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Chapter 10

Like Grains of Sand

Jack's POV

The work was exhausting, but it would be well worth it in the end. Cliff and I both looked at our ten plowed plots ready for seeding. I already had the seeds in the barn, but felt it would be better to let the soil sit for a day before we actually seeded it. Reading Pappy's farming journal really gave me some valuable insights on how to grow stuff faster, and run a more efficient farm. After all if I only got one harvest a season things weren't going to work out very well.

"You know Jack it's going to be hell watering all those things by hand."

Cliff had a great point. Looking back over the field only emphasized that point. Mixing the water and actually physically watering each crop would take up most of the day. We didn't even have half the entire field filled up yet! We had planted some grass in a part closer to the barn we wouldn't be using for a few seasons just in case we decided to get some livestock. Nugget, our chicken, was already turning out to be a handful. Her temper seemed to get the best of her, and the best of us too. It was mainly Cliff's chore but we'd switch every now and then. You'd literally have to run in, grab the egg, and toss the feed in the bin as fast as you could, or you were getting pecked.

"Karen mentioned something about a town inventor. I think his name was Rick?"

Cliff nodded. "I met him a few times when I came around here when I was younger. Nice guy, and a real handy man, but he's a bit on the nerdy side."

"I'll go on into town and see if he doesn't have something to help us out."

"Alright, but hurry back the girls wanted to eat dinner with us."

I laughed. "They always eat dinner with us Cliff, that's what boyfriends do. I'll be back in plenty of time."

"Yea, yea just be sure. I don't want to have to deal with Karen all by myself."

I laughed and started walking towards the village. Cliff and Ann had gotten together not long after they found out about Karen and I. In fact it was hours later. When we went to watch the movie they noticed us holding hands and I guess the making out part sort of gave us away. It was funny though when Ann saw us kissing she jumped right on Cliff and nearly sucked his face right off. Sure enough we now had a two couple household basically. The girls would show up for Lunch and then go off to do their own thing. Then they'd show up again for supper and stay for awhile. Neither of us had gotten the girls to stay over a night. I wasn't too sure how to go about it. With the village being so small and all I wondered if it'd be proper or if it'd start some huge scandalous rumor and I'd have Karen's parents and Ann's father banging down my door.

"This looks like the place Karen was talking about." She had told me Rick lived in a pretty run down looking shack near the town square, and this seemed to fit the bill.

I walked in the door and sure enough the guy Karen had pointed out to me walking through the village was asleep on a counter on the far side of the room.

"Umm…are you Rick?"

"Huh? Who? Oh hey you're Jack, nice to finally meet you."

He extended his hand and I shook it. "Likewise I was wondering if you had something that could help me out. I've just gone from four plots to ten and I need something to cut down on the watering and could hold enough water to get the job done in just one go."

Rick scratched his chin. "Well usually I'd point you towards the sprinkler, but if you're going to be doing any mixing like adding plant food that won't save you much time since it holds less water than the watering can."

I sighed thinking how annoying it was going to be to water all those crops. How on earth did Pappy do it?

"Why don't you just use that irrigation system Jake had?"

"Huh?"

Rick laughed. "You don't even know you have it do you?"

I shook my head. Rick glanced up at a clock on the wall. "Tell you what if you feed me some supper I'll come over and help you get it set up before."

"You can really do it that fast?"

"Sure it's a breeze, but we better go ahead and get started."

We left the shack and got back to the farm in decent time. Cliff looked surprised when Rick was with me.

"Set an extra place at supper tonight. Rick's gonna help us set up an irrigation system in exchange for some supper."

"Man that sounds great, then you can take care of Nugget."

"In your dreams Cliff, are the girls here yet?"

"Nope, but I'll get the table set and all. Mac and Cheese work for you guys?"

Rick nodded and I gave a big thumbs up to my favorite dish. "Don't start on it quite yet though Cliff, you know how they like to help out."

"Tell me about it, at least it's something Karen can cook."

I laughed. "Well at least my girl can kiss without making it look like she's trying to suck the life out of me."

Cliff turned bright red and Rick started laughing his butt off. I smiled and followed Rick into the tool shed.

"There's no way it's in here. I've searched every nook and cranny in this place."

"Not everywhere, look here it is."

I looked, but all I saw was a hole in the floor. Rick stuck his finger in the hole and pulled up removing the floor tile and revealing a storage area beneath the shed. "You've got to be kidding me, a hidden storage room?"

"Well not really hidden. Jake had it put in to house some of his tools that wouldn't fit in the shed. The irrigation system's pretty large so he needed more space. Remember you have to take this thing apart and store it during the winter otherwise it'll be useless."

"Not a problem. So what do we move first?"

Rick pointed to a really large box with a large red hose coming out of it. There was also a funnel at the top of the box, and on one side was a small take with measurement readings on it.

"That's the pump housing. It's even got a reservoir you can add stuff like plant food and it'll mix it into the water for you."

"Man this thing's going to be great."

I went over to the pump and even putting all my strength into it couldn't manage to pick the thing up. "Yea that's the only draw back, but I've got a solution." Rick looked at his watch and counted down from five on his fingers. When he got to zero I heard Zack yell from outside.

"Jack where are you at?"

"You know it's kind of creepy you could do that."

"Oh give me a break he shows up here at 5PM like clockwork."

I ran up the stairs and managed to talk Zack into helping us move the heavy pump telling him it'd greatly increase the farms productivity. I was surprised when Zack seemed to pick up the pump with ease and walked it over to the pond and gently set it down.

"Appreciate it Zack."

"No problem, you just do your best on this farm. Island depends on you, ya know."

"I'm getting better every day. Besides with the valley getting restored maybe I won't be the only farmer around here before too long."

Zack laughed. "Let's hope so, I'll be rich if we get a couple more farms in here. "

Zack walked off and Rick came out of the shed with a lot of tubing, and other assorted stuff.

"So what now?"

"Well we're going to place the sprinkler heads first, then we connect the tubing, strap it on tight, and test the system. We should be done within an hour."

"Great."

The whole process turned out to be pretty simple. The sprinkler heads had metal spikes on the bottom that let you drive them into the ground and then it anchored them in place. We placed about two to three per plot. The tubing was the most annoying part. We had to run that stuff every which way to get all the sprinkler heads connected. We were just finishing clamping the tubing to the sprinkler heads with some zip ties when a familiar voice snuck up on me.

"Whatcha up too?"

I had just stapled the final tube down to the pump housing so we were close to the pond. Spinning around I grabbed Karen up bridal style and held her over the pond.

"I was just thinking of going for a swim, wanna join me?"

"Oh you wouldn't dare." She screamed when I let go of her for a split second, but I caught her.

"Don't push me woman."

She grinned. "I bet you'd like to see me all wet wouldn't you?"

I kicked off my shoes and started walking towards the pond. "Well now I think you need a cold shower."

"Jack Harvest you get away from that pond."

"Or what?"

"Oh I'll think of something."

I kept walking. "Better think quickly."

She got a little nervous when I acted like I was losing my balance. "Jack I'm serious I can't get wet in this it'll show right through."

"Well I wouldn't want to embarrass you." I set her down and she gave me a big passionate kiss as a reward.

"Good boy. Rick, are you all done with this contraption?"

Rick walked up on us. "Just about, just gotta see if it works. Care to do the honors?"

I stepped aside and pointed out the switch. "May as well it's always good luck to let a lady launch a ship."

She laughed. "Well let's just hope it's the same for irrigation systems huh?"

A flip of the switch and the motor came to life. It was pretty loud, but it did the job. I watched the thing slowly fill its main tank with water and then I saw water coming out of all the sprinkler heads. "Looks like it works."

Rick looked a little proud. "Of course it does. Just turn in on for about a minute or two otherwise you'll flood the place."

Karen laughed. "Now there's something. If you manage to get it running and then can't get it to shut off you'll have a swamp instead of a farm."

I flipped down the switch wanting to keep the soil fairly dry so it could settle. The machine puttered off and it retained the water in its main tank.

"Whatever you put in the reservoir will get mixed into the water fairly quickly and it'll be empty in about thirty seconds or so, so sure to use just what you need."

"Ok nerd boy let's eat I'm starving."

"Hey I just helped save your boyfriend's farm."

"Yea, yea you'll get your food."

Rick smiled. It was nice to see someone who could take Karen's mouth without taking it seriously.

In about half an hour, it would have been half that if the girl's hadn't been squabbling with Cliff over the cooking duties, we were all seated and ready to eat. We all bowed out heads and joined hands.

"God thank you for all you've given us today, and thank you so much for Rick and getting him over here to set up that irrigation system for us, it's going to be a huge help. Please continue to watch over and guide us. In your name I pray, amen." I finished the prayer and everyone quickly dug into their food.

I loved mac and cheese. Everyone at the table minus Rick knew it, and I'm sure by the way I engulfed it he had figured it out too. When supper was over we all let our bodies rest for a little while before moving onto dessert.

"So Rick, how's your sister doing?"

"Good, but I'm sure Ann can tell you more about it than I can."

Ann smiled. "Yep, she's been crashing at my place a lot. Dad moved her and Grey out into the loft and got them set up there."

Now I was confused. "Hold up, she's living with him, and everyone's cool with that?"

Rick was surprised. "Yea, I mean what'd you expect? She is over 21, so she's around the age."

Karen smiled. "Jack's from the city remember. His traditions are pretty different."

Rick sighed. "You see Jack…"

"Hold up there Rick, I'll educate my boyfriend. You better listen up too Cliff." Karen seemed to switch into lecture mode. "You see on Flowerbud Isle we take the idea of marriage very seriously. So we believe it's important that even if a couple truly loves each other that they should live with each other for at least a season before they propose. Kind of like a trial marriage. The parents usually keep a close eye on the couple. Not to necessarily make sure nothing 'naughty' happens, but to see how the couple handles stress, and other things a married couple will face."

Talk about your case of culture shock. It came across to me like the rents were giving their kids free license to go and mess around with their boyfriend or girlfriend just for a trial period. Then again it had its merits. I mean if you're going to get married you're not going to be doing the forbidden tango 24/7.

"So the marriage, how does that work then?"

Ann took over eager to share her two cents. "Well after a season one of the parents used to give the man a blue feather to propose with, but that was a long time ago. Now they usually just get the parents blessing and the guy goes into the city to buy the engagement ring and wedding bands. Comes back and we have a normal wedding at the church. There is one large difference in our marriage system though."

Cliff got a little concerned. "That being?"

Karen smiled. "When you get married you're stuck for life. There's no divorce, and if one of them dies you remain a widow for the rest of your life."

"Wow…that is different."

Ann giggled. "Well if you think about it, there's so few people on the island we couldn't have people getting divorced and then looking for a new partner we'd run out of people to couple up with."

"You've got a point. I'm hoping the new valley will attract some more settlers though."

"What do you need more people for when you've got me huh?" Karen glared at me playfully.

"You're right, you're more than enough to deal with."

She playfully smacked my arm and then stood grabbing my dish. Ann did the same as well as taking Rick's dish. They quickly cleaned them off, washed them, and put them up in the rack to dry.

"And now for dessert." Karen reached into the fridge and pulled out a large bottle of strawberry wine.

"Good night hun, where did you get that?" I wasn't a big wine drinker, but I could handle the taste of something like strawberry wine.

"Zack picked it up for me from the city today. We have to celebrate the beginning of summer the right way. There's no better way than this."

Cliff went to the cabinets and grabbed five wine glasses and Karen quickly poured everyone a glass. Sitting on my lap she raised her glass up into the air. "To the spring that'll last in our memories forever, and may Rick get laid this summer!"

"Hey!"

Karen's POV

I was glad I had picked up that bottle of wine. I wasn't drunk, but I was definitely buzzing. Jack looked like he was right there with me. Rick of course was passed out on the table, and Cliff had gone for a moonlight walk with Ann.

I don't know if it was the wine, or if it was just time. But I figured now was as good a time as ever to come clean with Jack on everything. I'm sure he had some stuff to get off his chest too.

"Come on let's go for a walk."

"It's pretty late out."

"Scared of the dark?"

"Oh whatever, let's go." He intertwined my hand with his and we were off.

Flowerbud Isle was beautiful at night. There wasn't a cloud in the sky tonight, and the temperature was perfect for shorts and a t-shirt.

"You know tomorrow's the fireworks festival."

"I'm afraid you're going to have to give me another culture lesson."

I let go of his hand and opted to snuggle against his arm instead leaning against him as we walked. "There really isn't much to it. They shoot some fireworks off from the beach and you're supposed to watch them with your significant other."

"So am I significant enough to watch the fireworks with you."

"Silly, of course you are."

We walked in silence for awhile longer until Jack broke the silence. "You know in a week from tomorrow we'll be coming up on our one month."

"Aww, you've been keeping track."

"You're welcome."

"If you hadn't reminded me I wouldn't have remembered."

"Smartass"

"Takes one to know one, but its one thing I love about you."

"Right back at you."

After sharing a kiss we found ourselves near the same log on Mother's Hill where Jack had found me the night of the Flower Festival. I sat down and patted the seat next to me which Jack took.

"Jack, I think its time we had a talk."

"I'm already informed about the birds and the bees."

I laughed. "Smart-aleck, no I'm serious though. There's some stuff I've kept from you that I want you to know about."

"Alright should I start or you?"

I was surprised, I thought he'd buck at the idea of getting everything out in the open. "How about we flip a coin for it?"

"Sounds fair, you call."

"Heads"

"Alright I'll take tales." He fished out a gold piece and flipped it into the air. I grabbed it before he did and flipped it onto the top of my hand. "Its heads, you go first."

"Ok, biggest thing I've got to get off my chest. My first serious girlfriend was a girl named Caitlin I met her in college. I lost my virginity to her and when we broke up I fell into a pretty low place. Drank the night away by myself, took up smoking pot, and all that stuff."

I was shocked. I mean not in a bad way or anything, but it took guts to tell me all those things. It made my confession easier too.

"Well for starters I'm not a virgin either, I lost that to Grey back in my senior year of high school, but he's the only one I've ever been with, and it was only once."

Jack smiled. "Well it looks like were on an even playing field."

"Wait there's more. When Kai came I started…" He cut me off.

"Smoking pot? I knew already, I guess that's a confession too."

"What, how?"

"I smelt it on Kai when he passed me and Ann on the path to your house the day he arrived. I mentioned to Ann and told her the signs to look for. She came to me that night she went with you up to Mother's Hill and told me she thought you were high."

I didn't feel betrayed or anything. If anything it was a relief, the lowest thing I felt I had done in my life was something Jack already knew about when he told me he loved me. "You know just about every day you didn't find me around the vineyard I was smoking with Kai down in the valley area, we found a cave down there and even started growing our own plants. When I smoked I got a little more flirtatious with him than I should have. I never kissed him though the worst thing was sometimes I'd wake up and realize I had used his chest as a pillow."

"Well who's the better pillow?"

"You by far, besides you double up as a pack mule too."

We we're silent for a few minutes. "So is that all?"

I nodded. "Yea, I can't help but feel a little guilty though. I know I led him on."

"Don't worry." Jack cupped my chin and brought my lips close to his. "He knows we're together now, and nothing's going to change that. I'm not going climb into bed, kiss, hold, or even touch any other girl ever."

I smiled. "After making me wait for some fifteen years you better not, and I promise to keep the same rules for myself."

"Thank you." He kissed me and I felt a mischievous grin form on my face.

"No problem, I'm not into girls anyways."

"Oh you!" He climbed on top of me and started tickling me.

"Ok…ok! You win I won't climb into bed, kiss, hold, or even touch any other boy ever!"

Satisfied he climbed off and helped me to my feet. "Good, now let me walk you home."

I latched onto his arm again. "Alright."

---

The next day came quickly as I got a pretty peaceful rest. Getting those confessions off my chest made me feel a lot better about myself, and my relationship with Jack. Now I was sure there was nothing that could come between us.

I walked downstairs and noticed my dad slouching in his easy chair, glass of whiskey in hand. Some habits just never die. Kai was sitting at the table, for the first time in awhile he honestly looked happy to see me.

"Good morning Miss Karen."

Of course he had gone back to calling me 'Miss' after he saw me with Jack that one night. I noticed he had an opened letter with him at the table.

"Morning Kai, what you got there?"

"It's a letter from my cousin. He's coming to visit me for a couple of days."

"From Columbia? That's a long trip."

"No, no. When I moved here he moved to North County city. He's been living there as long as I've been living here."

"North County city, I think that's where Jack's from." I wanted to slap myself for that. Kai had been in a great mood and I had to go say something like that. Oddly enough Kai didn't seemed fazed.

"I believe you're right. It's a very large city though from what he told me. He said over 356,000 people live there."

"Wow, I guess there's not much chance of them knowing the same people."

Kai nodded. "He's coming in today on the ferry."

"What, today?"

"Yes, he wanted to see the fireworks tonight."

"It's alright Karen; we'll just let him use your room. You can just go on ahead and move in with Jack." My dad never failed to chime in at the wrong time with his drunken comments.

"It's alright Miss Karen I've already set up another cot for him in the wine cellar; he'll only be here for two nights anyways."

"We'll I'm looking forward to meeting him."

"As he's looking forward to meeting you all, if you want to meet him he should be coming in just after lunch.

"Alright I'll try and make it."

I quickly cleaned up and started towards Ann's. It was going to be nice to meet some of Kai's family. On top of that it looked like Kai was getting over me and was trying to be friendly again, that was another huge relief. Walking up to the ranch I saw Popuri outside the barn, she waved to me so I waved back to be friendly. Unfortunately to her that must have been an invite for a conversation because she started towards me.

"Hi Karen, how have you been? It's been forever since I've talked with you."

"Yea, it has. I'm doing fine. Have you seen Ann?"

"Yep, she's in the barn. Who are you taking to the fireworks tonight?"

I started walking into the barn, but of course Popuri followed me in. "Jack, of course."

I had to cover my ears at the piercing squeal. "Oh Karen I had heard rumors, but is Jack your boyfriend?"

"Yes, he is." It was funny it still filled me with pride saying that. Jack Harvest was my boyfriend.

"Karen I'm so happy for you. I was wondering if you'd ever find someone."

There it is. I was waiting for it. Just when you think a conversation with Popuri is going to go alright for once she just forgets to slam on the breaks and crosses the line. I had to cool my temper though; the scatter brain didn't know any better.

"Thanks Popuri."

Luckily Ann spotted me from up in the loft. Part of the loft was Grey and Popuri's makeshift home, the other part still held hay.

"Oh hey Karen, catch!"

Ann dropped a bail of hay towards me and it scattered all over Popuri. I had to hold back my laughter, biting on my fist to keep it at bay. Popuri was covered in hay, it was everywhere in her hair.

"Sorry about that Popuri, I was counting on Karen to catch it."

I was surprised to see Popuri smile instead of breaking into tears. "No problem Ann, besides if I'm sticking around I've got to get used to all this."

She walked off towards the door that left to her and Grey's part of the loft. Ann grabbed the piece of rope around the bail lift and slid down.

"Man she's different then when I remember her?"

Ann smiled. "She's a whole lot different Karen. She's trying her best for my brother." Just as I thought Ann was getting serious about being sisterly with Popuri I saw a grin on her face. "But after she told me this morning Cliff's clothes make him look homeless I didn't mind dropping a bale of hay on her."

That was Ann alright. She was really nice, and hard to piss off, but she had a small list of things that could turn her on you really quick. Cliff was at the top of that list currently.

"So what you over here for?"

"I need a reason?"

Ann pouted, I loved pulling her leg. "Of course not, I just figured there was something important if you put up with Popuri to get to me."

"You've got a point. You see I was thinking. Jack and I got a lot of stuff out in the open, like stuff that I was worried he'd break up with me over."

"And where do I come in on this little scheme."

I was a little shy about introducing the idea to Ann of sleeping with her boyfriend. I mean she didn't have to have sex with him or anything, but just being in the same bed might be a little much for her. I didn't have a choice though if I wanted this with Jack. "Well things have been going really good between me and him, and I've noticed you've been getting along with Cliff just fine. I was thinking since tonight is a pretty romantic festival we could, you know, stay over at Jack's place tonight?"

Ann's face quickly turned several shades of red. "Karen! I know what you're thinking about, but I'm not really ready for that yet."

I held up my hands in defense. "Yeesh Ann I'm not talking like you have to get biblical with him or anything, just sleep in the same bed. I mean all the men are going out drinking, and I'm sure your dad is going to be way too trashed to notice you're not around. My parents won't care, their already pushing me to move in with Jack anyways."

Ann looked like she calmed down, but she still looked like this idea was going to take a lot of courage from her. "But…what if Cliff turns me down?"

I laughed. "Hun the way you two make out is almost R rated, and don't think I didn't see where both your hand's tend to drift to when it gets a little too heavy."

If I thought Ann had been embarrassed before, this took it to whole new levels. She was like a kid caught with their hand in the cookie jar. That was the perfect analogy. "Karen…it wasn't…it…I."

I smiled. "Oh hush Ann, its not like I haven't been there before. Besides I can tell you already me and Jack have been there."

"Karen!?"

"Oh if it isn't the kettle calling the pot black. We've both been with our guys for about a month now, and we're both 24. Its only natural we at least sleep with our guy from time to time. I mean who knows Ann if you and Cliff get alone in a bed, at night, and those hands drift south again. Well it's only natural to think you guys might do the dirty tango."

She got really embarrassed. "What about you and Jack?"

"Oh well, I can already tell you it'll probably end it with both of us in our birthday suits, and unless he chickens out we'll end up dancing under the covers."

Ann sat down putting her face in her hands. "How can you be so open about that?"

The fact I had been with her brother wasn't any secret between Ann and I. I remember she was shocked at first when she found out, but accepted it. Truth be told everyone figured Popuri had lost her virginity to Grey shortly after they started going out, and everyone knew Elli lost it to the doctor back when we we're all in high school. That left Mary and Ann as our only two virgins.

"It's nothing to be embarrassed about Ann. I mean I'm not going to go talk about it around town or anything, but with my close friends its nothing you have to hide."

"…I guess you're right."

I saw down next to her and put an arm around her. "Don't feel pressured to do anything you don't want to. I just wanted to bring up the idea."

She smiled. "No I think its time I at least slept with him."

"Good for you. Now let's go bother the boys and eat lunch with them. I've got a surprise after lunch!"

---

End Chapter 10

Again thanks to Libra1 for her tireless work at getting these chapters polished up and ready to post. Also thank you to all my reviewers, I'm glad you all enjoyed Karen and Jack getting together. The next chapter will be out in a week or so and trust me you're going to want to read it, big plot turn.