Weekends in Carolina by Jennifer Lohmann Page B

claim to her childhood, she was her mother’s daughter after all.
    He harrumphed, the same noise Ashes made when scolded. “Maybe that’s the difference, then. I decided at an early age that whatever my parents were, I didn’t want to be that. Farm included.”
    His use of the plural parents was interesting. “I know you didn’t like your father, but no one ever has a bad word to say about your mother. Surely she holds some tie for you.”
    “My mother was an uneducated woman who worked a job she hated with people who made fun of her. She was afraid if she quit that she’d never get another job. And we needed the money because my dad was a failure at life.” Max turned her head to look at him. He raised an eyebrow at her, though the disgusted look on his face softened before he spoke again. “She was a lovely, kind person who spent her entire life being trampled on by people who never noticed she was there.”
    Trey said the words with the hesitation of someone who didn’t know whether to be disgusted or sad. Max saw what he described but she credited Noreen with being a woman of untapped strength. She had to be, to put up with what Trey had described so that her children would have one stable parent and food on their table. Noreen may not have been a role model for her children, but she’d provided them with enough stubbornness to grow up and get out of a trap. Max supposed Noreen would think Trey’s success was worth the antipathy he felt toward the farm.
    The wind started again, and Trey’s slicker wasn’t as weather-hardy as Max’s; the wind and rain were starting to break through. “Let’s go inside the greenhouse. It’s not much warmer in there, but we’ll be out of the weather and we can share my thermos of hot tea.”
    * * *
    T REY DIDN ’ T SAY anything as Max took a sip from the thermos cup before handing it to him. She’d stripped off her slicker as soon as they had stepped under cover, so now she was wearing her rain bibs, a neon green thermal undershirt and a navy blue flannel shirt. With her masses of hair, she looked ridiculous and underdressed. And also like the loveliest thing he’d ever seen. A fire burned inside her that warmed her from the inside out. It made her glow. Trey gripped the tiny plastic cup with a fear that he would never be warm again. He tried to step closer to Max, but she moved away, busy in her greenhouse on her farm.
    Despite the official ownership, this was more her farm than his—or than it had ever been his father’s. She’d taken a ratty, falling-down piece of property and was turning it into something productive and wonderful. He wanted to pack up his clothes and drive back to D.C. Sell the dirt under his feet to the highest bidder and forget he’d ever lived here. Instead, he poured another cup of tea.
    Max was laying out flats on one of the long tables. When her hands stopped moving, he handed her the cup and she took a big gulp. “Thank you.”
    “What are you planting?” Besides the flat, she had seeds and soil.
    “The last of the broccoli for today.” She was already looking down at her task. Tour was over and tea was shared; he’d been dismissed for work. “Broccoli gets started early then transplanted into the fields. In another two weeks, I’ll seed more broccoli. I should have three weeks of broccoli for the CSA and six weeks of broccoli for the market.”
    “Can I help?” He couldn’t say where the impulse behind the question had come from. A lack of desire to go outside into the rain made more sense than wanting to spend more time with Max.
    Her head jerked up and her pale eyes were questioning. “Sure, I guess. Planting’s not that hard.” She demonstrated, filling the flat with soil, adding a seed to each cell and topping it with a little more soil. “It’s basically your same seed-starting process as in a garden, only on a larger scale.” She gestured to the table of flats. “I’ll need 2600 feet of broccoli in the field.