LITMIR.BIZ

      CHAPTER SIX

      WHEN FAITH AND JEREMY BROKE up three weeks before the senior prom, it sent ripples of shock through Manningsport High. Who would be prom king and queen, if not the golden couple? Had Jeremy found someone else? If so, who was the lucky girl?

      When Jeremy glumly informed Levi that he and Faith were “taking a break,” Levi asked if he wanted to talk about it and was relieved when Jeremy said no.

      It was a strange time. All anyone could talk about was where they’d be in the fall. A couple kids were going to the community college, a couple would be going straight into the workforce, but most were headed away and talked endlessly about the need to buy supplies, clothes, a new computer.

      As the only recruit in their high school class (though Tiffy Ames was going to the Air Force Academy, and George Shea was Navy ROTC), Levi didn’t have the same issues. His father had cemented the impossibility of college, and the Army felt like a good fit. But in addition to the sense of pride he already felt about serving in the military, a melancholy was descending. He tried to spend a night or two watching TV with his mom each week, knowing she was more worried than she’d say. He took Sarah fishing and read Harry Potter to her, hoping in the back of his mind that if something happened, she’d remember him. She was only eight.

      He was ready. He wanted to serve, figured he’d be good at it. He’d passed all his tests, and his recruiter thought he might make a good sniper, based on the psych profile and his innate skill with a gun. Whatever the case, chances were high that Levi would be on the fast track to Afghanistan.

      So things like Faith and Jeremy’s relationship status tended not to matter, aside from the fact that his buddy was glum.

      Ted and Elaine Lyon had hired him for the spring. They made Jeremy do the same thing, though they didn’t pay him; said he was heir to the land, even if he did spit in their eye and decide to become a doctor (this statement was usually followed with a slap on the back or a hug). This week, however, Jeremy and Elaine had gone to California to visit relatives, so Levi was on his own. “If you don’t mind working solo,” Ted said, “the merlot trellises need checking. You just tie up the vines so the grapes won’t fall off or touch the ground. You’ve done that before, right?”

      “Yes, sir. Jeremy and I did that last week in the Rieslings,” Levi answered. It wasn’t exactly brain surgery.

      “Great! Thanks, son.” The lady from the tasting room gave him a bag lunch and a big bottle of water, and Levi headed to the western edge of the vineyard, close to Blue Heron, where the land got pretty steep, not too far from the woods.

      He worked from the top of the hill downward, one row at a time. The sun beat on his back, and he pulled off his T-shirt after fifteen minutes. It was hot for early May, and he was glad he wore shorts. Might hit the lake for a swim later on, no matter how cold the water was.

      He’d been working a good hour and was already damp with sweat when he heard the rumble of a truck. It was John Holland’s red pickup, identifiable anywhere due to its age and general filth...always mud-splattered and crusty. It stopped, and an enormous Golden retriever bounded out, followed by Princess Super-Cute.

      She wore cutoff shorts, a white sleeveless shirt, the tails tied under her breasts, and a blue bandanna on her head. Levi felt a generic stir of lust. Nothing personal, Holland, he thought. He’d been stealing looks at her chest since he was fourteen.

      The dog ran over to him, tail wagging, and barked once, then collapsed, rolling on his back. “Hey, buddy,” Levi said, rubbing the beast’s stomach.

      Faith shaded her eyes and looked at him. “Hi,” she called tentatively. “What are you doing?”

      “Tying up vines. You?”

      She smiled. “Same thing.” She held up an apron, then tied it on. “My sister’s cracking the whip.” She paused. “I guess Smiley likes you.”

      Smiley. Leave it to Faith Holland to have a dog named Smiley. Speaking of, the dog apparently had had enough of a scratch, because he leaped up and went romping through the vineyard rows, tail waving.

      Faith, however, came to within two rows of where he was, and he braced himself for questions about Jeremy, or an explanation, or a discussion. Girls, he well knew, liked to talk about their feelings until they had nothing left to say, at which point they’d start repeating themselves.

      Instead, she bent over and started doing exactly what he was. Except she was better at it. The apron held twist ties, and she didn’t have to check each shoot the way he did. She was kind of a pro, actually.

      And when she bent over, there was that mighty rack on display. He didn’t have a lot of use for Faith Holland, but, man, that was a nice pair.

      She glanced up. Busted. “I thought you were more of the princess type,” he said as explanation. “Run out of townies to do the grunt work?”

      She just laughed. “If you’re a Holland, you’re a farmer,” she said. “If you’re a farmer, you work. You don’t just gaze out over the fields and sip wine.” She gave him a knowing look and twisted on another tie, her fingers fast and clever.

      “Guess I was wrong.”

      “Guess you were.”

      She bent over again, and the lust felt much less generic. “So this is the property line, huh?” he asked.

      “Yep. See that stone marker up there? That’s what divides Blue Heron from Lyon’s Den.” She secured three vines while she was talking, reminding him to drag his eyes off her breasts and get back to work.

      She moved steadily, bending, sometimes kneeling, holding a cluster of the dusky grapes in her hand from time to time, and somehow, out here in the field, everything she did looked unabashedly sexual. She was soft and round and sweaty now, her red hair in pigtails, basically any male’s fantasy of a farm girl.

      Jeremy’s girlfriend, dude, his conscience chided.

      Except they weren’t together anymore.

      “So how you doing, Holland?” he asked, surprising himself.

      She glanced over at him, then stood up, taking the bandanna off her head and wiping her face, then retying it. Yep. Everything she did looked like she was on a Penthouse photo shoot. Except for the clothes. If she’d take off the clothes, things would be perfect.

      Damn.

      “I’m fine. Thanks for asking.”

      What did he ask? Oh, right. Jeremy. Maybe he’d finally come out of the closet. Or maybe she’d guessed.

      “When do you leave for basic training?” Putting her hands on the small of her back, she stretched, her breasts straining against her shirt.

      “Uh, July twentieth.”

      “Are you nervous?”

      He started to say no and put forth some of the bravado expected. “A little,” he heard himself say. “I’ve never really been away before.”

      “Me, neither.”

      “You’re going to Virginia, right?”

      “Virginia Tech. It seems like a great school, but now all I can think of is how far it is from here.” She gave him a funny little smile, half sad, half embarrassed.

      “You’ll do great. Everybody likes you.” Aw. Wasn’t he being super-sweet?

      “Not everybody,” she said, twisting those little ties with amazing speed.

      “No?”

      “You don’t.”

      Well, shit. “Why do you say that?” he asked.

      She

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