Silas cocks an eyebrow at me and I laugh.
“I know…” I sigh fondly as I watch my goofy, over-friendly dog drool on Silas’s leg.
“He’s noble enough,” Silas says, doing nothing to stop the drool.
My eyes drift to the table as I take another drink, and something catches my attention among the scattered report pages. The corner of a sheet sticks out from beneath the stack, a sliver of colour breaking through the sea of printed text. Blue spreads across the exposed edge, and the paper itself is different from the rest.
I reach out to slide the page free, and my jaw drops. “Oh my god.”
It’s a drawing of a field, with freshly worked soil stretching across the page in rows. The colours, shading, and lighting make it look so real, I gently run my fingers over it, expecting dirt to cling to my skin. The sky above the field burns with the deep blue of early evening, fading toward orange where the sun sinks low on the horizon. Warm light spills across the land, settling into every dip and rise in the soil, and shadows pool along the furrows. It looksreal.
But the longer I look at it, I realize I know exactly what this is. The tree line at the far edge, and the strip of dune grass where the field transitions into the beach gives it away.
This is the hollow heart field.
Silas shifts uncomfortably, quickly glancing at the drawing and then looking away. “It’s not done.”
My eyes roam over the incredible, realistic drawing. “What else do you need to add?”
“I don’t know.”
I glance at him, but he just keeps his focus out towards the small clearing between the trees that leads to the field.
I lower my gaze to the drawing again and take in the rich, vibrant colours and the way the shading and highlights make it look like the details are coming out of the page. I thought his work was incredible before. But this is something else entirely.
“It’s incredible, Si,” I say softly.
Silas’s gaze shifts to me as I lift mine, and I realize the old nickname I had for him slipped out.
But neither of us says anything.
The moment hangs between us for a moment before I lower the drawing and place it next to the report pages so I can still see it.
“Any idea where you want to start?” I ask, gesturing to the stack of papers.
He sighs, looking at the pages like the entire thing has spent weeks personally insulting him. “No.”
I nod. “Ok. Well, just tell me what the plan is so far for planting. Then we’ll see if there’s anything useful in here we can work with.”
Silas nods and reaches down to sink his hand into Winston’s fur again, his fingers working slowly through his thick coat like the motion is helping him organize his thoughts.
“The soil holds water longer than any other field,” he begins. “It also takes longer to warm up in the spring. We always planted it in a specific rotation, usually somewhere in the middle of everything else, but something shifted over the past fewyears, and the soil started running colder. Hollow heart started showing up around the same time.”
I nod. I read that in the report, among the temperature and moisture data. He knows all this without even reading the numbers.
“So we started trying to work around it,” Silas continues. “We planted later, adjusted irrigation, messed with depth... Some years it helped, some years it didn’t.” He shrugs slightly. “That’s the problem. The field never behaves the same way twice.” His fingers sink deeper into Winston’s fur. “Dad and Al say the report calls it unpredictable. Different parts of the field hold water longer than others, some sections stay colder, and the compaction shifts depending on the weather. That everything is technically within range… it just doesn’t act like the rest of the farm.”
I pull the report towards me and flip to the field variability section, where layered maps show moisture distribution, soil temperature ranges, and compaction readings scattered across the field in uneven patches.
“So I know planting this field later will help. But if there is something else in there… And Iknowthere is…” Silas says quietly, “I know you can find it.”
I look up and meet his eyes. “We can.”
I pick up the report from the table between us and stand, moving around the small space to the chair beside Silas. My arm brushes his as I lean in, and my pulse jumps at the touch.
Silas lowers his gaze to the report in my hands, and while his attention shifts to the pages, mine drifts towards him. The soft evening light filtering through the trees falls across his face, highlighting the stubble that shadows his strong jaw, the soft freckles on the bridge of his nose, and the strands of hair curling out from beneath his hat.
Being this close to him, especially as he lets me in, overwhelms me in the best way possible.
