Ride the Rainbow Home (8 page)

“Will we be meeting your family here?'' Meg asked as the crowd thinned.

"No, they're gone by now. Mom likes to hurry when she's getting the family dinner."

"Oh." Meg walked with Jim to his pickup, mentally preparing herself for her first trip to the McAllister pig farm. She wasn't sure why she was suddenly so nervous. Maybe it was just meeting all the McAllisters. She barely remembered Joan, who'd been a senior when she and Jim had entered high school, and she had even fewer memories of Kurt and Chris, four and six years younger. They hadn't even been in the high school yet when she left it. Maybe it was visiting the infamous pig farm that had been the source of such persecution for Little Jimmy. She'd almost run out of excuses to avoid the place back then, until Jimmy had finally quit asking her. She couldn't help wondering how bad it was.

Jim talked quietly as they drove toward Holbrook, then down a long private road. Meg answered in soft monosyllables, but it was the flurry surrounding their arrival that finally helped to diffuse her tension. Joan and Bob were the first to greet them, with four-year-old Alice and two- year-old Tyler in tow. Behind them came "the boys"—blond, burnished, beautiful men who'd have little trouble inspiring change in the whole Amazon army. They grinned at her with the same slightly lopsided smile she'd learned to appreciate on their older brother. Jim introduced Kurt and Chris.

"It may take me a while to keep you two straight," she said as she shook one strong hand, then the other.

"No problem," the younger man answered. "I'm the cute one." He winked and Meg giggled.

Jim stepped forward and slipped a possessive arm around her waist. "I can tell I'm going to have to keep an eye on you when Chris is around," he stage-whispered, flashing Chris a look of mock anger.

"Bring a pretty woman into the flock and expect the wolves to gather," Chris quipped.

As the group moved toward the house, a tall, handsome woman stepped out, wiping her hands on a checkered apron. "Welcome!" she called. "You must be Meg."

Jim led her forward as the rest of the family made way. The deference they gave the woman on the porch told Meg who wielded the power here. "Meg, I'd like you to meet my mother," Jim said.

Meg offered her hand. "I'm pleased to meet you, Mrs. Mc—"

"Please, call me Kate. You'll be having me think I'm old if you start that missus stuff." She grinned and grasped Meg's hand, her grip firm. "Come in," she said. "Dinner will be in about twenty minutes."

"Can I help?" Meg asked.

"Heavens no, you're a guest! Jim, offer Meg something to drink. Kurt, get the good chair." Kate patted Meg's arm. "You just sit in the front room and get acquainted, honey. I'll call everyone in a while." Orders issued, Kate disappeared into the kitchen.

"Wow," Meg said, blinking as the dervish whirled by her.

"She's something, isn't she?" Kurt said.

"Don't worry," Joan offered. "She likes you."

"How do you know?"

"Mom likes everybody," Chris responded, apparently amused.

"I thought maybe she'd let me help," Meg began.

"No way," Joan answered. "Mom never likes having people underfoot in her kitchen. She won't let me help, either."

"You mean she does all the cooking alone?"

The question brought general laughter. "Not exactly," Kurt responded.

"She introduced each of us to the kitchen on our eighth birthdays," Jim explained. " 'Kitchen, meet Jim. Jim, this is the kitchen.' We started by making lunches once a week."

"My day was Thursday," Kurt added. "Joan never ate tuna and Chris only wanted peanut butter."

"Then on our ninth birthdays we were introduced to breakfast," Joan continued. "I cooked scrambled eggs and bacon every Wednesday for about a hundred years."

"My day was always Thursday," Kurt said. "I started cooking Thursday dinners when I was ten."

"Your mother seems very... organized," Meg observed, and the comment was greeted by more laughter. Meg chuckled too. Then she looked at the beautiful people around her, all part of something special. She suddenly felt the need for—well, for something. Air, maybe.

Jim sensed her discomfiture. "Maybe you'd like to see the place?"

"I'd love to." Meg beamed. "Do you want to check in the kitchen first, make sure we have time?''

Kurt said, "Smart woman. You don't want to be late to one of Mom's feeds," and Jim stepped into the kitchen to discuss their plans. He was back a moment later. "We've got fifteen minutes," he said.

She didn’t know what she’d been expecting, really, but Meg was surprised to find the farm a picture of cleanliness and efficiency. Jim proudly showed off the farrowing barn, then the nursery where the sows stayed with their young litters, then the weanling pens and the feeder pens and finally, the paddocks for the pregnant sows.

"And where are the daddy pigs? What do you call them?"

"Boars." Jim seemed amused.

"Okay, where are the boars?"

"Come here, I'll show you." Jim led her into a hospital-clean room and opened the freezer in a small refrigerator. "Here," he said, pointing to a large, odd-shaped container.

She raised her eyebrows. "I don't get it."

"We're strictly A.I. around here, boar in a bottle."

Her look was befuddled.

"You don't speak much farmer, do you?"

She shook her head.

Jim closed the freezer. "We don't do any live breeding here. Our sows are all bred by artificial insemination. We keep the semen frozen in liquid nitrogen until we need it."

"Oh," Meg answered, feeling generally embarrassed and mildly queasy.

"It's much more practical than keeping a bad-tempered boar around. Cleaner too. And we can use different boars so inbreeding is never a problem."

"I understand. Can we move on now?"

Jim smiled and put his hand on her shoulder. "You don't have to be embarrassed, Meggie."

"I'm not," she answered. "I'm just feeling sorry for the pigs!"

Jim chuckled and his eyes went soft. "You're adorable, you know that?"

The moment stretched as their eyes asked and answered. Jim ran his free hand through her hair, then caressed her jawline and drew his thumb across her lips. He leaned forward—

"Oh, here you are!" Chris said, and then he added, "Oops! Looks like I came at a bad time." Meg noted that he didn't seem the least bit sorry.

"You always did have interesting timing," Jim said, touching Meg's mouth with a look of promise before he dropped his hands. "So what brings you?"

"I thought Meg might like to see the generator."

Jim turned to Meg. "Want to see the generator?"

Meg felt tempted to answer all she wanted was privacy. Instead she said, "Sure," her voice husky.

"I asked Mom," Chris volunteered. "She said to take all the time we want." Chris elbowed Meg. "See? I told you she likes you." The generator was even more impressive than the farm. Jim had created a system to collect animal waste in shallow canals along the back of the pens. The waste then washed through the canals into holding ponds where, covered by plastic lids, it fermented, gathering rich methane. Filtered upward through a tank of clean water, the gas was then "washed" and siphoned off the top of the tank to be piped to burners. Pure methane provided winter heat for the farrowing barn and nursery. Methane-generated electricity ran the lights and appliances for the house and farm.

"It's a fairly efficient system," Jim commented as they finished the tour. "The by-product is excellent fertilizer for our cornfields, and whatever power is left we sell to Arizona Public Service, which runs a line by here. It's nice to get checks from them, instead of bills."

"Yes, I expect it would be." Meg looked around her in warm appreciation. "You've done some amazing work here, Jim."

"Actually, it was my design," Chris chimed in, his eyes full of mischief. He leaned close.

"Dream on, little brother." Jim stepped between Meg and Chris, and then led Meg away. "It's probably time for dinner by now," he explained as Chris laughed heartily.

They entered at the back porch and found the family at the sink. In well-established ritual, children and adults alike scrubbed to the elbows before entering the dining room. Meg took her turn, drying at the appointed towel, then following Jim into the cheery room with its floral wallpaper and matching curtains of pink cabbage roses on cream-colored chintz.

Kate sat at the head of the table. While Jim held the chair on his right for Meg, Chris jockeyed with Kurt to get the chair on Meg's right. When they were all seated, Kate asked Jim to offer grace. He did so, thanking the Lord for both the delicious food "and the company of “loved family and dear friends." This was followed by a chorus of amens, and then everyone dove in, taking from the tray or bowl in front of them and passing to the right.

"Grab the potatoes, will you, Meg?" Kate encouraged. "And hurry. This family eats like a locust plague."

Meg accommodated, taking potatoes and passing to Chris. The circle continued as Meg helped herself to roast onions and carrots, fresh broccoli, brown gravy, and—

"Is this beef?" she asked, surprised.

"A nice roast," Kate answered. "Why?"

"It's just... I guess I expected pork." Her comment drew several amused chuckles.

"We're pretty versatile around here," Jim said. "We even have lamb or fish once in a while."

"And I often cook vegetarian," Chris added, taking Meg's hand and smiling warmly. "You ought to come to dinner when I'm cooking, Meg. This Wednesday will be great."

"Meg and I have plans for Wednesday," Jim cut in, taking her other hand. Meg gave him a quizzical look; she hadn't heard about plans, not for Wednesday or any other time. She was beginning to feel like the rope in a tug-of- war.

"Perhaps next week," she told Chris, casually withdrawing both her hands. Joan, who had watched the whole exchange, laughed loudly, drawing an imperious look from her mother.

Dinner conversation began with a review of everyone's week. Jim talked about his last buying trip and, in a couple of quick minutes, Meg learned more about his work than she'd heard so far. Kurt, a videographer, told of shooting one wedding and scheduling another. Chris mentioned there were four sows due soon and enlisted his brothers' help to move them after dinner. Bob talked about his accounting office in Holbrook and Joan told of a change she'd made at her day-care center. Meg noticed how Kate included everyone in the report, even the children.

After dinner each person, except little Tyler, rose from the table and carried his own dishes into the kitchen, rinsing them and stacking them in the dishwasher. Kurt started the machine while the others put food away and Chris wiped the table, and then the McAllisters all migrated into the room Kate called her parlor, a delightful creation of Victorian lace and antique oak. Kate settled at the piano, saying, "What shall we start with today?"

There followed one of the most charming afternoons Meg had ever spent as she joined in a family sing-along. Jim pulled out a guitar and strummed the chords as Kate, or sometimes Joan, played the piano and the family sang. Selections ranged from folk songs to hymns, spirituals, and country hits. When Alice suggested "Frosty the Snowman," Kate barely hesitated before launching in. After that it was open season on Christmas as the family worked their way through "Jingle Bells" and a series of favorite carols.

"So what if it's July?" Kate asked, cheerfully relinquishing the piano to Joan as Jim handed his guitar around the room.

"This sing-along is wonderful," Meg said during a lemonade break. "Do you do this every Sunday?"

"It's a tradition," he answered. "Mom and Dad started it when we were kids."

"Even before Kurt and Chris were born," Joan added, walking up to them. "Jim and I started singing before we went to school."

"Mom didn't want us to spend Sunday afternoons watching television or lollygagging," Jim said.

"Lollygagging was one of Dad's words," Joan added.

Jim nodded. "They thought we might as well learn to sing."

Meg stared at Jim. "I've never once heard you sing," she said aloud, silently adding,
and I thought we were so close, I knew everything about you. How wrong I was.

Joan poked her brother in the ribs. "He's pretty shy outside the family. He has a beautiful voice, though."

Meg agreed heartily. Everything about Jim was beautiful, she decided as she watched him pick up the guitar. He was aril wearing the blue pin-striped suit he'd worn to church. His hair flowed around him like a golden cloud, held back from his face by dark glasses he'd used when driving and now wore propped atop his head. She watched as he began a country ballad, noting the line of his body as he caressed the strings, the motion in his jaw and throat as he sang. Again she had the sense of his elemental nature, of something beyond this place and time.

"How about some barbershop?" Kate suggested as Jim's solo ended. "You boys harmonize like larks in a honey tree."

"I'm in," Kurt said, taking a place beside Jim.