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  “Yeah, baby. I’ve got this. Fucking boss of goat milking.”

  The funny part was that he was. Once he got the feel of it in his hands, he looked like he’d been doing it his whole life. Shirley leaned against him and dozed, and if a goat could smile, she was doing it.

  Sam stood up, carefully pulling out the milking bucket, and held it up, triumphant.

  “You see that, farmer? Make me some fucking cheese.”

  Nina laughed and took the bucket from him, and showed him how she strained it, decanted it into another sterilized jar.

  “I’ll let it cool down in their fridge, and tomorrow we’ll take everything we milked today and put it through their cream separator. They separate their cream out to control for fat levels in their cheese.”

  “We have to be here at three thirty in the morning again?”

  “You don’t have to, if you don’t want to.”

  “My idea is that we just fuck all night, and then we don’t have to get up at all.” Sam kissed her in the middle of her close-shorn head.

  “Watch your language in front of the ladies.”

  Sam leaned back against the counter while Nina put away the milk. He looked like that surfer boy again, had been looking like him more and more over the last month as they transferred the clinic to Lacey.

  She liked her farmer-doctor surfer boy.

  Loved him.

  “Thanks for showing me this today, Nina. You said, but I can’t believe there’s goats right here in the middle of the city.”

  “Chickens, too.”

  “Oh, yeah. Those chickens. We should visit them, they probably miss me.”

  “Kate told me you already visited them. That she caught you in her yard, cuddling them. She almost called the police.”

  “Nah, she’s a nice lady. She wouldn’t’ve called the police.”

  “She said she fed you lunch. That you said you were going to start coming by to help her with the chickens sometimes.”

  “You jealous, baby? Worried I’m gonna charm chicken ladies all over town?”

  Nina put her arms around him. “As long as you come home to your farmer every night, I guess I don’t mind.”

  His body stilled in her arms, and she laid her head against his chest, smiling. When he recovered, he squeezed her close. Her shaved head felt strange with his breath against it. She hadn’t even looked in the mirror, though Tay had taken pictures of them. When she found out the chemo drug that targeted the kind of cancer she had would make her lose her hair, Tay had wanted to make sure to avoid what could be a frustrating and sad experience and replace it with something fun.

  Nina found out and, looking on the internet for the best way to cut off and shave Tay’s dreads, also found out that there were places that would take her long, cut hair as a donation to make wigs for cancer patients.

  It had been fun.

  “You know, this is probably going to grow back in all gray.” Sam put a hand on top of her head, and she got goose bumps from the big, warm feel of it against the newly sensitized skin.

  “I came by all my gray honestly, so I don’t mind.”

  “I’ll miss your braids, but you’re beautiful no matter what.”

  “I’ll have braids again. Long gray ones.”

  “Silver vixen.”

  She leaned back and kissed his chin, his throat. “Yeah.”

  “You have time to come someplace with me after we take care of these ladies tomorrow?”

  She looked at his face, and it was serious.

  “Of course.”

  She knew, now, she’d go anywhere with him. She’d live her life with him.

  She kissed him again, and then moved away, smiling when he ran his hand over her head again.

  She gave him a brush to groom the goats and got out a broom and shovel to clean their small pens before they left.

  It was easy to work alongside him.

  Joyful.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  “I had no idea these were here. I mean, I’ve walked past the atrium before, and knew it was decorated, had all the wood and marble, but I didn’t know it was like this.”

  They were standing in the atrium of the Lakefield Public Library, looking at a series of inset, carved wooden panels that broke up the huge marble walls. The carvings were incredibly intricate, and detailed the flora and fauna of Ohio.

  She could see all the plants and trees and birds she had learned about in the ten years she had been here. She’d grown up with rigidly pruned orchards, and then wild shorelines with huge conifers. When she first came, she remembered being overwhelmed with the variety of deciduous trees, and she’d spent a lot of time in the city arboretum learning about them. With all those different trees came different kinds of birds.

  In these carvings, every leaf shape was correct, the texture of the bark, all the clues she had used to first memorize, and then get to know, her new home. Wildflowers, too. It took her a couple of full seasons to see everything that grew here, wild and in the ditches, at different times of the year. She made friends with interns at the extension office, figuring out what they considered weeds, what they considered endangered and wanted to cultivate.

  Sometimes plants that were weeds back home were flowers here.

  She had liked that, had liked it because she had put some distance behind her, enough distance that how the world grew meant that the entire philosophy of the landscape had changed.

  Even if sometimes, she would pull a weed that her mother would have put in a vase on their kitchen table.

  Wasn’t that the way.

  The carvings were beautiful, glossy, and she wished she could touch them, they seemed like they begged to be touched, but there were velvet ropes in front of them. Sam stood back and let her look, as long as she wanted, at each one. They were framed by narrow strips that looked to be carved with something like a twig wattle, and it was so realistic she had to look carefully to make sure there weren’t real twigs.

  She looked down at the brochure she had picked up, and on the back was a group picture of the carvers, their arms around one another. Sam came to her shoulder.

  “This guy, the skinny one with the curly hair? That’s Hefin.”

  Her brain clicked around to all the people she’d met since meeting Sam and Lacey. She remembered a Hefin, remembered his name, but couldn’t place him. She looked closer, trying to see his face in the picture better.

  “Des’s guy.”

  “Oh! Right. The man from Wales she’s overseas with. I thought he was an engineer?”

  “He is, but he does this traditional carving. It’s a big deal where he’s from. This is where they met, actually, in the library.”

  “These are amazing.”

  “They are. I come here a lot, actually. A lot lately.”

  “Yeah?”

  Sam pulled her down to the carvings at the end of the wall. This panel was a little more plain, the botanicals more stylized in a pattern from the top and from the bottom. There was some kind of vine that was carved in the geometric shape of a Celtic knot.

  “Here,” Sam said.

  He pointed at the carving in the middle, which was smooth and uncomplicated. Against everything else it looked almost modern or abstract. There was a heart, hollowed out into a bowl, with a beautiful handle extending from the top of it and topped with an open box that held a stack of perfect spheres.

  “It’s a spoon,” Sam said, and then it did look like one, like the ideal of a wooden spoon.

  “It’s beautiful, but really strange. Does it mean something in Ohio?”

  “No. It’s a Welsh love spoon. Carvers make them for their brides or their lovers. There’re all these symbols for what different kinds of carvings mean, look here.” Sam opened the brochure in her hands to the last page with pictures of love spoons and details of hearts, balls, chains, knots, all kinds of small carvings and their meanings.

  Nina looked back at the spheres, inside the box of the carving.

  Sam rea
ched out and touched the spheres with a single finger. Nina was surprised that they moved, right inside the carving.

  Then he tugged her to the marble on the far side of the love spoon, and pointed to a brass plaque, nestled in the wall with all the other plaques. It was bright gold, brand-new against the other engraved plaques, which were dull with age.

  Panel Sixteen Commemorates the Burnside Family of Lakefield, Ohio

  Patrick James Burnside Marie Astor Burnside

  Samuel Patrick Burnside Sarah Astor Burnside

  Destiny Marie Burnside Paul James Burnside

  “He carved it for Des, to show her that he loved her, and that he understood the thing that was most important to her, which was her family. She had a hard time leaving home, and over the years, we hadn’t realized how much we had taken advantage of that. We’d started to depend on her and let her believe that her whole life should be taking care of us.

  “We’ve been writing to each other a lot, since she’s been gone, and we’re closer than we ever were. She had to leave before I had the chance to really understand her. Worse, I made it the hardest for her to leave, made her feel guilty, made her feel bad for wanting to go, just as soon as I could see that she did.

  “All the spheres move separately, because they’re meant to represent that we’re all separate people. They’re inside this open box because we all come from the same place. The handle to the heart means that we’re all connected to, and come from, love.”

  “This is beautiful, Sam. I think it’s one of the most beautiful ways I’ve seen to tell someone that you love them.”

  Sam cleared his throat, and she wanted to kiss him, wanted him to understand that she thought it was okay that he had wanted Des to stay. She would have, too. She thought of her parents, of Russ’s parents.

  How she had left.

  Thought of Tay, asking Nina to let go and let her feel joy.

  She understood.

  She understood this man, and it would take so little for him to understand how much she loved him. He would always take her love easily, accept it without question. He would never need a love spoon from her. Simply being a part of Sam Burnside’s life would surround her with his love, and surround him with hers.

  Laughing with him.

  Working with him.

  Keeping the other people they loved as close as they could.

  “Hey Sam?”

  “Yeah, Nina?”

  She turned him toward her and reached down to hold his hand.

  She put the other hand in her pocket, where a weight had rested for days, now.

  She got down on one knee.

  “Samuel Patrick Burnside, will you do me the great honor of becoming my husband?”

  She thought that’s what she said, but she was crying, too, in her head she said it clear and loud, right in the echoey atrium, but like everything with Sam, it didn’t matter what she said, or what she did, or how she did it, because it was all just his love for her. He pulled her up, and he put his arms around her, squeezing her so tightly she could feel his heart beating.

  “Oh, God, Nina.” He squeezed her harder, his forearms were all along her back.

  “Will you? Will you, baby? I wanted to ask, so you’d know, you’d really know it’s what I wanted, and—”

  Then he kissed her, and she had no idea if she was kissing back, or laughing, or crying. She felt like she was sixteen years old, even though she was a middle-aged widow with a shaved head and mud in her shoelaces.

  But she was exactly what Sam wanted.

  “I don’t want to be anything else but your husband, Nina. Nothing else. I’ll do the other stuff. I’ll be a doctor or a farmer, whatever, but really, all I want is you.”

  Which is what she knew he would say.

  Though she’d expected more swear words.

  “Fuck, Nina.” He squeezed her again, and she laughed.

  “I have something for you, too.”

  “Is it a dog? Because I’ve always kind of wanted one, and I’m having a pretty goddamned good day.”

  She laughed. Joder, this man. “No, it’s not a dog. But if you want a dog, we’ll get one. Here.” She reached into her pocket and pulled out the ring.

  “Sarah designed it and had a friend of hers make it.” She gave it to him, suddenly feeling shy about putting it on his finger, about having done this.

  He held up the plain silver band and looked it over.

  “What are these numbers?”

  “They’re the GPS coordinates where Tay and Adam are getting married. Where my fields are. I was hoping that maybe one day you’d marry me there, too.”

  “Yes.” He kissed her head, and she smiled, because it felt weird.

  “Okay” was what she said, and then before she could think about it, she took the ring from him and put it on his finger. He made a fist, as if he would never take it off.

  “This weekend?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, could we get married this weekend, with Adam and Tay?”

  “You want to get married this weekend?”

  “Yes.”

  “You don’t want to wait a little while? Let it sink in?”

  “No.”

  “Because this has all been kind of fast. A summer.”

  “Not fast enough. This is how we Burnsides do love.”

  “You don’t want to wait until Des might be able to come?”

  He did pause at that, and she watched him go inside himself and think. “No. She would understand.”

  “There’s no way my parents could make it, I don’t think. They’re in the middle of some unexpected problems after that Pacific storm.”

  “For that, I’ll wait.” Sam pulled her close again.

  Nina rested against him and tried to breathe, tried not to catch hold of the urgency of his love. Except it was hopeless. Completely. She thought that they would understand, she did. Understand like Des did, or at least, understand that they would need to grow to learn the shape of Nina’s new life and new love, grow into it like she had.

  “Maybe, they would be okay? If we went for a visit after.” Sam didn’t say anything, just ran his hand over her smooth head.

  “You think we should ask Tay and Adam first if we can crash their wedding?”

  “They won’t mind. This way, everyone we care about will already be there. There’ll be a priest, well, an ex-priest. Food. Music. There’s more than enough of all that stuff to go around. No one will even notice an extra bride and groom.”

  “Jesus.”

  He kissed her, and then he really kissed her. Then they had to leave the library because they wanted to do more than kiss each other.

  His apartment was closer, so they rushed there, laughing. When they got through the door and closed it, he pinned her against it, kissing her neck, behind her ears, the edge of her skull, newly free of hair, and that was weird, so she laughed, and so did he.

  “Get your clothes off,” Sam said, and he started undressing, watching her, waiting for her to undress.

  She took off everything, as fast as he did, and then they were naked, looking at each other, grinning.

  “You look more naked than usual, with your hair all gone.”

  “Huh.”

  “Except for this hair.” He raked his fingertips over it, rubbed through where she was already wet.

  “I love you,” Nina said.

  Sam smiled. “I know, baby. Stay cool.”

  Then she really laughed, and Sam grabbed her by the waist and grunted as he tossed her over his shoulder, and slapped her ass hard enough, they both almost fell over when she jumped.

  She hung upside down, looking at the freckles on his ass, and then she felt it again.

  Joy.

  When he threw her into the bed, she bounced, and she would have laughed again, except that he came over her and kissed her instead, deep and serious, his tongue rubbing, his hands holding her head.

  He reached into his nightstand drawer and pu
t on a condom, just as serious, and then he reached down and grabbed her hip, held it, used his other hand to grab her knee and spread it wide.

  He thrust into her, just like that, holding her firmly, his eyes on hers, his cock snagging where she wasn’t quite ready for him, but that rougher friction felt good, felt stretching and real and good, and when he slid back out, and in, she felt herself open more, take all of him, and she felt full, the penetration felt big and full and hot and like it would never stop, it would be right there for her, decadent and luscious.

  “You like that, Nina?”

  “I love that,” she said, her eyes closed, her hands at her breasts, just resting, just feeling how he rocked her body, how his fingers dug in, how hot his palm was against the muscle of her inner thigh where he held her open.

  “I love you,” he said.

  “I love you, too.” And this time, it was those words in her mouth, safe inside her mouth, that started to tighten her up, push all those thrusts into a place she could feel gathering and urgent. So she moved a hand down, as slowly as she could, wanting this feeling to go on, until she was easing her finger against herself.

  She felt him first, wet and hard, cupped around him to feel him come inside her. Then she pressed, moved against his hold on her to bend her knees, because it felt so good, too good, and before she even asked him to, he came closer and let her put her legs around his waist, so she could come with him close, feel him come as he kissed her without any focus or purpose but to feel her say I love you I love you against his mouth.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  It was going to rain.

  He’d never been someone who paid all that much attention to the weather, but the summer had taught him that it was a good idea to have some idea of what was coming, and when he looked at the sky, the clouds moving fast, getting darker, he was sure it would rain.

  Mike’s kids were running around John’s huge yard like total fuckin’ maniacs. Mikey was sturdy and fast like his dad, looked like the pictures of his dad at that age, and baby Ellen was cruising pretty good herself, making a mess of her knees every time she fell down.

  For a field in the middle of nowhere, it looked nice. He and PJ had hauled rented picnic tables out here using Nina’s truck, killing it all the way since neither of them had any idea how to drive a manual transmission. Someone had heaped flowers all down the middle of the tables—wild-looking flowers. No vases, no ribbons, just bundled heaps of flowers that looked like they could have come from anywhere in these fields.