In the back, Gennie continued, “They’re called Homesteam—”
“Holstein,” Noah said.
“—and every day, they make eight billion hundred pounds of milk—”
“Eight thousand,” he said.
“—and that goes into a pipe that cooks it really hot and makes eleven million bottles of milk.”
“Eleven hundred,” he said, still staring at me, still touching my hip.
“And in the winter, the floors are hot because they have rainbows inside them.”
“Radiant heating,” he murmured.
“Can we go now?” she asked. “It’s going to be over, we’re going to miss it!”
“We can only milk twenty cows at a time,” he said. “We will not miss anything.” He pulled his hand away from me and pointed at a bright white building with its garage-style doors flung wide-open. “That’s the milking parlor. Come on.”
Gennie ran ahead of us, saying hello to each of the cows leisurely eating their hay. She skidded to a stop in front of the white building, motioning to us with all the impatience in the world.
“She really loves this,” I said.
“Sometimes.” He slipped his hands into his pockets. “Mostly since meeting the calves. She didn’t want anything to do with this place before.”
As we approached the doors, Noah gave her a nod and she bounded inside. A member of the crew spotted her and motioned for her to join him as he tended to one of the cows.
Noah held out his arm, stopping me before I crossed into the parlor. “This is far enough for you.”
“Why?”
“Because you are not wearing shoes appropriate for this setting,” he said with a wave toward the interior. “And you’re not dressed for”—he ran a finger along one of the dress’s ruffled tiers at my thigh—“anything even loosely related to dairy farming.”
I indulged in a quick scan of his blue plaid button-down shirt, sleeves rolled up to the elbow and collar open, well-worn jeans, and boots that knew every inch of this land. His fingers had raked through his dark hair a time or twenty and his short beard was freshly trimmed. He looked good and he looked goodhere. And that was a strange realization since I was still surprised to find him here.
“You were serious when you said there were rules.”
“Someone has to be serious.” He set his hands on his waist and cocked a hip as though he was settling in for a debate. “Might as well be me.”
“Is that your way of telling me I’m not serious? Because I’ll have you know, I’m plenty serious.”
He gave me a look that resembled something like impatience. “No earrings today?”
“No earrings today. It was a chaotic morning. When the school called, I was still in a towel and threw on the first thing I could find. No earrings. It’s a wonder I remembered underwear. And as you’ve already pointed out, my water bottle didn’t make the cut either.”
If he had a response to that, he didn’t offer it. Although he did glance over my shoulder and mutter, “What the hell are you doing here?”
A Black man approached, probably in his early fifties, and pulled off his gloves. “Better question is, what the hell are you doing here?”
Noah gestured across the parlor. Gennie was talking a mile a minute and patting a cow’s flank while a crew member nodded along. “The kid’s been asking for a visit.”
The man turned a warm smile toward me. “Jim Wheaton. I look after this little operation. Welcome to my dairy pavilion.”
“Shay Zucconi,” I replied. “This is much more than a little operation.”
He shot a pointed look to Noah and then stared at me, his eyes round. His lips parted a few seconds before he spoke. “I’ve heard so much about you.”
I glanced between him and Noah. “Oh, really? You knew Grandma Lollie?”
