Page 5 of As It Was (Strawberry Springs #1)

CAIN

Strawberry Springs Neighborhood Watch

Kerry Winsor

Look at my little man, ready for school! He’s got @Nicole Rudder as his teacher! Gosh, I remember when she was a kid.

Comments:

Nicole Rudder : Did you have to tag me?

Kerry Winsor : Um, YES. I’m proud of you both!

Jackie Anne : Oh, you have Nicole! Congrats.

Kerry Winsor : Does anyone else have Nicole?? Who are his classmates gonna be? I need to know who I can chat with about all of these things. Other than Nicole, of course.

Nicole Rudder : Please remember that I have to be professional.

Kerry Winsor : I helped you fix your hair after you turned it orange in high school. Considering I never told your dad, I get a special pass.

Nicole Rudder: You’re lucky he doesn’t have Facebook!

The chickens swarmed me when I walked into their run. I had a ton of them, so it felt a little like being drowned by fowl, but the second I threw the food down, they went for that.

Except for one.

My favorite chicken, Hennifer, flew to my shoulder. She did this every morning since she knew I’d give her something special whenever she landed without scratching me.

“Good job,” I said, holding out my hand, which held her daily treat. “There you go.”

She grabbed every last mealworm out of my palm before joining the rest of the flock. I watched them for a moment to ease the churning in my gut before going to collect eggs.

Usually, I grabbed the eggs and then focused on packaging them to sell. That, in addition to getting the milk from the cows ready to be sold to a pasteurization plant, took up most of my days, especially when the weather was warm and egg-laying season was in full swing.

And it was all on me since I was the sole employee of Bennie’s farm.

For a long time, I’d been angry that all of that work had been given only to me.

I managed the farm and did the daily tasks, and for a while, it was almost too much.

I’d written to his family to ask for more help, but there had been no response.

These days, I was grateful for it. Sure, I’d had to make cuts and focus mostly on the animals rather than the crops Bennie had managed, but I got to make a living while barely talking to anyone.

The diner and the local store bought most of the eggs, and the milk I sold to the plants earned a decent income to keep the farm running.

I had enough free time to move my schedule around to spend time with Eric, my nephew I had custody of. But not enough to think too hard about life.

I checked my watch, knowing we needed to leave soon. This was a day both Eric and I had been dreading. His first day of school.

Weeks before, I’d figured out a new schedule of running the farm and picking him up. It did nothing to quell the nervous feeling in my gut.

He’d already had a hard life since his mom—my sister—had died in a car crash.

She was a single parent, and I was the only blood relative the state could find.

She and I had been separated when we were kids after being thrown into the foster system.

I hadn’t known anything about her until she’d died.

And then I had sole custody of a two-year-old.

I could remember the days when I would move from home to home and wonder why no relative had stepped up for me. When I’d had the chance to do things differently, I’d taken it, even when my only knowledge about being a parent had been from calving season in the spring.

Since then, I’d tried to make sure Eric didn’t have much stress in his life. He helped with the animals when he wanted to, but most of the time, he could play in the fields and enjoy life without worrying about whether or not he would be cared for.

And him being nervous for his first day of kindergarten? Yeah, that wrecked me.

I was tempted to homeschool him and keep him from every fear there could be, but being the lone person working on a farm meant I was busy. Besides, I was many things, but a teacher was not one of them.

The Strawberry Springs Elementary School was good. Too good. The close-knit town never hesitated to help out the school, and many of the teachers who had taught me were still there.

Of course, Eric had gotten the youngest one.

Nicole Rudder, one of the popular girls in high school who had always turned her nose up at me.

To be fair, those were my worst years, and I’d made a lot of bad impressions at the time.

To this day, she hesitated to speak to me, like most of the people around here did.

I only hoped she wouldn’t do the same to Eric.

All the eggs were in my basket, and the sun crept over the horizon. I knew I couldn’t avoid this for much longer. Eric had asked to go into town for breakfast before school since our diner, Center Point, was open this early.

I couldn’t say no.

I went inside and loaded the eggs into the egg-washing machine before I got myself ready for the day. Eric was up and sitting next to his backpack, waiting for me.

“Ready?” I asked as I ruffled his dark hair, eyeing the way he swung his legs. He always moved when he was nervous. Now that the calendar had counted down to zero on his first day of school, he never seemed to be still.

“Yeah,” he said. “Can we get pancakes now?”

I was not ready. Not remotely. But I grabbed the keys to the truck anyway.

It was a thirty-minute drive into town. Technically, the town square was out of our way, but I didn’t care. If my nephew wanted pancakes on the day his life changed, then he was getting pancakes.

It still didn’t stop the way my body tensed when we parked.

I hated coming into town. There were reminders of all my mistakes everywhere.

Like the corner of the square where I’d let Donny have it.

Or the center of it where Bennie had dragged me to sell eggs, and I’d wound up standing awkwardly as people passed.

I’d never been able to integrate into the town dynamics, and it was obvious when Tammy did a double take at seeing me.

Tammy owned the diner, and other than her husband who worked in the back, she ran it by herself. Her daughter sometimes helped, but she’d left town to go to college. Since then, she’d hired some of the high school kids, but this morning she was alone and gestured for us to sit anywhere.

Old Man Hugh was here, and he’d called Tammy over to lock her into a long conversation about how taxes were too high.

Marjorie and Henrietta, a retired married couple I barely spoke to, took up one of the other tables in the corner.

I looked down at the menu, though there was no need.

Both of us knew exactly what we were getting.

Tammy came to our table a few minutes later, dropping orange juice for Eric and a water for me.

“So,” she said as she turned to him, “first day of school! How are you feeling?”

“Good,” he said at first. Then he sank into his seat. “Nervous.”

“You’ll do great. I bet you’ll have a bunch of friends on your first day.”

Unlike Cain , I could hear her saying. I wasn’t much for friends. Or people.

“Is the food at school good?” he asked. That was always the first thing on his mind.

“It’s ... okay. You might have better luck asking this one”—she jerked a thumb at me— “to make you lunch.”

Eric’s eyes slid over to me.

“The letter from the school said they wanted you to try school lunch once. But we’ll talk about it after.”

“Fine,” he said before turning back to Tammy. “Can I have pancakes?”

“Of course. Your usual, Cain?”

“Yes,” I said. “Thanks.”

She nodded slowly before going to put the order in. I let out a breath. I tried to put on a brave face for Eric, but this was like pulling teeth for me. All the people here saw me as the kid I used to be, not the man I was .

Tammy didn’t waste time. We got our food the second it was done, and we ate quickly before leaving to go to the school.

Other parents were waiting in the courtyard. I parked the truck and walked hand in hand with Eric up to the front, trying to ignore the pounding of my heart. My teeth clenched, and I knew if I saw any tears gathering in Eric’s eyes, I’d pack him up and take him home.

“Cain Smith, there you are!” a voice called out. I didn’t think it was possible for me to tense any more.

But the impossible happened every damn day.

Kerry Winsor wanted to talk to me.

She spent her free time watching every corner of Strawberry Springs. She was in her late forties, but had a kid Eric’s age from her second marriage. She loved talking to all of the teachers and parents.

And she loved talking about me .

I’d made local headlines many times since coming here, and she’d enjoyed discussing it each time it had happened.

“I bet Donny’s rolling over in his freshly dug grave right now,” she’d said. “It’s a shame that he sold that house.”

I’d heard it in the store of all places, and I’d left before I could hear any more about how much they hated me. I knew I was an outsider to everyone here but Bennie and Jackie. And though I’d accepted it, the reminders still hurt.

Kerry was nice to my face, which made what I heard worse. But the people of Strawberry Springs showed their colors when I wasn’t around, and I knew better.

I would have avoided her like the plague, but of course, I had to be here.

“Kerry,” I said.

“And little Eric! You look so handsome. Has anyone gotten a photo of you two?”

Absolutely not .

“Can we get one?” Eric asked.

Dammit.

“Sure,” I said, and I handed her my phone, opened to the camera app. I knew she would snoop otherwise. I positioned Eric in front of me and let her snap a photo. When she handed me my phone back, her son, Tommy, was by her side.

“What teacher do you have?” she asked. “We have Ms. Rudder. Hard to believe she’s old enough to be a teacher. I remember her first day of kindergarten!”

“We have the same,” I replied.

Her eyes lit up. “How did I not know that? I guess we’ll be seeing more of each other?”

Ah. Well. My day had gotten impossibly worse.

“I suppose so.”

Out of the corner of my eye, Tommy peeked out from behind his mother’s legs and waved at Eric.

He returned it with vigor, and the other boy moved out more.

“I bet Eric would like a friend,” Kerry said to her son. “Then we could set up playdates!”

And I bet she would use that to get more information out of me. Absolutely not. I was not a part of the gossip machine of this town. I refused to be.

But Tommy listened and walked over to Eric to ask about his favorite TV show.

“He’s got him talking about Bluey,” she said. “They’re best friends now.”

Well, fuck .

I eyed the front door. A quick check of my watch told me we had three minutes.

“It’s so hard dropping them off the first time,” Kerry said. “But it gets easier.”

My eyes slid to her. “I don’t know if it will.”

“Soon, you’ll be wanting him to go. And then he’ll start reading and writing. Then he’ll be out of the house like my first is.”

Yeah. I didn’t want to think about that at all.

I was attached to Eric. He was possibly the only person other than Jackie and Bennie who genuinely liked me. And in return, I’d poured all the love I’d missed out on as a kid into him. When he grew up, I wasn’t sure what would be left for me other than the chickens and cows on the farm.

“But that’s not for a long time,” Kerry reminded me. “And maybe by then, you’ll have a nice woman to fill your time.”

“That’s not happening.” I knew way too much about the women in this town, and they knew the same about me. A relationship with any of them was completely off the table. And besides, I didn’t have time for romance when I was raising a child and running a farm.

Kerry opened her mouth to say something, but the doors opened and parents filtered in. I gave her a nod and took Eric to his classroom, eager to be away from her.

Nicole’s hair was in a bun, and she welcomed every child with a tight hug. Eric wasn’t excluded, but she wouldn’t look me in the eye. I focused on my nephew, who nervously looked around. I knelt to get to his level.

“I’ll be back in a few hours,” I said.

“Okay.”

“And I know this is scary, but you’re gonna do great.”

“How do you know?”

“Because you’re smart. And kind. Way more than I am.”

Eric hugged me tightly, and I returned it for far longer than I should have. When I let go, I ran out of the classroom before I stayed forever.

And thankfully, no tears fell until I was in my truck.