Title: Growing His Dream
Published On: June 8 2017
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SYNOPSIS
Love can grow in even the harshest conditions.
Life has been a struggle for Lachlan Buttar ever since his mother passed away and left him unprepared to take care of himself. He goes from homeless to staying with a local minister—but it soon becomes clear he will be better off, and safer, on his own. Fortunately Foster and Javi encounter the young man and offer him a real home on their dairy farm.
It’s there that Lachlan meets another of the workers, local farmer Abe Armitage. Though the attraction between them is instant, Abe refuses to act on it until Lachlan comes of age. By then, strong feelings have taken root, and a passionate romance quickly blossoms. But both men carry baggage that could crush any chance of happiness together, particularly since Lachlan witnessed a crime, and there are those who will do anything to make sure he cannot reveal what he’s seen.
“What’s going on?” Harriet asked, coming into the kitchen, and Foster shrugged as she and Javi sat down.
“Well, I was in church last Sunday.” Abe shook his head. “I don’t usually go because they… well, they don’t represent me, but my dad told me that I had to go and that he was tired of me missing services. I think he figures that they’ll change me or something. Anyway, at the end of the service, Reverend Felder stood and said that there was a member of the community in need.”
“We have plenty in need,” Harriet said.
“This is different,” Javi broke in, and she grew quiet.
“The reverend then brought Lachlan in front of the congregation and said that he’d been staying with his family for a few weeks and that he needed a home. He stood up there with an old ball cap in his hand, twisting it back and forth. It was so Dickensian.”
“Like you know what that means,” Foster teased.
“I read A Christmas Carol in school once—I know who Dickens was.” Abe rolled his eyes. “The thing is, no one came forward. He just stood there, looking like he wanted to disappear, and it was obvious that the reverend, high and mighty as he is, just wanted Lachlan out of his house.” Abe shuddered. He wasn’t a fan of someone he saw as a hypocrite.
“And now he was walking out in the rain….”
“With no place to go.” Harriet finished Foster’s sentence for him. “He said he’d be eighteen in a few days.”
“Yeah. I can’t imagine trying to be on my own at his age without a home or anyone.”
Abe could tell Foster’s mind was already running a mile a minute by the intensity in his eyes.
“Mom, can you see about getting him back in school? He has to be close to graduating and he needs to do that. Lachlan can help here on the farm, and we’ll give him an allowance and make sure he has what he needs.”
That was why Abe thought the world of Foster. He always thought of other people and what they needed. Foster had given Abe a job on the farm a year ago, when he and his father hadn’t been on speaking terms. They barely were now and at most tolerated each other. Abe didn’t ask his father about his bible thumping, and his father didn’t talk to Abe about the fact that he preferred boys to girls.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone look so miserable as he did that Sunday.” Abe kept trying to imagine how he’d feel if he’d been up there, and the only words that came to mind were naked and completely exposed.
“He said that his mother died of cancer not too long ago.”