18. Bree #2
“I know.” He didn’t look embarrassed. He looked thrilled.
“Bree, this is exactly the kind of sustainable agriculture practice Grant Foods has been trying to develop for years. The research division has spent millions on consultants who couldn’t produce results half this good.
And you did it with library books and a pH kit. ”
“I did it because I had to. The soil was depleted when I bought this place. I couldn’t afford to let it stay that way.”
“That’s the point.” He leaned forward, and I saw it then, the boy from the expo.
The eighteen-year-old who’d held a chick in his massive palm and talked about nitrogen fixation with the passion of a true believer.
“Necessity drives innovation. You weren’t trying to impress anyone.
You were trying to survive. And in the process, you developed a system that actually works. ”
“It’s just farming.”
“It’s never just farming.” He was flipping through the binder now, pointing at charts, murmuring to himself about phosphorus levels and soil microbiome diversity.
“This is the future of food production, Bree. Local, sustainable, scientifically rigorous but practically implemented. If more farms operated this way-”
“They’d need to care more about the land than the profit margins.”
“Yes.” He looked up. “Exactly.”
We stared at each other.
“You really are a nerd,” I said.
“I’ve been told.”
“On national television, you made fun of this. Of farms. Of me.”
The light in his eyes dimmed. He set the binder down.
“I know.”
“You made jokes about chicken names and boots and taking the girl off the farm.”
“I know that too.”
“And now you’re sitting in my barn office losing your mind about compost ratios.”
“Yes.” He ran a hand through his hair. “I was an idiot, Bree. I was surrounded by people who thought this kind of thing was quaint and backward and beneath them, and I let their opinions become mine. I let myself forget why I got into food science in the first place.”
“Why did you?”
“Because I wanted to understand how things grow.” His voice was quiet.
“When I was a kid, my mother had a garden. Nothing fancy. Tomatoes, peppers, herbs. I used to help her, and she’d explain how the plants worked, how the soil worked, how everything connected.
I loved it. When I went to college, I wanted to study that connection.
The science of cultivation. The chemistry of nurturing. ”
“What happened?”
“My father happened. The company happened. I got pulled into board meetings and profit margins and thinking that treats food as a commodity instead of a miracle.” He met my eyes.
“I forgot, Bree. I forgot what I actually cared about. And then I married a woman who embodied everything I’d forgotten, and I was too stupid and too proud to learn from her. ”
I didn’t know what to say.
“I’m not that person anymore,” he said. “Or I’m trying not to be.
I get up before dawn because I want to see the sun rise over your fields.
I fixed the fence by the north pasture because I noticed it was sagging and I didn’t want the goats to get out.
I’ve learned the name of every animal on this property because they deserve to be known. ”
“Butterbean’s full name is Butterbean Reginald Salazar.”
“I know. You told me last week. I added it to the chart.”
“What chart?”
“The one I’m keeping. Of the animals. With their names and their health records and their individual quirks.” He pulled out his phone, showed me a spreadsheet. “Chester prefers his oats dry. Hector kicks with his left rear leg. Bessie produces more milk when you play country music during milking.”
I stared at the spreadsheet. At the rows and columns of data, meticulously organized, documenting the lives of my animals with a precision I’d never managed.
“You’re insane,” I said.
“Probably.”
“This is genuinely unhinged behavior.”
“I prefer to think of it as thorough.”
He turned the phone toward me. There it was, color-coded, a row for every animal on the farm and a couple of tabs I didn’t want to examine too closely.
“You have a column for Butterbean’s mood.”
“He has a lot of moods. They’re worth tracking.”
I felt it coming. The laugh. It built in my chest, pressed against my ribs, demanded release.
I bit my lip. Hard.
“You can laugh,” Rafael said. “I won’t be offended.”
“I’m not laughing.”
“You want to.”
“I want to strangle you.”
He looked delighted. Apparently he took my worst threats as a form of affection.
“That’s also valid.”
The laugh escaped. Just a small one, a huff of air that I couldn’t contain. But his face lit up when he heard it, a grin spreading across his features, and a dangerous flutter started in my chest.
He was close. I hadn’t clocked how close until now. The chair he’d dragged over was nearly touching mine, his shoulder almost against my own. The barn office was small and hot and smelled like dust and dry earth, and his grin had faded into a quieter look that made my pulse trip.
His eyes dropped to my mouth.
The room went quiet, the fan and the old anger dropping away together, until there was only the shrinking space between us.
I didn’t move away.
I’d turn that over later, lying awake: I didn’t move away. I let the space close. His hand came up, slow, giving me every chance to stop him, his knuckles almost grazing my jaw.
And then he pulled back.
He sat back, put a careful foot of space between us, and let out a breath that cost him.
“Not like this,” he said, his voice rough.
“I want to. You have no idea how much I want to. But I don’t get to have you by accident, in a hot barn, because you laughed at one of my jokes.
I did that already. I took what I hadn’t earned and I called it a marriage.
” He shook his head. “When you want me again, if you want me again, you’re going to know it.
You’re going to be sure. I’m not going to talk you into it. ”
I stared at him.
The old Rafael would’ve kissed me. The old Rafael took whatever was in front of him and apologized for the disruption in the morning. This one had just set the thing I wanted in my hands and stepped back from it on purpose, and I hated how much that undid me.
“I should get back to work,” I said.
“Me too. The compost needs turning.”
“You’re not turning my compost.”
He looked honestly baffled. In his world, refusing free labor was the irrational choice.
“Why not?”
“Because you’ll probably calculate the optimal turning angle and write a thesis about it.”
“The optimal angle is forty-five degrees. And it would be more of a research paper than a thesis.”
I stood up. Walked to the door. Turned back.
He was still sitting there, grinning at me, dusty and ridiculous and so different from the man I’d married that I barely recognized him.
“Why weren’t you like this before?” The question was out before I could catch it. “When we were married. Why did I get the cold, distant version, and this place gets the guy who makes spreadsheets about pig moods?”
His grin faded, and pain moved across his face.
“Because I was scared,” he said quietly. “I was scared that if I let you see the real me, you’d realize I wasn’t worth keeping.”
“And now?”
“Now I know I wasn’t worth keeping. Not then. But I’m trying to become someone who is.”
I left before I could respond.
Somehow I made it all the way back to the house, into the kitchen, hands braced against the counter, before I admitted to myself what I already knew.
I was in trouble.