Chapter 33
THIRTY-THREE
Winston runs ahead into the trees as we near Silas’s cabin, and I roll my shoulders back, shaking out my hands as I tell myself to just be cool.
But I’m not being cool at all. I’m excited, nervous, and full of anticipation. Silas reached out to me, asked for my help, and I get to spend time with him. I’m far from maintaining any type of composure right now.
As I round the bend of the driveway and the cabin comes into view, I let out a chuckle as some of the tension drains from my body.
Winston sits proudly next to Silas on the covered porch like he owns it, his tongue hanging out in a wide, happy grin as he leans into Silas’s scratch.
I shake my head as I walk up the steps. “I’d say he found his new favourite person.”
Silas chuckles as he glances down at Winston, and the sound sends a rush of fucking butterflies through my stomach as my gaze locks onto his beautiful smile.
I drop into a chair on the porch and reach into my backpack, pull out a couple beer, and hand him one.
He leans forward to take it, and when his fingers lightly brush mine, a surge of electricity shoots up my arm and spreads through my chest.
“Thanks,” he says, leaning back and cracking it open like that simple touch didn’t just send my pulse into complete chaos.
I smile and open mine as well, taking a drink while my attention snags on the sketchbook resting on his lap. Pencils are scattered across the small table between us alongside the pages of the report, and happiness and relief flow through me to know he’s still drawing.
“What are you working on?” I ask.
He shoves the sketchbook aside, tucking it against the chair as he shakes his head. “Nothing,” he says, casting a quick glance towards me. His gaze lingers on mine for a moment before he shrugs one shoulder and looks away. “Just… some things I like.”
I nod and watch him for a moment while he scratches Winston behind the ear again. Winston tips his head back to stare up at him with so much adoration in his eyes, I have to huff a laugh.
I’m not sure he’s ever looked at me like that.
But given who he’s looking at… I get it.
My gaze drifts down to the table again, the pages of the report scattered about like he’s been sifting through them.
“Thanks for texting me,” I say.
Silas gives me a small nod, with a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. “Thanks for coming.”
I raise my beer towards him, and he taps his against mine in a quiet cheers.
I look around the space as I take a drink, and a quiet sense of familiarity settles over me. We used to sneak up here and sit just like this, passing beers back and forth and pretending we were old enough to be drinking them.
My eyes land on one of the large trees across the driveway, and I let out a chuckle as a memory comes flooding in, clear as day.
“Remember when we tried to build a fort in that tree,” I say, lifting my beer to gesture towards the wide maple across the drive, “but the wood we used was rotten and you fell through it and I thought you died?”
Silas laughs, and I turn my head to look at him, my heart lifting at the sound and the sight of joy in him as he recalls that almost fateful day.
“Yet all you did was sit in the tree and stare down at me,” he says.
“We were ten. I had no idea what to do!” I shake my head, staring at the base of the tree where he fell. “The way you landed and just lay there, I thought for sure you were dead.”
He chuckles and lifts his beer for a drink. “We were both almost dead when Papa came up to see what happened.”
I wince as I remember him rushing up the driveway after hearing Silas’s yell and the crash. When he realized we were both ok, he tore us a new one for climbing up there with rotten boards and zero sense. But the following week, he had fresh lumber and tools, and helped us build one in his backyard.
“We were idiots,” I say with a smile, thinking back on all the stupid shit we got ourselves into.
Silas huffs. “Yeah.” Then he looks at me, and the corner of his lips lifts in a small smile. “We had fun though.”
“Fuck yeah, we did,” I say. And as I look into his eyes, the easy closeness, laughter, and sense of home I always felt with him when we were kids rushes back in. “And we will again.”
He nods, and that simple act has me smiling back at him with relief, knowing that’s true.
Winston lifts a paw, placing it on Silas’s lap as he looks up at him, clearly upset that he stopped patting him. He leans against Silas’s leg with all his weight, so Silas has to adjust to prop him up.
I huff as I watch Winston close his eyes and tip his head back into Silas’s touch when he scratches behind his floppy ear again, and his tongue lolls lazily out the side of his mouth.
“For fuck’s sake,” I mutter. “You know I named him Winston because I was kinda hoping he’d become a bit more… noble.”
Silas cocks an eyebrow at me and I laugh.
“I know…” I sigh fondly as I watch my goofy, over-friendly dog drool on Silas’s leg.
“He’s noble enough,” Silas says, doing nothing to stop the drool.
My eyes drift to the table as I take another drink, and something catches my attention among the scattered report pages.
The corner of a sheet sticks out from beneath the stack, a sliver of colour breaking through the sea of printed text.
Blue spreads across the exposed edge, and the paper itself is different from the rest.
I reach out to slide the page free, and my jaw drops. “Oh my god.”
It’s a drawing of a field, with freshly worked soil stretching across the page in rows.
The colours, shading, and lighting make it look so real, I gently run my fingers over it, expecting dirt to cling to my skin.
The sky above the field burns with the deep blue of early evening, fading toward orange where the sun sinks low on the horizon.
Warm light spills across the land, settling into every dip and rise in the soil, and shadows pool along the furrows. It looks real.
But the longer I look at it, I realize I know exactly what this is. The tree line at the far edge, and the strip of dune grass where the field transitions into the beach gives it away.
This is the hollow heart field.
Silas shifts uncomfortably, quickly glancing at the drawing and then looking away. “It’s not done.”
My eyes roam over the incredible, realistic drawing. “What else do you need to add?”
“I don’t know.”
I glance at him, but he just keeps his focus out towards the small clearing between the trees that leads to the field.
I lower my gaze to the drawing again and take in the rich, vibrant colours and the way the shading and highlights make it look like the details are coming out of the page. I thought his work was incredible before. But this is something else entirely.
“It’s incredible, Si,” I say softly.
Silas’s gaze shifts to me as I lift mine, and I realize the old nickname I had for him slipped out.
But neither of us says anything.
The moment hangs between us for a moment before I lower the drawing and place it next to the report pages so I can still see it.
“Any idea where you want to start?” I ask, gesturing to the stack of papers.
He sighs, looking at the pages like the entire thing has spent weeks personally insulting him. “No.”
I nod. “Ok. Well, just tell me what the plan is so far for planting. Then we’ll see if there’s anything useful in here we can work with.”
Silas nods and reaches down to sink his hand into Winston’s fur again, his fingers working slowly through his thick coat like the motion is helping him organize his thoughts.
“The soil holds water longer than any other field,” he begins.
“It also takes longer to warm up in the spring. We always planted it in a specific rotation, usually somewhere in the middle of everything else, but something shifted over the past few years, and the soil started running colder. Hollow heart started showing up around the same time.”
I nod. I read that in the report, among the temperature and moisture data. He knows all this without even reading the numbers.
“So we started trying to work around it,” Silas continues.
“We planted later, adjusted irrigation, messed with depth... Some years it helped, some years it didn’t.
” He shrugs slightly. “That’s the problem.
The field never behaves the same way twice.
” His fingers sink deeper into Winston’s fur.
“Dad and Al say the report calls it unpredictable. Different parts of the field hold water longer than others, some sections stay colder, and the compaction shifts depending on the weather. That everything is technically within range… it just doesn’t act like the rest of the farm. ”
I pull the report towards me and flip to the field variability section, where layered maps show moisture distribution, soil temperature ranges, and compaction readings scattered across the field in uneven patches.
“So I know planting this field later will help. But if there is something else in there… And I know there is…” Silas says quietly, “I know you can find it.”
I look up and meet his eyes. “We can.”
I pick up the report from the table between us and stand, moving around the small space to the chair beside Silas. My arm brushes his as I lean in, and my pulse jumps at the touch.
Silas lowers his gaze to the report in my hands, and while his attention shifts to the pages, mine drifts towards him.
The soft evening light filtering through the trees falls across his face, highlighting the stubble that shadows his strong jaw, the soft freckles on the bridge of his nose, and the strands of hair curling out from beneath his hat.
Being this close to him, especially as he lets me in, overwhelms me in the best way possible.