Plowed by My Stepfather novel · Chapter 16 of 24

Chapter 16: The Pond

Gretchen's POV

By the middle of July the corn stood over my head, and the heat had sat on the farm for three weeks.

I had closed forty claims before seven that morning, and my laptop was allowed the rest of the day off.

The condo in Des Moines had sold at nine.

I had signed the last page on the hood of the truck, and the buyer's agent had texted me a thumbs-up.

Dean had not said a word about it since May, when I told him the idea and he hated it.

He hated it still.

I found him in the machine shed at noon, flat on his back under the baler, with grease to his elbows.

"Get up," I said. "We're going swimming."

"I've got the baler."

"The baler has waited since April. The pond has waited since I was fifteen."

"Gretchen."

"Birdie has been trying all week to set the vet up with the church-kitchen woman's niece," I said. "It's going terribly. I need to be somewhere she can't call me."

He slid out and looked up at me with a smear of black on his forehead.

"The pond," he said.

"Now."

The pond lay at the back of the north field, behind a windbreak of cottonwoods, black-green and still.

My father had dug it the summer I was born, and I had learned to swim in it.

I pulled my shirt over my head on the bank.

Dean stood with his hands at his sides.

"There's no one for a mile," I said.

"I know."

"Then why do you look like that?"

He took his time answering.

"He might be right, Gretchen."

"About what?"

"That you'll be sorry. You sold your place. You've got a farm you can't sell your crop off of, and forty neighbors who put their savings in your hands." He looked at the water. "You gave up a whole life for this."

← Chapter 15 · All chapters · Chapter 17 →

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