Had he felt that?
If he had, he didn't show it.
But wasn't that his tell? When his face went stoic, he was hiding something.
They walked hand in hand across the field. Neither said anything. The pressure of his fingertips increased, then relaxed. She pressed her palm against his, then second-guessed herself that it was too intimate. But it wasn't as if she could get away from him. So she held on, and Finn held her a little tighter.
The journalist was already there when they came around the side of the greenhouse. Late thirties, press badge, the friendly, purposeful energy of someone on assignment rather than a beat. She was talking to one of the ranch staff about the vegetable program and looked up when Finn and Ivy came around the corner with the alert recognition of someone who had done pre-visit research.
"Oh — " a smile, notebook already moving. "You're the Tomato Couple."
Finn let go of her hand. Ivy missed the pressure of his hand against hers immediately. His fingers found the small of her back, and his palm pressed there. Ivy felt her entire body come alive with that touch.
Not a grip. Not a claim. The lightest possible touch, his palm just below her shoulder blades, the warmth of it coming through her shirt in a way that went directly up her spine without asking permission.
"That's us," Finn said.
Ivy smiled at the journalist. She was a professional, and her expression did exactly what she asked it to do, which was warm, easy, not at all like someone whose nervous system had just rerouted.
"I'm doing a piece on the Purple Heart Ranch program," the journalist said. "I've been following the food truck coverage. Is it—" she gestured between them, the notebook tilting — "going as well as it looks online?"
"Better," Ivy said, because one of them had to, and Finn's hand was at her back and apparently her mouth was still functional. "The ranch is incredible. I'm embarrassed I haven’t been out here before."
"How long have you two been…" She waved a finger back and forth between them.
"Long enough," Finn said, which was technically true and also a masterclass in not answering the question.
The journalist, recognizing a redirect, accepted it graciously. She began asking questions which Ivy answered on autopilot. Her mind was more fixated on Finn.
At some point, Finn's hand left her back. She did not watch him do the thing she would later describe to Eva as the Darcy hand. She was looking at the journalist's retreating figure. But she was aware of it in her peripheral vision; the way his hand came back to his side and he flexed it once, just slightly, as if resettling something, exactly the way a man does in a wet field.
After the video, they walked. Without touching each other. Sadly.
He showed her the trial rows. Twelve varieties at different stages, each labeled in his handwriting on white plastic stakes; the variety name, the year introduced into the trial, a code she didn't recognize at first that turned out to be his rating system for flavor development.
"This is your private work," she said.
"Some of it becomes commercial. Most doesn't."
"How long does a trial variety take?"
"Depends. Some I've been running for months." He stopped at a stake near the far end: Cherokee Purple (selected line)— Year 2 — F6. "This is the one I've been developing from the original variety. Trying to stabilize a lower-acid expression without losing the complexity."
She looked at the plant. It was at the same heavy fullness as the outdoor rows, and the fruit — just a few, early — had a depth of color even at this stage that was different from the market plants.
"Can I taste one?"
Finn looked at the plant the way he looked at most things requiring assessment. "They're not ready."
"The one on the bottom left is."
A pause. He looked at the one on the bottom left. He looked at her. He reached in and took it off the vine, and held it out.
It was good in a way; Ivy needed a second to process. Lower acid than the market variety, like he'd said, but not simplified. The complexity was still there, just reorganized; the flavors that usually competed in a Cherokee Purple running together instead. It was almost sweet. It was almost savory. It was doing several things at once and making it look effortless.
She looked at Finn. He was watching her with the focused stillness of someone awaiting data.
"The acid reads as brightness instead of sharpness. You kept the umami. How?"
