A Man's Heart (2 page)

His features sobered. “You need two years? You got it.”

Relieved, she tried to kiss him but he eased around her and opened the door. “But I won't be around.”

She stepped back, her mind whirling. What just happened? Had he broken up with her? Cruz? The only man in the world that she would ever love? Panic then regret choked her.

Or had she broken the engagement a second time.

She put her hand across her mouth and watched the taillights of his truck disappear into the foggy night.

She'd broken up with him, she decided. Yes. For the second time in as many years, she'd jilted him.

Almost four years later

I
m·pos·si·ble.
a: incapable of being or of occurring. b. felt to be incapable of being done, attained or fulfilled: insuperably difficult.

Jules tossed the paperback dictionary aside, took a sip of hot tea, and then yawned.
Yeah. That one.
Insuperably difficult. That was her to a T. Reaching for another seed potato, she dropped it and two mixed seedlings into the hole she'd finger dug in the dirt tub. She should give up. After years of trying to grow the perfect potato she was no further along. She'd gotten her wish; she'd attended WSU for almost four years and she'd been involved in exciting research. Last year she'd been granted special dispensation to conduct a private project for her thesis. The experiment gave her extra time to complete the document:
How to Grow the Perfect Potato.
She must have been intoxicated with sleep deprivation the day she thought of the idea. So far no mixture of hybrid had panned out. The dissertation was done and only needed a satisfying conclusion.

Of course she'd lost Cruz in the process.

She moved to the futon, lined with dirt tubs.

She couldn't grow a “perfect potato.” She couldn't even hold on to a man's heart. Cruz Delgado's to be exact. Resting her head on a sofa pillow, she pictured the good-looking potato farmer. Delgado men were large, over six feet tall, dark hair and complexion. Did he ever think of her in the gutwrenching, totally sold out on love way she thought of him?

Shoving the past to the back of her mind, she stood and brushed graham cracker crumbs off her pajamas before she tackled the stack of plastic TV dinner containers piled high in the sink. Finals always left her trying to manufacture time.

The crowded living space was starting to grate on her nerves. Five wooden half-barrel tubs littered the living area. All filled with tubers—potato experiments. The tubs, a worn black sofa, an overstuffed chair piled with textbooks, a table with two chairs and a kitchenette had been her home the past four years. By choice, she lived off campus of Washington State University. At thirty, she didn't exactly fit in with dewy-eyed eighteen-and nineteen-year-old college students, and socializing wasn't her thing. She longed to go home, to be back on Blue Bayou, ride her horse, and raise potatoes. See Cruz. Catch a glimpse of him.

She wasn't a city girl; college had proved that. She loved Pop's old farm where they scraped by selling Ranger Russets to a factory up north, and a few local markets, but it was barely a living. Lack of rainfall was a big factor in these parts; farmers had to irrigate and irrigation cost money.

After running a sink full of steaming water, she washed the disposable containers and a few coffee cups. She didn't own a dish. She drank from accumulated McDonald's cups, and ate from sandwich wrappers and carry-out paper plates.
Every chance she got she headed home, but Pullman, where the college sat, was a hundred and thirty miles from Blue Bayou and she was usually buried in experiments.

Around midnight, her cell phone played a jazzy version of Beethoven. Jarred awake, Jules closed the book she'd been studying and reached to answer. A phone call this late at night either had to be a wrong number or bad news. She relaxed. It couldn't be Pop; she'd talked to him this morning and he would have been in bed hours ago.

“Jules?” The voice of Pop's foreman, Joe Fraker, came over the line.

A shiver raked her spine. “What's wrong?”

“It's your dad, hon. He took a hard fall late this afternoon. We were planting the north field and he went a little too far out on a ridge. The tractor overturned—now they don't think he's hurt badly. I'd have called sooner, but you know how clinics are. We've been waiting on tests and he didn't want me to call you until we knew something for certain.”

Jules struggled to clear her rattled thoughts.
Clinic.
The injury couldn't be too serious, or they would have moved him to Pasco.

“Where is he?”

“He's lost a lot of blood. Hit his head on a rock and cut about an inch slash in his noggin. They want to move him on up to the hospital in Pasco. If I have your permission, I'll give the go ahead.”

“Of course. Is he stable for now?”

“I have to go, hon. I've called your sister.”

Crystal.
He'd called Crystal? The fall must be more serious than Joe was saying.

“I'll start now, Joe.”

She sensed a nod in his tone. “I think you'd better.”

It took all of five minutes to throw a few things into her backpack, and lock up. Her gaze fell on the potato tubs. Who'd look after her experiments — and she needed to record the last hybrid mix …

Hang the experiment.

Locking the door, she headed for her Geo Tracker. The apartment complex was quiet this time of night. Pop was hard-headed. A little fall wasn't going to stop him, so why did Joe have to bring Crystal in on this?

Franklin County, Washington
May

C
ruz Delgado hefted a fertilizer sack and pitched it to his brother, Adan. The Delgado truck sat in front of Mayse Feed and Seed this morning.

Any mention of Jules Matias set him off. When her Tracker pulled up to the mortuary, he looked the other way. He had to hand it to his brother; it took Adan a good five minutes before he mentioned the fact that the irritant had arrived at Mellon's.

Adan swung a bag in the pick-up bed, head bent, lips sealed. The truck's worn springs sagged beneath the weight. Then the elephant waltzed into the room, as it usually did. “You didn't expect her to skip her dad's funeral, did you?”

“With her you never know.”

Grinning, Adan shook his head. “You're never going to get over her. Face it.” A sack of fertilizer caught him mid-section. He grabbed for support. “Hey!”

“Hey yourself. I'm over her. Got it?”

Adan ducked when another sack whipped through the
air. The men paused for a breather. Cruz averted his gaze when Jules got out of the vehicle but Adan lifted a friendly hand.

“Can't you at least offer your sympathies?”

“I'm going to Fred's service.”

“Yeah, but you won't say a word to her.” Adan's gaze followed the petite figure walking up the mortuary's flower lined sidewalk. “Sure is a shame about Fred. An aneurysm to the brain, and bam, he's history.”

Cruz shook his head. No, he wouldn't say a word to Jules. He'd said all he was ever going to say to that woman four years ago. Pitching the last sack on the truck, he pulled the brim of his Stetson down over his eyes, and then climbed into the cab. Truth was, he would miss ole Fred. He was a good neighbor, and if you needed something, Fred had it. Shame the farm he'd worked for over forty years would fall into strangers' hands. The rural community was tight knit; neighbors were extended families. Most had been born and raised in the county. Nearly all raised potatoes, unlike the apple growers in other parts of the state.

Cruz started the truck.
Face it, Delgado. You're not worried about Fred's potato patch. You're worried that when it goes, Jules goes.
The admission caught him unawares. A hot branding iron rammed in his eye couldn't have stung worse.
Count your blessings.
She and Crystal would sell out and that would be the end of Blue Bayou. Jules had been back in town less than twenty-four hours and already she had his mind going nuts.

Adan climbed in the cab, and Cruz backed out of the feed store lot and shifted into first gear.
Well not this time, Miss Matias.
He glanced at her car, once a sight that sent his heart into overtime.

Jules stepped out of the funeral home, shading her eyes against spring sunlight. The community where she'd been born and raised sat twenty miles outside of Pasco, Washington, deep in the heart of the Tri-Cities area. She loved everything about the community with the exception of the Hanford Nuclear Reservation outside of Pasco. Anyone could have lived without those 586 square miles. The fiftyish spring air had a bite to it this morning. The past thirty minutes had been the most trying in her life. Joe offered to come with her, but she'd refused. She needed a strong arm to lean on, but Pop's foreman's wasn't it.

An ache latched onto her heart when Cruz had driven away without a word of condolence. They'd been friends a lot longer than the state they now found themselves in, which she couldn't identify if she tried. Jilting a man twice was admittedly hard on the ego, but in her mind she had never jilted him, simply postponed the inevitable. She could not ever imagine herself married or having children with any other man. To this day, that was her goal.

He was the one who jumped the gun, acted with pure egotism. Cruz knew that she didn't
jilt
him; that she longed for a solid marriage — maybe not as badly then as now, but her needs seemed to be more pressing at the time. She'd been crowded too often and she hated the feeling.

Sliding into her vehicle, she snapped her seat belt in place and turned the key, listening as the old truck sprang to life. Crystal wouldn't make it to Pop's funeral. She'd bet a bushel
of spuds on that. Joe said she promised to come, but Crystal's promises were like Mom and Dad's marriage. Empty.

What she needed now was a strong dose of her best friend, Sophie.

Cruz Delgado's sister.