“I’ll have a venti skinny caramel macchiato with one pump of hazelnut, double whip and drizzled with chocolate. Can you make that sugar free? Actually, make that two!”

Jake Wittier couldn’t help but sigh as he heard the order. The man who placed it, about three people ahead of him in line, seemed to not care that the line was already out the door at the coffee shop. He just wanted a large coffee, but he knew with this line full of people wanting extravagant orders, he was going to have to wait a long time just to get to the counter.

Honestly, he was used to it. When you lived in New York, it was an undeniable fact that anywhere you went was going to be full of people. There was no such thing as personal space in the Big Apple, a fact that became harder to accept as time went on.

Jake only reached the counter ten minutes later, long after Mr. Fancy had received his venti macchiato or whatever it was. But the delay in time meant that he walked into his job about two minutes after his supposed start time.

“Jake, you’re late,” said his boss, Jerry Levenstein, a cutthroat older guy who dreamt in dollar signs.

Jake held up his coffee. “Line was too long,” he said as he slid behind his desk. “Won’t happen again, Jerry.”

“It better not,” barked Jerry before turning back to his work.

Jake let out a sigh of defeat as he fired up his computer. He’d only been working for Jerry for three weeks now, and it had already been about three weeks too long. Jerry was a new addition for their department, a finance hawk who outmaneuvered Jake’s old boss and got him canned for not being a team player (whatever that means). It meant a complete degradation of Jake’s work-life balance, and his vicious new boss took delight in working his subordinates to the bone.

He shouldn’t have been surprised by that. At the big shot law firm that he worked at, it was only the administrative staff that ended up leaving at five. Just last night, Jake didn’t leave the place until close to ten. Productivity at the firm was at an all-time high while morale was plunging to an incomparable low.

Especially Jake’s.

It hadn’t always been like this, but he felt it more now than ever. It was the third job he’d taken since graduating from school four years ago, and all of them felt almost identical. Power-hungry bosses, browbeaten colleagues, and a slowly increasing amount of work for a substandard salary meant that Jake was thoroughly disillusioned with his career path. Part of him wished for simpler days, like those from before he moved to New York.

About midway through the day, his phone buzzed with a new alert, and Jake sighed once more when he saw the post. It was from his ex-girlfriend, Renee, who just dumped him two weeks prior because she wanted to pursue a career as an Instagram model. Jake wasn’t even sure how that all worked, yet there seemed to be something mutually exclusive about being in a relationship and pursuing her new online career. Renee’s post was a suggestive piece that coupled her wearing as little as possible with reclining in the backseat of a luxury car. Jake had no idea whose car it was, and at this point, he didn’t care. He simply unfollowed her and went about his life, wanting that part of it to be firmly put in the past.

After another long day in which he was able to clock out early and go home at eight-thirty, Jake returned to his shoebox apartment after a crowded ride on the subway in which he was almost literally nose-to-armpit with someone who didn’t wear enough deodorant. This evening, the couple next door to him was already arguing, the sound of which easily passed through the thin walls. Being that he had to be up early tomorrow, Jake fell into bed and stared at the ceiling.

There has to be more to life than this.

It was a thought that was on his mind almost too often lately. Even though it was the end of spring, Jake’s mind was still in the doldrums of winter. Every day looked the same in the concrete jungle. And even though some people seemed to thrive in the madness, he felt like it was killing off part of his soul.

It hadn’t always been this way. When he initially came to the city eight years ago to start college, he’d been bright-eyed and optimistic about the promise of the bright lights. It was the complete opposite of the way he spent the first eighteen years of his life—stuck in a one stoplight town and working his summers at a local farm. His teenage self thought there was something to be said for getting out of the small town and making something of himself in the big city, but the more time he spent here, the less that promise held true.

In the deepest recesses of his mind, he could admit to himself that he wanted to go home, to go back to his roots. He wanted to see the green pastures again and enjoy the local county fairs. It was becoming increasing obvious that his heart had never left that old little town.

I guess that saying is really true. You can’t take the country out of the boy, he thought to himself before drifting asleep.

Although he had no way of knowing it beforehand, the next day he stepped into the law firm for the last time. There had been a disturbing trend since Jerry had taken over as his boss, one that bothered his own honest sensibilities. Jerry liked to cut corners and fudge numbers, almost to the point where the credibility of the finance department was in jeopardy with their colleagues. They’d been called out for it just last week with the CFO, and Jake knew there was more scrutiny on them now than ever before.

That was why when Jerry approached him about including deliberately false information in a report, Jake hit his breaking point.

“What do you mean you won’t do it?” snapped Jerry, putting his hands on his hips.

“You know those numbers are bullshit,” replied Jake. “I’m not putting them in.”

“Why is it that no one in this department knows how to be a team player?”

Jake rolled his eyes. “We’re not team players because we won’t lie on these reports for you?”

“Watch it, Jake. You’re on thin ice right now,” retorted Jerry while raising his eyebrow.

Jake finally snapped. It was one bridge too far, the result of one too many times of being disrespected. By itself, the interaction wouldn’t have been too bad, but when compiled with all the others over the last three weeks, he finally had what he’d been so secretly been seeking.

His way out.

“I’m done,” said Jake, making a grab for his personal things. “Fudge the numbers yourself, but I’m out. I quit.”

Jerry gave him a shocked expression, not knowing what to say for several seconds. So did several of Jake’s colleagues, most of whom had stopped working just to watch the tense interaction.

Jerry finally recovered his acidity. “Good, good. This is for the best. I can’t have anyone here who doesn’t know how business really works.”

Jake didn’t even dignify that with a response. Instead, he quietly gathered his things and left out the main door, but not before throwing his ID badge in the trash.

That afternoon, Jake did a serious bout of soul-searching. The most logical answer to his predicament was to start a job search. He was sure with his degree and experience, he could land another job.

And answer to another asshole boss while working hours that are way too long? All the while losing my soul in the process?

The more he thought about it, the more that option lost its appeal. He’d been hovering around the answer for weeks now, and finally he looked it directly in the eye.

This city wasn’t for him. This life wasn’t one that he wanted to live.

Most importantly, he was homesick. He wanted to go back to his roots.

This was one situation where at least money wouldn’t be a sticking point. His job had paid well, and he was sitting on a decent amount of savings. It wasn’t that he could afford to take a year off work, but he could take some time off to recover mentally without having to worry about finances.

The question was could he really pack up, go home, and reasonably expect to return to the city eventually? It was a question that he couldn’t answer nor one he really wanted to right now. But one thing was for sure—he was willing to try.

It was for that reason that he found himself packing up his meager belongings in his old car and driving back to his hometown that weekend, after breaking his lease on the shoebox. It was a surreal feeling, watching the city recede into the distance in the rearview mirror, only to be replaced by miles of open highway. His destination was eight hours away, a small farming community in southwestern Pennsylvania. It was a place he hadn’t been back to in years.

That probably explained the look of pure shock on his Aunt Cheryl’s face when she opened the door to see him standing there.

“What? Jake! What are you doing here?” she exclaimed, throwing her arms around him.

“Hey, Aunt Cheryl,” said Jake awkwardly. “Surprise!”

She pulled back to look at him. “You’ve got some real explainin’ to do, so you best git started!”

It took him nearly a half hour to explain his thought process on decided to leave New York. It took less than thirty seconds for his aunt to offer him a place to stay. Despite her confusion at seeing him show up out of the blue, Aunt Cheryl couldn’t have been more delighted to have her only nephew back in town.

After all, she practically raised him. Jake’s parents had long since passed away, and Jake had spent the majority of his formative years with his aunt, so much so that she was like a surrogate mother. Her only daughter, his cousin Lisa, had moved away years ago with her army husband, and they were currently doing a stint in Texas. It meant that most days, Aunt Cheryl was alone in her house, so he got the impression that she was happy for the company.

For the first week, things went incredibly well. The first day he stepped out of his aunt’s house, he took a deep breath of the sweet-smelling country air, finding it all too refreshing. It had none of the staleness or rancidity that the city was famous for. Even when he took a drive around the town, he wasn’t surprised to find that it looked mostly just like he left it eight years ago. Of course, there was a new gas station now, and Jake noticed a new set of houses not far from the local school, but it was still frozen in time, something that he greatly appreciated.

After the first couple weeks, his aunt eventually noticed that he wasn’t doing much with his time.

“Aren’t you bored?” she asked with a grin, finding him sitting out on the porch one afternoon. “You’ve been back for two weeks now. Don’t you have somethin’ to do?”

Jake shrugged. “I’m getting a little bored. But I haven’t the slightest idea what to do now. I thought about looking for a job, but I don’t know who would be hiring here.”

“Funny you should mention that,” she said with a smile. “Because if you’re bored, I know someone who could really use some help.”

“All right, I’m listening.”

Aunt Cheryl sat next to him on the bench. “You remember Paul Nichols, don’t ya? I heard he has a need for a farmhand.”

“Oh, no, no, no,” started Jake, putting his hands up.

She put her hand on his arm. “Now, Jake, hear me out. Paul is an old friend, and I told him you were back in town.”

Jake looked over at her. “You did?”

She nodded. “I sure did. Of course he remembered you. It was his idea to offer the job to you.”

Jake looked back to the floor. “Even after ... what happened?”

Cheryl gave him a sympathetic look. “I’m sure he doesn’t blame you for that, Jake.”

Jake swallowed hard. “It still felt like he did.”

“Can you blame him? It was his only son. Of course, he was a little heated at the time,” said Cheryl. “But he knows you had nothing to do with Logan’s death.”

Jake shut his eyes briefly, reliving the moment from ten years ago when he killed someone.

All right, so perhaps he didn’t directly kill someone. But he was there when he died, and it was his antics that were directly responsible for it.

Back when he was sixteen, Jake worked for Paul Nichols during his summer breaks from high school. The Nichols farm was only a short distance away, just a few miles down the road to one of the most picturesque dairy farms in the entire state. It was there, on three hundred acres of land, that the Nichols took care of about two hundred dairy cattle with products that arrived in all the local grocery stores.

Working at the farm was tough. It meant long days of backbreaking work, only to come home smelling worse than three day old garbage. But he did enjoy the time, mostly because Paul’s son, Logan, was the same age and nearly always got put on the same tasks as he did. They created a fast friendship, and they would usually hang out after work was done for the day.

As he looked back on it now, they were almost always up to no good. Logan was a good-natured kid, but he had a dangerous streak that was a mile wide. If he’d survived, Jake always wondered if he would have ended up as a tightrope walker or some other kind of daredevil profession.

Unfortunately, it was those kind of antics that spelled out his early demise.

“Are you okay, Jake?” asked Cheryl, as she reached out to touch his hand again.

Jake’s eyes popped open. “Sorry. Just can’t help going back to that day.”

“It’s in the past now, Jake. Try to take your mind off of it.”

He turned away to stare off into the corner. “It’s just hard sometimes. I’ve tried so hard to forget about it and move on. There are times when it catches me off guard, and I can’t help the reaction.”

Aunt Cheryl nodded. “I understand. Paul is lookin’ forward to seeing you again. It’s been a number of years. Why don’t you go by just for old time’s sake?”

“You make it sound like you’ve already accepted on my behalf,” said Jake with a small smile.

Cheryl chuckled. “No, I didn’t for the record. But I figured you might change your answer once you’re back on the farm again. Besides, it might be nice to have money comin’ in again instead of just goin’ out.”

Jake started to nod. “I guess you have a point there.”

“That’s the spirit,” she said with a laugh.

It took him until the following day to work up the courage to drive over to the Nichols farm. Memories started to hit him once he was on the old country road. He remembered riding four-wheelers with Logan at breakneck speed along the road, and at one point even crashing into Neal, the middle-aged farmhand as he drove by on the tractor.

As he went past the Nichols pond that occupied a good portion of the left bank of the road, he remembered the time they tricked Logan’s younger sister, Carly, into falling inside, and how furious she got when she realized they’d pranked her. Carly always had a ferocious temper, and Jake grimaced even now at how badly she yelled at him when she found out about Logan’s death. She blamed him at the time, and being only fifteen, she came up with quite a number of expletives to call him for the incident. Jake wondered what happened to her in the ten years since he’d been gone, wondering if that temper of hers ever cooled down.

Or perhaps got worse?

As he got closer to the Nichol’s house, Jake let out a low sigh and tried to steel his nerves. He’d already decided he was going to turn Paul down. Just the drive alone back to the farm brought up too many memories, and he was positive that they might just wear him down if he started to work here.

Jake thought that even if he wasn’t going to work there, he at least owed it to Paul to let him down in person, especially with the lengths that his aunt went to in order to secure the interview.

The main portion of the farm was located not far the Nichols’ house. The house itself was a pretty grand affair, a white colonial style with large windows across the front. It was dominated by two chimneys, one at each end, and it sat upon a bare, grass-covered hill that overlooked the rest of the farm. Not far away was a four door garage, done up in white to match the house.

From the house, they could practically walk across their driveway to the milk house, which was small in size compared to the barn right next to it. A blue-black grain silo stood out in front of it, proudly displaying the Nichols name across the top of the structure. Just behind the main barn was another about a quarter of the mile away, which was mostly where the tractors were stored to keep them out of the elements.

As Jake pulled the keys from the ignition, he took a deep breath to calm himself. Unfortunately, he didn’t get much beyond that before there was a hard knock on his window. He turned to look at the newcomer, finding his heart seizing up instantly.

He’d seen the look of anger in her eyes before, but age had a way of making Carly Nichols look even more terrifying when she was mad. The years had also been very kind to her physically as well, and despite the anger on her face, he could see that she’d clearly left those awkward teenage years far behind.

“Do I need to ask you again? What the hell are you doing here, Jake?” yelled Carly through the glass, putting her hands firmly on her jean-covered hips.

Jake rolled the window down, hoping to temper some of her hostility. “Hey, Carly. Been a long time.”

“Not long enough,” she quickly retorted. “Now do I have to kick your ass before you answer my question?”

He might have laughed if he didn’t think she really meant it. Despite Carly being nearly five and half feet, and probably no more than a hundred-twenty pounds, she was a spitfire when she wanted to be. Logan always said it was the red hair that made her so fiery, and Jake was always content to agree. Yet her prominent red mane had softened to strawberry blonde over the years, and her teenage acne had completely dried up.

Somewhere in all the time he’d been gone, Carly became a knockout.

Even dressed for working, she could still turn heads. Her boots were caked in what he could only assume was manure while she wore a red baseball cap to cover up the majority of that strawberry blonde hair. Even still, it was all he could do not to stare.

As he tried hard to get a grip on himself, Jake looked back over to her. “Your dad asked that I come by. Said he might have a job for me.”

Carly’s scowl became worse, if that was possible. “The position is filled. You can leave now.”

Jake’s mouth dropped open but before he could even find a response, he was saved by the appearance of someone else.

It was Paul Nichols.

He looked a little older than Jake remembered, and his blond hair showed a lot more gray than it used to, but the patriarch of the farm still looked to be in good shape.

“Carly, be nice to our guest, will ya? Is that any way to treat an old friend?” said Paul, coming to a stop near Jake’s car.

“No friend of mine,” muttered Carly as she turned away. She beat a hasty exit, soon disappearing into the milk house.

“Sorry about that, Jake!” said Paul with an embarrassed smile. “She’s probably just as fiery as you remember, huh?”

“If not more so,” answered Jake with a nervous chuckle. He hoped out of the vehicle and shook Paul’s outstretched hand. “Nice to see you again, Paul. It’s been a long time.”

Paul started to nod. “That it has been. I’m glad I ran into your aunt the other day. She was the one that told me you were back in town. How long are you in for?”

Jake shrugged. “I’m not sure about that right now. I don’t know how long I’ll be home for, and I just wanted a fresh start.”

“If that’s the case, are you lookin’ for a job? I could surely use some help around here. The last guy got hurt last week, and I wouldn’t mind someone who knows their way around the place.”

Jake took a deep breath. “Yeah, about that, Paul. I just don’t know if it’s a good idea.”

“Oh,” replied Paul, looking instantly wounded. “That’s all right, Jake.”

“Don’t get me wrong, it’s just there are a few too many memories around this farm,” said Jake quickly. “I don’t think anything more needs to be said about that.”

“You know what happened ten years ago wasn’t your fault,” said Paul with a sympathetic look. “I know it’s a reason why you left town, but you don’t need to worry about that here. Not now.”

Jake smiled and thumbed back toward the milk house. “I think Carly still thinks it was.”

Paul waved his hand. “Don’t worry about Carly. She’s hotheaded like her mother. She’ll come around. I could surely use you, Jake. Not that many other dependable people around town anymore. Truth be told, I’m starting to wonder if I’m not better off passing the farm on. It’s just not how it use to be anymore.”

Jake could see there was real emotion behind Paul’s eyes. The kind that suggested that the job might be beating him down. He knew this life wasn’t an easy one, but as long as he’d known Paul, he’d made the job look easy. To see the pain in his gaze after only being back for five minutes was troubling.

It still hardly changed his answer. Jake opened his mouth to respond, but then both men noticed a large pickup truck pulling into the driveway. It was one of the largest trucks Jake had seen, an F-250 with a large lift kit that made it sit significantly higher off the ground.

Paul turned his attention to it and immediately scowled. “Cooper,” he growled while holding up a hand to Jake. “Give me one minute to see this jag-off off my property.”

The man in the truck rolled down the window, and Jake instantly saw a greasy smile. The man was around the same age as Paul, but with none of the gray and a little too much gel. It almost reminded Jake of some of the people he saw in the city, and he immediately found himself not liking the man.

“Paul, Paul, Paul, how are we today?” asked the driver while sticking a good portion of his head out the window.

“We’re busy,” said Paul briskly. “So unless you’ve got somethin’ for me, this ain’t going to be a social call.”

“What do you know? I do have something for you,” replied the driver a little too quickly. He held a manila envelope in his hand. “An offer for your farm.”

“How many times I have to tell you, Mike Cooper,” said Paul with an angry tone. “My farm isn’t for sale.”

Mike Cooper shrugged but the smile didn’t leave his face. “I thought you might’ve had some time to think about it. Maybe you might come around to my way of thinking?”

“Fat chance of that. Now git! We have to work to do.”

“This farm will be mine one day, Paul,” said Mike with a hollow look as he rolled the window back up. “Think about it.” Mike’s gaze swept over to Jake for a split second. He winked at him before he put the truck in reverse and backed out of the driveway.

“No-good, useless sack of shit,” said a clearly upset Paul as he walked back over. “That man won’t take no for an answer.”

“Why does that name sound familiar to me?” asked Jake. “Mike Cooper?”

“You’ve really been gone a long time, son,” said Paul, chancing a smile. “He owns half the damn county. His farm is damn near three thousand acres. Why the hell he wants mine so bad, I have no idea, but I’m not selling it to him.”

Jake pursed his lips. “Paul, I don’t mean to get you all worked up, but weren’t you just saying it might be time to pass the farm off? Why not sell it to Mike Cooper?”

“Because then he’d just turn it into open pasture,” said Paul with a dismissive wave. “This farm can support a good family with its current size. It’s supported my family going back almost five generations. I feel a duty to my family to keep it running, and I’ll be damned if I sell it to Mike Cooper.” Paul shook his head. “No, someday I’ll retire. I’ll probably sell it to Neal. You remember Neal, don’t ya?”

Jake smiled. “Sure do,” he replied, thinking of the middle-aged farmhand with a kind smile and who was on the farm so much that Paul gave him a small house to live on. “How’s he doing?”

“Same as always, but that man has farming in his blood. If I can’t keep it in my family, then I’ll sell it to him. Maybe then he can find the actual help we need to fix all the broken shit around here.”

“What about Carly?” asked Jake.

“I don’t know,” said Paul a little too quickly. “I don’t know if she wants to do this forever. She might just be helping me out. If that’s the case, I don’t want to burden her with it. Might as well go to someone like Neal who can take care of it and actually wants to do it. He’s probably one of the only other ones I have left that I can trust anyway.”

In that moment, Jake really felt for the man. His guilt tugged at him, reminding him that Paul didn’t have Logan to take over as the sixth generation anymore. Now he had an almost broken man in front of him, hounded by bigger farms, and without the proper help to keep the farm running.

Despite not thinking it was possible, Jake was beginning to come around.

Paul let out a deep breath. “Well, it was good to see you again anyway, Jake. I appreciate you stopping by. If you know anyone looking for some honest work, can you send them my way?” Paul placed a fatherly pat on his shoulder and then started to walk away.

“Hey, Paul,” Jake called out.

The older man stopped walking and turned around.

“When can I start?”

It took a moment to process on Paul’s face before he cracked a smile. “Really?”

“Yeah, really. I see you have a real need, and shit, I’m not doing much of anything these days,” said Jake with a grin and a shrug. “Why not?”

Paul doubled back and put his hand back on his shoulder. “I’d appreciate it a whole lot if you would.”

“You might need to keep some separation between Carly and I, but I’m willing to give it a shot. What time you want me here tomorrow?”

“How about five? You still know how to milk, right? I’m doing the milkin’ in the morning, and afterwards we have hay to do,” said Paul. “The weather should be nice for the next few days so it just might be the break we need.”

Jake held out his hand. “See you at five then.”

The next morning, Jake grumbled loudly as his alarm went off at four-fifteen in the morning. It took him a split second to remember just why he was up at such a god awful early time but he soon pushed out of bed to start getting ready.

Jake checked himself out in the mirror before getting dressed. He was now sporting a healthy five o’clock shadow on his face, an unusual sight for him over the last few years. He rather liked the way the dark hair looked along his jaw and cheeks, and he vowed to keep it that way. The rest of him was just how it always was—short cropped dark hair on his head, light green eyes, and a square jaw. He wouldn’t be winning any modeling competitions any time soon, but he’d never had a complaint about his looks from the women he’d dated over the years.

Luckily for him, he managed to find some old clothes that he didn’t mind getting torn up and smelly, and as he drove the short distance to the farm, he wondered just what he’d gotten himself into.

“There you are, Jake. Good morning,” said Paul with a smile, as soon as Jake entered the milk house.

“Morning,” muttered Jake quietly, still half asleep.

Paul started to chuckle. “You’re going to wake up in hurry soon, son. Why don’t you start bringin’ the cows in? You remember how to do that, right?”

Oh, Jake remembered all right. It was one of the parts he always found challenging about doing the morning milking. You see, the cows were always out to pasture over the night, and so they would need to be rounded up and brought back to the barn to start the process. That involved trekking out over about thirty acres of land to round them all up, all the while the sun hadn’t yet come up.

Thankfully, it was kind of like riding a bike, and in no time at all, Jake had all the cows brought into the barn, locked into their stalls, and ready to start the morning milking.

“You remember how to attach the milkers, right?” asked Paul while raising up one of the twelve different milking machines.

“I imagine it hasn’t changed in ten years,” said Jake.

“Right you are. Just check the teats before you attach. The last thing we need is any mastitis getting into the tank,” said Paul, while handing one of the machines over. “Why don’t you start with that row there, and we’ll work our way down to the end. Just watch out for that cow. She’s a kicker.”

Paul was right about that as the cow he pointed out, one with a diamond-shaped mark on her side, tried to kick him as soon as he attached the milker. Jake dodged it easily enough thanks to the foreknowledge and managed to start the machine.

She was sucked dry in the space of about ten minutes, letting him move it to the next cow. For the next two hours, they proceeded to get the entire herd. The process involved more work and speed than it appeared, and even though he soon fell behind Paul, Jake developed a reasonable cadence after enough time.

“Not bad at all, Jake. Not bad at all. Just like old times,” said Paul with a grin as they let the last cow free to go back out to pasture.