“Aww, man. You’re gonna make us play with Dad?” Grant asked. “He’ll get to play quarterback, which means I’m gonna have to run.”

“Wimp,” Barrett said. “I’ll run you down and intercept you.”

“Care to put some money on that?” Grant asked.

“I’ve got a hundred that says I take one away from you.”

“You’re on.”

“And so it begins,” Lydia said to her, heading toward the cornfields.

Katrina had to admit she was more excited about picking corn. They dove into the fields.

“Check the end of the corn husk with your hands as you go along,” Lydia told Katrina and Anya after she handed them baskets. “If it’s rounded or blunt, it’s ready to be picked. If it feels pointy, it’s not ready yet.”

She demonstrated by going down the row with them, and feeling a few of the ears, then having them run their hands over the ears after she had. “These are ready. This one’s not.”

It didn’t take long for Katrina to get the feel for an ear that was ripe. After that, she and Anya were on their own, and Anya disappeared down a different row. Grant and his brothers had been assigned different rows, and wow, were they fast. They had obviously done this before because they moved at a much more rapid pace than she did.

Before long, she had filled her basket and walked to the end of the row, where they dumped the corn into a bin. She went back to refill.

All in all, it took about an hour.

“That’s good enough for now,” Lydia said.

“What do you do with all the corn?” Katrina asked as they headed toward the house.

“Some we’ll put on the grill for dinner tonight. Some I’ll blanch and freeze for the rest of the summer.”

“That sounds fun,” Anya said. “I hope we’re around to help with that.”

Lydia put her arm around Anya. “I could keep you for the entire summer, you know.”

“I’d enjoy that as well. Too bad school’s starting up in a couple of weeks.”

Anya gave her a wishful look. Katrina laughed. “No. Sorry. You don’t get to forgo your senior year to stay here on the ranch.”

“See how she ruins all my fun, Lydia?”

Lydia laughed. “I ruined a lot of the kids’ fun over the years.”

Katrina caught sight of Easton and Leo returning in the truck, so she stopped and waited for them.

When her brother climbed out of the truck, he looked sunburned, dirty, and he smelled like fish. He was also grinning like crazy.

“Catch any fish?” she asked.

“I caught two,” Leo said. “Easton said I didn’t do badly at all.”

“He’s a natural fisherman,” Easton said. “Born to it. With a little more practice, I could take him out on the boat at sea and I’d bet he’d be catching bigger fish in no time.”

She was certain Leo’s face might explode if he smiled any broader. “I’m glad you had a good time. I hear there’s going to be a football game out here soon.”

Easton nodded. “Then we’re back just in time.”

Lydia decided it might be better for everyone to have lunch first, and let Easton and Leo cool off a bit inside the house, so they made sandwiches and had leftover fruit salad from the night before. Easton told them about fishing and told everyone how well Leo did baiting his first hook.

“Yeah, the kid was born to live in the country,” Easton said. “You’ll need to drag him out of the city more often, Katrina. Plus, I hear he wants to play football.”

“So he tells me.”

“I guess we’ll find out during the game this afternoon if he’s any good at it, since he’ll be playing with the best there is.”

“And Tucker, who sucks,” Barrett said before taking a bite of his sandwich.

“Screw you. I’m going to knock you flat on your ass,” Tucker said.

“You wish, pansy.”

“Someday, Katrina, maybe you’ll end up with a houseful of boys who love each other as much as ours do,” Easton said. Then winked at her.

She laughed. “Oh, I have siblings who love to give me a hard time. This is not unfamiliar to me.”

“This is true,” Anya said. “Though we don’t beat each other up.”

“You don’t know what you’re missing, Anya,” Barrett said, winking at her.

“Please don’t give her any ideas, Barrett,” Katrina said.




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