“It’s not a matter of liking or not liking. After Brexit, a lot of our American clients moved their EU operations to Dublin. The firm needs me here. And it’s convenient for now. For school.” He sounded stuffy, even to himself. “I don’t think much about it, to be honest.”
Dee stopped to take a picture, a woman’s face carved from a stump and crowned with flowers. “I wondered if you missed it, that’s all.”
“England?”
“Your family. The army.”
He’d never put the two together in his mind. Not like that. But he supposed it made sense. The sense of commitment, of belonging, of being part of something larger than himself. “I don’t regret serving my country,” he said carefully. “But I was never going to make it a career like my grandfather. I was simply doing my part.” Doing what was expected.
She nodded as if satisfied.
“What about your family? Did they always live in Kansas?” he asked, turning the subject.
“Since the turn of the century, at least. They were homesteaders—four generations of farmers. My mother couldn’t wait to leave.” Dee made a little face. “Mom was not a pioneer girl.”
“On the contrary.”
Her brow pleated as she puzzled it out. “I guess... maybe? She was considered pretty avant-garde as an artist.” Her smile flitted across her face. “Not so advanced on the farm.”
“I meant, leaving her old life behind to seek her fortune. That’s your family tradition.”
“Like Toni.”
“And you.” She blinked. “Making a fresh start in search of a better life,” he explained.
“I am not like my mother.”
He was quiet.
“I’m not,” Dee insisted. “I hated moving around as a kid. All I ever wanted was to find a place to call home.”
“Will you go back, then? To Kansas.”
Her breath huffed. “I don’t know. If Toni isn’t there... I don’t know where I belong.”
With me, said an unregulated corner of his brain.
He shut it down. It was ridiculous. She was leaving in six months. She wasn’t a part of his life. He wasn’t a part of her family.
But he couldn’t be silent. “Maybe it’s not anyplace you’ve been,” he offered. “Maybe it’s somewhere you’re going.”
She looked at him then, her eyes wide, her lips parted.
And he kissed her.
They wandered without speaking until the grounds closed at four thirty.
Dee stopped him on the path as they walked out. “We need a selfie.”
He took it because, she said, his arms were longer. He turned her phone so she could see. “All right?”
She smiled.
It made him happy to see them like that, their heads close together with the castle behind them. “Send it to me.”
Her cheeks were pink. “Yeah. Sure.”
He took her hand on the way back to the car. The sky was still light as they drove home.
