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A knock sounded on the barn door. All the cows turned toward it, one letting out a soft moo.

“It’s me,” Barclay called. “Are you okay, August? Want me to get someone?”

“Who?” I asked, unable to stop myself. “Who are you going to get? Are you going to drag Caroline all the way down here?”

Silence. Barclay apparently had no comeback. “I’m fine,” August shouted. “This is just the way we are.” Something about that made him smile. And because he was smiling, I smiled too.

“Questions,” he prompted once Barclay’s footsteps faded.

“Your life here with me differs a lot from the one you used to have.”

“Not a question.”

“I’m getting to it.”

He spread his hands in mock surrender.

“I find it hard to believe this is what you really want.”

“I know that. You’ve said it a time or two.”

“So… is it what you want?”

“Yes.” No hesitation. No blink. Not even a twitch. “If I didn’t, I’d leave. I’d make up an excuse.”

“Are you happy with me?”

This time he thought about the question. “Most of the time.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“When you’re not picking unnecessary arguments and tossing me into cow dung.”

I rolled my eyes. “It’s clean straw.”

August’s grin said he was winding me up.

“I love you,” I said.

He tilted his head. “Sorry, I didn’t catch that. You’ll have to come closer and say it.”

I shuffled the stool an inch closer. “I love you.”

“Nope. Still didn’t hear it.”

Another inch. “I love you.”

I should have seen it coming. Six months with him had shown me exactly how his devious brain worked. So as he yanked me down into the straw, I couldn’t work out how I hadn’t avoided it. Maybe I hadn’t wanted to, because if he was there, there was nowhere else in the world I wanted to be.

The straw threw us together, August’s weight pressing me deeper. “Apology accepted.”

I shoved him off and rolled onto my back, straw going into places I’d rather not have had it. For one long moment, we stared up at the barn ceiling in silence. “I’ll listen in the future,” I said. “I just find it hard to believe that I’ve been this lucky, and maybe there’s a part of me that feels like I don’t deserve it.”

August put his hands together and clapped slowly. “And there we have it, the truth at last.” He rolled his head toward me. “You do. We both do. And it’s about time you accepted that.”

“No more cons?” I asked.

“No more cons. My luck was always going to run out one day, so it’s better to stop before it does.”