5 #2
Drew looked over and found her leaning out of her seat, both hands on the front glass as she watched the stalks slide into the grooves of the header and then disappear.
His chest swelled a little with pride. She was actually impressed!
He engaged the autosteer function and stretched his arms above his head.
Savannah caught the motion and stared at the steering wheel with wide eyes. “Is it driving itself?” she asked.
He shrugged, trying not to look too pleased.
“Sort of. It’s following the rows the way we planted them.
” The combine could also sense the contour of the land and adjust to maintain a consistent height .
. . but he didn’t want Savannah to think it was too easy.
The cab’s computer panel beeped once, and he checked the notice on the screen, making a mental note of how far they had left before he needed to turn around.
“So, where have you been all these years?” he asked, letting the question roll out before he could second-guess it.
Savannah reached toward the floorboards to scratch Ryker’s head where he sat quietly watching the ground roll by beneath them—probably keeping an eye out for deer or rabbits.
“In Alabama,” she answered. “I only finished my vet tech degree in May. I mostly applied for jobs near home, but when I saw the opening in Cypress Valley, I thought ‘why not?’ I have good memories here, so I guess it didn’t feel like I was really going so far away. ”
“How come you guys moved off?”
“Well, we only moved here so Daddy could help open the Watson’s Grocery branch in Willow Creek. Once it was up and running, he took the opportunity to run a branch closer to my grandparents.”
Drew nodded and reclaimed steering control as the combine neared the end of the row.
He swung the machine wide and slowly turned until they were facing the opposite direction; then he waited for the signal that James was ready before moving forward to make another pass across the field. “Do you miss home?” he asked.
He glanced over and caught her fiddling with the end of her braid where it rested against her collarbone.
“Yeah,” she admitted softly. “My parents and I are really close, so being almost five hours apart is hard sometimes.” A rare shadow passed over her face, and Drew felt a shiver go down his spine.
He didn’t like the idea that something about Savannah’s world might not be all sunshine and rainbows after all.
Then she let out a determined sort of breath, and the moment passed.
“But, you know, five hours isn’t the end of the world.
I can get there in one afternoon if I need to, and I’m really starting to settle in here.
There’s your family, of course, who I knew before, and then Doc and the other techs at the clinic have all been really nice to me.
It’s good. I’m learning a lot about being an adult. ”
She tucked her legs underneath herself and turned toward him.
Her knees brushed against the side of his leg, and Drew’s eyes dropped to that point of contact, suddenly very aware how small the inside of the cab actually was.
“What have you been doing all this time?” she asked, and Drew lifted his gaze out the window, sure the answer was obvious.
“This,” he said, gesturing across the inside of the combine and out over the fields that stretched before them.
“Corn, beans, wheat, hay . . . every year.” When he said it out loud like that, it didn’t sound like much.
He shifted in his seat. It was even harder to talk about himself than it was to talk in general.
“I got an associate’s degree at the college—mostly online.
Agricultural business. Two years. But other than that, I’ve just been . . .”
“Here,” she finished softly, and Drew was surprised to see her smiling instead of giving him some sort of pitying look.
It wasn’t that he couldn’t do anything else, it was that he honestly didn’t want to.
He wanted to be exactly where he was, doing exactly what he was doing—but most people didn’t see it that way.
“Here is good,” she said, filling the silence that had fallen. “I mean, look at it.” She swept her arm out the same way he had a moment before. “Here is beautiful, and you get to be out in it every day doing what you love! That’s all a person can ask for.”
Something warm began to grow inside Drew’s chest, and he kept his eyes on the ground in front of them as he made another turn. Suddenly, he felt Savannah’s hand grab him near the elbow, and he jolted.
“Look!” she blurted.
His gaze jerked to where she was pointing, and he scanned the field, expecting to see a dead animal or something on fire. “Where?” he asked.
“In the sky!” she replied, and Drew lifted his eyes toward the horizon.
There, flaming red as it met the line between Heaven and Earth, was the sun in all its autumn glory.
Its fading rays fought with the coming darkness, creating a vibrant fall sunset that bathed the land below it in orange and gold.
For Drew, the setting sun was a reminder that daylight was ending—a silent urge to work faster to beat the approaching dark—but through Savannah’s eyes, he saw it for what it was meant to be: a piece of art.
He looked back at her, and the awe on her face nearly took his breath away.
He thought about reaching for her hand or brushing away the loose strands of hair that had fallen across her cheeks, but uncertainty made him stop.
He couldn’t take back something like that—it would put a glowing target on his chest where she could take aim.
His hand tightened against the steering wheel, as if fighting the urge to disobey his own orders.
Coward, a small voice chastised, and this time, he let it win, mentally slamming on the brakes before he even got started.
“Have you ever seen anything so beautiful?” Savannah breathed, still staring out the window as the light in the heavens shifted.
Drew swallowed past the sudden lump in his throat and watched the colors reflecting in her eyes. “No,” he answered quietly. “I haven’t.”