Heartland (True North #7) - Sarina Bowen Page 0,96

snatch me off campus just to teach me a lesson?

For the first time in my life I feel so afraid. It was never like this when I actually lived there. I evaded. I coped. Even the beating I received made me more angry than scared.

I don’t want to go back. I can’t.

“Chassity?” Maeve asks in her small voice. “Read me about the chipmunks?”

“Sure,” I say, because I never turn her down. “Where’s the book?”

She fetches it, and then we curl up on the sofa together. Maeve has a stack of Christmas books. This is the stupidest one, but also her favorite. Go figure.

We turn the pages and I read with only half my brain.

The other half is panicking.

Thirty-Six

Dylan

For twenty-four hours I’ve smiled my way through decorating the tree. I drove my mother to the grocery store so she’d have someone to load and unload groceries. I’ve milked cows. I’ve cuddled goats. I’m basically Mr. Christmas.

Until we’re standing outside the barn, where Griffin starts in with his questions about the future.

“How did that computer programming class turn out?” he asks.

“I fought for a B, but I won’t be taking another one. It’s not really my thing.”

“Oh.” His face falls. “How much time do you have left to declare that major. Two weeks?”

“Yeah, so?”

“What’s it going to be?”

“It’s Christmas Eve,” I grumble. “Maybe give it a rest?”

“How much longer can you put off this conversation?” he demands. “I have things I need to discuss with you.”

“Can we just finish up the goddamn chores and have a holiday?”

Griffin lets out a sigh. Then he retaliates by asking a favor. “This drizzle is supposed to give way to real snow,” he says just as we’re finishing up a bunch of chores. “Before your friend shows up, will you drive the Kubota back into the shed? I left it back by the Winesaps.”

I give the farmhouse a longing glance. My fingers are just about frozen off, and I want to find a quiet spot to call Chastity. “The Winesaps? Why didn’t you just park it in the next area code for fuck’s sake?”

Griffin makes an angry noise. “Just do this one thing for me.”

“Yeah, okay,” I grumble, walking away.

“Don’t come through the center meadow!” he calls after me. “Take the road!”

So I’m basically going for a long drive on a tractor that does ten miles an hour. Awesome.

I lower my head against the drizzle and trudge through the orchard. It’s a long walk, so I have plenty of time to think about Chastity. That talk we had in the truck yesterday is troubling me. I should have just come out and said what I feel for her. I don’t know why I couldn’t.

It’s a little like choosing a major. I fear being pinned down more than I fear anything else. For a guy who claims to be fun, I have a way of overthinking everything.

And I let her walk away thinking I don’t care. That was cowardly of me. But it was literally the last mile before home, and I don’t know how to sort out my feelings on the fly like that.

I’ll call her. Soon. Maybe I can find a way to say it.

I find the Kubota. It’s a small tractor that we use to mow between rows of apple trees. There’s no top on it, so I’m going to be pelted by drizzle for the entire drive back.

She starts right up, so I sit down on the wet seat and begin the slow trip through the orchard. The drizzle has become more of a freezing rain at this point. My face is constantly pinged by little bits of ice.

I love Vermont. But maybe that’s because I’ve never tried farming in California.

My hands are red and frozen by the time I pull onto the little dirt track that separates our farm from Isaac and Leah’s. I can just make out their farmhouse from here, its windows lit up golden in the fading light. They have those electric candles in all the windows. It’s a New England thing—an unspoken rule that you have to put those up for Christmas.

It looks cozy there. I have the strongest urge to get off the tractor and find Chastity and kiss her until she understands that I’ve honestly got it bad for her.

But I have a job to do, and Rickie’s going to show up any minute now at my house, so I putter along until I realize that there’s a length of fencing across the road. It’s a