Page 159 of Dove
We spent the rest of the afternoon together until the sun began to set low enough that Josh called it.
Wehadenjoyed lunch, the one I packed, and after we were done, he properly let me drive the tractor, this time without distractions.
I enjoyed it. Even if it was monotonous at times, it was satisfying, especially with Josh there for company. He answered all of my questions easily—without making me feel dumb for not knowing—and helped me when I turned a panicked look at him when I was out of my element. Other than that, it really was quite straightforward. It was a lot of sitting and steering, but I enjoyed being with Josh in any way I could have him. Even if it was in the cramped space of a tractor cab.
He turned the radio he’d brought on low, and when we’d fallen silent, he sung the words under his breath until I joined in, our horrendous singing filling the cab until we were both laughing.
It was in times like this I realized I wouldn’t trade this life for anything. As long as I had Josh by my side, we could tackle anything. Even a farm two young adults like us probably had no business running.
We were close enough to home that Josh rode the tractor back instead of leaving it sit in the field. I followed behind him, watching the back of his head where I could see it through the window. He'd turned the hat he’d been wearing backwards now that the sun had lowered in the sky, and even something as simple as that made him ten times hotter to me.
The five minute trip home took nearly double that with the slow speed of the tractor on the road. But I didn’t mind. It gave my mind time to wander. To what we had left to do tonight, what we’d have for dinner, what my life might look like five years down the line with Josh beside me.
Maybe no one in this town would understand it.Us.But I did. Josh was sweet, protective, and loving. He was funny and kind-hearted. Why wouldn’t I want a partner like that?
If Haven didn’t accept us, I’d survive. We'd live our lives quietly on the farm and sell to the city, where no one had any clue our parents had been married or that we’d once played the roles of brother and sister.
Or,a rouge thought popped up,we could move out of Haven.
It wasn’t like the thought hadn’t occurred to me before. But that had been ages ago, when Josh’s absence was fresh and Mom hadn’t yet been diagnosed. It had been a naive girls hope of tracking her stepbrother down, maybe attending a college close to him, and escaping the farm life, even if I actually enjoyed it. Or better yet, convincing him to come home. Because the simple truth was, I enjoyed farming a hell of a lot more when Josh was there. Without him it just lacked that spark. That joy. I’d wanted to find it again and knew the only way I could was findinghim.
The longer his absence stretched, the more strained that dream became, and then got put on hold altogether when Mom got sick. By then, the dream had all but died.
Now...
Now the farm was a heavy weight of responsibility on my shoulders. Onourshoulders.
Josh’s mom had once lived on the farm, and he’d been raised there. So many last memories of my own mother were superimposed inside the house’s walls, on the farm when my eyes roamed its land. It was where our lives had taken root in rich soil, sprouting again after the pain of my father’s passing had all but rotted us to nothing.
We couldn't just give all that up.
Those things had to meansomething, didn’t they?
It was one of the reasons it hurt so bad when we left our house in the city. It had felt like I was losing my dad twice. Not only was he physically gone, but now the time when he’d chased me down the halls, when he’d let me make pancakes with him inthe kitchen, sprayed me with the hose in the yard as I screamed, were gone.
Could I go through that loss again?
I sighed, a wave of exhaustion hitting me like a ton of bricks.
The sun was just kissing the horizon as we made it back home. Josh turned the tractor down the drive, dust clouds and loose gravel kicking up behind him. I slowed as I followed him, not wanting Josh’s truck to get hit by anything. The horses followed us near the fence, their tails swishing as they anticipated being let in for the night.
As he carefully steered the tractor back into the bay where we kept it in the barn, I parked the Chevy in the garage, careful to keep an eye out for Omen.
I hopped out, pocketing the key as I slammed the door. Josh would take care of looking over the tractor, making sure nothing had been damaged during use and cleaning it up for tomorrow, while I focused on stabling the horses.
He gave a wave from across the way, his head poking out of the barn opening. I answered back, heading to the stable.
Yeah, I decided,we made a pretty good team.
35
DOVE
I’ll be the first to admit I went a little MIA as the days carried on. It wasn’t just a wham-bam-thank-you-ma'am type of operation. It wasinvolved.
Not that I hadn’t been aware of that before. It was just that I’d never been part of the process, despite the fact I’d grown up around it. First when I arrived as a young kid, roaming around the farm as Gareth, his farm hands, and Josh worked around me, then later when I was part of the farm, taking on extra chores while they went off to tend the fields.
So, while in theory I had an idea of how sizeable of a job it was, in practice was a whole different beast.
