Page 7 of Taken By Storm

However, leaving felt as hard as sharing her delicious pies with his brothers.

“I need to feed the animals first,” she yelled back. “It won’t take long.”

He studied her for a minute. Long enough that she must have thought the conversation was over because she turned away from him again and walked into the barn.

Levi sighed, then headed away from his truck, following her once more.

By the time he arrived, she was scattering feed to the chickens in the pen attached to the far side of the barn. There was a long row of henhouses inside a coop. The Lucky Penny Farm also sold eggs and had amassed quite a few regulars who swore their eggs were the greatest. Levi’s mother was one of those devoted fans, so every egg consumed at Stormy Weather Farm—either by the family or in the B&B—came from this farm,and Kasi personally delivered God only knew how many dozen to Mom every Sunday morning.

Once the chickens were fed, Kasi hung up the bucket, reaching for a small bale of hay. He intercepted her, picking it up himself. Levi expected her to ask him what he was doing again, but it seemed as if she’d finally given up questioning him and was just rolling with it.

That, or she simply didn’t have the energy to fight him anymore. He’d noticed the dark circles under her eyes the last few times he’d come for his pie, but he and Kasi didn’t have the type of relationship where he felt as if he could ask questions.

Cutting the string holding the bale together, Kasi scattered it in the pen that held the goats, the baying creatures quickly surrounding them, chomping away happily. She did the same for her three horses. Then she emptied a bucket of slops for the pigs. After that, she grabbed a hose and dragged it from pen to pen, filling the troughs with water.

“Where’s your dad and your brother?” Levi wondered why neither of them were feeding the animals.

“Daddy will be in the house,” Kasi replied. “And I didn’t see Keith’s motorcycle when I pulled up, so he must be out with friends.”

Levi wasn’t sure, but he thought he heard her mutter “again” under her breath.

“Shouldn’t he be helping you with some of these chores?”

Kasi shrugged wearily. “He’s eighteen, and he just graduated from high school in June. You know how boys are at that age. Gotta sow their wild oats or something.”

Levi didn’t agree with that assessment at all. He’d been eighteen once too, but that didn’t mean his father wouldn’t have tanned his hide if he’d failed to do his chores. There was no age limit where the expectations lessened on a farm. Hell, once he graduated, he’d been expected to take on more work.

Rather than argue the point, he decided to see what else needed to be done because Kasi should be inside her house with her feet up. Levi wasn’t completely sure he bought the excuse that she’d just gotten overheated. When he’d walked into the stand, she’d been sitting on the stool with her eyes closed, and he’d wondered if she’d managed to fall asleep like that.

Maybe she was getting sick.

“Is that all the chores?”

Kasi nodded.

“Good.”

They left the barn together, walking side by side. She’d gone quiet, her gait almost sluggish. He was glad he’d stuck around to help, since her father and brother didn’t seem to offer her any.

She glanced at him when he bypassed his truck, walking all the way to the porch with her.

Kasi gave him a smirk. “Still being a gentleman?”

He bowed slightly. “Always.”

She stopped at the front door, waiting. “Is there something else you need?”

Levi crossed his arms. “I’m just making sure you actually go inside. Starting to suspect you’re trying to get rid of me so you can go plow the back forty.”

Kasi grimaced, the expression hitting Levi right straight in the chest because the second she replied, he regretted his joke.

“You don’t have to worry about that. The back forty burned.”

Levi sighed, cursing his wayward tongue. “I remember.” Her family had lost a whole season’s corn crop due to that fire. “Did they ever figure out what started it?”

Kasi shook her head. “The ground was pretty dry thanks to the drought, but with us watering regularly, it was still going to be a good harvest. Fire marshal suggested a lightning strike, as there’d been some storms in the area that night, or maybe a lit cigarette. But none of the farm hands or my father smoke.”

Levi suspected losing those crops had dealt them a bit of financial blow, but that was the nature of farming. “Burning can sometimes be good for the soil. I bet your yield this year will be better for it.”

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