“It’s a variety you can eat for sweet corn or dry for feed. At harvest time, I drive down to that long, straight stretch of I-80 and sell a couple bushels of freshly picked corn out of the back of my truck for pin money.”
He slouched on the swing, stretching his long legs on the porch’s wooden boards that desperately needed a fresh coat of blue paint.
Sarah continued, “I meet lots of interesting people that way, families on a road trip, students in all sorts of subjects going to or from Iowa City, and truckers who have seen the whole country. I text my schedule to this one trucker who drives a regular route between Chicago and Denver because he always buys a big basket.”
Blaze’s arm curled around her shoulders, hugging her against his chest. “Tell me more about the farm.”
“Some chickens are sweet little babies, and some are jerks.”
He nodded, crossing his long legs, and swinging the bench underneath them.
“When I was a kid and we had five head of cattle, the pasture in back of the barn was a lot bigger. When I had to downsize, I plowed it under for corn.”
While Blaze slowly sipped the glass of iced tea she’d given him, Sarah pointed out areas of the farm they could see from the porch and told him stories about them and her neighbors.
“A lot of my friends have century farms, which means their family has been farming the land for over a hundred years. My mom’s parents had one way over on the other side of town, but they had to sell because my mom was already farming here with my dad, and none of their other kids wanted to take it on.”
Blaze shifted beside her. “Do you plan to have kids?”
A few years before, giddiness would’ve consumed Sarah at such a conversation, but Blaze wasn’t the guy to have it with. “I always thought I would get married and have kids, but I didn’t date anybody in high school because my dad got mad whenever I wanted to go somewhere. My friends all coupled up and married each other. I missed my chance.”
“I know how that goes. Would you force one of your hypothetical kids to take the farm someday?”
Sarah scoffed at him. “I’d force my kids to go to college. Like you said, there’s one just down the road.”
Wow.She’d never thought about that before.
He tilted his head, looking at her. “Really?”
Sarah’s head buzzed with the words that had popped out of her mouth. “Farming is an honorable living, and I’ve always wanted to farm. They probably wouldn’t. I mean, if they did want to, then they could have it. But a farm is not like Great-Auntie Olga’s hideous orange vase that is ‘probably valuable’, so it keeps getting passed down. Farming is a calling, and you either have it or you don’t.”
Blaze looked back at the corn, but he seemed to be looking farther than just her field. “That sounded rehearsed.”
“Everybody says it. I say it all the time.”
“You believe it?”
“Of course.”
Blaze nodded, and he held her a little closer to his chest and kissed the top of her head. “Tell me more.”
Sarah prattled on, telling him the things that everybody in Kalona already knew but he seemed to find interesting, things she’d always wanted to tell her take on the story but were old news around there.
After an hour, Sarah wiggled to the edge of the swing. “I should probably get a few things done before it starts getting dark.”
Blaze nodded and stood, stretching. His barrel chest stretched from his narrow waist, and he pressed his hands against the porch’s ceiling. “If I had time, I would dig trenches for trench warfare, but I guess we’ll have to be satisfied with what I can fortify around the house in the next few days.”
As she stood, Blaze caught her hand and drew her against his chest, wrapping his arm around her waist. “I wish we’d met under better circumstances.”
Sarah nodded, wishing it with all her heart.
He said, “I could get used to sitting on a porch and watching the corn grow, but it’s time to prepare for the mafia war.”
13
YES, SIR
SARAH
