Nuts

“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.”

He pulled me in front of him and leaned down, his chin almost resting on my shoulder. He pointed with one hand, turned my hips with his other, and murmured in my ear. “See it now?”

And I did. After I got over the riot of butterflies in my tummy at the feel of Leo curving against my back, I could see the remains of an old house on a crumbling stone foundation. Trees grew up through the old walls, and the second floor had fallen into the center years ago. A chimney of fieldstone, leaning precariously, shaped the far wall, while the wall facing us was gone.

“Wow,” I breathed.

“You know what’s all around that house, right?” he asked, right in my ear.

Mercy. I loved the feeling of him behind me. I could so get used to it.

“No?”

“Your walnut trees.” He nudged me forward on the path, his hand moving from my hip to the small of my back. “Whether the trees were here before the house, or the trees took over after the house was abandoned, I have no idea.”

“Oh, now that is seriously cool,” I said, delighted at the idea I was meeting the trees that made my cake so delicious. He nodded back at me, in sync on this. I loved knowing where my food was coming from. I let him lead me toward the house, picking my way carefully across fallen rock and downed limbs. The sunlight filtered through, creating a little pocket of dappled green. “This is still your property, right?”

“Technically it’s my family’s property, but yes. We’re not even halfway across the preserve,” he said, walking over to the biggest tree, knotted and gnarled.

I marveled at the idea that this family had owned so much land for so long. “So this is a walnut tree, huh? I never would have known.”

“I wouldn’t have known either, until I was out here one day in the fall and found all the husks on the ground. We’ve got another grove over by the main orchards, but we still come in and harvest here every year.”

“And the house? Was this one your family built?” I asked, looking back toward the stone foundation.

“I don’t think so. I’ve looked on a bunch of old maps and surveys of the property, and it seems like it’s part of an older farm that was abandoned long before the Maxwells arrived.” He said his family name with a trace of bitterness. But before I could ask anything else, he turned toward me. “Anyway, I just thought you might like to see it.”

“It’s nice back here. It’s quiet, peaceful. There’s pockets of peaceful where I live now, but you have to drive pretty far to find them.”