Page 63 of That One Night
“Of course.”
His dad nodded, turning to walk away. But then he looked at Hendrix once more, concern in his eyes. “And son?”
“Yeah?” Hendrix asked.
“You look tired. Go home and stop working so hard.”
As soon as he pulled up outside the cottage, Hendrix could feel himself being watched. He kicked the stand into the dirt, cut the engine, and climbed off, grabbing some hay to fill up Frank’s trough.
Once the goat was eating, he finally brought his gaze to Emery’s house. And of course she was standing there, her body stock still as she stared at him from the porch.
It only took two beats of his heart for her to start walking down the steps toward him.
He didn’t move as she got closer. Just waited for her to cross the lane and walk into his yard. Knowing this was inevitable.
Even if it felt so painful it hurt.
“Can we talk?” she asked, her voice soft. Her hands were curled into fists. She had her hair down, the gentle breeze lifting it at the ends.
“Here?” He looked over her shoulder. “Won’t your mom see?”
Her lips parted and she let out a breath. “She’s cleaning out some closets. But you’re probably right. Can we talk somewhere private?”
The obvious response would be to invite her into his house. But he couldn’t. It felt too personal. Especially when he knew she was about to give him the brush off.
Truth was, he wasn’t sure he could be alone with her in an enclosed space anymore. And wasn’t that an advertisement for keeping away from him?
“I need to take some soil samples from the upper field,” he told her. “Get them sent off. I’ll grab the supplies then we can walk and talk.”
He didn’t wait for her to reply, just walked into the cottage and over to the table in the corner, rifling through the piles of paperwork he’d been ignoring for weeks, trying to find the soil testing kit the company had sent him.
He should have sent the sample off last week. But he’d put it off over and again. Mostly because he hated filling out the damn forms.
“God, you have a lot of paper.”
Her voice made him jump. He turned around to see her standing in the doorway, staring at him.
“Just need to find the time to sort through it.” He grimaced. “Paperwork isn’t exactly my forte.”
“I can see that.” She nodded.
He found the kit and pulled it out, wincing when he saw the directions. They were in small print and the letters looked all jumbled.
“Can you read this?” he asked her.
Emery took the paper, her brows dipping as she took in the words. “You need a bucket and shovel. Then take four different samples from four different parts of the field, at a depth of four to six inches,” she told him, her voice soft. “Mix them together inthe bucket and let it dry out before putting the sample in the bag they’ve provided.” She looked up at him. “Do you have that?”
“Yeah. Somewhere.” He walked past her, back out to the yard and she followed him, watching as he grabbed a small spade and a pail from the shed next to the house. “Come on,” he told her. “It’s the field behind the house I want to test.”
Usually, he’d jump on his bike to get there. But that would involve her riding with him. He couldn’t stand that either.
“Can’t you use home kits?” Emery asked, as they started walking up the lane. “I swear Dad used to use digital ones.”
“Yeah, I have those too. But it’s been a long time since this soil’s been used. A long time since anybody fed it. I want to get it right.”
“That’s understandable.”
He was walking fast. He knew that. She almost had to run to keep up. It was the perfect inversion to last night, when he was the one doing the chasing.
