Page 41 of The Auction
He stopped bending over to hand pull weeds and glanced at me. “You want a ring?”
“No,” I huffed.
I didn’t.
Want a ring.
That would be ridiculous. Because we weren’t staying married. And we were farmers. Farmers didn’t wear jewelry. Although, he hadn’t gotten the memo because he never took off his chain.
So that’s what I said.
“Farmers don’t wear jewelry. No rings.”
He shrugged like he accepted that rule. “Fine. Then we’re agreed. For a few days, you stay with me in my room as my wife. We’ll put Tank in your room upstairs.”
“Why not in the guest room next to ours?”
“He’ll have his own space and bathroom upstairs. Plus, a little distance.”
“Fine. As long as you understand I’m sleeping on the floor.”
“Baby, I don’t care if you sleep on the window sill. He doesn’t need to know what happens behind closed doors, but you need to get all of your shit out of your bedroom and make it look like you live in my room.”
“Do you have room for my stuff in your closet?”
He pointed to his day in and day out uniform of jeans and t-shirts. When it was cold, the t-shirts were long. When it was warmer, they were shorter. That was his only variation.
“Do you even own a coat?”
“I’m good,” he said, in that way that ended most lines of inquiry.
But just because I liked to get the last word in when I could, I said, “What if we just tell him I have my period? No dude probably wants to sleep with his girl when she’s on the rag.”
He didn’t answer. Just shook his head and continued his path up and down the rows.
A few dayslater Tank showed up, and I started to understand that my husband…well, he wasn’t just some guy in the Navy.
ELEVEN
JULIETTE
“Truck’s coming up the drive,”I announced.
Creed had his head buried in the chicken coop. A coyote had tried to get into it last night. He’d had to chase it away and now he was looking for potential weaknesses.
I had to give it to him, the man was fucking diligent when it came to protecting his investment. All of it. Even the chickens were under his personal protection and no outside force was going to hurt them.
Not even the ones Mother Nature offered up.
So it wasn’t unusual that he missed something as obvious as the sound of an engine coming our way. Even though that only happened once a week when USPS decided to grace us with our mail.
We never had gotten many visitors out to the farm, and that hadn’t changed at all after Herb’s death.
“Creed!” I called out to him, until he finally picked his head up.
He wore his typical jeans, t-shirt, and boots combination, but at least he’d gotten into the habit of covering his head with a ball cap every time he was outside now. I’dinsisted. When the sun was high it could get scorching in June.
I pointed to the truck that was moving at high speed down the access road that ran toward the house.
