Plowed by My Stepfather novel · Chapter 17 of 24

Chapter 17: One Elevator

The first beans came off the south field on the twenty-eighth of September.

Dean ran the combine, and I ran the grain truck, and by two o'clock the bed was full.

The moisture meter in the combine cab read twelve point nine.

"Dry enough to sell anywhere," Dean said.

"Then let's go sell them where Orrin can watch."

We drove into town with the truck riding low, and I didn't drive fast.

At the end of the lane, a pickup pulled out behind us.

At the corner of Route 9, another.

By the time we reached the elevator there were twenty-three trucks behind mine, most of them loaded with beans, and the old man in the John Deere cap was leading the line.

I had not asked a single one of them to come.

"Birdie," I said.

"Birdie," Dean agreed.

The elevator yard was a gravel apron beside the concrete silos, with the scale house at the front and a line of Lindqvist customers already waiting.

I pulled onto the scale.

The scale clerk, the same woman who had counted my money in April, looked down at me through her window.

She read the numbers off her screen and wrote on a ticket.

Then Orrin Lindqvist came out of the scale house in his pressed plaid shirt and his seed cap, with a smile on his face.

"Gretchen, honey. Good to see you."

"I'm here to sell beans," I said.

"I'm sorry to hear it."

He laid his hand on my door and didn't open it.

"I'm afraid I can't take them."

"The moisture is twelve point nine."

"It's not the moisture."

"Then what is it?"

"My bins are full, honey."

I looked at the silos behind him.

There was a painted gauge on each one, and every gauge stood at the bottom.

← Chapter 16 · All chapters · Chapter 18 →

Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend