, even if she didn’t know why. I couldn’t even really understand why. I just knew that every time I had to hear about who had hooked up with him, and all the stories that circulated the school afterward about how grrreaaat Gage Hunter was, I felt like throwing up and banging my head into the wall until I erased every word of it.

  It was silly really. I knew it, I just couldn’t manage to snap myself out of it. Gage and I had never been anything more than friends. We’d been so young throughout our friendship that it would have been ridiculous to suggest otherwise. He wasn’t mine in any sense. And yet the idea of him going from girl to girl, drinking and acting wild and so not like the Gage I’d known over the years, just made my heart hurt more than anything else.

  I didn’t know if that was why I couldn’t seem to bring myself to really like another boy. The idea of giving my heart and expectations to someone else and have them disappoint me too was just too much to bear. Here I was, going into college still a virgin, not ever having had a real boyfriend, when the one boy I had kept close to my heart had slept his way practically through the entire female body of his school and hadn’t once given me another thought.

  My anger ratcheted up a notch, reinforcing why it was not a good idea for him to be working here this summer. I couldn’t be expected to see him every day and work side-by-side when I just wanted to yell and scream and hit him for things that I had no right to be angry about in the first place. God, I was such a hot mess. It was kind of sad.

  “We can handle the farm between the two of us,” I told her. “There’ s no need to have him here. I promise you I’ll take care of everything you need me to.”

  Nan gave me that look that said “Ella stop being ridiculous”. I hated that look.

  “Peach, as much as I love you and I know what a hard worker you are, even you cannot handle all the work that needs to be done over the summer. You’re just a tiny thing and I’m no longer as young as I once was. As much as it pains me to admit it, we need a little bit of man help around here, and Gage is the perfect person for that.”

  As though he’s been summoned up, my eyes looked out the window at that moment to spot him coming in from a ride with Tut. Man help is right, I thought. I couldn’t help but allow my eyes to drift over him from this distance. I couldn’t quite make out his face, but by his body alone I could see he was different now than he’d been even back when I’d seen him briefly in grade nine.

  No longer was he a slim teenager. No, now he was all broad shouldered, narrow waisted, and thick muscular arms shown off in the rolled up sleeves of his flannel shirt. Faded jeans clung to thicker thighs. What the hell were they feeding boys up here?

  “I expect you to behave and be nice,” Nan was saying, interrupting my mental appraisal.

  I scowled at her when I finally managed to tear my eyes from him. Okay, I hadn’t been able to, he’d just disappeared into the barn so I’d had no other choice.

  “I’ll be civil,” I clarified. “That’s as much as you’re going to get out of me. This place is big enough that I can do my share of the work without having to deal with him.”

  Nan shook her head in that way that said I’d let her down. It stung a bit, but I was too stubborn to fully give in to her wishes. I didn’t want to make her upset, but at the same time she needed to understand that, even though she didn’t know why, I just didn’t like Gage the way I had when I’d been younger. She should have been happy about that, considering the way she was always warning me away from boys.

  She turned back around and started attacking the substance in the bowl on the counter again. “Fine,” she said with a huff. “I’ll hold you to that then. No being rude to other people in my house, young lady. You know how I feel about manners.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” I replied. “Treat others the way you want to be treated – blah, blah, blah. What was that you always said after? Unless they’re an asshole. Then just give them a smile and walk away.”

  Nan chuckled. “I’d never say such a thing.”

  “No, I believe she’s right,” came a smooth voice from the kitchen doorway. It was familiar and yet so difference. Deeper, more mature than the version I’d known. It rolled over me like a caress, and it took every ounce of my control not to shudder from the effect.

  “Don’t you two be ganging up on me now,” Nan scolded lightly. “Pretty girls don’t say ugly words. Ella, don’t say asshole.”

  I would have laughed if my entire body hadn’t seized. It felt as though every one of my muscles were suddenly immobilized. Even the breath in my lungs seem to have gotten caught, and I hadn’t even looked his way yet. It finally managed to make its way out in a slow release as I turned my head slowly.

  Good God. I shouldn’t have looked. This was bad. Bad, bad, bad. Even worse than I’d thought it would be. Not only had his body become a man from a young boy, but so had his ridiculously perfect face. Stupid face. Stupid perfect, sculpted, tanned, slightly scruffy, chiselled-jawed face. With the stupidest warm brown eyes that were staring back at me much in the same way I was staring at him.

  He was clearly taking me in just as I was him, and I suddenly became extremely nervous about what he thought. Gage Hunter could have any girl in the county. Scratch that, he’d had any girl in
the county. I knew there were some very pretty ones amongst them. I could still remember the model looking one that had been perched on his lap at the party all those years ago. To him I was probably just plain old Ella. Nothing special. Nothing to have waited for.

  My eyes narrowed as I remembered how much I didn’t like him. Or his stupid face and wavy blonde hair that made me want to stroke my fingers through it. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. I managed to smile tightly, my face feeling like it was going to crack if I held it too long.

  “Gage,” I said politely.

  One corner of his mouth lifted in that crooked smile that I knew so well it hurt to look at. “Ella,” he replied. Our eyes locked. No more words came to mind as I sat there. Finally he cleared his throat and moved his gaze to Nan, releasing me from whatever hold he’d had on me. “I’m off, Nan,” he said, sticking his hands in his front pockets. “Gotta head back to the house for a bit before I head out for the evening. I’ll see you in the morning.”

  Head out for the evening, I inwardly scoffed. I could just imagine what his evenings were like. Probably filled with orgies and fake boobs. I turned my head so I could no longer see him, even from the corner of my eye. If I could go the rest of the summer simply ignoring him, I’d be happy. Hopefully it was possible.

  “Okay, Gage, dear,” Nan said. I wanted to throw something at her for being so nice, but one must not throw things at their Nan. “See you bright and early.”

  “Yes ma’am,” he said in a way that would have normally made me melt if it hadn’t been coming from him specifically. I gripped the edge of the table just to make sure I didn’t slowly puddle onto the floor. Not melting, not melting, not melting. Hate, hate, hate. Remember that, Ella!

  “See you, Ella,” he said.

  “Yup, see ya,” I replied quickly. I heard him leave the kitchen, my breath held until I heard the screen door slap closed with a bang. I let it go with a big whoosh, thankful he’d only stayed there for a few minutes. I didn’t think I would be able to handle prolonged exposure to Gage Hunter without some sort of serious side-effects.

  “There,” Nan said happily, not bothering to look back at me. “That wasn’t so bad now was it?”

  One must not throw things at their Nan.

  Four

  Gage

  Fuck. That had gone worse than I’d expected. I slammed the truck door shut and cranked the engine, anxious to get the hell out of there before I went back inside and did something stupid. Like what? My mind taunted. Oh, I don’t know, like grab her and kiss those lips that made me want to taste them more than anything else on this earth, until all that anger I saw light up her eyes disappeared and was replaced with the right kind of flames.

  Ella Page was, if possible, even more beautiful than I remembered. She was perfect. She always had been, but that quick meeting just confirmed it for me, just in case I thought I was remembering her wrong. I wasn’t. I so wasn’t. Her golden hair was long and looked like it would be as soft as silk. Her skin was flawless but for those freckles I loved. Those blue eyes …those blues could make me do anything, and always had. I was defenceless against her and she didn’t even know it.

  All I’d wanted to do was grab her from that chair and find out why she seemed to hate me so much, but I knew there was no way I could do such a thing. Instead I’d shoved my shaking hands into my pockets and excused myself as quickly as possible. If I’d thought this summer was going to be easy working here on the farm, I was sorely mistaken. This was going to be the longest, hardest summer of my life.

  Thank God our house was only a five minute drive away, because my mind was on anything but the road on the way home. I pulled into the driveway, my eyes skirting over the flaking paint of the front porch, and the broken step second from top. They moved up to the faded black shutters, to the one that hung off the red brick by only one corner.

  I couldn’t stop the sigh that escaped my mouth. This house was looking more and more like a dump. I’d been meaning to fix that step and paint the porch for months now, but never seemed to find the time to get around to it. Dad sure as heck wasn’t going to be able to fix anything. In the last year, his arthritis had gotten so bad, he could hardly hold a pen, never mind a paint brush or tool.

  Bang! Bang! Bang!

  “Jesus!” I jumped in my seat, nearly hitting my head off the roof of my truck.

  “Hey, stupid. What are you doing sittin’ in your truck out here?” Cam smiled through the window around the long piece of grass hanging out the side of his mouth. As usual his longer hair was tied back , showing off the shaved sides of his head. His facial hair was slightly shorter than it had been when I’d seen him last night, his goatee now just a couple inches longer than his face. It still did nothing to hide the Hunter dimples all of us boys had from our mom.

  I opened the door quickly, smashing it into his legs before he could step back. He groaned and laughed simultaneously.

  “Gee, thanks, little brother,” Cam said, holding his knee. “Trying to cripple me?”

  “If I thought that would smarten you up, maybe I would,” I said dryly, heading toward the house. My foot skipped over the broken step automatically from doing it for so long.

  “How was working for that old woman?” Cam asked, following closely. I stopped in the kitchen, pouring myself a glass of iced tea before I headed up to bed.

  “Don’t call Nan old,” I said with a frown. “You know she hates it.”

  He smiled. Cam acted like he didn’t like Nan, but I knew differently. No one disliked Nan. It was impossible, even for my brother. He teased her to her face just as much as he joked about her behind her back. Nan loved Cam for his no nonsense ways. I, on the other hand, found it annoying since I’d been living with it all my life.

  I took a long drink before answering his question. “Ella arrived today,” I said, my voice hoarser than I intended it to be.

  Cam’s eyebrows shot up. “Is that right?” His green eyes flashed curiosity as he looked at me in silence. I hated when my brothers tried to read me. No matter how manly they both were, the two of them could act like such mothers sometimes it was irritating as all hell. Chris was worse since he was the eldest, but Cam had his moments. Like now. I knew what he was thinking. Cam had always known about my feelings for Ella, even when we were younger. He used to tease me constantly about it.

  When she’d moved away, I’d spent almost the entire day down by the pond behind our house. Cam was the one who eventually came out to find me. He’d sat beside me, not saying a word. That was quite the feat for Cam, especially when he was only twelve. Without me saying so, Cam had known how much her absence affected me. For that entire week he’d done everything he could to keep me occupied, spending all his free time with me instead of his usual group of friends. I never forgot that. It was one of the reasons I let Cam get away with so much, even when he was being a pain in the ass.

  “Stop looking at me!” I barked, putting my empty glass in the sink.

  “How is she?”

  I gripped the edge of the counter, letting my head drop forward. Squeezing my eyes shut. I couldn’t help but picture her again, the very image of her burned into my mind’s eye. I needed sleep, I decided. I didn’t want to sit there and talk about Ella Page with Cam. I needed to crawl into bed and get some rest before work.

  “I’m going to bed,” I said, ignoring his question and turning to head out of the kitchen.

  “I’ll come get you in a few,” Cam called after me. He never pushed. Never. If I didn’t want to talk about it, then neither did he. I waved my hand at him in response. My brother might be the easy-going, playful, party guy that everyone loved. He and I got ourselves in enough trouble during those years I spent going a bit crazy. Cam was always right by my side. He always had more control over himself than I did though, and sometimes I suspected the only reason he came to all those parties with me was to keep an eye on me. But despite all that, he was still responsible when it came to important things, like work. Cam was my unoffi
cial alarm clock, thank God, otherwise I’d never be able to wake up for my shifts in time.

  The more I climbed the stairs to the second level, the more I felt fatigue take over with each step. By the time I’d reached my bed, I was nothing but a walking zombie. Falling face first onto my mattress, I buried into my pillow letting out a contented sigh before drifting off instantly into a blissful sleep. She was waiting for me just on the other side.

  I was dangerously close to falling asleep in the haystacks and it was only ten in the morning. Grabbing another one and hoisting it up onto my shoulder, I headed back to the barn, contemplating telling Nan I was going to have to duck out early today. I’d barely slept a wink. There was no way I was going to survive until the end of the day.

  Until I spotted her.

  My feet just stopped as though they’d suddenly become attached to ground beneath. Ella came riding around the corner from the fields on one of the bigger tractors, her eyes focused on what she was doing and not on me standing there watching her like an idiot.

  Her long, blonde hair was pulled back in a high ponytail, just like she used to wear it when she was younger. The cut-off jean shorts and white tank top were nothing like when she was a child though. Or, at least, the body beneath those clothes was nothing like it was when we were children.

  Tanned skin shone in the sun, just begging for me to take my fill. I’d never had such an urge to run my hands down someone else’s skin as I did right in that moment. How in the world was I supposed to concentrate if she was going to prance around this place looking like that every day?

  I’d say this, however, I sure as hell didn’t feel as tired anymore. Her head suddenly lifted as if she could feel me watching her, and those sky-coloured eyes met mine across the distance. Her pretty mouth turned down into a frown before she looked away quickly, riding out to the northern field.