Page 92 of 15 Summers Later

Inside the fenced area, two black Labs who looked as if they had energy to burn were chasing each other around while the woman who must have brought them sat on one of the benches looking at her phone.

Ava unhooked Gracie from her leash but kept Beau close for his safety. He still couldn’t run and play on his leg, though he was fine to greet the other dogs who stopped to sniff and be sniffed.

She was tossing Beau’s favorite ball to him in their short confines of his leash when a voice spoke from behind her, on the other side of the fence.

“Here you are. Leona told me where to find you.”

She turned quickly, heart pounding at her husband’s voice.

She had seen Cullen briefly the previous week, though not at the farmers market. He had instead stopped at Leona’s house on Sunday, in the middle of a grocery run with one of the graduate students, whom he had dropped off at the store while he came to say hello.

Their visit had been too short, without any time to really talk. Her grandmother had invited him to have a quick lunch with them and he and Leona had spent most of the time talking about the dig site.

As she looked at him now in the late morning sun, she saw his beard had grown fuller since the last time she had seen him.

Though it was still neatly trimmed, he looked sexy and disreputable. Would he shave it before his classes started in the fall? She hoped not, though she could predict many of his female students would definitely appreciate the beard.

Beau slapped his tail on the grass and Cullen reached down to pet the dog. The two had clearly bonded during their brief introduction the week before.

“Hi,” Ava said, feeling rather breathless. “I was hoping I might see you today, though I know you said last week you weren’t sure which day you would be coming down from the mountains to replenish supplies.”

“I really thought we had enough to last the rest of the month. It’s amazing how much a team of seven researchers can eat.”

Their academia friends in Portland hadalwaysbeen hungry. Ava had taken it upon herself to feed them whenever she could. She had loved it.

“Is Luis or one of the grad students with you?”

He shook his head. “Not this time. We’re in the middle of excavating a pretty complicated area so they all decided to stay back and let me handle the shopping on my own.”

“That’s got to be a big job, feeding seven people all the time.”

“It’s not bad. We all decide what to eat for the week and take turns cooking.”

“You look thin,” she couldn’t resist saying, even though she knew she sounded like a nagging wife. “Are you sure you’re eating like you should?”

“I’m fine. I eat a lot of PB and J.” He gave her a careful look. “What about you? How areyoufeeling?”

“I haven’t been as sick this week. Only first thing in the mornings, really. I went to a doctor this week. She says everything seems to be fine so far.”

“Good. That’s good.”

“She gave me a better idea of a due date. I’m about seven weeks along, due sometime mid-January. It will be here before we know it.”

Could they mend all that was broken before then? She truly hoped so.

“Can I...give you a hand with the shopping?”

“Aren’t you on market duty with your grandmother?”

She glanced at her watch. “Yes. The market goes for another hour and then I have to help her take down everything. I could go with you after that, if you don’t mind waiting.”

He appeared to consider her offer of help and finally nodded. “I would appreciate that, actually. As you well know, shopping is not my favorite thing. Most of the time, anyway.”

She smiled at the memory. Some of their most enjoyable moments involved grocery shopping. When they had been dating, still living apart, they started a regular Saturday morning date where they would go to the store together. After they married, those usually turned into Saturday afternoon trips, since they liked to spend lazy weekend mornings in bed.

Her chest ached at the memory and she tightened her hands on Beau’s leash, filled with a fierce yearning that they somehow could manage to regain all they once had.

“What about the dogs?” he asked, jerking her back to the present.

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