Free Dirty: The Complete Series (Secret Baby Romance Love Story) by Nella Tyler Page B

managed
to knock down the old perimeter fence where it divided the new fields from the
old ones and smooth out the territory between the two pieces of land on the
property. They built a new hen house for the chickens and broke down the old
one—which was really getting neglected-looking after a harsh winter.
    I
had my own chores to work on, of course, and I tried to keep my mind on them as
best as I could. There was always something to do around the house, and of
course Adelyn, at about ten months of age, still needed constant attention and
supervision.
    She
was starting to figure out how to get up onto her feet, but she couldn’t walk
more than a couple of steps before her legs gave out and she started to crawl
again. She was also less and less content with merely hanging out in her playpen
and playing with her toys. I was definitely going to need to find solutions for
her to have space to play without being in danger.
    With
work out in the fields slowing down a bit as Dad, Tuck, and Cade let nature
more or less take its course with the plantings, I saw Cade more and more. I
ran into him going out to the old henhouse while they built the new one to
collect the day’s eggs or recruited his help moving big bags of fertilizer
around so that I could dose the vegetable garden.
    Tuck
and Dad had never had as much to do with the kitchen garden as Mom and I did,
but once or twice Tuck and Cade helped me weed—and especially as the weather
intensified with summer, the weeds seemed to spring up almost overnight. Cade
helped me to tie the bean plants to their little trellises, and he found me a
new hoe when the head broke off of the body of my old one.
    I
found myself watching Cade work the few times I had the excuse to see him
around the farm. As the spring heated up and grew more sweltering, heading
towards summer, it was hard not to notice that Cade tended to wear lighter,
brighter clothes, and that when he sweat through his shirt, I could see every
line and plane of his muscled body underneath.
    I
had to be careful not to be too obvious in my staring. Tuck was always looking
for some way to tease me, and if he thought I was truly interested in Cade,
he’d never let me live it down.
    It
just so happened that I would find myself working on one of my own projects not
too far from where the guys were working on something else or that I would have
a chance to take a break and play with Adelyn right at the same time that they
were taking a break to gulp down water or eat something.
    I
was at least a little clever in my attempts to get close to the guys. I knew
Tuck was hungry more or less constantly, so a few times a week, I’d manage to
find twenty minutes or more to whip something up as a snack to take out to
them—chips, sandwiches, or cut-up fruit, little things that would help pass the
time and keep them fueled throughout the day.
    Since
Dad was working with Tuck and Cade often enough, I could pretend I’d been
thinking of him or my brother when I made the snacks, instead of the farmhand.
    I
walked out of the kitchen with Addie on my back, held in the body-wrap that one
of my friends had gotten me for my baby shower. I had some cheese cubes and
some of last year’s pickles—bread and butter, along with some of the last jar
of dill pickles—and some crackers, along with a thermos of iced tea. They had
water out along the fence line where they were slowly doing repairs, but I knew
that both Tuck and Cade would appreciate the change in beverage.
    I
took the short route out to the perimeter fence, breathing in the fresh, clean
air and listening to Addie burble and occasionally let out sounds I’m sure she
thought were proper words as we walked.
    There
was actually a breeze, which was a blessing. There were no clouds at all in the
sky, and if there hadn’t been some cool air flowing around us, it would have
been unbearably hot. Even the short route out to the fence wasn’t that short—it
was just the easiest method of