Chapter 54

CORNELIUS

The old geezer was a handful.

I could barely feel my skin as the sun bit my skin like a thousand termites tearing my skin bit by bit.

Putting the hoe down, I gulped the rest of the water my eyes on the patio.

“You are doing great”, she mouthed and I heaved in response. Her smile was the only thing helping me get through this, otherwise I would have given up weeks ago when her father suggested he needed some work done on his farm.

Of course, he had fired all the farm boys and hired me. And necessarily not hired me but manipulated me into working on his farm for weeks now.

Harrison Hayden was testing me, trying to make the fine thread of calmness I had maintained snap, trying to make me leave his daughter by overworking me but I would rather continue cleaning up horse shit than admit defeat.

Lydia and I were together and pretty soon I would pop the question and then no man be it her father would take her away from me.

I was finishing up on the digging. The digging I had done f