told Scott to let me sleep, and honestly, I did feel better now that I had gotten some rest.
“Thank you,” I said to him with a small smile.
Both guys looked at me in surprise. I guessed they were both a little shocked to hear words of gratitude come out of my mouth. It didn’t happen often. But I guessed that was because people didn’t really do nice things for me that often. Not that Scott wasn’t an awesome brother—he was. But the kind of thing, like letting me sleep in or rushing to help me carry stuff to the market, just wasn’t the kind of thing he did. In fact, I didn’t think anyone had ever done stuff like that for me before DeShawn got here.
“Who are you, and what have you done with my sister?” Scott teased.
I rolled my eyes at him. “Just because you caught me in a halfway-good mood this morning doesn’t mean that it’s going to last,” I joked. I pushed past both of them to get to the coffee pot since I was still a bit groggy from having slept so late. “Now both of you get out of my way so that I can make some coffee and wake up,” I said.
Before I had even reached the pot, DeShawn handed me a mug. I paused and locked eyes with him.
“We heard you coming the second your feet hit the floor,” he smiled. “It’s still warm.”
I took the mug from him, this time not saying another thank you for fear of being teased again, and poured myself a cup of coffee. Then I eyed DeShawn up and down. He looked so gorgeous today, even just in jeans and a T-shirt instead of his fancy business suits. Of course, he looked gorgeous every day, no matter what he was wearing or doing. I held my coffee cup in my hands and inhaled the rich scent of caffeine before carrying it out with me to sit on the back porch. From what I had overheard as I barreled down the stairs, I was pretty confident that DeShawn would be here for a while today.
It was a beautiful day, cool with a crisp breeze and a bright sun. The clouds drifted lazily by across the bright-blue afternoon sky. I thought about how it hadn’t rained in a while and how much I missed the sound of a good storm, especially when it echoed my mood of feeling like there was a hurricane brewing inside me.
I thought that I heard the sound of the harvester starting. Boy, wouldn’t it be great if the guys had been able to get it up and running again? Maybe with DeShawn’s help, they had managed to figure out what was wrong with it. We needed that machinery to be operational. Even though we’d been putting forth a heroic effort to hand-harvest the fields, there was just no humanly way possible that we’d be able to harvest thirty acres of land and upkeep it through the season without the tractor and the harvester moving.
I sipped my hot coffee, and the satisfying taste of caffeine lingered on my lips. As much heartache as it caused me, it was nice having DeShawn here at the farm so much. Not even just for me, but for Scott, too. And after last night, I felt like it was good for DeShawn, too. As much as I know he didn’t want to go back to his parents’ house, it seemed like he had found some closure there. I smiled to myself when I thought about such a big, muscular guy, carrying around a dilapidated stuffed puppy. He was such a simple guy and such a complex one, both at the same time.
The day was already halfway over, and I tried to think about what I would do first after getting such a late start. I didn’t know what was wrong with me lately. Maybe it was the stress of knowing that no matter how hard I worked, it wouldn’t be enough to save the farm from ruin. But for some reason, I was feeling extra tired lately. Even the coffee wasn’t doing its usual trick of snapping me online. I thought about the way DeShawn’s eyes looked over my entire body when I had come downstairs and began to shiver a little as I sat outside in the cool breeze with a not-so-substantial pair of pajamas on. This was my favorite time of year, though. I always thought that