You Will Be Mine (New Horizon Book 3)

I’m in the barn working with my grandpa when that familiar green truck pulls in the driveway. It comes several times every year, so I know what it means. Hide. Sure enough, once my grandpa catches sight of it, he calls out softly, “Jeannie, I need you to be a good girl and run along now.” He’s been telling me the same thing my whole life, so I know the routine. It hasn’t always been the same truck, and those aren’t the only people he makes me hide from. Pretty much anytime there are men around, I have to stay out of sight. And not just out of sight anymore, since now he always has me go out back and rub that disgusting paste all over me to disguise my scent. That part’s relatively new. I’ve only been doing that for a few years now. I sigh with frustration, but I know better than to argue. Instead, I drop my tools and head out the back door and to the ladder around the side that will take me up to the loft. To safety. At least that’s what my grandpa says. Just as I’m hunkering down into the pile of used rags and starting to rub the paste on, I hear the man and his sons come into the barn to speak with Grandpa. Most of their conversation is too muffled to make out, but I always try anyway. I can’t help wondering what it is about these people that always has my grandpa so worried. They seem friendly enough to me. My grandma used to tell me that he worries like that because of what happened to my mom. When she was 16, a man suddenly pulled in the driveway and convinced her to go with him. My grandparents didn’t hear from her again until about a year later when she showed up on their doorstep with a newborn baby. Me. She told them her husband, the same man she left with the year before, never wanted children and told her to get rid of me. My grandparents gladly agreed to take me in, of course, and they also tried to convince her to stay with us too. She did for a night, until she gave them the slip and was nowhere to be found by morning. They haven’t heard from her since, or so they say. Part of me has always wondered if that’s a lie they tell me to protect my feelings. I’ve never seen or spoken to my own mother, and the only thing she’s ever given me is my name, Jenavae Rose. So, I guess in his own way, Grandpa thinks he’s protecting me. He must figure that by keeping all men away from me, one will never have the chance to come along and take me away from them. He even went so far as to insist that I was homeschooled, not wanting to allow me to leave the farm without him to keep me safe. I’ve had my rebellious moments over the years, periodically getting fed up with this place and all the stupid rules, but for the most part I’ve been compliant. The look he gets in his eyes when he tells me of the dangers out there and the way he would get whenever Grandma would talk about my mom were enough for me to not want to cause them any more pain. The only problem is that I’m an adult now. I turned 18 three months ago. Technically, legally, he can’t keep me here, but I don’t seem to have it in me to leave him. I’m all he has now that Grandma is gone, and with my mother still nowhere to be found. It’s up to me to keep the house and garden in order and take care of all the animals we keep, and it’s on him to manage the farm business and all his employees. This farm has been in his family for generations, and I know he’s proud of it, but I worry about what will happen when he’s gone. I don’t know the first thing about managing it all, and I’ve never even met most of the people who work for us. I can mop floors, scrub pots, weed a garden, and even darn socks, but I’ve never driven a car or been to a store. I don’t know how to maintain the farm equipment, or whether I even need to because maybe we hire someone to do that. I don’t know how the employees get paid or where the money comes from, and I’m not entirely certain which fields around here belong to us. Grandpa always tells me not to worry because he looks older than he is and isn’t planning to go anywhere anytime soon. But you know what? Neither was Grandma. She got sick out of nowhere and was gone only a week later. Anything could happen, and I wish he could see that I’m all grown up now. I’m the one that’s not going anywhere.