Throw Your Heart Over

Chapter Four Part 5

Chapter Four

When they returned to the farm, they found a car pulled up behind the house. It was about the same age and cleanliness as Chris's beater. As the truck pulled up, two young men came out of the house.

The first was tall and stocky, with curly dark hair and the manners of a St Bernard puppy. He was followed more sedately by a shorter, thinner bookish looking blond.

Nicholas stepped out of the truck. "Peter! Donald! Glad you made it safely."

The puppy greeted Nicholas. "Nicholas - good to see you. Horses still jumping? "

Chris had made her way around the truck.

"Wooow - who's this?" said the puppy, otherwise known as Peter.

"Peter - this is Chris. She's the new accountant - she's staying here too, so try not to leave the bathroom a disaster. Chris, this is Peter, and Donald. They're the students from Guelph that do the market garden. They'll be living upstairs with you."

"Excellent!" said Peter. "chicks! But you've probably already got first dibs, Nicholas."

"I'm dib free." said Chris, smiling and holding out her hand. "Nice to meet you."

Donald was the polar opposite of Peter. He greeted her politely, but was mostly interested in getting out to look at the fields. He had wire framed glasses that only served to emphasize his academic looks. Chris was to find that though he was present physically with the rest of them, he was usually concentrating on his work mentally in another place all together.

Dinner that night was a new experience for Chris. The house was not quiet. Previously she'd warmed up something, and eaten while reading a book or watching TV. The four of them ate together one of the meals Mrs. B had prepared, but that was the only consistency. They were eating at the table, and had a lot to talk about. For the most part the three guys did the talking - they had almost a year's worth of catching up to do. The two students had been there last summer doing the same project, so they knew the house and Nicholas. Nicholas gave them room and board and free rein on some fields that they used to experiment with different organic methods of pesticides and fertilizer. The university provided the remuneration for the students in return, and Nicholas got to keep the produce at the end of the season. He split that with Mrs. B for her services - she no longer had to maintain a garden and got all the produce she could want. It was rather ingenious.

Watching the interplay among the three was fascinating. Peter, with his round face and snub nose hardly seemed like a serious farmer, but he knew his stuff. Not as much as Donald. Donald was quiet, but when he said something it was authoritative. And Nicholas, despite being Handsome Hanson, had a pretty good handle on the science involved.

An offhand comment surprised her because it seemed to indicate Nicholas had gone to school in Guelph. "You went to Guelph?" she blurted without thinking.

Conversation halted as three pairs of eyes swiveled her way.

"What? How was I supposed to know?"

Peter knocked Nicholas with his shoulder. "She thought you were just another pretty face." he smirked.

"Where did you go?" asked Donald.

"I stayed in Toronto. Oh, come on, don't give me that look. I lived there!"

"Ooh, she lived in Toronto!" Peter teased.

Chris smiled back at him. "So, is it true what they say about Guelph? Go west till you smell manure and then go north till you walk in it?"