James was sitting at the kitchen table with a hot cup of coffee. He was thinking more than drinking. Thinking about Joyce mostly, and what he was going do without her. Sure, he could always find somebody to come in and clean the house, maybe even cook for him. But that’s not was on his mind. Not a day went by that he hadn’t told Joyce that he loved her. Probably told her that five or ten times a day. He had meant it every time as well. She had been his rock, his anchor in every storm. When the bottom had dropped out of the beef market, and the bank threatened to call the note due on the new corn silo, she had taken a full time job just to help make the payments.

Bastards, he though. Didn’t need that silo anyway. Them damn bankers are the ones who talked me into buying it.

There always was and would always be the love hate relationship between banker and rancher. When times were good, the banker was your best friend, but when they got bad, the banker was the first to be looking over the value of your property.

If it hadn’t been for Joyce, they probably would have lost the place. The new silo did increase profits finally, when the market came back up. He still had to deal with the bankers though, just to have operating capital every year. For the last five years his yearly profits increased, which made it a lot easier to deal with them. Even with the rising costs of fuel, insecticides, and herbicides, he showed a profit. He always thanked Joyce for her commitment to him and the ranch.

He smiled when he heard the old Ford pull into the yard. He rose and took a clean cup off the cupboard shelf and poured Elinor a cup of coffee.

“’Spose I should adjust that clutch one of these days too,” he said aloud to himself.

Elinor had been his best friend growing up. Even being three years older than he, she had played with him as a youngster, teasing him or helping with his school work. It was had to have playmates when you lived as far from town as they did, so they made do with each other. They did what all country kids did as children. They had their chores like picking eggs from under the hens in the coop every morning, and they had one milk cow, which at the age of eight, became his full time chore. But they had their fun times too, like riding the calves when they got big enough, or playing in the hay loft. It was Elinor that had dared him to jump into the hay wagon from the top of the hay loft door. When he said he was scared she gave him a gentle nudge that sent him flying. It took six weeks before his arm came out of the cast. They used to run down to the creek on hot summer days and swim naked. Momma took Elinor to town one day and bought her swim suit when she was twelve, they never did swim naked after that. Even he was told to wear an old pair of cutoffs, when they swam together, which he seldom did.

It was about that time that things started to change. Elinor started growing up, developing into a young woman. She spent less time with him and more time with Momma in the kitchen. He, starting spending more time with Dad, learning the daily life of the ranch hand. But he still liked to spend time with Elinor, when they could. He must have been in his twelfth or thirteenth year, Elinor must have been seventeen then. He caught her coming out of the bathroom in just her underwear.

“You got boobs,” he had said to her, “just like Momma.”

She punched him in the arm before slamming her bedroom door. It was after that, that he began to take a new interest in his sister. He began to look at her differently, trying to look down her blouse when he could, or up her skirt when they rode the bus to school. It was when he entered High School and met Joyce that he lost interest in her, she was after all, just his sister.

“Back so soon,” he commented as Elinor entered the kitchen. “They get off okay?”

He pushed the cup of coffee toward her as she sat down.