No car in the driveway, no moving truck at the curb. No one answers the door when I knock. I feel ridiculous standing there, listening to the cicadas hum in the trees at my back, my boots shuffling across the new front porch that is … actually really nice. I’m glad Gus didn’t destroy this part of the house in his quest to become a home renovation expert.
I dig the heel of my hand in the base of my neck until I'm the idiot standing on the front porch of a random house in the early afternoon sunshine. I sigh and wander back to my truck, wondering what in the hell Dane was talking about at the grocery store. I drive back to the farm with a tightness in my throat and an open pack of fudge stripe cookies in my lap, the windows all the way down and the ghost of Evie’s laugh slipping along the seats. She had been so beautiful that day, with the wind in her hair, chin tilted up and back. I wanted to kiss every mark on her skin. Every scar, every knick, every line that appeared with her smile.
I’ve perfected a rhythm over the last couple of days. I wake up. I don’t allow myself to linger in bed for more than a couple of minutes. I shuffle into the kitchen for coffee without glancing at a single thing and then I trudge out to the fields and let my body take over for my mind. It’s the only place I can bear missing her—where there’s enough open space for it to come tumbling out of my chest. In the house, I feel stuck. I stare at the empty chair next to me and the longing steals my breath.
I’ve planted more in the past week than I think I have during my entire tenure at Lovelight Farms. We’ll have bell peppers for the next 750 years.
I grab my groceries and stomp my way up the stairs, ignoring the aluminum tray of … something on the top step. I think Layla is convinced a sugar high will see me through this difficult time. I hesitate with my key in the door and then lean back to snatch it up, balancing it on top of everything else. I get a whiff of cinnamon, the bottom of the tray still warm.
She might not be wrong.
Four cats greet me at the door, a chorus of quacking from the small, fenced in area in the kitchen. Otis and the kittens have taken well to each other, Prancer adopting the little guy as one of her own. My evenings are spent watching four cats try to teach a duck how to meow, nudging their little felt mice at his webbed feet and then rubbing their heads against his downy fluff. Maybe I should put that on the stupid video app.
I put my groceries away in a haze. It only takes a few minutes for the silence to feel oppressive instead of comforting, pressing down on my shoulders until it’s a ringing in my ears. I’ve never once had trouble with quiet, but now I feel my jaw clenching in the stillness of the house. I got too used to the sounds of her here with me—whispered fights with Prancer over scarf ownership, the clink of her mug against the countertop.
This whole house is bathed in memories of her and I can’t breathe because of it.
So I slip on my boots and step out the front door, half of my groceries still left in disarray on the countertop. My chest loosens as soon as my feet are on the ground, the tightness slipping away with fresh air and sunlight. I make my way through the tall grass and I watch the trees sway in the breeze. Spring has arrived in earnest after its lengthy delay, the flowers and their bloom with it. Black-eyed Susans with their yellow petals opening to the sun. Bright purple monkshood in thick clusters at the base of the oak trees. Scarlet beebalm and early blue violets.
I’m busy carefully stepping around tiny, bright orange poppies bursting from the ground in licks of color that I almost don’t notice it at first. I categorize it as background noise—a habit of life on a farm where there’s always someone doing something.
Except everyone is already home for the day, and we finished up field work hours ago.
I tilt my head up and shadow my face with my hand. I catch a figure at the very edge of the field. Tall. Legs for miles. The back of her wrist pressed against her forehead.
My heart does something complicated in my chest. A nose-dive or a—a free fall. I can’t really focus on anything other than—
Evelyn. Standing in the middle of my field with a shovel, wearing a pair of loose faded jeans and her hair pulled into a ponytail. For a second, I think I'm hallucinating. A sugar-induced fantasy. Dreaming again, maybe. But then she straightens, tosses the shovel over her shoulder, and yells at me.
“Do you know how long I’ve been out here shoveling rocks?”
I’m frozen with my boots planted in the ground, one foot in front of the other, caught mid-stride. There’s a feeling in my chest that’s overwhelming, staggering, the burst of it brighter than the flowers at my feet and the sun at my back. I bite the corner of my mouth against my grin.
She’s looking at me like I’ve kept her waiting. A tilt to her brow like she’s pissed about it, too.
“Why are you shoveling rocks?” I call back. I keep my feet moving forward, helpless not to. I stop about an arm’s length away from her, my eyes unsure what to focus on first. Her messy hair, a sheen of sweat across her forehead. Dirt up to her elbows and in a line across her white t-shirt. She looks like she’s been personally kissed by the sun, all that skin just … shining.
I’ve missed her so much.
“Newbie does rock duty, right?”
I clear my throat and ignore the implication of what she’s saying. “You’ve been talking to Jeremy?”
“Jeremy has been talking to me,” she amends, her voice that low rasp I love. “Everyone has a lot of ideas.”
“Ideas about what?”
“For me to tell you how I love you,” she says simply, like she’s not driving that shovel in the center of my chest and breaking my ribcage right open for all her sunlight to come pouring through. A smile starts in her eyes, nudging at her bottom lip until she’s standing there and grinning at me, looking like every happy thought I’ve ever had. I take a step closer and she tilts her head back to keep her eyes on mine. “Josie’s suggestion involved fireworks.”
“Don’t need fireworks,” I grit out, my voice rough and tight. My hands ache to hold her. “Just need you.”
“I told you I was coming back,” she says. There is a perfect three inches of space between us and I want to pull her closer, feel her tucked against my chest. She inclines her head and considers me. “But I didn’t say it enough, and I know you appreciate action over words. I’ll prove it to you. I’m here. I’m staying here. You didn’t have to ask.”
“I did, though.” I give in to temptation and drag my pinky against the side of her hand. All of her fingers twitch on the handle of the shovel. “I needed to ask. Because words are important, too. You deserve that from me. I’m working on it.”
She smiles at me, gentle and shy and unbearably beautiful. “Okay.”
I nod. “Alright.”
“I did love your video,” she tells me. A whisper—a secret—a flush in her cheeks that deepens as I uncurl her fingers one by one. “Who knew you’d be the TikTok sensation between us, farmer boy?”
I tangle our fingers together and grip her hand in mine. “I missed you,” I say. “I missed you so much. I feel like I’ve been missing you the whole time I’ve known you.” I swallow hard. “Loving you, too.”