I wonder if sleep will ever come easily again.
38
I wear the other dress I bought in Bloomington, the blue, yellow, and white ditsy-print with buttons all the way down the front. It’s a gloriously warm day so it’s the right weather for it.
It’s also a perfect day for “shelling corn.” After spending almost three months watching the stalks turn from green to golden, I’m excited to see what harvesting entails. I can hardly believe I’m going to be sitting next to Anders for hours on end in the confined space of a tractor. I can’t wait.
I’m bringing my rucksack with some snacks, water, and a jumper in case it’s cooler later. When Jonas is out harvesting the fields, sometimes he runs well into the night, and I’m in it for the long run.
I mean that in every sense.
Honestly, I feel racked with anxiety at the thought of putting myself out there today and being rejected. If Jonas hadn’t spoken so plainly, so passionately, I’m not sure I’d have the courage to fight. Anders is right, I am insecure. But it’s time to put on my big girl’s pants.
I find Anderswith his mum and brother, over by the first big shed. All three of them turn to watch me as I approach and I could not feel more self-conscious.
“Well, aren’t you as pretty as a picture!” Peggy calls, beaming.
I think I must blush from head to toe. I can’t even look atJonas, let alone Anders.
“You ready?” Anders asks me.
“Mm-hmm.” I glance at him to see that he’s smiling, but my eyes dart away again.
“There’s a picnic in the fridge, under your seat,” Peggy tells me.
“Wow, thank you. Wait, you have a fridge in the tractor?”
“We’re not going in the tractor, we’re going in the combine,” Anders says. “I thought it might be more fun.”
Jonas punches his arm, grinning.
As Anders turns away, I catch Jonas’s eye. I expect him to find my discomfort amusing, but his expression is serious.
I nod at him. He nods back, and we follow Anders into the shed.
The combine is gigantic, ivy green with bright yellow hubcaps on wheels that are taller than me. The corn header has been attached to the front—a wide green contraption lined with what looks like a row of green rockets.
Anders climbs up several wide rungs of a ladder to the door, opens it wide, goes inside, and then turns back toward me.
“Be careful,” he warns, taking me by my forearm as I slowly reach the top.
He pulls the door closed and moves over to the driver’s seat while I sit down, my skin burning from his touch.
There are windows on all four sides of the cab and they’re huge—it’s like a glass box on wheels.
I once made the mistake early in my career of designing wall-to-wall and floor-to-ceiling windows in a south-facing London studio apartment. When I later bumped into the owners, they moaned that it was like living in a greenhouse.
But as the combine rumbles into life, air-conditioning kicks in. Phew.
Peggy and Jonas move out of the way and Anders turns around to look out of the enormous rear window, holding on to the back of my seat for support as he reverses the giant machine out of the shed.
I can’t help but study him as he concentrates on the maneuver. He’s wearing a moss-green T-shirt that brings out the color of his eyes and the twisting of his body has caused it to stretch at the collar, revealing smooth, tanned skin and the contour of his collarbone. I can feel the heat from his arm on my shoulders as my eyes travel along his lean muscles. I don’t even try to stop myself from looking because I’m laying my heart on the line today. I’ve got nothing and everything to lose—and I plan to give it my all.
Anders meets my eyes before he drives forward.
“What are you thinking?” he murmurs.
“I’ll tell you when we don’t have company,” I reply.
