Organically Yours: Sanctuary Book Five Read online

  “It’s workable enough. And those trees need to go in today.”

  “All of them?”

  Lord, give me patience. “Yes, all of them.”

  Getting thirty-six trees into the ground shouldn’t be a problem with everyone she had working even if she couldn’t get the backhoe operational right away. She scanned the work crew now shuffling into the shed, counting four behind Eddie. There should have been seven.

  “Where’s the rest?”

  Head turn, spit. A dribble of spittle hung on his bottom lip. It was no wonder the guy was still single.

  “With Kief.”

  Her brother Kiefer was in charge of the vegetable fields, and as far as she knew, there was nothing pressing going on there. “Doing what?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t know. Rick said he needed them.”

  Tina’s ire increased. Unless it was an emergency, she needed them working on the orchards more than whatever her brother had them doing. She’d deal with Rick later—after she took a look at the tractor. Hopefully, it was a quick fix and something that could be handled on-site. Two other machines were already in the shop, and she couldn’t afford to go without for the week or more it would take to have someone else fix it.

  “More work for you then, huh? Better get started.”

  They grumbled, Eddie in particular, but she stared them down until they started moving. She’d learned early on not to back down, or they’d walk all over her.

  They didn’t like taking orders from a woman. She got that. She didn’t care. She was an Obermacher first, a female second. As long as she ran the orchards, they worked for her.

  Only when they went into the shed to grab shovels and pickaxes and wheelbarrows did she pull the toolbox from the back of her truck. When she was younger, she’d spent hours tinkering in the garage with her grandfather while her father and brothers were out in the fields, and she had picked up a thing or two about improvisational repair.

  As she was passing the door, she heard one of the crew say, “Man, I feel sorry for any man who has to deal with her every day.”

  Another laughed. “Yeah, well, we won’t have to deal with her for much longer from what I heard.”

  Tina paused and listened, but they said no more before they moved away.

  What did they know—or think they knew—that she didn’t?

  She shook her head and chalked it up to pure speculation. Everyone knew there’d been offers to buy up their farmland; that was nothing new. Developers had been wanting to strip the fertile soil and sell it off, turning their rolling fields into residential complexes with luxury townhomes and single-family mansions. One of them had even gone as far as to design an entire community village with restaurants and shops and God knew what else and present it to the township board—or so she’d heard. Apparently, it was the new thing among rich folk looking to get out of the congested city.

  Those offers were just offers, and those rumors, just rumors. Tina wasn’t overly concerned. Obermachers had been working their land since the late 1600s and would continue to do so for the next four hundred years. Farming was in their blood.

  Even if they were inclined to sell off a few parcels, the citizens of Sumneyville wouldn’t stand for it. They disliked outsiders and would be especially unaccepting of city folk coming in and building multimillion-dollar homes and golf courses, driving up the tax base and looking down their noses at everyone.

  Plus, the township board would never approve the kind of rezoning necessary to allow any of that to happen. Not even the greedy ones.

  At least, she didn’t think they would. Things were changing around Sumneyville, and not all of it was good. The old guard, as she called them—men like her father and grandfather along with Sam Winston and others—were slowly disappearing, and those rising up to fill in the gaps weren’t made of the same honorable stuff.

  The moment Tina started up the tractor, she knew what the problem was. The machine was rolling coal—shooting black smoke out of the exhaust—which often indicated a faulty glow plug.

  Tina dug down into the bottom of her toolbox, grabbed a spare, and swapped out the bad one. It was an easy fix, one that anyone with even a minimal working knowledge should be able to diagnose and repair.

  She drove the compact over to where the guys were digging and got to work right along with them despite the cold, damp air seeping into her joints and making them ache. Once the new trees were in and she was satisfied with the way the pruning was going, Tina went in search of her older brother to wrangle back her workers while there was still some daylight.

  She found Rick in the office with her brother Gunther, leaning over a large table covered in site maps.

  “What the hell, Rick?” she said by way of greeting.

  Both men looked up.

  Rick’s brow rose in question as he straightened and allowed the map to curl in toward the center. “Got a problem, Bert?”

  “Yeah, I have a problem.” She glared at him. “Why’d you pull my guys off orchards today?”

  “Fence repair in the northern border.”

  “I need them on peaches and apricots.”

  “Eddie didn’t seem to think it would be an issue.”

  “Eddie doesn’t run the orchards. I do. Next time, check with me before you poach my crew. Call them now and send them back.”

  He shook his head. “The fence takes priority. The fruit trees can wait.”

  “Seriously?”

  “You’ve got plenty of time.”

  “I’ll remember that when planting season rolls around.”

  Tina left the barn in a huff and drove back to the orchards, only to find that the guys had already left. A quick check confirmed her suspicions—they hadn’t gotten nearly as much done as she’d hoped.

  Eddie needed to go. Rick’s best friend or not, he’d gotten too big for his britches, and his piss-poor attitude was affecting the whole crew. Rick could put him on his team if he had a problem with that.

  She needed someone she could trust. Someone who cared about the success of the orchards and would have her back. Eddie was not that guy.

  Darkness wasn’t far off, but there was no sense in wasting the little bit of daylight remaining by chasing the guys down. She grabbed a handsaw and some telescoping loppers and went out herself, using the headlights from her truck when it got too dark to see with natural light.

  By the time she made it back to her place, she was hungry, tired, and hurting.

  One thing was becoming increasingly clear: things could not continue as they were.

  Tina turned on the oven and popped her backup Zook’s chicken in. While that warmed, she went to take a long, hot shower to ease some of the stiffness in her upper body and fished out the prescription pain pills she tried so desperately not to use.

  She curled up on the couch in front of her television with her chicken and a mug of tea—made with herbs known for their anti-inflammatory properties—when her landline phone rang. She glanced at the number on the display; it wasn’t familiar.

  “No, I don’t want to extend my vehicle’s warranty,” she grumbled to no one and let the answering machine pick up.

  “Hi, Tina? It’s Kate Handelmann—well, Kate Sheppard now.” Even on the machine, Tina could hear the smile in her voice. “Can you call me back when you have a chance? There’s something I’d like to talk to you about.”

  The soft click signaled the end of the call, leaving Tina staring at the now-blinking new message light, bemused.

  Tina had always liked Kate. She didn’t know her very well, but she knew enough to know Kate was friendly, down-to-earth, and kind of a tomboy, like Tina. Plus, Kate was active in the community and always doing for others. Or at least, she had been before the whole kerfuffle with her family. What exactly had transpired varied based on who was doing the telling. All Tina knew was that Kate had quit her job in the family store—Handelmann’s Hardware—and was now married and living at Sanctuary.

  What Kate wanted t
o talk to her about, Tina had no idea. Her curiosity continued to grow, and by the time she finished her dinner, she decided to find out.

  Chapter Four

  Doc

  Kate’s phone chimed in the semi-darkness, a melodic overlay on the dialogue taking place on the screen. She quickly muted it and looked down at the screen. “Sorry, everyone. It’s Tina.”

  As Kate got to her feet and prepared to leave the room, Sam aimed the remote at the screen and paused the movie. “No problem. I need more popcorn anyway. Anyone else want something from the kitchen?”

  When a chorus of requests rang out, Sandy laughed and rose as well, saying she and Sam would return with a full snack bar.

  Movie night was Doc’s favorite night. Besides meals, it was one of the few times many of them were in the same space at the same time, and he enjoyed the socialization. Invitations were open to everyone on-site, and the event had become a popular thing, even among the newbies.

  Anyone interested gathered in what had become known as the decompression chamber to chill and watch a flick with an insane selection of the kinds of snacks and beverages one would find in a theater. Movie night had become so popular in fact that they’d expanded the room, knocking down the wall between two smaller rooms to create a bigger space.

  It was a great space, too. A massive hearth commanded one wall, built with stone found in and around the property. On the opposite wall, built-in bookshelves stretched from the floor to the high ceiling. An assortment of chairs and sofas and table lamps gave the place a homey, cozy feel while the series of arched windows kept it from feeling too confining. The small television they’d started with had long since been replaced with a large mounted flat screen on the remaining wall, easily seen from anywhere in the room.

  Doc took advantage of the brief intermission to stand and stretch, catching only snippets from Kate’s end of the phone conversation but it sounded promising.

  “She said she’d come and take a look at the orchard,” Kate informed them with a smile after slipping her phone into her pocket a short while later.

  “When?” asked Matt “Church” Winston, the man who’d come up with the idea of turning his family legacy into Sanctuary.

  “Sunday. It’s the only day she’s free. That’s okay, isn’t it?”

  “It’s fine,” agreed Church.

  “Do you think bringing her here is a good idea?” asked Steve “Smoke” Tannen, the tone of his voice suggesting he didn’t. “She’s an Obermacher, right? Cage has already identified them as being part of Team Freed.”

  Doc understood his concern. Daryl Freed was the Sumneyville chief of police and one of the primary sources of anti-Sanctuary rhetoric among select locals.

  “Don’t blame her for her brothers’ bad choices,” Kate said defensively.

  “We’re not,” Mad Dog said in an attempt to soothe his wife’s ruffled feathers, “but it’s best to be cautious—at least until we know what side of the fence she falls on.”

  “Why does she have to pick a side? Why can’t she be neutral, like Finland?” Cage’s woman, Bree, asked just as Sam and Sandy return to the room with a rolling cart of snack and beverage refills.

  Bree’s mention of Finland made Doc think of Scandinavia, and that, of course, led to Doc’s opinion that Tina Obermacher fit the Scandinavian stereotype to a T even though she probably wasn’t Scandinavian at all. Blonde hair, sculpted features, light-blue eyes, and a healthy, athletic, womanly build.

  “It’s hard to remain completely unbiased when all you hear is one side of the story,” Sandy pointed out.

  Sandy would know. Until she and Heff had hooked up, she’d been good friends with Freed’s nephew, Lenny Petraski, who also happened to work for his uncle and was one of his biggest supporters outside the police station as well as in it.

  Kate nodded. “That’s true, but I don’t think Tina’s the type to believe everything she hears. She’s more likely to see for herself and form her own opinion.”

  “Let’s hope so,” Nick “Cage” Fumanti said somberly. “But it’s in our best interest to be cautious until we have a better feel for what we’re dealing with here. Her brothers are firmly in Freed’s camp.”

  “Are we providing an opportunity for a soft recon here?” Smoke mused.

  Kate looked to Church for support. “You know Tina, don’t you? From school? She’s not like that.”

  “She wasn’t then,” Church agreed, “but that was a long time ago. Things change.”

  There was a heaviness to his tone that spoke volumes. Church rarely talked about the negative reaction he’d received upon his return to his hometown, but that had to have struck a nerve. These were people he’d grown up with, people he’d known his whole life. To have them openly bad-mouthing him and the good he was trying to do with Sanctuary must have felt like a betrayal.

  “Yes, they do,” Kate said quietly. Her family had turned their backs on her when she took up with Mad Dog.

  Her husband wrapped his arm around her shoulders and kissed her temple in a touching show of support.

  Hugh “Heff” Bradley shrugged. “It’s simple. Keep her tour to the public areas. If she starts asking questions, don’t divulge what we know about the preppers, the ongoing federal investigation into Luther Renninger, or the eyes we have on the mines.”

  “None of us would do that,” Sam said firmly, settling back in between her husband’s legs. “We protect our own. Now, are we going to watch the rest of the movie or not?”

  Sam’s question was met by murmurs and grunts of agreement. But as the lights went down and the movie resumed, Doc couldn’t help thinking about Tina Obermacher and her upcoming visit.

  Chapter Five

  Tina

  Tina felt a tingle of anticipation as she laced up her walking boots.

  It had been a hell of a week. An unpredicted ice storm had done some damage, particularly in the cherry grove. One of the guys on her team got hurt and would probably be out for a month at least. Some kids broke into an equipment sheds and vandalized the place. And Eddie was being more irascible than ever. All attempts to pin Rick down and talk to him about it had been unsuccessful.

  So, yeah, she was looking forward to getting away for the day to visit Sanctuary, see Kate, and check out what they were doing with the place. From what she remembered, the Winston resort was a gorgeous place with plenty of scenic vistas.

  And maybe, just maybe, she’d catch a glimpse of the mysterious men—one hazel-eyed Good Samaritan in particular—who had chosen to make the place their new home.

  It was important to keep her expectations realistic, however. A lot had happened since she’d last been there. She’d been in high school then, the summer before a horrific fire claimed the lives of the entire Winston family—except for Matt, who’d been serving in the military at the time.

  Her stomach tightened at the thought of it. The tragedy had gutted their small, tight-knit community. Like the Obermachers, the Winstons were an old, established family, and in the blink of an eye, they were no more.

  For a long time afterward, Tina had had nightmares about the same thing happening to her family. Of coming home to find everyone she loved just ... gone.

  Thankfully, that hadn’t happened, but the last decade hadn’t been without loss. Tina’s grandfather was the first to go. Then, her father had a sudden and massive heart attack while harvesting feed corn one day. Not long after, her mother took an accidental overdose—at least, that was the official story—and was gone too. That had left just the Obermacher matriarch—Tina’s grandmother—and her siblings to carry on.

  The family business had been divided evenly between Tina and her brothers. Gunther, who didn’t like getting his hands dirty, handled the business end of things. Kiefer took over the vegetable crops, Rick handled grains, and Tina did fruits.

  They didn’t always agree. Rick and Gunther could be pigheaded and often shared the same mind. Kiefer could be reasonable at times, but he was more likely to go along
with whatever Rick and Gunther wanted.

  There was no doubt in her mind that they would be opposed to her decision to go to Sanctuary alone, which was exactly why she hadn’t told anyone about her plans.

  She’d heard the same rumors everyone else had, of course. If Rick and some of his drinking buddies were to be believed, Matt Winston was turning his family legacy into a veritable fortress, amassing guns and weapons and building a small army of mentally unstable former servicepeople.

  Tina didn’t believe that for a minute. For one thing, she knew Matt Winston—or at least, the man he used to be. Sure, serving in the military could change a lot of things about a person but not who they were at their core, and Matt Winston was good people.

  Nor did she believe that Matt’s purpose in restoring the old place was a dark one. Both he and his family had always been very community-minded. Why people tended to forget that was beyond her. Either they had short memories or they were allowing Daryl Freed and his ilk to rewrite local history.

  Dressed in layers, Tina locked up the small caretaker’s cottage she called home and set off. The Winston place wasn’t far as the crow flies, but there was no road that led directly there from where she was, which meant she had to go down toward the town to get to the road that led back up.

  Thirty minutes later, she reached her destination. The long driveway with its overarching branches brought back pleasant memories. Soon, those trees and the abundant mountain laurel behind them would be loaded with blossoms, filling the mountain air with the scents of yet another spring.

  She pulled into a parking spot just off the circular drive and gazed approvingly at the half-wall and steps. Both had recently been redone by the look of things, and they’d done a really good job, using the same local stone that had been used in the original manor house and the subsequent additions they’d put on when the place became a resort.

  That, too, had been skillfully redone. It bore no resemblance to the charred, blackened ruins that had been splashed across the front page of the Sumneyville Times for weeks.