Читать книгу Autumn's Awakening - Irene Brand - Страница 9

When daylight filtered through the open window, Autumn Weaver slipped out of bed, dressed hurriedly and walked quietly down the stairs of her family’s Victorian farm home. She laid a restraining hand on the head of Spots, her border collie, when he rushed to greet her as she stepped out on the back porch. The white barn, housing her father’s prize-winning Belgian horses, was barely visible through the layer of dense fog hovering over Indian Creek Farm in central Ohio.

Autumn hurried into the barn, stroking the long faces of the huge draft horses as she made her way slowly to the tack room. She heard Nathan walking around in his upstairs apartment, and she waited breathlessly until his footsteps came nearer. Nathan picked up a couple of halters before he saw her standing in the doorway.

“What are you doing here?” he demanded.

“I wanted to see you.”

He brushed by her into the main passageway of the large barn. She stopped him by placing a hand on his arm.

“After your date with Dr. Lowe last night, I didn’t think you’d want to see me again,” Nathan said harshly.

“I didn’t have a date with him. Mother invited him to dinner. I didn’t even know he was coming.”

He turned to face her. “It doesn’t matter anyway, Autumn. You know there can’t ever be anything between us. If I can work here until the end of the month, I’ll have enough money to enroll for the fall semester at the university. I’ll leave then, and until that time, we’ll have to stay away from each other.”

“I thought you liked me, Nathan?”

He avoided her beseeching eyes. “That has nothing to do with it. Your father has made it plain that his daughters are off-limits to his hired hands. I don’t blame him. In his place, I’d feel the same way.”

“But we’ve had so much fun this summer.”

“Fun we had to steal when your parents were gone. It just won’t work, Autumn. Go ahead and date Dr. Lowe. He’d make a good husband for you.”

“How can I date him when it’s you I want?”

Her quivering lips, and the blue eyes filling with tears melted Nathan’s defenses, and his determination to avoid her disappeared as though it had never been. Even as he prayed for the strength to leave her, Nathan drew Autumn close and covered her shapely mouth with his. Autumn put her arms around his neck and snuggled into his embrace. When he released her lips, she dropped her head to his shoulder with a sigh of contentment.

“I shouldn’t have done that, Autumn, but I’m only human. I couldn’t resist you any longer.”

“Then you love me?” Autumn asked. Before he could answer, she felt a strong hand jerking backward on her shoulder. She looked up into the angry face of her father, Landon Weaver, who swung his fist and hit Nathan on the jaw.

Nathan grabbed a barn pillar to break his fall.

“Pack your things and get off this property,” Landon shouted. “I’ll figure out what I owe you and send it to your uncle’s farm. Don’t ever let me see your face around here again. I told you to stay away from my daughter.”

“Tell her to stay away from me. I didn’t ask her to come here this morning,” Nathan protested. “This hasn’t happened before.”

“That’s a likely story,” Landon said. “My daughters don’t pursue farmhands.”

Nathan faced Autumn, and she was touched by the distress in his voice.

“Tell him! Tell him I’ve never kissed you before.”

Autumn looked from Nathan’s bruised face and troubled gray eyes to the father she loved more than any other person in the world. As long as she could remember, she’d tagged her father’s heels until she knew as much about the Belgian horses and the farm operation as Landon himself knew. Always before, Landon had given her everything she wanted, but from the belligerent gleam in his eyes, she knew he wouldn’t let her have Nathan.

She looked again at Nathan, whom she adored with all the fervor of an eighteen-year-old’s first love. She’d only known Nathan Holland a few months. Could she choose him over her father? Without considering the far-reaching consequence of her action, Autumn took one last look at Nathan and walked out of the barn without saying a word in his defense.