CountryCore Series: Fixer Upper (WLW)

Heated Harvest

Jan snipped the last of the watermelons from its vine and hauled it atop her shoulder, but felt the tugging of someone trying to lift it and found Neil smiling down at her. Although, his smile didn't entirely reach his eyes and her stomach was rapt with guilt at its debilitating source. Jan allowed him to take the watermelon over to her truck and gazed around her land. All standing in various positions around the crops were Neil's team of three. Including himself, that made for workers that had volunteered to aid in the rest of her harvest so that she wouldn't be forced to have no stand outside of her property this month.

Considering how many people from town swung by to get a fresh watermelon as often as possible, some even coming twice a day to load up their motorcycles if they hadn't a larger vehicle, Jan needed all the help she could get. She had offered to give Neil and his crew a cut of the sales, but they adamantly refused. Still, they worked just as hard as they did when paid to work on her renovation home and she cracked a small, sideways grin at Neil.

"Keep that one. I insist." He opened his mouth to debate her, but there was no way that would fly by with his little ones so enamoured with watermelons. Jan raised her hand head high and sent him a speculative eyebrow. "No arguments. You just take it. It's the least I can do when I'm taking you away from planning your wedding. Ask the crew if there are any fruits or vegetables they'd like to take as well. Entirely free of charge."

"Are you sure, Jan?" Neil practically salivated, he stared so hungrily at the melon atop his shoulder.

"Absolutely...as long as you tell me one thing."

Neil flitted his gaze over from the watermelon and furrowed his brow, then it was like realization took over his features that slowly fell. "She's not coming back, Janet. I'm sorry."

After releasing a long winded sigh and sitting down in the dirt, she felt her face scrunch up as she probed, "And there's no amount of convincing that'll change her mind?"

"I really wouldn't know." This caught her undivided attention away from the circles she'd been habitually drawing in the dirt and she raised her head to find a face full of despair. "Kenny hasn't taken any of my calls since she left. She won't answer Troy or even the kids... I'm really starting to worry."

"But...she's living with your parents, right? Do you think that might help?"

Getting to her feet with the aid of Neil's hand, Jan brushed off the dirt on her trademark overalls and grunted as she thought of Kenna all along in her room. True, she hadn't a single idea how that room appeared and that only worked over her nerves tenfold. All she could picture was Kenna laying in a curled up ball in a blackened space with only her own sobbing to consume her. Especially after seeing her unshed tears in her eyes as she stared back over her shoulder at her and entered the airport terminal.

"Well, for most people I'd say yes, but Kenny isn't most people." Neil walked with her toward her truck loaded up with very organized fruits and vegetables and kept his eyes on the uneven ground. "She's always been incredibly perceptive of others and when rejected, she cocoons herself in this blanket of depression that totally consumes her. The last time it was this bad..."

Despite standing, Jan felt on the edge of her seat and as they arrived at the truck, she clutched the tailgate in tight hands. "Last time? What happened last time, Neil?"

He darted his eyes around for a moment, then headed toward his SUV parked only a few yards away as the rest of the crew began cleaning themselves off in the nearby water spigot. "I don't know if she'd want me to share this. I mean, I told you a lot already and I probably shouldn't have. It's just that I want the best for her. Kenny's my only sibling and a younger one at that. All I care about right now is her being happy. Hell, we even postponed the wedding 'cause she's refusing to be my best mate and I won't have anyone else, but she's just so damn stubborn. Thinks the world is always ending and that she deserves to ride it out rather than gliding up to the clouds with the rest of us. I swear, I'll never understand why she still blames herself for what happened in high school... It wasn't her fault, but no amount of reasoning from me will--"