Life After Wife (Three Magic Words Trilogy, #3)(52)

“Bet me? My grandpa had a two-acre garden and a stubborn old mule that took a fit every so often and wouldn’t budge. And guess who got to plow that garden under every spring?” He pointed at his chest.

They were still topping each other’s stories as they filed out the kitchen door and headed off to do their jobs that morning. Elijah looked over at Sophie and raised an eyebrow.

“We’ll get them raised. It’ll just take time,” she teased.

“Well, if we expect to do a decent job with them we better go find them some new toys. Grab the ranch checkbook, and we’ll see if those tractors are as good as the sale bill says they are,” he said.

Sophie wore jeans with a Western-cut shirt hanging out over her belt, boots, and her best straw hat. She picked up her purse, made sure she had half a dozen checks in an envelope stashed in a side pocket and her cell phone charged up, and put on her sunglasses.

“I’m ready,” she said.

“Good ranch woman,” he said.

“And what is that supposed to mean?” she snapped at him.

“It means you are a good ranch woman. You know that we need to get to the sale and you’re ready to go. I appreciate that.”

“Good ranch man,” she said.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” He held the door open for her.

“It means you’ve got the good sense to know a good ranch woman when you see one.”

“You sounded like Maud.” He crossed the porch behind her and opened the pickup door. It wasn’t as good as sitting on the cycle with her arms around his waist, but riding in the front seat side by side wasn’t too bad.

“That, sir, is the best compliment you can pay me,” she told him.



Sophie didn’t know a good tractor from a lemon. She did know that Aunt Maud liked John Deeres and they were green, but that was the extent of her knowledge on them. However, Elijah did not have to know that, now did he?

They arrived at the auction thirty minutes before starting time and circled the whole area. Elijah had the forethought to bring along a notepad, and he wrote down such things as hours the tractors had been used, if and when the engine had been overhauled, and what year it had been bought.

“What do you think?” Elijah asked.

“Honestly?”

“Of course.”

“I don’t know jack about a tractor. That was Gus and Aunt Maud’s bailiwick. I was the accountant. I can drive a tractor and pull a plow or a baler behind it, but I wouldn’t know a good one from a bad one.” She wondered why she’d fessed up when she could have had him thinking she was so much smarter than he was.

It was the kisses. Aunt Maud was back in her head. But it’s a wise thing to be honest because then that puts him on the hot seat to be the same.

Elijah nodded seriously. “OK, I’ll confess that I’m pretty slow when it comes to accounting, so I’m glad you can do that. I don’t have any idea what’s tax deductible or what has to be depreciated out, or even how to do taxes or insurance forms.”

“Guess we’ll get along just fine then. Please tell me you know something about tractors,” she said.

“I do. Daddy was adamant that all of his sons know equipment. And a cotton tractor is the same thing as an alfalfa or winter wheat tractor,” he said. “The best one on the lot today is that one right there.” He pointed to one with wheels almost as tall as Sophie. “Next best would be those two. I’d like to buy all three if the price is right.”

“What about that little one over there?” She pointed at a small red one at the end of the lot.

“It’s a good tractor but too small for much except making a garden. We going to plant a vegetable garden next spring?”

“Of course. Aunt Maud would sit on the bedpost and haunt me at night if we didn’t plant our tomatoes, green beans, squash, and cantaloupes. We usually put in about a quarter of an acre and we canned what we didn’t use. Won’t be much cannin’ goin’ on with five big, strappin’ men sitting at the supper table,” she told him.

“That sounded like something Momma would have said. She said she had to have a garden to keep us out of the poor-house with nine boys.”

She frowned. “I remember that there’re four older ones and then you and Noah, and the twins that we’ve inherited. But that’s only eight,” she said.

“You’re leaving out Jedidiah. He’s right under me in age. Thirty-eight last spring. He started off career military and then transferred into the FBI. Works out of Washington, DC, and comes home about once a year when my oldest brother and his wife host the annual family reunion at Thanksgiving. Never married except to his job.”

“So you all weren’t ranchers or farmers after all.”

“Seven out of nine ain’t too bad. Well, six out of nine, and then I came around to their way of thinking, thanks to Aunt Maud,” Elijah said.

“Ladies and gentlemen, gather round and we’ll get this show on the road,” the auctioneer’s big booming voice came through a sound system. “First thing we’ve got to offer is this trailer and everything on it. If you’ll notice, there’re tools in this box, fruit jars in that one, and lots of miscellaneous farm stuff in the rest of the boxes. Let’s start the bidding at two hundred dollars.”