Chapter 12 #2
That evening, we're having dinner on the porch—grilled chicken that I only slightly burned and vegetables from the farmers market. The sun's setting over the fields, Duke's sprawled at our feet, and I'm thinking this is what perfect looks like when my phone rings.
Unknown number, Washington D.C. area code.
"Let it go to voicemail," Harper says, her foot finding mine under the table.
But something makes me answer. "Nate Wilder."
"Dr. Wilder? This is Patricia Coleman from the Federal Agricultural Innovation Committee."
I frown. "I'm sorry, who?"
"We received the documentary footage from Sarah Brennan about your veterinary sustainability program, along with Ms. Lane's articles about agricultural innovation in Willowbridge."
Harper scoots her chair closer, trying to listen.
"The documentary?" I'm confused. "That was just for streaming—"
"Ms. Brennan submitted it as part of a grant application for rural education initiatives. She mentioned you'd discussed creating an education center?"
"Education center?" I'm genuinely lost. "We talked about that for maybe five minutes during filming. Just theoretical stuff."
"Well, she turned your theoretical into a proposal. A compelling one."
I'm speechless. Sarah Brennan, the documentary director who tortured us for weeks, submitted a grant application?
"We're calling because the committee wants to award you $400,000 to establish the Willowbridge Agricultural Education Center."
"Four hundred thousand?" The words come out strangled.
Harper gasps beside me.
"Your work, combined with Ms. Lane's documentation and the community support evident in the footage, represents exactly what we're looking to fund. Can you both attend a planning call next Thursday?"
"I—yes. Absolutely. But we never formally applied—"
"Ms. Brennan handled the paperwork. She said you'd been too busy reuniting to file it yourselves." I can hear the smile in her voice. "The footage was quite... compelling."
After I hang up, Harper and I stare at each other.
"Sarah Brennan got us a grant?"
"Four hundred thousand dollars."
"For an education center we only talked about theoretically."
"Looks like we're actually doing this."
Duke barks, confused by our stunned silence.
"We need champagne," Harper says suddenly.
"I have beer?"
"Nate Wilder, we just got four hundred thousand dollars we didn't even apply for. We're not celebrating with beer."
Twenty minutes later, we're back with champagne from the gas station—the good stuff they keep behind the counter—toasting on the porch as fireflies start their evening dance.
"To Sarah Brennan, the manipulative documentary director who apparently had our backs," Harper toasts.
"To education centers we didn't know we were building."
"To jumping in feet first and figuring it out as we go."
The champagne hits fast, and Harper gets that look that means she's planning something.
"How should we celebrate properly?" she asks, setting down her glass.
"I have ideas."
"Good ones?"
"The best ones."
Tomorrow we'll figure out how to build an education center from scratch. Tonight, we're celebrating the universe's weird way of pushing us forward.
Even when we didn't ask for the push.
"You know," Harper says, standing and holding out her hand, "we should send Sarah a thank-you gift."
"A really nice one," I agree, taking her hand.
"Maybe we'll make her an honored guest at our engagement party." She pulls me toward the door, champagne making her eyes bright with mischief. "Whenever that happens."
"February, according to Mrs. Morrison."
"Three whole months away." She turns at the doorway, backlit by the house lights. "That feels like forever." She says it so dramatically.
Looking at her—happy, settled, mine—I'm already mentally preparing. Three months might be too long to wait.
"Come on," she says, tugging me inside. "Let's celebrate properly."
And we do, in all the ways that matter, in the house that's now ours, with the future spread out before us like the fields outside—wide and full of possibility.
***
Later that night, we're tangled in sheets that are more off the bed than on, both of us still catching our breath from celebrating the grant with enough enthusiasm to scandalize the entire town council.
The empty champagne bottle sits on the nightstand, and Harper's using my chest as a pillow, her fingers tracing lazy patterns on my skin.
"Four hundred thousand dollars," she murmurs, like she's testing the words. "We have to build something real now."
"We're building lots of real things." I run my hand through her hair, still damp with sweat. "The center, your career, this." I gesture at us, at the mess we've made of the bed, at the life we're creating.
She props herself up on an elbow, hair cascading over her shoulder. "We should probably talk timeline."
"Timeline?" I'm distracted by the way the moonlight hits her skin.
"No pressure. But the committee's going to want a business plan. The town's going to expect progress. And we're... what are we doing exactly?"
"Right now? I thought that was obvious." I pull her back down for a kiss that almost derails the conversation entirely.
"I'm serious," she laughs against my mouth. "Marriage? Eventually? The four kids we used to dream about?"
"Four kids?" I grin. "Still want that?"
"In this economy?" She's teasing, but there's something real underneath. "Let's start with surviving Thursday's meeting. Then maybe we figure out if we're getting married."
"Maybe?"
"Eventually. When it feels right." She kisses my jaw. "Not because of grants or timelines or the town expecting it."
"Just because we want to?"
"Radical concept, I know."
I flip us so she's beneath me, her laugh turning into something else when I kiss her neck. "What about kids?"
"Are you seriously talking family planning right now?"
"I'm a multitasker."
She wraps her legs around me, pulling me closer. "Let's just see what happens. No timeline, no pressure."
"I like that plan," I agree, then stop talking altogether because Harper's doing something with her hips that makes conversation impossible.
The need for her overwhelms everything else—thought, reason, the future we're supposed to be planning. There's just Harper beneath me, around me, her soft gasps filling the room as we move together with the desperate hunger that never seems to fade, no matter how many times we do this.
When we finally collapse, breathless and spent, she curls back into me, her finger resuming its lazy path across my chest.
"We're really doing this," she says sleepily. "All of it."
"All of it," I confirm, kissing the top of her head.
Next Thursday we'll have a call with the committee. Then we'll break ground on the education center. In February, according to Mrs. Morrison, I'll propose—though she doesn't know I've already had the ring cleaned and resized.
But tonight, none of that matters. Tonight is just Harper in my arms, her breathing evening out as she drifts toward sleep, and the solid certainty that we're exactly where we're supposed to be.
Duke's snoring from his bed in the corner seems to agree.