Page 1 of As It Was (Strawberry Springs #1)

Fourteen Years Ago

Life was a series of disappointments, one after another. If there was one lesson I’d learned, it was that.

And the biggest one?

The man sitting across the breakfast table glaring at me.

His wife, Jackie, was talking about her plans for the day. She had a lot of clients in her hair salon in the center of town, and she had to leave early to get to them. The salon was new and was a passion project of hers. Donny despised the fact that she worked at all.

I wasn’t sure why he hated her being out of the house so much, but I had a feeling it was because it meant he was forced to watch me.

To be fair, I also hated being watched by him. My other foster parents had left me by myself since I was ten. But he insisted on it, saying I would steal something if left alone.

I was already dreading the day, and it hadn’t even begun.

He didn’t like me, that much was obvious. The feeling was mutual. Since I’d come here three months ago, I’d been the victim of his yelling fits more times than I could count. And I’d thrown it right back.

He’d threatened to kick me out once a day, but whenever my social worker would come to check on me, he stayed silent while Jackie told them how good of a kid I was.

I tried to be. For her. She was the nicest foster mother I’d met.

Donny, on the other hand?

Worst foster father ever. And that was saying a lot.

I was a difficult kid. No one would say it to my face, but I didn’t do well in any of the homes I had been put in.

Some were fine, but I was packed in with too many others to focus on my schoolwork.

Others were only in it for the money, and it was obvious.

With one mess up after another, my options dwindled.

My social worker thought that getting into nature would be the key to me finally assimilating somewhere. When I first saw the tiny trailer amidst a sea of green grass, I thought I would hate it. But there weren’t many sounds outside. Only birds and wind.

I kind of liked it.

Which meant it would all end soon.

“I need to get on the road into town,” Jackie said. “It’s such a long drive.”

“Can I go with you?” I asked it all the time. “I can be helpful.”

Her gaze flicked to her husband and then to me. “I have a job for you.”

“A job he can do?” Donny mumbled. “I doubt it.”

I opened my mouth to snap that I could do a lot of things, but Jackie’s hand landed on my shoulder, and I focused only on her.

“Bennie is our neighbor up the hill. He owns a lot of farmland. He’s getting old and needs some help around the farm. ”

“Can’t believe he even said yes. I told him this little punk was a thief.”

“I don’t steal! You’re the one who smoked through your last pack.”

“No, I didn’t. You took ’em. I know you did!”

Jackie glared at Donny, but her eyes softened when she looked at me. “Do you wanna go there today?”

“I’ll do it,” I said. I would do anything if it meant getting away from Donny. She smiled and grabbed my arm.

“I’ll walk you there and introduce you. Then I really need to get going.”

I followed her up the hill to a wooden fence.

The spring air smelled like tulips and strawberries.

Next to a white farmhouse with a blue roof sat a field of pink and white tulips.

On the other side, there were multiple strawberry fields.

There was a tree line far away with a singular path through it. I’d never seen so much space before.

“Bennie!” Jackie called as she hopped the fence. “I brought him!”

An older man was bent down in the field. He slowly stood and stretched before walking over to us. He had weathered skin that pulled into a smile. “Well, well. Cain Smith. I’ve heard a lot about you.”

That wasn’t a very good sign.

“It’s nice to meet you, sir.”

“You’re, what, sixteen? That’s only a little older than my granddaughter.”

“Yes, sir.”

“He’ll do well. He listens to me. Most of the time.” Jackie laughed. “And I think he’ll listen to you too.”

“Do you like animals?” Bennie asked.

Who didn’t? “Yes.”

“Good. Come on. I’ll show you what you need to do. ”

Jackie gave me a wave before I walked off with Bennie.

I watched him warily, but followed. We walked along the path through the tree line.

The sun gave way to shade for a few moments until we came to a clearing.

There was a massive fenced-in area with multiple chicken coops.

The large birds walked around, digging in the dirt as they looked for food.

There were white, black, and even red chickens. I had no idea so many different kinds existed.

“So, you have chickens?”

“Not just that.”

He pointed in the other direction where a wooden fence marked an expansive plot of land with a barn in the center. Cows were everywhere, eating the grass beneath them. Some lounged in a shallow pond not too far away.

“I need you to be able to hop these fences and feed all of the animals.”

“Is there a gate?”

“There was, but it got blocked up a long time ago. I thought hopping the fence would keep me young. Boy, was I wrong.”

I looked at both fences. The one for the cows was higher, but not too bad.

“I can do that easily.”

“Here,” Bennie said, throwing something into my hand.

“What are these?”

“Mealworms.” I was sure my face had turned a sickly shade of green because he laughed and added, “The chickens love them. They’ll run at you for them.”

I resisted the urge to throw them on the ground. I liked animals, but I hated bugs—worms included. We walked into the coop, and soon I was trying not to trip over the chickens rushing at my ankles for what I had in my hand.

“Ah! Okay, here!” I dropped the mealworms on the ground. “Please don’t trip me. ”

“Oh, they will,” Bennie said. “Come on, let’s go check their regular food and water.”

I followed him to the back of the coops where we piled up more eggs into a basket than I’d seen in my life. By the time we were done filling their food bins with grain, they were already trying to trip me again, but I managed to get around them.

We walked outside, and I was still thinking about all of their little faces and how they ran. Chickens didn’t seem very bright, but they did seem kind of ... cute.

“The animals are hard to keep up on,” Bennie explained. “My passion is with the strawberries, but that’s not year-round, and these eggs sell very well around here. As does the cow milk.”

We walked up to a field filled with black cows. “There are so many of them.”

“I need an employee to work on rounding them up for milking. And someone to collect eggs.” He patted my shoulder. “Now I have one.”

“I don’t know if I’ll be good at it.”

“Why not?”

“I’m not good at much.”

“You’re sixteen. Just starting out. You just need time.”

“But—”

“No talking down about yourself. Let’s just try it and see how it goes, yeah?”

“Y-yeah, okay.”

“Now, let’s go see some cows.”

We entered the fenced part of the yard. The cows were friendlier than I’d expected, some even brushing up against me as I walked through. I didn’t smile much, but when an animal liked me for no reason, I couldn’t resist.

While Bennie showed me how to milk them, I committed each part to memory. I was used to letting people down, but I wanted this to be the one time that I didn’t.

The next day, he only monitored from a distance as I tried not to mess anything up.

But I didn’t expect one of the cows to waltz up to me with a newborn calf. She was only a cow, but I swore she looked at me expectantly.

“I don’t have any food. It’s all in the barn.”

She looked at her baby and then at me.

“What? What do you need?”

“She’s showing off her baby!” Bennie called.

I looked at it all with new eyes and smiled at both the massive cow and the tiny one.

“She’s cute. You have good genes.”

I didn’t know if that made me the biggest loser in the world, but there was no one around to hear, except maybe Bennie.

“You’re gonna do great,” he said when I walked up to him. “You’re just like my granddaughter.”

“Where is she?”

“Her mama keeps her in the Nashville, but I don’t think that’s where she belongs.”

“Why not?”

“Sometimes you just know. And when I see her on the holidays, all she can talk about is wanting to be here. Hopefully, she’ll get what she wants.”

“She sounds cool.”

“Right now, she’s busy finishing up school and doing all the things her mama wants.” He smiled, but it seemed a little sad. “But she’ll find her way here. I just know it.”

“And then I’ll get to meet her?” I didn’t make plans for the future, but for some reason, I wanted this to work.

“Somethin’ tells me you’ll definitely get to meet her, kid.” He ruffled my hair and walked off.

“Wait! What else should I do?”

“Come with me to sell all of this! And then dinner.”

“You’re feeding me?”

“You’re a part of my team, aren’t you? You’ll get treated like it.”

I hadn’t ever been a part of anything, but I liked the sound of it. I ran to catch up with him, feeling like just this once, things were going right for me.

I hoped it stayed that way.