Hot Metal Cheater

By Jeremy Michelson

Farmer Bob loves his 2031 John Deere Aware Harvester. Really loves it. And it loves him back. But when a salesman shows up with a sexy new A.I. controlled harvester, Farmer Bob must make a choice. Can he be faithful? Or will he give in to that new harvester smell? A tale of wrong love gone bad.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jeremy Michelson
• Release date: May 8, 2016
• ISBN: 9781310913341

Book preview

Jeremy Michelson

HOT METAL

CHEATER

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Copyright

Copyright © 2016 by Jeremy Michelson

This book is licensed for your person enjoyment only. All Rights reserved. This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental. This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.

Cover artwork: © Chesterf | Dreamstime.com

Cover Design by Jeremy Michelson

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CHAPTER ONE

His name was Robert Alister McHaven.

But, of course, everyone called him Farmer Bob.

That morning he was right where he loved to be. But there was a knot in his stomach that wouldn’t go away.

The rolling fields of the Palouse Hills in Eastern Washington State lay in a golden haze in the first light of morning. A gentle breeze rustled the heavy headed stalks of wheat that stretched as far as the eye could see.

The breeze brought the scent of dust and grain up to him in the cab of his 2031 John Deere Aware Harvester. He chewed on a kernel of dry wheat and watched the August day being born. Even in the early light he could see waves of heat rise up in the distance. Another scorcher on the way. He’d double checked the harvester’s AC the night before–along with every other moving part on the beautiful machine. Everything was perfect.

He lifted his beat-up John Deere cap and wiped the first sweat of the day from his brow. Farmer Bob wasn’t a big guy, but he wasn’t small, either. Beneath his button up blue chino shirt and his Wrangler jeans, he was wiry muscle. Even in the golden age of automation–as the John Deere brochures liked to call it–someone still had to put on their gloves and muscle stuff around.

With the price of wheat being in the crapper these days, he sure as hell wasn’t gonna pay someone to lug cans of grease or bales of hay for him.

Farmer Bob’s clean-shaven face and hairy forearms were as tanned as the parts under his clothes were lily white. His eyes were the same faded blue as his Wranglers, surrounded by deep lines from his perpetual squint into the sunlight.

From the dusty, dirt stained, red and white Igloo cooler that squatted by his well-worn Doc Marten boots, he took a bottle of water and sipped a small amount. Not too much. Forty years of riding around in tractors and harvesters had taught him the cycles of his bladder. Stopping the harvester was time and money lost forever.

He put the bottle back in the cooler, next to his roast beef and cheddar sandwich that would be his lunch. Which might happen around midday. Or maybe not, depending out how quick the dumb kids were with the trucks.

Those idiots in the state house still wouldn’t allow automated trucks to run unmanned on the roads. His harvester was fully automated. She could run over the hills all day long without him sitting there. But state law mandated a