Who's Dylan?
The words were almost past his lips before Ray caught and held them back. It was an innocent enough question, one that he would not have hesitated to ask a few months ago, but Alan's shifty glance as he quickly rejected the call was all the answer Ray needed.
Clearing his throat, Alan wouldn't meet Ray's eyes as he tucked his phone into his back pocket. "Someone I met in the program," he said vaguely.
"I didn't ask," Ray said lightly.
Sitting on the edge of the bed, a memory came to Ray: prying up rotting planks from the porch while Alan's phone chimed with texts, and the smile on his face as he looked at them. If Ray remembered right, they only lasted for a month or so. And then they started up again a week or two before Alan went back to the program. Ahh... Ray thought. That's what's different.
"Is it the same someone you were texting last year?" Ray asked. "When you were asking me about secrets?"
Startled by the question, and by the fact that Ray remembered, Alan looked at him. He didn't answer right away, and when he spoke, it still wasn't an answer—or maybe it was. "Does it matter?" he asked. "You were the one who said you weren't asking me to wait," he added in a low voice, sounding as if he wished Ray had.
This time Ray was the one who looked away, not with guilt or remorse, but in contemplation.
Alan's phone began to ring again, jarring the air between them. Alan glanced down at it.
"Aren't you going to answer?" Ray asked.
His tone was calm and curious, devoid of any jealousy or upset. And that only made Alan ticked off. "Not with you here," he muttered.
"Oh," Ray said. "Right." Unfolding his leg, he pushed off from the bed.
"I didn't mean for you to leave," Alan said quickly.
"What would I stay and do?" Ray asked with a smile.
Alan's jaw clenched and unclenched as he bit back the answer he wanted to give. He watched Ray open the door and step across the threshold.
"It's good to have you home, Alan," Ray said, pausing in the doorway and turning back to smile. "I missed you." Then both his gaze and his smile slipped away, and he disappeared behind the closing door.
Alone in the room, Alan watched the door with a frown. He forgot about the ringing phone, until the noise and his own frustrations came together to make him even more pissed off. "Oh, shut up!" he said, jabbing at the screen. With a sharp sigh he tossed the phone on the bed, then turned back to yanking things out from his backpack.
But when the phone began to ring for a third time, he sighed. Leaning across the bed to retrieve it, he held it to his ear. "Hey," he said. Looking at the closed door, he sighed again. "Yeah, sorry. I was...busy. But I'm not anymore."
*
The next morning dawned bright and sunny, and at half past six Dusty's van came careening down the drive, horn honking merrily.
"He's playing your song, sir," Ray said to Noah, getting up from the table with his dishes.
"That damned horn," Noah muttered, finishing his coffee in one swig. "Louder than a flock of geese being squeezed. I'm comin'!" he shouted as he pushed away from the table, and Dusty must have heard because the honking stopped.
"What about dinner?" Ray asked.
"I'll be back in time for dinner," Noah said, taking a darkly checkered jacket from the back of his chair and swinging his arms into it. "Make it something easy. But not—"
"I know, I know," Ray said. "How about those little...?" He made a rounding gesture with his hands. "But I'll need—"
"I'll pick some up on the way home."
"But not the smoked kind, the—"
"I know, I know. See you boys later."
"Drive safe," Ray said. "Don't kill Dusty."
Noah's grunt said he wasn't making any promises as he walked out of the kitchen, down the hall to the front door and out, screen door banging with his dramatic exit.
"You're finishing each other's sentences now?" Alan said, getting up from the table with his own dishes.
"Jealous?" Ray asked, smirking as he crossed Alan on his way back to the table.
"Of my Pa?" Alan scoffed as he laid his plate and cup in the sink. "That'll be the day."
Collecting Noah's dishes, Ray smiled. "It's hard not to be domestic when it's just the two of you, day in and day out."
"Yeah, tell me about it," Alan said with a sigh, standing with his back to the counter beside the sink, both hands braced behind him. "But you seem happy. Both of you, I mean. When he starts talking metaphorically, he's in a good mood."
Putting the dishes in the sink, Ray laughed, the sound mixing with the clatter of utensils. "I know I am," he said, as he turned on the faucet. "Hard not to be when everyone's home," Ray added.
At the quiet words Alan looked up and met smiling blue eyes. He held them, then looked down at the sink. "Want help with the dishes?"
"I got it," Ray said, soaping the sponge. "I got used to doing it myself. Back on the ranch I was outside, in the fields, which was nice. But you can't clean the outside, and there's something satisfying about an empty sink."
Alan couldn't help but chuckle. "I'll leave you to it, then, and head out to the garden," he said, pushing away from the counter. Above the clink of wares and running water, Alan's voice rose. "Have you seen my hat?"
"Your Pa made you a new one," Ray said without turning around. "In the dining room. Oh, wait, don't—"
Ray whipped around, hands full of suds, but he was too late to stop Alan sliding open the pocket doors leading to the dining room. Alan froze. Spread out on the table all tumbled up were the farming books he'd thrown out and Ray had rescued.
"Sorry," Ray said, shaking his wet hands all over the floor. "I was using the table to sort them. I'll get them out of the way."
Alan stared, the unexpected sight stirring unexpected feelings. "It's fine," he finally said, swallowing hard. "Really. Leave it."
Going in, he retrieved the new straw hat hanging from the back of a dining table chair. Coming back into the kitchen, he put his back to the books, but didn't close the door. "Why are you so interested in them?" he asked, frowning as he lightly twisted the stiff hat.
"Uh, well," Ray said, glancing at the table like he still wanted to move the books. "Your Pa spent his life farming, and you're going to the seminars. I figured I should catch up. Be a little more prepared for next season." He finished with a shrug, quickly turning back to turn off the faucet as the sink began to fill up.
In the act of fitting the new hat on his head, Alan's hands blocked the view of his face as he paused. "So, you're serious then," he said, almost to himself.
"About what?" Ray asked, digging around to clear the drain.
"Building a future here."
Ray looked back, soapy hands hoovering above the dishes. "I said I was," he said. "You didn't believe me?"
Letting the brim of the hat hide his eyes, Alan said, "I'm sure you said the same to Joel at some point."
Ray frowned. "And I meant it then, too. And I'd still be there, doing that, if he was."
"What if I wasn't here?"
Ray's frowned deepened at the quiet question, so quiet he wasn't sure he'd heard right. "What? Why wouldn't you be here?" Ray asked, eyes widening with something like suspicious realization.
"Can't you just answer the question?" Alan snapped.
"I will when you answer mine," Ray snapped right back. "Why wouldn't you be here?"
Alan opened his mouth, the words on the tip of his tongue. But then he clamped his lips shut, jaw clenching and hands balling into fists. "The future isn't set in stone," he said, voice deep and low. "Or in corn."
Without another word he turned on his heels and strode past Ray, who called after him, but he didn't stop, banging through the kitchen screen door, down the steps, across the yard and into the garden.
*
Getting into his truck with a sigh later that day, his exchange with Alan that morning still on his mind, Ray had just put the key in the ignition when his phone rang. Digging into his denim jacket pocket, he pulled it out, checked it, then put it to his ear. "I was just thinking about you," he said.
"Pull yourself together, boy," came Noah's voice over the line, making Ray laugh. "Where are you?"
Ray glanced out the window. He was parked at the curb outside the bookstore. "In town," he said. "Running some errands. What's up?"
"I need you to head on over to Dusty's," Noah said. "Thinks he left the back door open, and there've been racoons around lately."
"I'll head there now," Ray said, switching the phone to his other hand and turning the key with his right, bringing the truck to life with a satisfying rumble.
"You be careful," Noah said. "Racoons can be nasty. Take Alan with you."
Ray's heart gave a troubled beat, but he kept his voice light. "Leave it to me, sir. I'll call when it's done."
Putting the phone back into his jacket, he turned the wheel, checking behind him as he pulled away from the curb and into the street. Far out of town, he took the turn off to Dusty's, but instead of approaching from the front, he came up the back way, turning down a compacted dirt road scattered with tufts of grass. It led through a patch of forest to a lopsided iron gate set in an old, overgrown iron fence. On the other side the road continued, through the backyard to the back of the small farmhouse.
As Ray pulled up to the gate, two vehicles came into view: a shiny black town car, complete with tinted windows and out of state plates; and in front of it was the big red truck. Pulling his own truck off the path, Ray parked in the shade of a cluster of chestnut trees beside the town car. He paused to look at it, then continued up the path on foot, to the back of the whitewashed farmhouse—whose backdoor was not open—and then around it. As he walked along the side of the small house towards the front, he heard voices, one he knew, and one he didn't.
"Here you go, Mr. Stilton," Alan's came voice, accompanied by the clink of ice on glass. "Thanks for coming all the way out here."
"No thanks needed," said Stilton, his voice a pleasant timber, not too deep, not too high, with just a touch of southern accent.
Ray froze. At no point did Alan mention he was meeting Stilton, the same man who only months before was trying to get the Dalton farm from Noah. Stepping carefully and quietly through the grass, Ray approached the little screened-in porch. Keeping out of sight, he peeked above the railing.
Sitting at a small wicker table in the middle of the porch was Alan and Stilton. The man was in his forties, dressed in a pressed black suit and tie, with a full head of dark hair brushed straight back from high brows and light green eyes. A slightly tapered jaw, with lightly tanned skin and shallow mouth lines when he smiled made him pleasantly handsome.
"Gave me a chance to take the scenic route," Stilton went on, smiling. "It's quite a place out here. Peaceful, idyllic. I can see why your Pa is so protective of it."
"Not just my Pa," Alan said, taking the chair opposite, so that his back was to Ray. "Folks around here have been here for generations and want to stay for generations more."
"Does that include you?"
Alan looked up at him, then down at the pitcher of lemonade on the table between them. "In one way or another," he finally said.
Stilton smiled. Lifting his glass, he took a sip of the lemonade. "This is very good," he said, licking his lips. "A quality I've come to expect from crops produced around here. Contrary to what your Pa and other folks believe," he continued, setting the glass back down on the wicker table, "I'm not here to take any of that away. I want to see this land continue to flourish, too. But that doesn't always mean sticking to it. Sometimes you have to leave the place you love to help it. I think you understand that, Alan."
"I do," Alan said. "It's why I went to the subsidiary in the first place."
"And it's why we started the program to begin with," Stilton said. "To give back to the community. And what I'm offering will allow you to return with even more to give back. Not to mention a chance to travel."
Sitting forward, he clasped his hands on the table between them. "You're young, Alan. You've spent your whole life in this town. You must want to see what else the world has to offer. We can help with that."
Even from behind, Ray could see Alan being swayed. It was an enticing proposition, seemingly tailor made for Alan. And that in itself was suspicious. A frown darkened Ray's brows.
"I can't just leave," Alan said. "I need time to make sure Pa is taken care of."
"Of course," Stilton said, all understanding and sympathy. "But—forgive me if I'm wrong—I thought you'd taken in a farmhand."
"I mean taken care of in another way," Alan said quietly, looking down.
Stilton frowned, but cleared it before Alan looked back up, returning his face to pleasant neutral with a hint of mild curiosity.
Alan took a deep breath, meeting the man's gaze. "I want the job," he said. "But I'll need some time to...take care of a few loose ends."
A grin spread across the man's face. "Excellent!" he said, slapping his thigh. "I have all the paperwork right here, so we can get started right away. But I should caution that while we're happy to accommodate you, we can't wait forever."
"I understand," Alan said. "All too well, actually."
But Ray had heard all he wanted to. Turning away, he walked back along the house to the gate, while on the porch, Stilton talked animatedly as he shuffled papers in front of Alan.
*
"I'll start this processing right away," Stilton said, half an hour later as he collected and put away papers.
Alan hesitated. "I appreciate all your help. And your understanding of why I'd want to keep this quiet from Pa. At least, for now."
"Of course," Stilton said with a smile. "No sense telling him about something before it's final," he added, slipping the last of the papers into a manila envelope, and tapping it smartly on the table with an unnerving sense of finality.
Getting up with Stilton, Alan walked the man around the house to the back.
"I have to say I'm very excited about your joining us," Stilton chatted. "We're always looking for young people like yourself to join the program. It really helps—"
Walking up the path beside Stilton, Alan stopped as the man did. He looked at the man, then he followed his line of sight.
Leaning against the side of the tan truck, dappled light from the trees playing over his tall figure, was Ray. Hands in the pockets of his denim jacket, one leg propped on the back tire, he turned his head to meet first Stilton's gaze, then Alan's.
"Evening," Ray said, voice low and deep. "Didn't mean to interrupt."