“Mr. Lang and his father always kept geese. They’re a rare breed called Sebastopol, and they have curly feathers and the sweetest tempers in the world. My mother says that those geese are the secret to Mr. Lang’s great vegetables.”
Mike looked at her in question.
“Geese eat bugs and weeds, and they produce manure.”
“Oh. You know a lot about farming, don’t you?”
“Hazards of being my mother’s daughter.”
Mike chuckled at her play on his words. “So what did Lang do to you?”
Sara told him about Brewster Lang twice making his hand into a gun at her—and Mike grinned at her retaliating hand gesture at the second encounter.
“And you think he did that because you look like your great-aunt Lissie?” Mike wasn’t about to tell her that he knew a great deal about that particular hatred.
“I guess so. Unless he despises all children. With him, who knows? One thing I do know is that when I was little the farm wasn’t booby-trapped. That day when I visited, I went inside every building.”
“Surrounded by geese and dogs,” Mike said. “You must have looked like something out of a storybook.”
She glanced at him, stretched out full length on the cloth. Already, his black beard had grown back. He really did have nice lips, she thought. As for his short hair and high forehead, she was growing used to it. What she hadn’t accustomed herself to yet wa
s the fact that Merlin’s Farm was never going to be hers. Her children weren’t going to grow up there.
Mike didn’t look at her, but he could feel her staring at him. “So, tell me, Sara, where do you see yourself in five years?”
“Mother of two kids,” she said instantly.
“No husband?”
“Sure. Of course. I’ve imagined that I’d be with Greg and I’d stay home with the kids, and—”
“And what?”
“I’d make Merlin’s Farm glorious again.” She didn’t want to talk about the end of her dream, so she changed the subject. “I didn’t get to see much before you came swinging down on top of me.” She looked at him in speculation.
“What’s that look for?”
“Not many men can hold on to a rope with one hand and lift a full-grown woman with the other.”
Mike shrugged. “You’re not what I’d call fully grown. What do you weigh? Ninety?”
“You’re sweet. Greg says I need to lose ten pounds.”
So her body will more easily fit in the trunk of his car? Mike wondered. “If Greg can’t lift you, he needs to go to the gym more often.”
“Where do you see yourself in five years?” she asked.
“I haven’t thought about it. I leave my future to Tess.”
“And she wants you to marry, have kids, and live on Merlin’s Farm.”
“I’m stealing your future,” Mike said softly, and when he saw sadness in her eyes, he wanted to take it away. “Want to know a secret?”
“Sure.” She was gazing at the creek, a faraway look in her eyes.
“It’s a good secret.”
“Oh?” She sounded distracted.