Chapter One
June 1995, Central Pennsylvania
Diamond Sophia Richmond vaulted over the fence and ran across the meadow. Her long strides swept through knee-high color bursts that waded in the sea of green grass. Purple asters and dainty white daisies, orange butterfly weed and yellow coneflowers flashed past, her smooth mocha skin soaking up the warm amber light. She’d just escaped her first year of high school and the summer rolled out before her, tantalizing and mysterious, its true potential unimaginable. Her best friend, Bernadette—Bernie for short—stood at the edge of the two-acre meadow in a patch of orchard shade.
“Dim!” she yelled as Diamond got closer. “Summer vacation!”
“I know!” Diamond said, stopping right in front of Bernie. She threw her arms around her friend. “This is so great!” She was panting hard from her sprint. “Let’s sleep out here next weekend.”
“Good idea. Think we should invite your brothers?”
“Nah. Just you and me.”
“Okay.” Bernie plopped onto the thick green grass, her wheat-brown hair bouncing with the motion.
Diamond stared out over the wildflower meadow, then further to her parents’ farmhouse at the top of a gentle rise where more fields and pasture splayed beyond. A twinge of emotion akin to regret caught her off-guard.
“Your parents really gonna make you work at the farm instead of the drugstore?” Bernie asked, reeling her friend back into their conversation.
Diamond rolled her eyes and joined Bernie on the ground. “Yeah. But we’ll still have loads of time ‘to get into mischief’.”
“Since when do you quote my mom? You almost never agree with her.”
Diamond shrugged. It sounded grown-up to say it and she was starting to feel grown-up after a year away from middle school.
“I might have to work at the hardware store with my dad.” Bernie sighed. “I hate the hardware store.”
“Just think of all the men you’ll meet! Real men, Bern.” Diamond flung herself onto her back.
“I’d rather spend the day in your horse barn. Less talking.”
“Aw, Bern. You’ll be great. Hey! Did you know that Kevin is a junior—wait senior now?”
“And?”
“And he’s available.”
“Come on, Dim. I’m pretty sure ‘stupid freshmen’ means we’re not on his list. And he probably won’t be available for long.”
“Well, we have all summer to change his mind. Besides, we’re not freshmen anymore. We’re—” She raised herself on one elbow. “We’re sophisticated sophomores.” Bernie’s laughter warmed Diamond. She sat up. “Well, I better get back home. Are you gonna come for dinner?”
“Sure thing.” Bernie stood and brushed the back of her shorts so no bugs or leaves could betray her. Her mother hated grass stains and didn’t want her rolling down hills or climbing trees. She often had to borrow clothes when spending time with the Richmond kids.
Diamond jumped up. “I’ll see you at my house!” She bolted into the 4:30 sunlight, loving how the wind played through her thick, dark hair. While she was disappointed not to get the status-boosting job at Silverman Rx, summer break had always been one of her favorite times of the year. Early in the morning, she would ride her bike to the farm north of theirs to get fresh cow’s milk—and goat’s milk, too. Then, after breakfast, she’d spend a lot of time with their horse wrangler, Pete, mucking out the six stalls in the barn and exercising the horses. Her three younger brothers, Tobias, Zachary, and Colby would probably need help harvesting berries, starting with the plump red strawberries winking throughout the brilliant green patch. Her dad usually recruited several high school or college boys to come and help him and her older brother, Nate, work the orchard and the potato and corn fields.
The back door slammed as she entered the kitchen.
“Diamond—”
“Sorry!” She grinned at her mom, who still looked young and happy despite the chaos that often ensued with five kids and a farm to manage.
“Hm. After you wash your hands, come finish cutting these vegetables.”
“Okay.”
“Bernie coming for dinner?”
“Mmhm.” Diamond splashed cold water on her face once she’d rinsed her hands.
“Good. That girl should come over more often.”
“Yeah, but her parents don’t want her out much. They think that even though Snow Falls is a small town, she’ll still get in trouble somewhere.”
“Strange people, if you ask me. Anyway,” she ran a hand through her short ash-brown hair, “you’ll start your duties tomorrow.”
“Did you and dad decide about my allowance?”
Her mom’s green eyes crinkled. “Yes. We’ll give you a weekly amount.”
Diamond popped a piece of carrot into her mouth. “Thanks. Is dad home?”
“He’s showing the property to two new hands. They’ll be joining us for dinner.”
“Oh, okay.” She loved her home, but she always wondered what kept boys coming each summer when all they got for a lot of hard work was room and board in a nondescript bunkhouse and a tiny stipend.
Using the knife, she scraped the dark orange cubes into a big salad bowl.
“When you finish there, could you set the table, please?”
“Sure, mom.”
After she added her mom’s homemade dressing, she rinsed her hands, then went to the dining room. The cool stone floors throughout the first floor of the house begged her to go barefooted on hot summer days. Center stage in the dining room, a large rectangular table commanded the space. It seated eight, but could be extended to accommodate fourteen if necessary. Diamond grabbed a stack of cloth place mats from the sideboard.
“These are definitely summer mats,” she said, admiring their yellow and cornflower blue design Her mother, Caitlin, had a good eye for decorating. She used to paint delicate watercolors depicting the profusion of color in her mother’s garden. Then she met Gordon, Diamond’s father, and started to paint the sky. Brilliant skyscapes of every mood. Diamond remembered the first time she suspected the world had a problem with her Irish mother and her African American father being together. She was six. Caitlin showed her a stack of her sky paintings: storm-laden, sunny blue, dawn-bright, dusk infused, and many in-between.
“If you watch the sky as much as I have,” Caitlin told her, “you’ll see every color you can think of. But the same man that enjoys that sky won’t abide a different color in his neighbor’s skin. This is one of the ways I fought back. By painting all the colors I saw in the sky.”
Through the years, Diamond learned more about the battles her parents had to fight to be with each other. She began to recognize tear stains on some of the paintings. A framed, sunny blue one hung in the dining room, watching her finish her task. As she added the plates, she heard male voices enter the kitchen. Her father and, most likely, the men her mother had mentioned. She double-checked the place settings.
Three, six, nine. Oh! Bernie. Ten. Good.
Reaching over, she opened a drawer and took out silverware.
“Hi.”
She looked up and grinned. A tall, somewhat lanky, twenty-something guy stood in the entryway, a large casserole dish in his hands.
“Hey. You must be one of the new hands.”
“Yeah,” he replied, crossing to the table. “The other one is my brother Jesse. My name’s Eli. Eli Stanford.”
She took the hand he offered and shook.
“Mine’s Diamond—as in ‘diamond in the rough’.” She laughed. “With four brothers and living on a farm, it just seems right. They all call me Dim, though.”
“Dim?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Isn’t that a little contrary?”
“My brothers started calling me Dim, and it just kinda stuck.”
She began to set the forks at each place. He set the dish on the table, but didn’t leave. When she looked his way she found him staring. Something inside her belly flip-flopped. She wanted to hold on to the sensation, but a teenager, she assumed to be Jesse, clomped into the room, breaking the tension.
“You gonna help, or what?” he asked Eli.
“Yeah. Calm down.”
Eli followed his brother to the kitchen to help carry more dishes to the table. Farm workers usually ate dinner with the family on their first evening at the farm and were welcome to join them on the weekends.
The doorbell rang.
“I’ll get it!” Diamond yelled, figuring Bernie had arrived. She ran to open the front door.
“Hey Dim,” Bernie said, as she entered the foyer. “Is Nate around?”
“Yes, Bernie.” Diamond chuckled. Her friend had no shame when it came to her crush on Nate. And now that he was home from college on summer break, Bernie found every reason to drop by.
“Good. Because I wore my sage green shirt.”
Diamond thought the color complemented her new tan. “That must be one of your power colors,” she said.
“You think so? Thanks, Dim. That article about power colors says that earthy—Hi Nate.”
Diamond turned to find her brother surveying them.
“Hey Beetlejuice,” he said to Bernie, who wrinkled her nose and evaded his attempt to tousle her hair.
Diamond cuffed him on his upper arm. “Knock it off, Nate.”
“What?”
In one swift move, he flipped her upside down, over his shoulder.
“Nate, put me down!”
His hearty laugh bounced off the walls as he carted her into the kitchen and threatened to douse her.
“Nate!” their mom said in mock disapproval. Gordon chuckled.
When he dropped Diamond on her feet, she straightened in a hurry, her hair spilling onto her shoulders. She caught Eli’s smile from the kitchen doorway. Again, that tug in her tummy. The next moment, she found herself shoving two ice cubes down the back of her brother’s polo.
“Ay! Hey—”
She skirted the island countertop and shot outside. Nate barreled through the door after her. She scream-laughed as she ran around the side of the house.
“Aw, you’re gonna regret that, lil sis!”
“You started it!” she called over her shoulder.
The soles of her navy blue canvas sneakers skimmed over the freshly cut grass, taking a path across the gravel next to the detached double garage, past the long porch at the front with its swing and rockers, then the big tree outside her bedroom window at the back, where her mother maintained a vegetable and herb garden. As she ran into the kitchen again, her mother was yelling upstairs.
“Boys! Dinner!”
She slipped by her mom and smoothed her hair as she sauntered into the dining room. Ten seconds later, her beloved brother waltzed in, not quite hiding a smirk. Right on his heels, Toby, Zach, and Colby rushed through the entryway. Their father stood at the head of the table, his face calm. Once everyone found his or her place, Gordon sat down.
“Colby,” he said, “would you say grace, please?”
Colby bowed his head and piped out a quick prayer. As soon as he finished, their father asked about their day and chatter picked up again. It seemed as though everyone had a dish to pass and something to say.
“Those two aren’t bad looking,” Bernie muttered to Dim as she passed the salad bowl.
Diamond winked at her friend, and thought, Eli certainly isn’t.
Just then, he looked her way. She felt powerless to avert her eyes. He gave a slight nod, then turned to catch something Zach was saying. After that, she could feel his gaze seek her out. But she refused to meet his eyes again. Instead, she joked with those closest to her. The intense feeling that shot through her abdomen whenever they looked at each other scared her, yet excited her, and she didn’t know what to do with it.
Later, she and Nate walked Bernie home. Her house stood a half-mile away along the driving road, the fanciest, smallest house for miles. They could have shaved off a third of the distance if they’d gone through the orchard, but Diamond took the long way for her friend’s sake. At her front porch, Bernie thanked them for having her over, her sights set squarely on Nate.
“Anytime, B-juice,” he said. Nate started calling her that four years ago when she dressed up as Beetlejuice for Halloween to mourn the end of the show.
“I’ll call you after work, Dim,” Bernie said.
“Yup. And don’t forget our plans this weekend.”
“I won’t.”
“See you later,” Nate said, blowing a kiss to Bernie as he headed back down the walkway.
Diamond rolled her eyes at Bernie’s mental swooning. “I’ll see you tomorrow.” She jogged after her brother. “Why do you do that?” she asked once she caught up with him.
“Do what?”
“Tease her.”
“Aw, Bernie knows I’m just joking.”
“Does she?”
“Sis, Bernie couldn’t think I’d actually want to date her. I mean, it would be like dating you. Not happening.”
“Well, yeah. But it’s still kind of mean.”
“I can’t help that she’s hopelessly in love with me. After all, I’m Nate the Great.” He stuck out his lips and curled his arms.
She laughed.
“Look at it this way: I can’t very well ignore her, ’cause she’s always under foot. She’s your best friend, which says a lot about her. So I’m going to treat her like the awesome person she is. It’s like having another little sister.”
“I could talk to her again.”
“Don’t worry about it. I don’t mind, really. As long as she doesn’t make voodoo dolls of the women I date.” He gave her a sidelong glance making her snicker. “Race you home?”
“Go!” she yelled.
“That’s not fair!” He took off after her.
*****
The next morning, just after four, she threw on jeans and a pale yellow tank top, then got her bicycle from the garage and left for the neighboring farm to get milk. Cool, fresh air wafted over her as she navigated the before-dawn darkness, glad for the light shining from the handle. She wore a knapsack equipped with a couple bags of ice, two empty half-gallon glass bottles, and a blanket to keep the cold off her back.
On her return ride home, she could hear the milk sloshing around in the bottles. She let the bicycle coast swiftly down the driving road, then onto the gravel driveway leading to the front yard. Stashing her bike in the garage, she went into the kitchen. She washed her hands, placed the milk in the fridge, put the coffee on, and brewed a cup of mint tea for herself. As she filled a large pot with water to boil eggs, she raised her face to the window. The sky had begun to lighten. A perfect summer morning.
Her gut flipped. Someone sat on the porch of the workers’ house. Somehow, she knew it was Eli, even from a distance. She’d almost managed to forget about him, and now there he was. Setting the pot on the counter, she went outside and crossed the 200 feet to the bunkhouse. He looked up as she approached the stairs.
“Good morning,” she said.
“Morning.” He turned his gaze off to his left, in the direction of the meadow where she’d met Bernie the day before.
“Coffee’s almost ready. Why don’t you come have some? Maybe you could stay for breakfast.”
“Okay.” He glanced at her before staring off again.
She waited a couple of beats. “Well, um, I’ll just head back to the house, so, uh, when you’re ready, you can just come over. To the kitchen.”
Duh, Diamond.
“Yeah, well, okay, bye.”
She left before he could respond, embarrassment warming her cheeks. Back inside, she took a mug down for him, just in case. As she removed two dozen eggs from the fridge, he walked through the door.
“You can sit. I’ll be there in a sec,” she said, trying to play it cool. Internally she exploded with emotion, ecstatic he’d decided to come over.
“I could get it myself.”
“No, really. It’s okay.” She plopped the eggs into the pot, then placed it on a back burner. Trying to hide the traitorous shaking in her hands, she poured his coffee and took it to the table with her tea.
“Here,” she said, handing him the mug. Her gut twisted when their fingers brushed. She swallowed. “You look like you could use this.”
“Thanks, I think.”
“Sometimes it’s hard for city people to sleep well their first couple nights here. It’s so quiet.”
“Leaves you nothing but your thoughts,” he said against the rim of his cup.
“Don’t worry. After a full day of work here, you’ll be so exhausted that you’ll be dead to the world.”
