Then the phone in his back pocket vibrated, and when he answered it, it was one of his tenants, Mr. Dana Conners, to be exact. His voice sounded strained, so Galen excused himself to take the call outside the mess tent.
“What can I help you with, Dana?” he asked, fully expecting the problem to be with the sump pump or the pigs that had escaped from the farm next door.
“Hey there, Galen,” said Dana. “Look. We hate to do this, but we’ve gotten a spot at a dairy in Provence. They’re providing accommodations and training and everything. We won’t be staying in Wyoming. We’ll pay through the end of July, but we leave for France almost immediately.”
“Uh.” Galen’s jaw dropped. He felt cold all over.
He’d been counting on the rent from the Conners to help pay his tax and medical bills. They had a month-to-month rental agreement, with a hefty deposit, so theycouldleave. But without the August, September, and October rent, Galen would be so far behind there’d be no catching up.
Both the hospital and the IRS had already given him extensions. He didn’t think they’d be willing to give him anything more.
“Is there any chance you’d change your mind?” he asked, pretending his voice wasn’t on the verge of shaking.
“No, I’m afraid not. Carol is set on going to France. Little Connie can learn to speak French, too. So many wins there.”
Galen didn’t know anything about kids, so whether Little Connie could learn French, whether it would benefit her at all—complete unknowns.
“You’ll lose your deposit,” he said, flailing.
“Yes, we know,” said Dana. “You keep it. We’ve really enjoyed your farm, but this is the best decision for us.”
Galen said goodbye and ended the call with his thumb. Then, feeling numb all the way through, he went back to lunch. He wasn’t going to mention anything, because nobody could help him, though Bede looked at him strangely.
“You okay?” asked Bede.
Of course, he would ask. Just a few moments before, Galen had been batting his eyelashes at Bede, and giving him flirtatious nudges with an elbow to Bede’s ribs. Now he felt like stone, flat and cold.
“Yeah, sure.”
Trying on a smile for size, Galen focused on finishing his meal, mumbled something about needing to check on supplies, and quickly took his tray and plates to the bussing tub.
In the back of his mind, he knew he should try to fake it just a bit better, perhaps even stay in the mess tent a moment or two to ask Bede about his job application form, and if he had any questions before he handed it in to the counselor.
Galen shouldn’t have rented to the Conners in the first place, but any twinge of doubt had been overruled by the idea of having the farm being active for half a year because that would give him six months to figure out what to do next. Only he’d barely had three months of that kind of freedom. And now he was without any other solutions.
“Everything okay?” asked Bede, coming up to Galen as he stood in the middle of the path, unable to decide which direction he was headed.
Unsure what to do with the sweep of relief at Bede’s arrival that seemed to obscure all of his worries, Galen let himself be caught up in Bede’s energy.
Since the team leads and parolees were still piling out of the mess tent, Bede didn’t kiss him or even touch him. Which wassmart. Even if someone suspected what Galen and Bede were up to, it didn’t mean that Galen wanted to put himself on full display, or answer any questions that he himself didn’t know the answer to.
“Sort of,” said Galen, scratching the back of his neck. “But I’ll figure it out. Eventually.”
Figuring it out on his own had been something he’d been doing since his dad got sick. Signing those hospice papers had been like taking the weight of the world on his shoulders, and the responsibility for the farm a stone around his neck. And now, once again, he felt it, that weight.
Which, somehow, when he was around Bede, now that he wasn’t looking down his nose at him, had seemed to grow lighter. Less burdensome.
“No, talk to me. You don’t look good.”
“What?” Galen turned to focus on Bede, on his insistence that Galen talk to him, drawn in by that energy and care.
“You’re all gray around the face.” Bede made a gesture, drawing a circle around his own face. “You can tell me. Look, I don’t know anything about anything, right? But I can listen.”
Had anyone two weeks ago told Galen that he’d be grateful to unload his troubles by talking to an ex-con, he would have laughed in their face. But the Bede described in the folder Galen had in his tent, with a list of his crimes as long as a man’s arm, didn’t seem to be the same Bede standing before him now.
The image of Bede in that intake photo, dark, tattooed, and snarling, seemed a far cry from the flushed, tattooed, yes, and handsome man who reached out to tweak a curl of hair behind Galen’s ear.
He was a sucker for that touch, the intent behind it. The way Bede’s dark blue eyes tracked him, like a faithful beast simply waiting for its orders to attack Galen’s enemy, regardless of from which direction they might come.
