Clark stopped the truck at the start of the first row and looked at Lois. “What’s wrong?” he asked.
“Nothing,” she replied, opening the truck door. “Let’s get this hay.”
His hand on her arm halted her. “Something happened when you saw Jack.”
“Do you think he noticed?”
“No.”
Clark waited, his brown eyes soft with concern.
“He’s Dad’s son.”
“Are you sure?”
“He looks so much like Lucy!” Lois shook her head. “It’s weird. He’s not feminine in any way, but he looks just like Lucy.”
Clark’s hand tensed a little on her arm. “Are you OK?”
“Yes. It was a shock. I figured, on the balance of probabilities, it wasn’t him.”
“Do you think he knows?”
“I’m sure he doesn’t know who I am. It’s not as if I look much like Lucy. Or Jack.”
“What can I do?”
“Get the hay in the barn.”
Clark’s eyes sought hers, full of understanding and warmth, reminding her of the day she had met him. “You don’t have to do this,” he said. “Not today.”
“Of course, I’m going to do this. We can deal with everything else once the hay is in the barn.”
He squeezed her hand and got out of the truck. Lois switched to the driver’s side, and they began.
Chapter 16
The clouds had gathered in the western sky as they started the third load.
Halfway through the fourth load, when the clouds had darkened to grey, Jack arrived after finishing the baling. They moved more quickly with the two men working together while Lois drove.
There was no thought of stopping for lunch. They ate the sandwiches as they drove to a distant field to begin the fifth load. They were working quickly now, Lois driving with Clark and Jack loading, then unloading and stacking in the loft.
During the sixth load, the wind picked up. The clouds to the west loomed ominously, dimming the light and thickening the atmosphere.
As they drove back to the field for the seventh load, Lois asked Clark how many more he estimated were left.
“Two,” he said.
“What happens if they get a bit damp?”
“We’ll stack them with salt to dry them out.”
“So, it will be all right?”
He smiled at her. “We’ll make it all right.”
Barely half an hour later the seventh load was stacked in the barn loft.
They headed out for the last time. As Clark picked up the first bale, heavy drops began to fall.
The truck was only about two-thirds full when the last bale was tossed aboard. By now, it was raining heavily. Clark, wet and dripping, got into the driver’s seat and Lois shuffled over. Jack got in the other side, and Lois rode to the barn between the two men.
They drove into the barn. Both men got out. Jack threw the first bale into the loft and Clark went to the storeroom to get salt.
Jack went up the ladder to stack the bales, and Clark tossed them into the loft.
Lois leaned against the wall, emotionally drained and physically exhausted, and counted down as each bale disappeared into the loft.
Three… two… one…
The truck and trailer were empty. All the hay was in the loft.
Clark jumped down from the tray and turned to Lois. She stepped away from the wall and slid her hands past his ribs to meet behind his back, enclosing him in her embrace. She felt his arms surround her and then tighten.
“We did it,” she breathed.
Too soon, he drew away. “I’m getting you wet,” he said.
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Go to the house and have a shower. Jack and I will finish up here and be over soon.”
“You and Jack need a shower more than I do. You’re both soaked.”
“We’ll be another ten minutes. You can shower in that time.”
“OK. Thanks.” Impulsively she reached up and dropped a light kiss on his cheek. “I’m so glad we got it all done.”
Lois shivered a little as she hurried through the rain. The temperature had dropped. The wind was icy cold.
It didn’t matter.
Clark’s hay was in the barn.
She’d seen his relief and satisfaction.
And that was worth all the hours of toil.
~~~~
Clark watched Lois leave, his heart full, his cheek tingling, his arms alive with the feel of her.
“You’re a lucky bloke, mate.”
Clark looked up to the loft where Jack’s face was poking through the hole, a big grin on his face.
“Stack the hay,” Clark said, his tone pseudo gruff.
Jack laughed out loud and disappeared from the ladder.
Clark climbed up into the loft. It was almost filled with hay.
Clark picked up a bale and threw it onto the stack. They worked together, and a couple of minutes later, the hay was done.
Jack turned to Clark and said, “I’m sorry about not being here, mate. Family stuff, you know?”
Clark nodded. “Were you in Smallville in April?”
“Yes,” Jack replied, looking surprised. “I was heading west to a job on a beef farm.”
“You came back here? When that job was over?”
“Yeah. In April, I stopped at the café to get some tucker. A bloke came up and asked if I was looking for work. I said I wasn’t then, but maybe in the future. He said there was work at the Kent farm, and I should talk to Clark.”
“That’s why you came here?”
“Actually, I had work lined up a bit north of here, but it fell through, and I remembered what this bloke had said. He seemed a bit dodgy, but I was so close, I thought I’d give it a shot.”
“Lucky day for me,” Clark said.
Jack frowned a little. “Until I left you in the lurch.”
“You were here today when we really needed you.”
“Thanks, Clark.” Jack started down the ladder. “The bloke who spoke to me in the café? Do you know him?”
“Yes,” Clark said, climbing down after Jack. “He’s the editor of the local newspaper.”
“Maybe he saw your ad wanting a farmhand.”
“There was no ad. He sent you here because he wants me to work at the paper.”
“Is that what you want to do?” They moved through the barn and towards the door.
“No. But I can’t make him understand that.”
Jack gave Clark a shove to the chest. “Last one to the house gets the second shower,” he said as he sprinted away.
Clark laughed and followed, fast enough to seem like he was trying, slow enough to ensure Jack won.
~~~~
Supper felt like a celebration.
Martha had prepared roast beef with roast vegetables, beans, carrots, and gravy. The plates were filled. The atmosphere was lively.
Lois ate hungrily, adding a comment occasionally and trying to look at Jack without her scrutiny being noticeable. He fascinated her. He looked so much like Lucy, yet her sister was feminine and Jack was definitely masculine. And his accent, coming from a face that was so reminiscent of Lucy, was intriguing.
Jack finished his second helping, stood, cleared his place, and thanked Martha for the meal. “It’s been a long day. G’night all.” He went out the back door.
“Doesn’t he stay here?” Lois asked.
“He sleeps in the cabin behind the barn.”
“Did I take his room?” Lois asked.
“No,” Martha said. “That’s where he has always stayed.”
They cleared the table and cleaned the kitchen. Then Martha also excused herself, saying she was tired.
Clark looked at Lois. “How are you feeling?”
“Better since eating. I didn’t realise how hungry I was.”
“You didn’t eat much all day.”
“None of us did.”
He nodded towards the back door. “Do you feel like hot chocolate?” he asked. “Or are you too tired?”
“I am tired,” Lois admitted.
“We can leave it for tonight.”
"I’d like to go,” she said. Then she grinned. “I’ll try not to fall asleep.”
“It doesn’t matter if you do,” he said, answering her grin.
“I’ll get my jacket."
“Would you like me to go and prepare the barn or wait and walk over with you?”
“You go and start the hot chocolate,” she said.
“OK.”
Five minutes later, Lois climbed the ladder to the loft, reached the top and laughed. Clark had set up the hay bales to resemble a sofa, complete with another bale to act as a shared footstool. A blanket was covering the ‘seat’, which was embellished with two cushions.
“This is great,” Lois called down the ladder.
“Make yourself comfortable,” Clark replied from the storeroom. “I’ll be there with the drinks in a couple of minutes.”
Lois nestled into the corner of the hay sofa and pulled the second blanket over her knees. She put one of the cushions behind her back and rested her feet on the footstool. She was so comfortable, falling asleep was a definite possibility.
She let her eyes close. Her body was tired and achy. But it was a pleasant tiredness, and somehow different than the tiredness she had often felt in Metropolis. The rain was pattering steadily on the roof, accentuating the cosiness of being warm and dry.
“Hey, you can’t be asleep already.” Clark’s voice penetrated her thoughts.
“I’m not,” she said. “But if I were, it would be your fault.”
He handed her one of the steaming mugs. “How?”
“This feels wonderful.”
“Drink up,” he said, settling into the other corner of the ‘sofa’ and plonking his feet next to hers. “We won’t have a late night.”
“What are we doing tomorrow?”
“It’s supposed to be wet most of the day. I need to split that firewood for winter. And stack it. Also, the baler and rake need to be overhauled and stored away. There’s a broken hinge on one of the gates. The farm accounts need some attention.”
“Will Jack do some of that?”
“Yes. I’ll talk to him in the morning and see how the weather is.” Clark sipped from his drink. “I asked Jack if he was in Smallville in April, and he said he was.”
“He probably sent the letter then.”
“Yeah. He apologised for being away and said it was ‘family stuff’.”
“But all his family are supposed to be in Australia.”
Clark nodded. “I figure he’s been looking for his father these past couple of weeks.”
“I have no doubt who he is. I don’t know his story or how he came to be raised in Australia, but he’s my father’s son.”
“Are you going to tell him?”
“I don’t know.”
“I think you should.”
“Why?”
“Because not knowing… it’s tough.”
“So is knowing.”
Their eyes met, and in Clark's, she read his unwavering belief that Jack should be told. But he was tired, and Lois was exhausted. The decision didn’t have to be made now. She smiled suddenly. “My shoulders are awfully sore.”
Smiling too, he gestured for her to turn around.
~~~~
Her skin was impossibly soft. Her neck was long and shapely, embellished with a curl of brown hair that had escaped from her ponytail.
When it was his turn, her hands worked his shoulders, gliding and squeezing, and finding exactly the right spots.
Too soon, she stopped, and as he turned to her, Clark saw her yawn.
“You’re tired,” he said, hoping his regret wasn’t obvious. “We should get going.”
“Before I fall asleep,” she said, chuckling. “I’m not sure you could get me down the ladder.”
He could. Easily. But he nodded in agreement.
She stood from the bale. “Come on, Farm Boy,” she said offering him her hand. “It’s time we got some sleep.”
Clark went down the ladder first and stood at the bottom in case Lois needed assistance. She came down easily and jumped to the ground, turning towards him.
And almost into his raised arms.
She stopped. He stopped.
She smiled. He smiled.
She… or maybe he… leaned forward.
And suddenly, they were kissing.
Not light. Not quick. Not meaningless.
Full. And rich. And deep.
As the dam broke inside him, Clark’s arms surrounded her and enclosed her against his body.
His mind went to mush, except for the only thought that mattered. Lois was responding to his kisses.
Lois was kissing him! Just as fully. Just as richly. Just as deeply.
And then, she lurched away, turning from him.
He stared at her back for a long moment, trying to catch his flyaway breath, still his thundering heart, and quell the rampant fear that he had ruined everything.
At last, she turned. Slowly. And faced him.
Her expression was unreadable. Her eyes cannoned into his.
“What have we done?” she breathed.
He braved a step closer to her. “Are you OK?”
She nodded, but she didn’t look OK. She looked shocked. She started walking, not away from him, but at ninety degrees, then swung abruptly and paced back.
She stopped a foot away and said, “This wasn’t supposed to happen.”
“This?” he asked, desperately needing clarity.
“This,” she said, her hand gesturing from him to her.
“The kiss?”
“The kiss. The concern. The friendship. The more than friendship. You. Me. Us.”
Lois had acknowledged there was an ‘us’. Clark tried to control his grin, but he knew he hadn’t succeeded when her mouth turned up a little at the sides and some of the haunted look drained from her eyes. He waited, not knowing what to say, but sure that if words did escape, they would very likely not help.
“Did you plan this?” she asked.
There wasn’t a trace of accusation in her tone, but her eyes had him pinned and he knew he had to answer. “I didn’t plan to kiss you as you came off the ladder,” he said truthfully.
“Have you thought about kissing me?”
He nodded a hesitant acknowledgement.
“So you like me? In that way?”
“Like you?” His words came out in a gush of breath, causing her to startle. He squared his shoulders. It was time for truth. “Lois, I am in love with you.”
Still, no flicker of reaction invaded her deadpan expression. “So, it’s too late?”
“Too late?”
“Too late for me to leave and we both think of this as a pleasant few days when a stranger from the city happened upon a farmer and his mother who opened their home to her and helped her start putting her life back together?”
It was time for more truth. “It was too late the day you came.”
“The day I… Aw, Clark.”
“Is that a bad thing?” he asked.
“It’s awful,” she said. “I’m a city reporter. You’re a Kansas farmer.”
There was that. He’d always known the disparity in their lives sat like a mountain between them.
She closed in on him and took his hand in hers. “It’s not that you’re a farmer,” she said, looking up at him with those beautiful eyes. “I have so much respect and admiration for what you do. It’s that you can’t leave here.”
“I could –”
“You can’t leave here. You can’t leave Martha. You can’t leave your father’s legacy. You have to be here – for you, for Martha, for the farm, for the animals, and mostly for your father’s memory.”
“But –”
“You said it yourself, Clark. Every day spent elsewhere is a day lost here.”
“You –”
“Which leaves me with the choice. Either I give up my dream and my career and the life I had chosen for myself. Or I give up… this.”
The way she said ‘this’ – the softness, the unconcealed affection – tugged at his heart.
She chuckled suddenly, startling him. “This would be a whole lot easier if you weren’t so darn gorgeous.”
He’d had no appropriate response to anything she’d said, and he certainly had nothing now.
“What do you want, Clark?”
“I want to be with you,” he said, not succeeding in keeping the desperation from his words. “What do you want?”
Her hesitation – lasting less than a second – was like a crushing blow to his heart. “The two things I’ve always wanted – someone amazing to share my life and to be the best reporter in the United States. I always hoped I could have both.”
“I haven’t said you can’t have both.”
“Clark, you can’t leave here. It wouldn’t be fair to Martha. You’re anxious about her all the time now. I won’t ask you to do something that would devastate her and worry you.”
“Things will change. She has already started healing.”
“She’s at the start of a very long road. Do you want to spend the next three to five years apart, then reconsider?”
“No.”
She moved in against him, her hands sliding from his chest to his shoulders and around his neck.
He enfolded her in his arms. “Lois,” he said. “We will find a way. We will work out something.”
“This wasn’t meant to happen,” she said, her voice muffled a little as she pressed against him. “You were supposed to know I am a city girl, and I was supposed to know you are a farm boy. And we were both supposed to know that, eventually, I would return to my life and we could never be anything more than good friends.”
“Is that what you want?” he asked, as fear surged through his stomach, clenching it.
“It what makes the most sense.”
“Is that what you want?” he repeated.
“No,” she sighed. She backed away just enough to look into his face, although her arms stayed around his neck. “You are… you are…”
“Yes?” he said, grinning and not even trying to control it.
“You make every one of those federal disasters seem like a pathetic attempt to make something good out of rubble.”
“You think we could make something good?” he asked softly. “Together?”
“What do you think?”
“Since I was a young boy, I have dreamed of having a woman to share my life. Then I met you, and I finally knew who she was.”
Her thumb caressed his cheek. “You felt this from Day One?”
He brushed back her hair from her forehead, revelling in the freedom to touch her. “I think I fell in love with you as I carried you up the stairs that first day.”
“Why didn’t you say something? Do something?”
“Because you’re a city reporter, and I’m a Kansas farmer.”
She smiled at that. “What are we going to do?”
“Are you planning to leave tomorrow?”
“No.”
“Good. I think we should enjoy being together tomorrow. And the day after that if you’re still here. And the day after that.”
“Until?”
“Until it becomes clear how we can care for the farm, help Mom, support your parents, continue building your wonderful career, and still be together.”
“Clark…”
“Uhm?”
She drew in a big breath, and his heart stopped. She looked directly into his eyes. “Somewhere between a steer, Bess, Daisy, tomatoes, sheep, hay, a fake date, rain, and mostly a darkened barn in the middle of the night, I fell in love with you, too.”
She reached up and kissed him then. A long kiss, full of feeling. And with her in his arms, the mountains didn’t seem so daunting anymore.
When the kiss drew to a slow end, he gathered her against his chest.
Clark Kent had never felt such pure joy. Never felt so complete. Never felt less alone.
With Lois in his arms and her declaration of love settling around his heart, he had what he’d always craved.
And yet…
The mountains were still there.
Lois was still a city reporter.
He was still a Kansas farmer with a lot of responsibilities.
And even if they could overcome that obstacle…
There was still the reality that had clouded his dreams and aspirations his whole life.
He wasn’t human.
Clark tightened his arms, wrapping Lois a little closer.
He couldn’t even imagine that conversation. He could – far too easily – imagine the fallout.
Losing Lois.
Seeing her shock.
Experiencing her rejection.
She was a reporter. Who would have an earth-shattering story –
Lois eased away from him. Her hands rested on his shoulders. She looked up at him. She smiled. “Stop worrying, Farm Boy,” she said. “We’ll find a way.”
He nodded, wanting to believe.
“I love you, Clark,” she said. “That’s a great start.”
“The best,” he murmured.
Then, he kissed her.
And the mountains receded again.
