Cameron of Meger Farm

I did check the power on the mains coming in to the box and found everything to be right, then I plugged the fuse block into the panel. There were no sparks or smoke and I heard the compressor in the refrigerator start, so that fixed Cameron's problem. I asked her to try the kitchen light, and when it came on, Cameron clapped her hands.

"Oh, wow, finally. I just wish I'd known it was that simple."

"Yeah, it's a pretty simple panel. I don't see any extra fuses anywhere, so you should probably get some. I'll write down the numbers for you if you have a pen and some paper. When the weather warms up, you might consider replacing this old fuse box with a circuit breaker panel. They're a lot easier to use and they never need replacement fuses."

Cameron grinned.

"I think that's a great idea. I don't like the idea of messing around with electricity. Thanks so much for coming over. Can I do something for you in return...like maybe fix lunch? I bought some food in town and thankfully it was cold enough I didn't need to worry about not having a refrigerator that worked. If the stove works, how about I fix us a hamburger? I have some chips to go with it."

All I had to do that day was split some more firewood for my fireplace, and that could wait.

"I think that would be great. What time?"

Cameron looked at her watch.

"It's a little after ten now. Why don't you come back about a quarter to twelve? The house should be warmed up by then and I'll have everything ready."

It felt a little odd to be shaving at eleven, especially so since I'd shaved just yesterday. About once a week was my shaving schedule. I didn't mind the bristle and there was nobody to see me except me...until now. No, I wasn't trying to make a good impression that would lead to something more. I just thought it might be better if my neighbor didn't think I was a slob. I also changed out of my normal work clothes to clean jeans and a red flannel shirt.

At twenty of twelve, I walked across the gravel road and up the lane to Cameron's house. She answered the door on my second knock. Evidently she didn't care about first impressions much. She hadn't changed from the jeans and blue plaid shirt. It did look like she'd brushed or combed her hair though. She grinned as she opened the door wide.

"Hi Ted. Come on in. The burgers will be done in a couple of minutes."

Cameron's hamburgers were pretty good. Her conversation was both fun and interesting. I'd been wondering about her since that morning, and as rude as it sounds I did a little prying by saying I didn't know Wilson had any children. Cameron just laughed.

"He didn't, at least none that he would admit to until he died, but Grandma said he was Mom's father. The way I heard it from Mom, he and Grandma were sort of like the hippies in California. Grandpa had some money from his dad, and he bought this place. They were going to live off the land and maybe invite some other people to start a commune.

"I take it the commune never happened. He and Grandma lived here for a couple of years and raised all their food. They had a big garden, goats for milk and chickens for eggs and meat, and they sold some of their vegetables and eggs at the farmer's market in Darden for money to pay their taxes. Grandpa was happy, and Grandma was too for that first two years. Then things started going down hill.

"Grandma wanted to start selling some more of their vegetables and eggs so they could buy a washer and dryer. Grandpa said that was just caving into the system and he wouldn't have it. Grandma said it wasn't caving in if they only spent the money on things they really needed, and they really needed a washer and dryer. She'd been washing all their clothes by hand and hanging them up outside to dry. Grandpa said the land would provide all they needed if they worked hard enough.

"That led to some arguments, and those arguments convinced Grandma she didn't want to live with Grandpa anymore. They'd never married, so there were no legal things to stop her from leaving. She moved back home with her parents and got a job as a cashier in the dime store in Mitchell. It was a month after that she found out she was pregnant with Mom.

"She told Grandpa he was going to be a father, but he didn't believe that and didn't want to have anything to do with a child. Back then there was no DNA testing to prove paternity, so Grandma raised Mom by herself for two years. Then she married the manager of the dime store.

Mom married her high school sweetheart a year after they graduated. They had me about two years later, and Mom took me to see Grandpa when I was three. I don't really remember seeing him then, but Mom said he grinned when he saw me and said I was a cute little girl she should be proud of.

"I didn't see him much after that. He did come to my high school graduation, but he pretty much stayed out here by himself and lived life like he and Grandma started to. He was kind of odd that way, or so I thought when I was growing up. It didn't seem right that he didn't want a television or even a radio, or that he never bought anything unless he absolutely had to.

"I didn't think he thought much about me until he died. It was a shock to learn that he'd left me this place. In his will, he said I could finally have the horses I always wanted. I know I probably told him about wanting horses at one time or another, but I didn't think he'd remember like he did. I guess he was a different man than I always thought he was. Did you know him?''

"No, not really. I don't think anybody did. He'd come over to help Grandpa sometimes when I was here. He never said much. He just worked until the work was done and then went home. I guess he wasn't the man I though he was either."

Cameron sighed.

"Well, I'm glad he remembered me. I think I'm going to like it out here. It's so peaceful. I'll be glad when it warms up though. This cold weather makes me shiver even with the stove going."

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I went home a little later, but as I ate my dinner that night -- scrambled eggs and hash browns -- I thought a lot about Cameron. She was a different kind of woman and I thought maybe she'd inherited some of her grandma's hippie genes. Most women I knew would never even consider living in the country, much less living in the country by themselves. They liked being close to shopping and beauty parlors and entertainment. The closest shopping from where I lived was twenty minutes away in Darden and that was just a grocery store and a hardware store. Darden was too small to have a movie theater or a nightclub. All Darden had was Darlene's Lounge, a country bar that was known for fistfights when the night got drunk enough.

Jane would never have wanted a life like Cameron was starting. She wasn't all that hooked on shopping and beauty parlors, but she did like being able to do both when she wanted.

It was then I realized I was starting to compare Cameron to Jane, just like I'd compared all the other women I met to Jane. In this case, there really wasn't any comparison. Jane was an engineer, Cameron was a writer. Jane loved the city. Cameron didn't seem to. Jane was a beautiful woman who liked looking that way. Cameron wasn't plain by any means, but she didn't seem to do anything to help her appearance.

Jane wouldn't have dreamed of venturing out anywhere without doing her hair and putting on makeup. Cameron apparently had combed her hair, but there wasn't a sign of makeup on her face anywhere. I figured she was just comfortable with how she looked without it. I wasn't sure how she'd come about having insulated coveralls and boots, but she'd worn them. Jane would have died of embarrassment had she worn them.

Talking with Cameron was interesting, though. I'd found out more about Wilson in the couple hours I'd spent with her than in all the years I'd seen him helping Grandpa. That conversation had cleared up most of the questions I'd had over the years about Wilson and why he lived like he did.

Cameron was interesting for another reason as well. I'd never known a writer, but I'd always figured them for the type that's pretty odd, stays home hunched over a computer keyboard and never does anything else. Cameron didn't seem to be like that at all. She wasn't odd by any means, well, unless you consider it odd for a woman to wear insulated coveralls. Cameron was pretty much like most of the other women I knew. She had a sense of humor and seemed pretty intelligent. I was looking forward to getting to know her better when the weather warmed up.

I didn't have to wait until spring. A week later, she knocked on my door about noon, and grinned when I opened it.

"Hi, Ted. Can I bother you again?"

She just had on a coat today, a normal coat that stopped at her waist. Below that, she was wearing jeans that hugged a very feminine set of hips and slender legs. The sultry alto voice stirred something I hadn't felt in a long time.

"Sure. I'm not busy. What's the problem?"

"Well, I bought a horse but I'll have to board him until I know if my barn needs anything fixed. Could you come look at it?"

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As I stood inside the small barn and looked around, I gained another measure of respect for Wilson. There wasn't a stick of commercial lumber anywhere in the place. The barn was constructed like barns used to be with logs for posts and beams. All these had been squared where needed and then mortised and pegged together by hand. The roof was of split shakes of cedar nailed over purlins that spanned the log rafters. It was a small barn, just four small stalls and a feedway, but it must have taken him over a year to build by himself.

There were two stories to the barn, the main stalls below and a haymow above. I climbed the ladder to the haymow to look for roof leaks, but didn't see any. What I did see was a hay trolley bolted to the ridge beam and the rope coiled up on the floor next to the door in the end of the barn by the drive.

Once I came back down, I checked all the posts and they all seemed sound. It was pretty rough, but the barn seemed to be all right structurally. That's what I told Cameron. She grinned again.

"Well, that makes me feel good. After I bought the horse, I started thinking about how much it was going to cost to build a new barn if I had to do that. Now I won't have to."

"I'm no carpenter, but it looks fine to me. You'll need some hay and feed though. I have a little hay left from Grandpa's last cutting. It's only about a year old, so it should still be good. Since I don't have any cattle yet, it's just going to waste. Would you like to have it?"

Cameron grinned again. I was starting to like seeing that grin.

"Wow, I sure would, but how would we get it from your barn to mine?"

"Well, you have a truck. It won't haul many bales at a time, but we can move it that way. There's a hay trolley in the barn we can use to lift the bales up there if I can remember how one works."

Cameron frowned.

"That seems like a lot of work for two people. Could I just get a truckload whenever I need it and keep it in one of the stalls I'm not using?"

If my reading was right, a horse would eat a bale of hay every three days or so. I'd be seeing Cameron about once a week unless she stacked her truck full.

She'd been watching me while I was thinking, and when I looked at her she smiled.

"I could fix dinner for you when I come to get the hay if that helps."

I shook my head.

"You don't have to do that. Like I said, the hay is just going to waste."

"Well, I'd feel better about it if you'd let me fix your dinner. Maybe I could get the first load this Saturday? That'll give me time to get some bedding for my horse and some food for us."

I wasn't sure I wanted to see anybody every Saturday, but I couldn't bring myself to tell Cameron no. I wasn't sure why, but I couldn't.

"OK, Saturday morning about ten all right with you?"

That Saturday morning right after breakfast, I went out to my barn. Grandpa had a hay trolley too, and there it was, but for the life of me, I couldn't remember how to use it. Since Cameron wouldn't be able to haul many bales in her truck, it was easier to just drop three down through the opening over the feedway. The string ties on one broke when it hit the floor, so I dropped another. That one held.

A little before ten, Cameron drove her pickup up to my house. I'd been watching for her and came out as she was getting out of her truck. I said I had her hay ready if she'd drive back to my barn.

I loaded the three bales into her truck while Cameron explored my barn. When I went back inside to tell her she was loaded, she was gathering up the hay from the bale that had broken. I said she didn't need to do that.

"Cameron, I'll clean that up later. If you want another bale, I'll throw one down and load it for you."

She shook her head.

"No. There's nothing wrong with this hay and it would be a shame to just throw it outside. I'll take it with me."

She drove back to her house about fifteen minutes later, and said she'd have dinner ready about six.

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And so started my weekly meeting with Cameron. Her horse, a small bay quarterhorse gelding named Rowdy, seemed to go through about three bales a week, so that's how many Cameron took. After that first week, I started riding to her house and unloading the bales for her. Then, I'd come home, shower, shave and get ready for dinner.

Cameron's cooking was pretty good. I wasn't particularly fond of her spaghetti and meatballs at first, after a few meals of them, they started tasting pretty good. I found out just being with her was better than her food. I was starting to like being with Cameron a lot and that worried me a little. It was like I was somehow cheating on Jane although that wasn't either possible or logical.

I don't really remember when the touching started, but I remember the odd feeling that I had the first time. When Cameron would say something to me, she'd touch my arm. If she was thanking me for something, that touch would turn into her stroking up and down my arm. When I fixed her water pump one afternoon, that stroking became a hug that pressed her breasts into my chest.

Cameron evidently realized how close we were right after she hugged me, because she backed up and looked at me.

"I'm sorry for that, but I'm so happy. Now I can stop buying bottled water and I can take a bath again. I really like my bath every night."

I wasn't sorry she'd hugged me, but I was still leery of the feelings that caused. It was like when Jane had done the same thing, except this wasn't Jane and the hug was just a friendly hug that shouldn't have made me wish it had lasted longer. When I thought about it some more, though, it hadn't really been just a friendly hug. In my experience, when a woman gives a man a friendly hug, she leans forward so her breasts don't come in contact with his chest much. Cameron hadn't even tried to do that. I started thinking maybe it was a little more than a friendly hug and surprised myself by hoping it was.

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We'd make small talk while we ate those dinners. Cameron wanted some chickens so we talked a lot about chickens for a couple of weeks. We talked about her horse and how she was going to take rides around her property once the weather warmed up enough. We also talked about her writing.

The fifth Saturday, Cameron said her publisher had been after her to write a new novel and that she had one started. I asked her what it was going to be about, but she wouldn't tell me. She said she was going to write it first and then let me read it.

Every Saturday for the next two months, I asked about her novel, and her answer was always, "it's coming along nicely", or "I think my readers are really going to like this one". She never gave me even a hint about the topic.

The last Saturday in April, Cameron came over to get her hay. After I had her loaded, she told me she'd let me read what she'd written after dinner that evening.

I spent two hours after dinner reading page after page of text on her computer screen while Cameron sat quietly and watched.

The story wasn't what I thought Gothic romance novels were about. There were no princes or kings or peasant women. The story was about a girl who inherits a small estate and moves from the city to the country. She meets the man who owns the estate across the lane and likes him.

Since she doesn't know anything about running an estate, the neighbor helps her learn how and what has to be done. After a while, she decides she loves him. She doesn't know if he feels the same way, but she can't keep it to herself any longer. When she confesses she thinks she's in love with him, he says they've just been together a lot and that's why she feels like she does.

She says it isn't just that and that she really loves him. He just says since she knows what to do now, they should stop seeing each other. The next chapter is about how terrible and alone they both feel for the next month.

By then, I'd figured out they would get back together and everything would work out. When I scrolled down the screen to read how that happened, there was a chapter heading for the next chapter, but no text. I looked up at Cameron.

"Cameron, I must have done something wrong. There doesn't seem to be any thing written for Chapter ten. I hope I didn't erase it somehow."

She smiled.

"You didn't erase anything. I just don't know how to end it yet. I was sort of hoping you'd help me out with that."

I laughed.

"I'm no writer. What makes you think I'd be able to help?"

Cameron stood up from her sofa and walked over to the table where I sat. I felt her rest her hand on my shoulder.

"In all my novels, the girl and the guy think they love each other, but then they split up for some reason. In the last chapter, they get back together because they can't stand being apart any longer. They have great sex and then live happily ever after. The part I'm missing is knowing if he really feels anything for her...and then what comes next."

"Well, you're the writer. Can't you make him realize he loves her?"

"Yes, I could...if it was just any other story, but this one is harder. He doesn't seem to understand how she feels about him even though she's tried and tried to show him. I don't know how to make him realize she wants him if he can't see that. I just thought since you're a man, if you put yourself in his situation and told me what he might be thinking I could finish it. I've tried and tried to figure out how to make him realize she loves him but ..."

Cameron didn't finish that sentence, but the look on her face did. Was it possible she really felt that way about me? When I thought back over the past several weeks, thought about the way she always smiled at me, thought about the way she'd started touching me, thought about that hug, I realized she'd been giving me clues all along.

I'd ignored the clues because I was ignoring my own feelings, the same feelings I'd locked away after Jane. Those feelings had come out from time to time, but I'd always managed to stuff them back in. Now, they came rushing out and I didn't want to put them back.

I smiled at Cameron.

"If I was in his situation, I'd stop being the dumb-ass he's being and see what she's been doing all along. Then, I'd tell her I'd been a fool and that I couldn't live without her."

"Are you sure that's what he'd do? I mean, it seems like a pretty big change for him to do that. Would my readers believe he was being honest with her?"

I stood up from the table, turned to Cameron, and put my arms around her.

"If he did this, would that help them believe."

I saw a tear trickle down Cameron's cheek. She wiped it away and then smiled a little.

"It would probably help some. What should I have him do next so she really believes him?"