Once a Champion - By Jeannie Watt Page 0,111
bags had deployed and all the windows had shattered. He hoped the driver was okay.
The dark-haired mechanic stood staring at the little black car. “It looks worse than it is. The engine is fine, but considering the cost for repair, it’s probably better off sold for parts. I told Daniel I’d have a look at it, though.”
“Daniel Cheung?” The man had taught half of the people in town how to drive. Chris couldn’t believe he’d been in this wreck.
“My ears are burning. You guys talking about me?” Daniel strode in, grinning broadly. He didn’t look like he’d been in an accident. “Been a while, Chris. How’re you doing?”
“All right. We were just talking about—” He nodded toward the car.
“Man. It looks a lot worse in daylight.” He rubbed his jaw as he studied the wreck. At Chris’s quizzical look, he explained, “Tiffany was driving up when she spun out on the 87 and rolled into a ditch.”
Tiffany Cheung. Now, there was a blast from the past. He pictured the girl with the straight, long hair, the big wire-rimmed glasses and the frown that rivaled the sour-faced librarian’s at their old high school. “Is she okay?”
“A little banged up, but she’s fine otherwise. Got lucky, I guess.”
“You don’t sound entirely convinced of that.”
Daniel blew out a breath. “Well...you know my parents. They’ve always been kind of hard on her.”
“They blame her for the accident?”
“No. She got laid off. That’s why she was driving up...” He clamped his lips together. Chris got the sense Daniel had said more than he meant to and didn’t prod further.
Frank gave Daniel the rundown of repairs on the hatchback, and Chris winced when he overheard the estimated total to fix the car. Daniel called his sister on his cell phone. Chris pictured her stony face as her brother relayed Frank’s assessment. Getting a smile out of Tiffany had been a real challenge back in high school—he could only imagine how she’d receive this grim news.
“Are you sure?” Daniel asked incredulously. A pause, and he wiped a hand down his face. “Well...okay. If you say so.” He hung up and turned to Frank. “Tiff wants you to fix it however you can.”
The mechanic shoved his hands into his pockets. “All right. But it’s going to take some time. I’ll get you a preinvoice. Show that to her, and we can work out a payment schedule.”
“Why don’t you help Chris out first?” Daniel offered. “I know he’s got work to do, and this’ll take some time. Wouldn’t want your dad to get mad.” He gave Chris a sympathetic look.
“Right. I appreciate that.”
Once Chris had loaded up his truck with the tractor parts, he headed home. He tried to enjoy the gorgeous June weather and the long, lush country road stretching before him, but as he sped by a monolithic wind turbine, the slowly spinning blades reminded him of the long list of chores ahead. It seemed something was always breaking down, falling apart or being torn to shreds by the local wildlife. And those repairs were on top of all the usual farm duties. Sometimes he felt like that turbine blade, being pushed by the winds, spinning in place, never actually getting anywhere.
He pulled onto the long gravel driveway in front of the main house, which his grandfather had built. Chris’s father had added cedar shingles and siding to the two-story brick home, but the place was sorely in need of some TLC. A decorative shutter hung at a precarious angle from a second-story window, and one of the eaves troughs had come loose, swinging off the corner of the house. The roof would need to be replaced soon, too, and the house could use a coat of fresh paint. Unfortunately, fixing up the homestead was low on the priority list.
The storm door banged open. “Where have you been?” William Jamieson demanded, crutches thumping across the veranda.
“I was at Frank’s getting parts.” Chris didn’t look at him as he unloaded the white 4x4’s bed.
“For two hours? I could have been there and back in one. Just because the days are getting longer, doesn’t mean you can waste time lollygagging around town.”
Chris groaned inwardly. Preempting another diatribe, he asked, “Where’s Simon?”
“Barn. I assume he’s doing his chores.”
He ignored the dig. “Did you work those numbers out for me?”
“You mean the ones that say we’re going to have to sell our kidneys to make it through the winter?”
Chris closed his eyes briefly. “I mean the numbers for delivering to Greenboro Market.”
“I already told you, selling to them’s a waste of time and resources. They’re too far out. They won’t order enough to make the trip there and back worthwhile.”
“Do you have the numbers to support that?”
“I don’t need numbers to tell you it’s not going to work. Greenboro’s full of regular working folk who want good, cheap food, not these fancy organic vegetables you want to sell them. You have a hard enough time in the market competing against imports.”
Chris tugged off his work gloves and slapped them down on the truck bed. He did not want to drag himself into another argument about market competition. “Look, Dad, I asked you to do this one thing for me. I appreciate your advice—” yeah, right “—but I’m the one in charge.”
“You think because you run the day-to-day, you own this place? Back in my day and my father’s day, we knew who our customers were and we gave them what they wanted. We didn’t try to sell them chichi designer vegetables for rich snobs.”
A headache pressed at Chris’s temples, and he pinched the flesh between his eyes. “Organic farming isn’t chichi, Dad. It’s practical business sense.”
“It’s environmental bullshit, is what it is. It’s a way for the government to pull subsidies away from honest farmers. You don’t know anything about the farm life, boy. It isn’t about numbers and marketing, it’s about heart and sweat and hard work, and I haven’t seen you give an ounce of that....”
Chris started to walk away.
“Where do you think you’re going? Don’t you turn your back on me. Just because I’m missing a leg doesn’t mean I can’t kick your ass, you disrespectful—”
“I’m leaving before I hear something you’ll regret. Now, get me those numbers. I want them by the end of the day.” He stalked off before his dad could get the last word in.
ISBN: 9781460313961
Copyright © 2013 by Jeannie Steinman
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Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Epilogue
Excerpt