Chapter 49
Hunter
Atticus is riding shotgun in the tractor’s jump seat, chattering my ear off like he’s been saving every thought in his head just for this moment.
“What’s that button do? What happens if you push that lever? What’s that sound?” He bounces in sync with every bump in the field.
I explain what I can, pointing to the display screens, the throttle, the controls that move the batwings, even though I’m just mowing today—not exactly the most glamorous farmwork. But to a kid, everything is magic when you’re sitting this high off the ground.
“When we get to fall,” I tell him, “this whole field? We’ll be out here with combines. Harvesting all the corn. My favorite time of year.”
His eyes get big. “I wanna do that! Can I do that?”
“You can ride with me if you want,” I say, grinning at his excitement. I remember being that age. Riding with my dad and grandpa in a combine was always the highlight of my fall—more exciting than Halloween. “When you’re older, maybe you can be my grain cart operator.”
“What’s that?”
I explain how the grain cart keeps the combines running by unloading on the go, how it’s the most important job in the field next to running the combine itself.
“And if you’re really good at that,” I add, “when you’re older, I’ll let you run a combine.”
He lights up like I just promised him a trip to Disney World. “Really?”
“Really.”
I watch him take it all in, staring out the window like he’s imagining it already.
I always thought I’d have a son someday—a little boy who’d love farming as much as I did. A kid to teach everything to. Someone to take over the land, carry on the McCrae name, the legacy.
Funny how life doesn’t always play out the way you picture it.
“How’s your mom doing?” I ask him. We’ve texted a few times this last week, but every time I think I have a spare minute to sneak in a visit, something comes up. Our schedules haven’t synced up in a minute, and it’s killing me.
“She’s happy now,” he says, digging into his backpack for a snack.
“Yeah? How come?”
“’Cause she’s writing again.”
That makes me smile. “She told you that?”
He nods, mouth full of goldfish crackers. “She’s working on a new book. It’s about a farmer.”
My hands freeze on the wheel for just a second, palms dampening. A flicker of something sharp cuts through the warm haze of the moment.
She’s writing a book about a farmer?
I clear my throat. “She say what kind of farmer?”
He shrugs. “A regular kind.”
The kid’s five. He’s not going to be much help in this department.
I stare ahead, watching the mower eat up the rows of grass, dust kicking up behind us.
Wren did promise me she wouldn’t write about us—about me.
She swore anything personal stayed between us.
But now I’m wondering if I’ve just been one long research project.
If she’s been cataloging every touch, every kiss, every private, stolen moment—for the proverbial plot.
I shake it off, refocusing on the field in front of me. Still, the doubt sticks to my ribs like a meal I can’t digest.