Chapter SixIt took a week to get her back to my farmhouse.
I’m listening hard for the sounds of gravel popping under tires, and I jump every time the wind rattles around the front porch. I never considered that she would ring the doorbell, and I nearly have cardiac arrest when it bongs through the empty house.
Under the porch light, she’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.
“Hey.”
“Hey,” I maybe say, and though I have no right to, I grab her sweater at her waist and pull her to my chest and hold her to me, the sounds of the wind through the dead stalks in the field a duet with our breath.
“What’s up, John?”
I squeeze her to me tighter. “I read your book.”
“You said.”
“Can I just hold you like this for another minute? I don’t know what to say right now.”
“Yeah. Here, let me he
