A Family for the Farmer by Laurel Blount Read Free Book Online

over on her pants, and headed back toward the farmhouse.
    Abel began to measure out feed to take to the goats in the west pasture. Judging by the level of pellets in the big can, he’d need to make another trip to the feed store soon. Beulah was running low on her alfalfa hay, too, and that stuff was wickedly expensive and not something they could grow on-site.
    As he began to think about everything he needed to explain to Emily, he felt his stomach tense up a little. There was a lot to managing even a small farm like Goosefeather. Stepping in cold turkey would have been a challenge for anybody, but for a city girl like Emily, it was going to be next door to impossible. Unless she was willing to accept his help, she was never going to meet the county extension agent’s standards for animal and crop care.
    And then there was the whole business about her plans to sell the farm. He’d expected that, but hearing her say it out loud had set him back a pace or two.
    He sighed, hoping Emily had the sense to put on a pot of coffee after she finished straining the milk. When it came to talking and explanations, he was every bit as far out of his comfort zone as Emily was out here dealing with Beulah.
    He had a feeling this might take a while.

Chapter Three
    E mily set the brimming pail carefully on the side of the old-fashioned apron sink and removed its loose lid. Phoebe’s egg had actually made it intact into the carton in the refrigerator, so Emily was able to get straight to straining the milk.
    â€œGo wash your hands,” she instructed the twins, “and use plenty of soap.” Taking her own advice, Emily turned on the hot water faucet and squirted a generous dose of dishwashing liquid onto her hands. When she finished, she twisted the old-fashioned faucet off firmly. It had always dripped if you didn’t wrench it down tightly.
    She was struck again by how little had changed on Goosefeather Farm. The fading afternoon sun still filtered through the same red-checkered curtains, and there were still terra-cotta pots of blooming geraniums lining the bookshelf under the wide kitchen window. The walls were the same creamy yellow, and the old wooden floor was showing its familiar signs of wear around the doorways and in front of the sink and the enormous freestanding stove.
    This kitchen had been Emily’s happy place on the farm. There was something about this airy room that had always made her itch to pull out her grandmother’s ceramic mixing bowls, get the heavy crocks of flour down out of the huge pantry and bake something crumbly and sweet.
    As she dealt with the milk, she reconsidered the space with a more experienced eye. The fixtures and the appliances needed updating badly, but the kitchen had a great flow and boasted some amazingly generous work surfaces. This room had been designed for serious cooking and canning, unlike the cramped kitchen she and Clary made do with in their Atlanta apartment. With just a smidgen of updating, this could be the kitchen of her dreams. If it were located somewhere else.
    Anywhere else.
    Emily finished straining the milk through the dairy filter into clean half-gallon glass jars and set it to cool in an ice-water bath, a task she’d done twice a day during the summers she’d spent here. Inside work had always played to Emily’s strengths, and since Sadie Elliott had never liked to spend any more time indoors than she had to, they had worked it out between them.
    That was the one thing that had changed on Goosefeather Farm, Emily reflected sadly. Her grandfather Elliott had died before she was old enough to remember him, but her grandmother had been such a part of this place that it was almost impossible to believe she was gone. Emily half expected to see the old lady thumping down the kitchen stairs with her gardening hat on, heading out to wage war against the summer weeds. Emily blinked back her tears resolutely and lifted her chin.
    She