Nuts

That beard was still there, gorgeously scruffy yet neatly trimmed, and I wanted to kiss him just to feel the tickle. I felt a thrill run up and down my spine as I imagined what it would be like to be the girl he came home to every night. Whoa. Where did that come from?

Shaking it off, I leaned out the window and called out, “The door’s open, go ahead and let yourself in!”

I had the pleasure of watching his face light up at my voice. Wow, look at that.

“Well, hey there,” he said, coming around the corner with a bottle of wine. “I wasn’t sure what you were making, so I went with a Riesling from—wow, did you murder someone this afternoon?”

“Ha-ha,” I replied, holding up the last beet I was slicing and showing him my pinky-purple hands. “Someone brought me beets, and that same someone knows exactly what they do to your hands when you mess with them.”

“If I made a joke about catching you red-handed, would you laugh?”

“I think so,” I said, blowing a piece of hair out of my face.

He waited a moment, looking at me expectantly.

“What’d I miss?”

“You’re not laughing,” he said, setting the wine down and moving a little closer.

“I was waiting for your joke,” I said, blowing again at a piece of hair sticking to my face. I didn’t dare touch it; the beet juice would stain almost anything it touched.

His cheeks crinkled as he laughed. “Forget it. Can I help you with that?” He leaned in and plucked the piece of hair from my face, tucking it neatly behind my ear. “Better?”

“Better,” I agreed. “You hungry?”

“Starved,” he replied, stepping even closer. “Famished.” His hand lingered on my neck, fingertips dancing across my skin as he skimmed around to the nape, warm and heavy. “Can I kiss you without you getting my shirt all beety?”

“You can sure try,” I answered, letting him pull me into him. I kept my hands straight out to my sides, trying to keep from marking him. He kissed me slow and sweet. Little fleeting brushes of his lips, first on one side of my mouth, then the other. By the time he made it to the middle of my mouth, I was rising up on my tiptoes to get closer, still keeping my beet hands out to my sides. He held my face in his hands, thumbs sweeping across my cheekbones, feathering and light. In the walk-in this afternoon, there was surprised passion. Now it was a slow burn.

His kisses swept down along my jawline, and right about the time he got to my earlobe, I had to warn him that my hands were beginning to have a mind of their own.

“If you want to keep that shirt from being ruined, you better quit while you’re ahead.” I groaned, lowering my head and beating it against his chest a few times.

“For the record, I’m not at all concerned about my shirt,” he said as I extricated myself and headed back over to my cutting board.

“Now you tell me.” I finished slicing the beets, washed my hands until the water ran clear, then started assembling the salad. I stacked frisée and endive leaves on two plates, topped them with wedges of the purple beets, added a handful of Leo’s walnuts (for which I got an approving eyebrow), and finished with a few crumbles of good feta. I drizzled syrupy balsamic vinegar over the whole thing, added a little walnut oil, then dusted salt, pepper, and a few sprigs of fresh parsley across the top.

As I assembled, he told me about one of his heritage pigs that had gotten loose from the paddock in the woods, and how he and some of his interns spent the afternoon running through the forest, trying to tackle a hog.

“I really wish I could have seen that,” I said, setting the plates down on the table while Leo opened the wine he’d brought.

“Come back again sometime and I’ll show you the pigs. They’re great.”

“And you raise pigs for . . .”

“Pork. Bacon. Chops. Everything.”

I turned from the stove, where I was getting the cast-iron pan sizzling hot for the scallops. I’d fried some bacon earlier, and it was chopped and ready to go in at the last moment. “Can I ask you something?”

“Sure,” he replied, pouring wine into the glasses I’d set out.

“Is it ever weird, getting to know the animals you’re going to end up killing? Do you ever get attached?”

I held my hand over the pan, testing the heat. I flicked a drop of water in, watched it sizzle and pop. Good to go. Too hot, and the scallops would burn. Not hot enough, they would just steam.

“Hmm. Not sure attached is the right word. How can I explain without sounding callous?” He came to stand next to me while I started the scallops. “On the tour, I talked about how everything at the farm has a purpose, right? The animals live the most stress-free life I can give them. Not just for humane reasons, which I feel very strongly about. But it’s also better for me, and the rest of my farm, to let the chickens, the sheep, the pigs, even the cows that graze on some of my land live as normally as possible. When I move sheep onto a field, I get the benefit of their hooves aerating the soil. I get the benefit of the naturally occurring compost that happens when animals do their business. They get the benefit of eating clover all day under a gorgeous sky and moving around as freely as they want to. They’re incredibly happy animals.”

“They did seem happy,” I said, watching the scallops. I resisted the urge to move them, knowing the longer I let them sit still, the more caramelized and sticky good they’d be.