Zero Forks - Cat Johnson Page 0,23

me dinner when I got home from work.

Chances were good when I walked in after my long day and commute, Boone would be in some skin-tight T-shirt shucking corn for dinner over the kitchen compost bin. While seated at the kitchen table, Stewie would be talking his ear off about their day together.

My eyes widened.

That was it!

That was real life. That scene I’d just envisioned was exactly the life we needed to portray in the media campaign. I was living it without even realizing it.

I wanted to flesh out at least two ideas of my own into solid pitches to present to Mr. Rockland. All I had was this kernel of an idea but it was a good start.

With my mind spinning, I stood.

I had a lot of brainstorming to do and a long commute to do it on. For the first time since calculating how much time I’d be in the car each day, I wasn’t dreading the drive.

This whole Mudville thing might just work out after all.

NINE

Boone

Morgan Farm had been in my father’s family for generations. He and his brother had worked the farm for their father. Just like my brothers and I worked it now for them.

Everyone in our family pulled their weight. My girl cousins could drive a tractor as well as any one of us. But since they and my aunt were way more skilled at running the farm stand than us guys, that’s usually what they did.

My father and uncle traveled to the stock sales. My mom handled the bookkeeping.

It was a family affair. And our family was big enough to handle the corn harvest, the hay bailing, the herd of cattle that were our real bread and butter, and the various other animals around the farm that needed tending.

I could usually get my chores done and still be able to sneak away to take on odd jobs around town. Or for a game of pool and a brew. And when there was a call, Cash and I knew we could jump on the firetruck and go and Stone would handle things at the farm until we got back.

But my new job watching Stewie presented a special scheduling challenge.

Nothing I couldn’t handle of course. I knew that. I just had to make sure the family was on board with it. I had my story straight and my plan laid out when I drove up to the house Monday morning after sleeping at the Van de Berg place the night before.

I was well rested, since there were no amorous activities with Sarah to keep me awake. I’d cleaned up after dinner. Sarah said she was tired and wanted to finish unpacking and went up to her bedroom. And I streamed a movie on my phone then went to sleep early.

And here I was today, heading to the farm for a day of work.

Stewie rode in his car seat behind me in the truck’s king cab.

Thank goodness Dad had sprung for the big model for the Morgan Farm trucks for all of us—yet another perk of working for the family business. He needed a tax write off. We all got new vehicles to drive.

If he hadn’t, I would have had to have Stewie in the front seat in his car seat. I didn’t know much about kids but I thought having kids his age in the front seat was against the law. I suppose I could call Carson at the Sheriff’s Department and ask.

Anyway, Sarah had taken the car seat out of her car and left it for me before she’d left for work at like six-thirty this morning.

That commute sucked for her. And I counted myself lucky I didn’t have to do it.

After she left, I tackled installing the car seat in my truck.

That was when I had to question my own IQ since strapping in the damn thing had taken me way longer than it should have and I still wasn’t certain I’d done it the right way.

If Mom or my aunt couldn’t help me figure it out, I be hitting up YouTube to find some videos. I had dated a preschool teacher once. I could probably call her and get some help, but for some reason I resisted doing that.

That reason was going to be home from work by six-thirty tonight, and I wanted to have all my work at the farm done early enough that I could have dinner on the table for her by the time she arrived.

But first, I had