Page 7 of Family Forever
“Great, everything go okay with the cow and calf?”
“Yep, perfect, no problems this time, though I’m not surprised, this is her third go around.”
“I’ll enter the data into the software.”
A heifer was good news since he seemed to be struggling lately to keep his milking herd at full capacity. Just another thing he had to worry about. Though he was lucky in terms of farmhands, both Will and Thomas had worked for his dad for years so they knew what they were doing. And Juan, and the few part-timers he had, were coming along as well. Their knowing what they were doing in the barn allowed him to focus on the business side of things, and only help in the barn when needed. Additionally, Aric was now old enough to be agoodhelp in both the barn and fieldwork, and within the next couple of years Braden would be on board as well, right about the time he would be losing Aric to college.
The more he thought about it the more he realized the farming aspects of his responsibilities were the easy part, it was the parenting part, the important part, at which he seemed to struggle. Having someone like Marissa around to help with the household chores would certainly alleviate some of his stress. After going over his financials last night and earlier today, he thought maybe he could afford to pay her to help out on the weekends when she wasn’t in school. He could use the help and she could probably use the money.
The vacuum stopped and Marissa bounded through the kitchen doorway. She reached down and touched Luke’s shoulder. “How’s your lunch?”
It was a good sign and amazing the boy didn’t run off in fright, but rather, actually responded to her. “Good. Dylan makes good grilled cheeses.”
She winked at the kid. “I bet he does.”
Luke held his sandwich out to her and she took a bite.
Hmm, he’s sharing his grilled cheese.Now he had two brothers in love with the neighbor. Who’d win her heart, Braden or Luke?
Seeing as Marissa was the only outside person Luke wasn’t afraid of, perhaps she was the logical choice for a housekeeper.
“Marissa, can I talk to you for a moment?”
“Sure.”
She pulled up a chair across the table from him.
“Would you be interested in working here on the weekends, doing some housekeeping and helping me with the boys? I’d pay you a fair wage.”
Her eyes lit up. “A real job?”
He nodded. She probably hadn’t been able to work arealregular job due to lack of support from her dad. Living in the country, with no reliable means of transportation, she had no way of getting to and from work.
“What kind of hours are we talking?”
“How about we start with something similar to what happened this weekend. Maybe Saturday mornings and Sunday afternoons. Sundays can be kind of hectic around here getting the boys ready for the school week and all. And sometimes on the weekends the boys have activities that pull me in too many directions at once that I could use help carting them around. You do have a driver’s license, right?”
“Yes, but I don’t have a vehicle.”
He already knew that. “You can use one of mine."
"Okay."
"Can you cook?”
She nodded.
“Great. I like to make Sunday dinners a nice sit-down family event like my parents used to, so perhaps you could be in charge of that?”
“I’d love too.”
“Do you need to check with your dad first, to make sure it is okay?”
She shook her head. “It’ll be fine.” She shifted her gaze to the floor. “He wouldn’t notice anyhow.”
Her statement nearly cracked his heart in half.
* * * *
