He caught me by the elbow as he said, “Thanks for coming out today, folks. Hope you enjoyed your tour. Anyone interested in purchasing anything we’ve made here on the farm, including those orange-yolked eggs I was telling you about, just see Lisa over in the store on your way out.”
He waved good-bye, keeping me close to him with the other hand. My heart sped up a bit at the feel of his hand clutching my elbow. Lucky, lucky elbow. He was touching my wenis. It’s a word—look it up.
“What’s up, Farmer Boy,” I murmured, leaning a little closer to him, grazing my breast against his arm. Now my right boob was as lucky as my right wenis.
“Didn’t want you to run away with the herd. I wanted to show you something,” he murmured back, smiling and nodding and still with the waving. Once the group had left, he steered me across the courtyard and around the back of the stone barn.
“Oh, the employee parking lot,” I remarked as we emerged into the shade of the building, where cars with Maxwell Farms mirror tags were parked. “This is the man-behind-the-curtain stuff, where all the magic happens, right? Gee, thanks for showing me this.”
“You’re a bit of a smart-ass, you know that?” he asked, letting go of my wenis and climbing into an old black Wrangler. “I’d open the door for you, but I took them off last spring and haven’t bothered to put them on again.”
“Maybe this fall you’ll get around to it?” I said, climbing in. “And yes, I’ve been told I’m a smart-ass. Where are we—whoa!” I’d barely buckled my seat belt before he’d backed out of the spot.
We drove down a dirt road behind the stone barns that was equal parts gravel, loose soil, and bone crunch. As we bounced along at kidney-shattering speed, he somehow managed to keep us on the road and plug his iPod into a dashboard that, when originally installed, had likely contained a tape deck. I know this because my mother still had one in our living room. This also happened to be one of her favorite albums.
“U2?” I asked, holding on to the roll bar.
“Oh yeah,” he replied. “Best band in the world.”
Somewhere in the world, my mother was punching the sky like the end of The Breakfast Club. “My mother used to play this album for hours when I was a kid.”
“Did she have a favorite track?” he asked, turning us onto another dirt road, which ran along some of the fields.
“Nine,” I said, knowing the Achtung Baby track list by heart. I smiled as soon as I heard that opening drum beat. And I waited for the annoyance that usually accompanied a thought about my mother, but it didn’t come.
“Good song,” he said, thumping his hand on the steering wheel in time with the music. I thumped too, while holding myself in the Jeep as we went around a tight turn. I caught him looking at me, and he unleashed a huge grin. The sun was low in the sky, a big ball of red highlighting the tall crops out this way, deeper onto the property than I’d known existed. Out here, cornstalks were climbing, wheat was waving, and . . . what was that?
“It’s rye.”
“As in bread?”
“As in grass—ryegrass. Great as a winter crop, cover crop, or as livestock feed, which this field will end up being. I’ll put it up as hay at the end of the season, and sell it to some of the dairy farmers around here.”
“Like Oscar, from the farm next door?” I asked.
“Someone was paying attention,” he teased, and before I could tease him back, he made another crazy turn and we were suddenly headed into the woods.
“Where the hell are we going?”
He pointed toward the road. “This way.”
I snorted. “This feels very fairy tale—into the woods and all that. You’re not going to take me to a cabin made of candy and try and eat me, are you?”
“Not today,” he said, giving me the side eye.
I gave it right back. “Well, isn’t that too bad,” I said, keeping my voice low. And just like that, he slowed down. “I was kidding! Don’t go all Children of the Corn on me,” I joked, scooching as far over as I could.
“Relax. We’re here.”
“Where?” We were in an entirely indistinguishable part of the woods we’d been driving through.
He walked around to my side of the Jeep and reached across me to unbuckle my seat belt. As he did, his hand brushed against the outside of my thigh, and I inhaled sharply. He turned toward me at the sound, his gaze knowing. I wrinkled my brows at him, trying to cover. But his hand on my thigh. Oh to the my.
“So where are we?” I repeated.
“Come on out of there, Sugar Snap,” he said, taking my hand and pulling me out of the doorless door. He dropped my hand as soon as I was clear but I could still feel it, like a phantom hand hold. Not to mention the delight that surely showed up in my cheeks at him calling me Sugar Snap. Oh, this shit was on now.
He set off on a barely there path through the woods. We’d gone maybe a hundred yards when he stopped and I almost ran into his back. Recovering, I peered around him.
“What are we looking at?” I whispered.
“Why are you whispering?” he answered back.
“I don’t know,” I said, still whispering. “And you didn’t answer my question.”
“It’s on the other side of that big tree.” He pointed at a tree that allegedly concealed something I was supposed to be able to see.
“Leo, I hate to tell you this, but I sometimes need things spelled out for me. So if there’s something I’m supposed to be seeing? I don’t get it.”