Read Online A Place to Call Home (Harlequin Heartwarming) by Cynthia Reese - Free Book Online

didn’t even have a buyer for?
    The day of the barn raising had dawned crisp and clear, blue skies dotted with the white clouds only early October in Georgia could give you. No more aluminum-gray skies obscured with haze from the summer heat. Autumn in Georgia—if you could call eighty degrees fall weather—had arrived.
    So had Penelope. She bounced from the house toward the barn site, looking more like the girl he’d first met than the suspicious specimen he’d recently been tangling with.
    “Where are they? I thought they’d be here by now!”
    “Relax,” he told her. “It’s only eight o’clock.”
    “You really think we can get this done today?”
    “The big part of it, hopefully. I’ll have to come back with some friends of mine and put the roof on. It’s too much of a liability to put schoolkids up that high.”
    Before she could ask the next question he knew was coming, a beat-up truck, more body filler and primer than paint on its fenders, pulled up beside Brandon’s. His heart sank.
    “Aw, no. What’s Uncle Jake doing here?”
    “Your uncle?”
    “Yeah. Hold on. I hope those hogs of his aren’t out again.”
    Uncle Jake’s easy steps out of the truck and around to the back of it signaled no urgency, though. He reached over and fished for something. Brandon couldn’t tell what it was.
    “Uncle Jake?” Brandon called. “What’s wrong?”
    “Can’t find my hammer, blast it. No, wait, there she is.” Uncle Jake stuck the hammer in his belt loop with a satisfied pat. “A man can’t show up at a barn raising without his best hammer.”
    “You’re here to help?”
    “You betcha. I told Geraldine she was in charge of the hogs and not to be lettin’ ’em pull any Houdini tricks until I could get back. Fat lot of good that’ll do.”
    He looked past Brandon, raised a hand in a wave and started walking toward Penelope. “How-do. Jake Wilkes. I’m this ’un’s uncle, practically raised him, so if he gets fresh with you, you tell me about it. I’ll put a kink in his tail, for sure.”
    Another truck pulled up, this one in better shape. Out clambered Ryan MacIntosh, along with Becca and Mee-Maw. Before they could even shout a hello, Brandon saw more trucks making the turn into the driveway.
    He felt his small amount of control of the day slipping away. “Uncle Jake, you didn’t...”
    “Oh, I told a few people. Neighborly thing to do, wasn’t it? Since you are being so neighborly.” Uncle Jake raised his eyebrows, daring Brandon to challenge him. “Besides, we haven’t had a proper barn raisin’ since I was...hmm—” he winked at Penelope “—still young enough to cut the muster.”
    Brandon tried to squelch the groan working its way out of him. No telling what Uncle Jake had told everyone to get them to pitch in. He’d probably said that Brandon had a new girlfriend who was in dire need of rescuing. This many people, along with a full crew of FFA students, would be a circus.
    And that was the least of his objections. This was his plan, but he didn’t feel right about dragging his uncle into it. Or anybody else, for that matter.
    Penelope, however, showed nothing short of delight. She clapped her hands and shouted, “Wait! I’ve got to get my camera! I want to get a picture of this for my website!”
    He rolled his eyes. Just the sort of thing he should have expected.
    But Uncle Jake nodded approvingly and shooed her on toward the house. “Yes sirree, gotta save this day for posterity. One day your grandkids’ll be looking at it and you can say, ‘This is where it all started.’”
    In the hubbub of greetings, Brandon whispered to his uncle, “What are you up to?”
    “Up to?” Uncle Jake inspected the head of his hammer. “What makes you think I’m up to anything? Maybe I’m just here to make sure you aren’t up to anything. Don’t sell your soul, Brandon. Nothing’s worth that. If you’re doing this for the wrong reasons, you just pack up and go on home to