I threw my hands up in despair. “This is ridiculous, Roane! Why should two young people who obviously care about each other have to be at each other’s throats to keep the other at bay, because some dude can’t get over a lost love?”
My friend was quiet for a moment. And then, voice gentle, he asked, “Have you ever been in love, Evie?”
Surprised by the turn of conversation, I blinked a few times before admitting, “No.”
“Then how can you say West Elliot should just get over it? I’m not saying I agree with the shit he’s pulled, or that he shouldn’t have tried to move on . . . I absolutely don’t. I’m just saying that West must have loved Milly with everything he had for it to have twisted him up inside so badly. And that’s sad, Evie. That’s fucking tragic.”
It was. Terribly so. But . . . “Any good father wouldn’t wish the same on his son.”
“I know you mean well.” He gave me a gentle smile to soften the blow of what he said next. “But you need to stop playing matchmaker with those two.”
Feeling somewhat foolish and admonished, I turned away, watching the countryside pass us by. “I just . . . I don’t want them to end up like me. In their thirties and desperately searching their memory for where it was they took the wrong goddamn turn. It would be worse for them, knowing what was possible between them and they never took the chance on each other.”
“Who’s to say it would work out with them anyway?”
True.
I nodded, melancholy.
“Hey.” I felt a strong sensation squeeze my knee, and I looked down to see Roane’s big hand on me. There was a scar across his middle knuckle, and his fingernails were short and blunt. The skin of his hands and arms was just a shade darker than my tan legs. His palm was rough, leathery. A working hand. Masculine against my feminine, slender, soft-skinned knee. There was something visceral about the sight.
I shivered.
“They’ll be all right.” At his words I wrenched my eyes up. He shot me a quick, meaningful look before he said, “You’ll be all right too, angel.”
Something sweet and heady moved through me at the term of endearment. “Angel.” I liked that. I covered his hand with mine and gave him a grateful smile.
As we drove, I was aware of everything. That he hadn’t removed his hand, and every now and then he would flex it on my leg, his thumb brushing the bend in my knee. Between the heat and his touch, sweat gathered behind my knees. The only sound between us was the roll of the road beneath us and Shadow’s panting from the back seat.
A few minutes later, Roane lifted his hand off my knee as he hit the right turn signal, and we turned off the main road, crossing opposing traffic as soon as there was a break in it to venture down a dirt road that cut through open fields on either side. There were a lot of sheep in the field to my left.
“Is this your farm?” I asked.
“This is some of my farm. The sheep farm.”
I remembered Roane telling me he had land to the east for arable farming, and nodded. “About time,” I joked. “You kept avoiding taking me out here so much, I was starting to believe it wasn’t real.”
“It’s real. There’s just nothing much of excitement to see.”
As it turned out, he wasn’t wrong, but what I didn’t tell him was that just being with him made even the most mundane experiences exciting. Not that the farm was mundane. It was just . . . well, a farm. But it was Roane’s farm, and therein lay the difference.
The dirt road led to a small farmhouse with agriculture buildings situated on three sides of it.
“We’re surrounded by over a hundred acres of land here for nearly three hundred sheep,” Roane said as he jumped out and let Shadow out the back of the vehicle.
I hopped out and rounded the SUV, my eyes on the stone farmhouse. The sound of bleating sheep hit my ears, and although there was a faint hint of sea salt in the air, I mostly smelled grass, hay, and the slight sting of fertilizer. The odors weren’t strong, but I imagined on a windy day that breeze swept them from the fields to the farmhouse. “Three hundred sheep? That’s a lot, right?”
“Aye, more than some, less than others.” He took hold of my hand and led me toward the huge modern barn that sat adjacent to the farmhouse. Shadow trotted at our backs as we walked across a hard dirt road. “We rebuilt the barn five years ago.” We stopped at one of three green wooden barn doors that slid open on a wrought-iron rail. I peeked inside, the smell of hay, soil, musk, and something faintly chemical catching my nose. “We use this for lambing season, which you’ve thankfully missed.”
“Thankfully?” I pulled my head out of the large space. “Lambs are adorable.”
“This place”—he indicated the barn—“isn’t adorable during lambing season. Trust me.” With that, he led me around the back of the farmhouse, where an older but pretty substantial rectangular shed stood vertical to the house. There was a pen around the large shed, and the chickens walking around outside gave away its use. “Chicken shed,” Roane said anyway as we rounded the house to the other side.
The two largest buildings on this part of the land loomed over us, and I saw Bobby moving around inside one of them among a lot of sheep. Hence the bleating I’d heard as soon as we approached. The two buildings had no doors, just steel pens, and the corrugated iron walls curved up and over in a semicircle. The first building was messy with hay, and Bobby appeared to be mucking it out through a small door at the back. The second building, although filled with hay, was empty of sheep.
“They’re called hoop houses,” Roane explained. “We bring the sheep here during very hot weather, keep them from being out in the sun too long. They were built when we had less sheep, and they just fit, but we’ll need to build another to give them more room.”
The thought of those poor animals suffering in this heat made me frown. “What about the barn? Can’t they go in there?”
He shook his head. “We need that kind of climate for lambing, but we try to keep them out of enclosed spaces. It can cause respiratory problems.”
“Evie, Roane.” Bobby made his way through the sheep, pitchfork in hand. His T-shirt was soaked with sweat, and he wiped a hand across his forehead. “This weather is grand, eh.”
His tone was bland, but since he was sweating by the buckets and was red in the face, I decided that had been sarcasm.
“How are they?” Roane nodded to the flock in the hoop house.
“Aye, they’re fine.” Bobby grinned at me. “Enjoying the tour?”
“It’s interesting.”
“This is the end of it.” Roane’s lips twitched with amusement. “Nothing else to see, angel, but fields upon fields.”