Bluegrass State of Mind(61)

She shook hands with him and noticed the strong grip he had. His dirty-blond hair was a little longer than normal, with strands tucked behind his ears and tickling the top of his collar. His hazel eyes seemed to dance with his amusement of the locker room antics.

"So, are you Paige's oldest brother? She told me all about you guys, but I can't remember the order."

"Nope, not the oldest. I'm brother number three. Come on, I'll show you around the school and the field while Will's getting the guys ready for the game." He led her out of the field house and toward the massive school.

"Do you teach here or do you volunteer like Will?" she asked as he opened one of the metal doors leading into the school.

"I teach science, mostly biology and anatomy/physiology."

Kenna looked over at him and took in his six-foot-plus frame, heavily muscled arms, broad chest, and tapered waist. It was clear he either worked out with the boys or did something else because he didn't look like a teacher. "You don't look like any science nerd I know," she laughed.

"I just became a teacher. I served eight years in the Special Forces. Got out two years ago and finished my degree."

"What division were you? And, if you don't mind my asking, what prompted you to join?"

"Right after the World Trade Center bombings, Miles, Marshall, and I joined the Army Rangers. Up here is my classroom." It was an obvious change of subject, so Kenna let it go.

"What about your other brothers? Paige said you were all into farming."

"We all are. Miles had gotten his bachelor of science at Texas A&M, which is the leading school in agricultural studies. He then got his MBA in agricultural management from Purdue. Miles is the brains behind our farm. He worked during college and assigned my mom as his power of attorney. He'd keep in touch with real estate agents here. When land near our parents’ farm would go up for sale, Miles would try to purchase it. Lots of times he would only be able to buy ten acres of landlocked property on the cheap. No one wanted it because you couldn't get to the property without trespassing over someone else’s land. And you really can't do much on a large scale with ten acres. Well, he started buying even more when he was earning a paycheck in the Army. It was like a puzzle. He'd buy strategically landlocked pieces on the cheap and would spend a little money on the connector piece of property. After we got out of the Army, Miles bought a total of seven hundred acres that had a common boundary with my parents’ five hundred acres. We all liked the idea, so over the past couple of years we've all done the same thing. However, our farms aren't nearly as large as Miles's."

"What do you grow on your farms?"

"Cy and I both run cattle on ours. It takes the least amount of work. Cy is the black sheep of the family. He likes to take off for weeks at a time. So we run our cattle together and basically treat our two farms as one. Since he's away so much, he lives with Marshall and me out on Marshall's farm. He bought a tract of land with this hundred-year-old farm house on it that he's fixed into a modern day bachelor's pad. Marsh has his own security company, and he also runs some cattle, too. We also all rotate crops such as corn and soybeans on part of our property."

"What about Miles and your youngest brother?"

"Miles just completed a house in the middle of his tract of land. Takes forever to get out there. He's started his own anti-corporate company called Family Farms. Large, impersonal corporations are getting into farming and driving down the costs of production and turning farming into mass production. It's killing off the smaller family farms. In obtaining his MBA, Miles studied how they do it. Now he runs his company to achieve two goals: keeping the family farms alive and competing with the large corporations. He manages a co-op of family farms to mimic the corporate farms. He has the family farms working together to combine their efforts while reducing their costs. As I said, he's the brains behind the farming. My little brother Pierce is still in school. He's at the University of Kentucky getting his degree in agriculture with a focus on soil composition and will graduate in a couple of weeks. He's the opposite of Miles. He's old-school. He'll take over running my parents’ farm. He's the one who decides what crops should be planted, when they need to be rotated, soil compositions, and all sorts of other things."

They exited the school and headed back to the football field. Kenna saw that cars were already starting to fill up the parking lot. She followed Cade past the ticket takers and up a few rows to where Paige sat.

"Hey, bro. How's the team looking this year?" Paige stood up and hugged her brother. Cade picked her up in a bear hug and Kenna smiled at the obvious affection between them, that, and the sight of Paige's feet dangling off the ground.