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  The Farmhouse

  Elizabeth Bromke

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to locations, events, or people (living or dead) is purely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2020 Elizabeth Bromke

  All rights reserved.

  Cover design by Jessica Parker

  The reproduction or distribution of this book without permission is a theft. If you would like to share this book or any part thereof (reviews excepted), please contact us through our website: elizabethbromke.com

  THE FARMHOUSE

  Published by:

  Elizabeth Bromke

  White Mountains, Arizona

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Chapter 1 — Maggie

  Chapter 2 — Rhett

  Chapter 3 — Gretchen

  Chapter 4 — Maggie

  Chapter 5 — Rhett

  Chapter 6 — Gretchen

  Chapter 7 — Maggie

  Chapter 8 — Rhett

  Chapter 9 — Maggie

  Chapter 10 — Gretchen

  Chapter 11 — Rhett

  Chapter 12 — Maggie

  Chapter 13 — Gretchen

  Chapter 14 — Maggie

  Chapter 15 — Rhett

  Chapter 16 — Gretchen

  Chapter 17 — Maggie

  Chapter 18 — Rhett

  Chapter 19 — Maggie

  Chapter 20 — Gretchen

  Chapter 21 — Rhett

  Chapter 22 — Maggie

  Chapter 23 — Gretchen

  Chapter 24 — Rhett

  Chapter 25 — Rhett

  Chapter 26 — Maggie

  Chapter 27 — Gretchen

  Chapter 28 — Maggie

  Chapter 29 — Rhett

  Chapter 30 — Maggie

  Chapter 31 — Gretchen

  Chapter 32 — Rhett

  Chapter 33 — Maggie

  Chapter 34 — Maggie

  Chapter 35 — Rhett

  Chapter 36 — Maggie

  Epilogue

  Other Titles by Elizabeth Bromke

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  For Dorothy

  Chapter 1 — Maggie

  Maggie Engel stared blankly at the fresh, white stack of pages on the table in front of her.

  It all seemed so simple. Too simple.

  “Who knew you could print out a divorce?” she joked.

  Becky shrugged. “You still have to appear in court. That’s what I did with Andrew.”

  “Did you print the paperwork first?” Maggie pushed the packet away and rose from her chair to check on Becky’s foils. “Ten more minutes then we rinse, by the way.”

  Her best friend adjusted the magazine on her lap. “My divorce was almost twenty years ago. Things were different. You had to duke it out in person then drive to the courthouse with him. You had to sit there, sobbing like a wretched housewife while he white-knuckled the steering wheel in painful silence. No hiding behind a computer screen. No surprises. No printing.” Becky lifted a folded foil from her face to take a sip of her tea. “I can’t believe I have gray hairs sprouting up. Is this what happens after forty? The clock starts ticking?”

  “For some, yeah. Not me.” It was meant to be playful, but Maggie’s voice came out flat and lifeless. She could use a gray hair or two. As long as they came with the wisdom she’d been desperately lacking most of her adult life.

  Maggie moved the paperwork to the island and prepped her kitchen sink for shampooing.

  Becky scooted the chair back from the table, its rubber stoppers scuffing the linoleum floor in little, black smears, like rubbed-off mascara. “You’re lucky, Mags. I don’t know why you bleach your hair when you have that vibrant, natural red.”

  “Blondes have more fun, right? At least, that’s what they told me. Seems to be a big, fat lie, though.” Maggie recalled using the same stale response the year before, when she and Becky reunited in the Linden family home down the hill past Main Street.

  After almost two decades living in Arizona, Maggie’s best friend found the freedom to return home to Hickory Grove. All it took was 18 years of single-momming and then, voila—Becky’s son did the same thing that most well-raised children did. He packed and left for college.

  Scrubbing a dried Cheerio from the back corner of the sink reminded Maggie that she, herself, had about fourteen years left until the last of her brood was out of the house. Did she have to wait that long for a fresh start, too?

  “When did you know it was over with Andrew?” she asked Becky, drying her hands on her apron.

  A frown took hold of Becky’s mouth. “Immediately. I wouldn’t have married him, actually. But then, well, Theo...” her voice trailed off and she flipped the page. It was the only tattered reading material Maggie had on hand—a July 2016 edition of Hearth and Home.

  Outside the bay window overlooking Pine Tree Lane, tiny white flakes were floating down onto the front lawn. Travis never did mow the grass back in October, at the end of a long, dry fall. But, Maggie did. She gave those tall, weedy blades a good, old-fashioned buzz cut.

  The fresh snowflakes ought to be thankful they didn’t have to fight their way through weeds down to the earth. Instead, they settled neatly atop of the crunchy, yellowy yard. If the clouds promised to hang around, maybe a pretty sheet of frosting would blanket Maggie’s unadorned property in a stretch of brilliant white.

  Maggie swallowed over the stubborn lump that had formed at the base of her throat, but it would not go down.

  “Yeah, but you don’t regret having your son,” Maggie pointed out, checking Becky’s roots.

  Becky waved a hand. “Obviously I don’t regret having Theo. But Andrew and I weren’t soul mates. I mean, are you and Travis soul mates? Was Gretchen a love child or a surprise?” Becky asked, rhetorically. Maggie wasn’t a prude, and she loved a good joke, but she wasn’t laughing at the fact that both of them wound up pregnant so soon after high school and with men who fell so short of their expectations and hopes and dreams.

  Maggie recalled that Gretchen cracked her first smile the same day Becky called her and announced the news. The day was vivid in her mind. Happy tears coursed down both twenty-year-olds’ faces and made for an intermittently silent phone call. Silent sobs. And, an awkwardness had stilted the conversation the women managed to push through the line. But by the time the news was over, each was happy for herself and for the other. Subsequent conversations grew giddy with excitement. Eventually, they chatted loftily, wondering if their babies would one day grow up together. Become best friends. Maybe Becky would have a boy—she did—and they would get married. Becky and Maggie could be mothers-in-law together.

  Becky turned and propped her elbow on the table. “You don’t want to leave him, do you?”

  The women locked eyes for a brief moment until Maggie shook her head and dabbed along her lower lash line with the pads of her pinkies. Black eyeliner smudged beneath her fake nails.

  She glanced at her reflection in the microwave above the stove, and though it wasn’t a clear picture, Maggie saw how she looked.

  Like a clown.

  She looked like a dang clown. A laugh escaped her lips and all of a sudden she was cracking up—laughing so hard she was crying. Crying so hard she was laughing. It was a chicken-or-the-egg type of situation.

  Becky stared at her friend, lifting the foil panels. This served, of course, to make Maggie laugh harder. The tears were wipe-awayable now. “You look as ridiculous as me,” she snorted through a final, shuddering sob.

  “Oh, Maggie, it will be okay.” Becky stoo
d and wrapped her friend in a hug.

  “Let’s get you to the sink.” Maggie sniffled herself back together and then guided Becky to bend her head into the sink.

  It wasn’t a glamorous set up, Maggie’s in-home salon. But it was as functional as she could make it.

  After tucking a second towel around Becky’s neck, Maggie began to tug the foils loose, one by one, balling them up and tossing them in the nearby trash. Finally, she turned the faucet on cool and began running her fingers through Becky’s long, chestnut strands, her nails clacking against the inside walls of her kitchen sink.

  “Is this comfortable enough?” Maggie asked, turning the faucet warmer as she pumped a dollop of shampoo into her palm.

  “Not comfortable, but I’m fine,” Becky answered, her voice echoing in the basin as she shifted her weight and pressed her hands against the sink.

  Sometimes, Maggie wished she worked in a real salon with a real shampoo station. But then she remembered how much she longed for a change of pace. Beauty school, for Maggie, had only been a back-up plan. It was not her first choice. In fact, much of Maggie’s life had turned into something of a back-up plan. So much so that she wasn’t quite sure what her first choice ever was. Or if she even had one.

  Suds foamed between her fingers as Maggie massaged Becky’s scalp from the base to the hairline along her forehead and then rinsed.

  “Mmmm,” Becky cooed from beneath. Maggie finished rinsing and pulled a fresh-from-the-dryer towel from her caddy and wrapped Becky’s head in it.

  Once back at the table, Maggie tousled and patted until her friend’s newly colored locks were no longer sopping. She pulled a strand forward and showed it to Becky. “See? No more grays. Just warm, maple tones.”

  Becky twisted the hair around her finger and lifted her eyebrows. “You are the best hair stylist I’ve ever had. Seriously, Mags,” Becky continued. “You’re wasting your talent in Hickory Grove.”

  With an eye roll for an answer, Maggie hooked a comb into Becky’s wet hair and pulled mercilessly.

  Becky squirmed but didn’t whine, and Maggie apologized for being a little rough. “I do want to leave him, you know. I will leave him.”

  “Good. You need to. Travis is a cheating brute of a man. And in fact...” Becky twisted in her chair, resting her hand on Maggie’s arm to keep her from combing. “If you don’t leave him, then I’m placing a phone call.”

  Maggie frowned, and a pit broke open in her stomach. She felt herself grow hot, and guilt crawled up her throat, turning, briefly, to nausea. Her kids. She knew Becky’s number one concern was Maggie’s own kids. Not Maggie or the heartbreak she’d endured for years.

  “What do you mean?” Maggie asked, sweat breaking out on her lower back despite the chill that crept in through a crack in the molding of the window.

  “If you don’t fill out that paperwork and follow through this time, then I’m calling Dirk.”

  Maggie blew out a sigh. “I can assure you that calling my brother will result in nothing more than childish threats against Travis’s tires or a plot to go meet him in a back alley. Besides, Dirk is on a rig right now. Won’t be back for months.”

  It was true. As he had throughout high school, Maggie’s twin brother would promise to break Travis’s neck. And, if Dirk were in town, that threat would result in a fumbling brawl behind the Hickory Grove Alehouse. If she was lucky. “Leave Dirk out of it. Travis is my mess. Not my brother’s.”

  “That might be true,” Becky pointed out, just before Maggie grabbed the blow dryer and a round brush. “But Travis has also become your kids’ mess. Maybe it’s time for you to clean house.”

  Chapter 2 — Rhett

  Rhett Houston shook his head at the man in coveralls whose clean hands belied the messy work of a mechanic. Grease-free nail beds were a bad sign, but Rhett didn’t have any other options at the time. It was just as well, anyway.

  A confrontation with Travis Engel was long coming.

  “I don’t want you to change the oil, Trav. I can do that myself. All I need is the one new tire.”

  He began to wonder if his return to Hickory Grove was a mistake. Granted, this was Rhett’s second foul experience so far, the first being his blown out tire on the highway.

  Naw. He could handle one shoddy mechanic. Especially if that man was his former high school nemesis. Rhett wasn’t the sort to gloat and hold his own personal accomplishments over loser punks who never lived up to their potential.

  Then again, did Travis Engel have any potential to begin with?

  “All right, Houston. Come back in a couple hours. We’ll give her a work up, and you can have a friends-and-family discount.” The slick-talking jerk spat into a plastic tumbler and set it on the desk before tossing Rhett’s keys to the other guy who’d been hanging around in the door frame that connected the cigarette-stained office to the cluttered garage. Rhett glanced at the latter and realized all the grit that belonged under Travis’s fingernails and between the wrinkles in his knuckles had wound up on the other guy. His whole face was a shade of putrid gray, and if he would just run his fingers through his hair, he’d at least look the part of a greaser.

  Rhett nodded and left without a word. Travis didn’t owe him squat. Not a discount. Not anything. And had he known the jerk still ran the only garage in town, he would have had his truck towed back into Louisville. His king cab, four-wheel-drive baby popped like a firecracker on the Hickory Grove end of the Ohio River, and Rhett was forced to have it (and himself) hauled five miles into his destination.

  Zipping his jacket up to his neck, the forty-year-old stepped off Hickory Grove Automotive’s icy front curb and crossed the traffic-free Main Street. Now this he missed.

  Louisville was a bumper-to-bumper warzone of commuters and business types, families, and tourists. It had everything and nothing. Rhett enjoyed the money he’d made there, but not the time and energy-suck of living in a big city. Or the vapid women he’d attracted.

  A purposeful stride turned into a leisurely walk as Rhett took in the sights along Hickory Grove’s main drag. In fifteen years, not much had changed.

  The bank still took up the corner lot. Next to it, the Ice Cream Shoppe. Across, were a couple of boutiques and then Mally’s, the town hub.

  Every Saturday night, after little league or a basketball tournament or whatever sport Rhett was playing at the time, his parents would bring him and his little sister, Greta, to Mally’s. They’d order breakfast-for-dinner, Rhett’s favorite. It was a far cry from suppers at home. Their mom always had a formal meal waiting—something severe and Dutch or fanciful and French. Never pancakes. Adele Houston’s heritage clung to her right up until Greta graduated from high school, at which point the Houston family matriarch convinced her husband to move back to her hometown in Pennsylvania, to be near her parents in their final years.

  And that’s where they had stayed.

  Rhett swung open the door to Mally’s with gusto, cringing as the old bell clanged to life, announcing his arrival. Though he was excited for buttermilk hotcakes, he wasn’t looking to draw attention to himself.

  “Sorry about that,” he offered the brassy, blonde, bubblegum-popping waitress behind the counter. “Is Mally in?” Slushy snow soaked into the ragged utility mat, and Rhett tried discreetly to knock off the rest of the melting crystals.

  She snapped her gum and frowned. “He’s dead.”

  Rhett’s chest burned at the curt reply, and he shoved his hands into his pockets, feeling awkward at receiving news that wasn’t quite personal but that hit like a mini heart attack. “I’m real sorry to hear that,” he replied, his eyes darting around the place. It was mostly as he’d remembered. A dated diner that never hosted more than a handful of patrons.

  “Wanna take a seat?” the girl asked, rounding the counter and striding toward the hostess stand where she pulled out a grimy, plastic menu and pushed it toward him, apparently new and unaware of the proper order of events.

  His gaze still dar
ting around as he measured the restaurant’s changes, he sighed at last. “Sure.”

  Rhett followed the teenager to a window booth, and as he slid onto the bouncing plastic, she rattled off the specials, concluding with the soup of the day. He looked up from the menu and locked eyes with her for the first time since getting his bearings.

  Rhett blinked. “Wow,” he breathed, his mouth agape. “You’re a dead ringer for...”

  “Listen here, buster. If you think you can waltz into my town and hit on me like a walking mid-life crisis, well then—”

  Rhett held up his hands in a panic. “No, no, no. No,” he interrupted, his neck flushing up to his ears. “I didn’t mean that at all. It’s just...”

  “Spit it out, bud.” She snapped her gum and rolled her eyes, crossing her arms beneath her name tag. Gretchen E.

  “You’re... you’re Maggie Devereux’s daughter!” It hit him like a sack of bricks, and everything about his unsuspecting waitress fell into place. Her thick twang and sassy attitude. The red streaks peeking out from brassy highlights. A smattering of freckles across her nose and cheeks.

  The girl’s mouth dropped open, and her gum nearly fell onto the tabletop. “You mean Engel?” she asked, resuming her composure, tucking her gum into one cheek, and then giving him a hard stare.

  Rhett swallowed. “Engel?”

  “My mother is Maggie Engel.” She tapped the little E. on her nametag and lifted an auburn eyebrow.

  Shaking his head, he tried for a fresh start. “I’m sorry. My name is Rhett. I graduated from Hickory Grove High with Maggie Devereux. Is that your mom?”

  “Yeah. Well, it’s who she used to be.”

  A headache began to set in at the base of his skull, but Rhett replied evenly. “That’s right. She married him.” The waitress cocked her head at his confusion. “Travis Engel, I mean.”

  “Look, it’s cool that you’re on some sort of vacation down memory lane, but I’m on the clock.” She tipped her chin toward a huddle of coats waiting by the front door.

  Rhett nodded and ordered a coffee, black, before the girl flashed a saccharin grin and tucked her pen behind her ear. “Be right back with that coffee, Mr. Rhett. And, uh, sorry for thinking you were...”