“Where are you going?” he calls after me as I walk down to the river.
“Taking a bath,” I reply with a grin.
“With your dress on?” he asks with surprise.
“I’ll hold it up and go in to my waist. I’m not taking it off if Jonas is about to arrive.”
“No, come on, let’s go for a swim,” he urges. “I’ll tell him to leave us to it.”
I look over my shoulder to see Anders simultaneously tugging his T-shirt over his head and texting.
I laugh at him as he walks, buck naked, toward me.
“Off,” he commands, jerking his chin at my dress.
“I’ve only just done it up!” I reply with pretend indignation.
And then his lips are on my neck and his fingers are getting busy with my buttons and my knees are so wobbly that it’s all I can do to keep myself standing upright.
Thankfully, it’s absolutely sweltering today, because I’m not sure I’d want to swim in this river in the fall.
Ha, I meanautumn. I’ve only been living here for a year and a half, but sometimes it feels longer. Other times, my recollections are so vivid it’s as though they happened yesterday.
Today is bringing back memories, both good and bad. As much as possible, I try to let the good soak in and the bad wash away, and even Anders seems to be here, with me, in the moment.
But that’s not always the case. When those creases appear on his brow, there will be times when I’ll want to climb onto his lap and smooth them away, but I also know that sometimes he needs to feel the pain. And he always comes through the other side stronger, more at peace with himself and the world.
“We should geton,” I murmur after our second time.
I sound sleepy, intoxicated.
“Are you okay?” he checks, the heat from his body seeping into my back, his warm arms encircling me from behind as we stand in the shallows, the sun pouring down on us from high overhead, making the nearby rocks sparkle.
“I’m fine. Better than fine. I love you.”
“I love you too.Oh no you don’t,” he erupts darkly, his body tensing and his ears pricking up, and I hear it—the tractor.
I scramble after him, squealing with laughter as he shouts a string of swear words at his brother and helps me to pull on my clothes before seeing to his own.
“Can’t you save that sort of shit for your honeymoon?” Jonas shouts at us as we emerge from the shadows of the trees.
He’s leaning against his tractor’s wheel, tapping his foot, waiting for us.
Anders shakes his head at him, unimpressed.
Jonas laughs. “I get it if you don’t want to work today, but can you please tell me so I can call Zack in? I don’t want to miss a whole day of harvest ahead of the weekend.”
“Don’t get your panties in a wad, we’ve got it under control,” Anders replies dryly, holding his hand out to me and flashing me one of his heart-stopping grins as I hurry to catch him up.
I laugh as we walk back to the combine together.
It is a little crazy, what we’re doing. Any other bride-to-be would probably be running around stressed right now, but that girl doesn’t have Bailey the whirlwind organizing her wedding.
We woke thismorning to sunlight pouring into the cabin. It’s where we stay when we come to visit, now that Jonas is up at the house. Anders asked if we could make a few changes to the place and Jonas didn’t mind—he’s not sentimental—so we widened the openings in the wall to create a giant picture window that looks out at the lake from the bedroom and put in a couple of smaller, high-level ones with views up to the trees.
Then we went shopping for mid-century modern furniture at Midland Arts and Antiques. We had so much fun that day.
Jonas is still interested in building the cabins on stilts around the lake, but he’s been kind of preoccupied lately. I imagine he’ll crack on with them in a year or two and hopefully I’ll be able to help.
