A Walk in the Sun

by Michelle Zink

  A look of panic crossed her father’s features before he could compose himself. “Oh, I think Bodhi might be a better man for the job.”

  Maggie smiled. “Now, no offense to Bodhi”—she cut a glance at him—“but I think you might have a few years’ experience on him, John.” She touched his arm lightly. “Would you?”

  Rose watched her dad’s face, wondering if he might just say no, he wasn’t up to it, he just couldn’t. But a moment later resignation passed over his features and he nodded. “I’d be happy to.”

  “Wonderful.” Maggie turned to Bodhi and Rose. “You two enjoy the swing. There are drinks in the house if you get thirsty.”

  Rose watched them walk toward the outbuilding that acted as Maggie’s garage. They disappeared into the shadows a minute later.

  “Wow,” Rose said. “This might be the first thing he’s done besides eat, read, and watch TV since . . . since my mother died.”

  “That bad, huh?” Bodhi’s voice was soft next to her.

  She nodded, turning to look at him. “Yeah.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “It must be hard for you.”

  The words didn’t prompt her usual defensiveness. Maybe it’s because of the way he’d said it, like it was just a fact. Not a reason to pity her or something to be sad about, just the way things were.

  “It has been.” She almost held her breath, expecting some momentous occurrence in the wake of the confession. But the ground didn’t crack beneath her. There was no thunder, no hurricane. Just a kind of calm. “I thought it was temporary at first. You know, that he was just sad right after the funeral.”

  “But he didn’t get better,” Bodhi said.

  She looked down at her sandaled feet, swinging gently over the floorboards of the porch next to Bodhi’s big boots. “If anything, he got worse. Right after she . . . well, right after she died, he was busy. There were people at the house and arrangements to make, then the funeral, and for a while after that, people still came over at all hours.”

  “Trying to keep you both busy.”

  Rose nodded. “But eventually everyone had to get back to real life, and honestly, I was ready for them to be gone. Living like that, with everyone at the house all the time, bringing food and asking what they could do for us . . . I don’t know. It’s like her death didn’t really seem real until they went away. For a while, I was glad to put it off, but at some point, I guess I just needed to feel it.” She turned to look at him. “You know?”

  “Can’t move on until you let yourself feel it,” he said softly.

  “Exactly. That’s exactly it.” She laughed a little. “Not that I’ve really moved on. But things are better than they were during the winter.”

  He looked out over Maggie’s darkened garden. “She passed in January?”

  “January fifteenth.” Rose remembered the morning like it had happened yesterday. The sky dark and heavy, snow falling softly outside her mother’s bedroom window as a candle flickered on her bedside table. “After the funeral, after everyone went home . . .” She sighed. “It’s hard to explain.” She was surprised to feel him take her hand.

  “Try,” he said, his voice gruff.

  “Well, it felt like I was the only person in the whole world. I’d get up to take care of the animals, and it was just . . . dark. Sometimes it would be snowing when I headed for the barn, and it was just me and the animals and not another sound in the world. At first I thought it was the farm. Just . . . being alone there with my dad so depressed, but it was like a bubble that I carried with me, so that even when I was at school or with Will and Lexie, I felt apart from them, like I couldn’t quite reach them.” She looked at him. “After a while, I got used to it, stopped trying to break through it.”

  “I wish I’d been here,” he said, his eyes locked on hers.

  It took her a few seconds to answer. “Me too.”

  She felt herself pulled toward him with a force so powerful, denying it wasn’t even a possibility. She could see the flecks of amber in his eyes, feel the soft exhale of his breath. His face was inches from hers when Maggie’s voice came from the shadows.

  “There, now!” Rose and Bodhi pulled away from each other.

  Rose swallowed, smoothing the skirt of her sundress. “You fixed it, Dad?”

  Her dad stepped into the light of the porch. “Yep. Just a loose wire.”

  Maggie laughed. “Don’t I feel like a dunce.” She smiled. “Sorry to leave you two alone.”

  Bodhi shifted awkwardly next to her.

  “It’s no problem,” Rose said.

  “I’m glad,” Maggie said. “Let me wrap you up some cake to take home.”

  She met Rose’s eyes on her way into the house, and for a split second, Rose was certain Maggie winked at her.

  Thirty-Six

  Rose was watering the garden the next afternoon when Bodhi came around the corner, his hat in his hand.

  “Hey,” he said, taking a swipe at his brow.

  She smiled, feeling a little shy after their moment on the swing. “Hey. How’s the irrigation system looking?”

  He came closer, and she caught a whiff of laundry detergent, sweat, and something deep and musky that she was coming to associate with Bodhi. It made her a little light-headed.

  “Not bad,” he said. “Should be done next week. Which will be about right to start cutting.”

  Rose nodded. The only upside to the lack of rain was that the fields were dry, the only time you could really cut hay. On the other hand, they were blowing through their stash feeding the herd, who could no longer get what they needed from the dried-out grass in the pastures.

  “Mind if I take a drink?” Bodhi asked, tipping his head at the hose in her hand.

  “Sure. I have to check on the tomatoes anyway.”

  She handed him the hose and walked about halfway down the row of tomato plants. She was kneeling in the dirt, trying to figure out why one of the drip hoses wasn’t working, when she felt a sprinkle on her back.

  She looked up, a flutter of hope rising inside her. Maybe it was going to rain.

  But no. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky.

  She bent her head back to the hose. A few seconds later a short blast of water hit her from behind.

  “What the . . . ?!” She stood up, holding out her dripping arms as she glanced at Bodhi, standing there with a mischievous grin on his face. “Was that you?”

  He shrugged, then turned the hose on her full blast, hurrying down the pathway for even better access.

  She shrieked, taking cover behind the tomato plants, which got an even bigger dose of water as Bodhi sprayed her from the other side of the row.

  “Oh my god!” She was soaked, water dripping from her braid down into her shirt, which was plastered to her body. “What are you doing?”

  He shrugged. “Just helping you cool off, that’s all.”

  She shook her head, trying to keep a smile from rising to her lips. “You are so going to pay for that.”

  She ran to the end of the row and came around, rushing Bodhi for the hose even as he continued spraying her, Rose shrieking and both of them laughing. When she finally got close enough to make a grab for the hose, he held it above his head, seemingly oblivious to the fact that he was getting soaked, too.

  She reached up, stretching out to try and get ahold of the hose, and for a split second, their bodies were pressed together, the water spraying around them, and Rose didn’t even care. Not one bit.

  “Rose?” They both turned toward the voice. “What’s going on?”

  Will stood by the gate, a look of confusion on his face.

  “Will . . . We were just . . . I was watering the garden and—”

  His eyes ran over their wet bodies. “Watering the garden, huh?”

  “Hold on,” she said, trying to compose herself. “Let me get a towel and I’ll be right back.”

  “You know what, Rose?” he said, his face turning still and hard in a way she’d never seen. “Forg
et it.”

  He turned, heading toward the orchard and pond that separated their properties.

  “Will!” she called after him. “Will, wait!”

  But he just kept walking.

  Rose pulled her wet shirt away from her body a little, wringing out some of the water while she fought the feeling that someone had her heart in a vise.

  Bodhi walked back to the faucet and turned off the hose. “You okay?” he asked her.

  She wiped the water from her face. “I just . . . I have to go talk to him.”

  Bodhi nodded. “Can I help?”

  She shook her head and started for the kitchen door. “I’m going to change. I’ll see you later.”

  He was still standing there holding the hose when she stepped into the house. She hurried upstairs and into her room, Will’s expression frozen in her mind. Why had he looked hurt? And even confused?

  She peeled off her wet clothes and dried her body before throwing on her shorts and a tank top.

  Will didn’t have a right to be hurt. They were just friends.

  Right?

  She thought back to Lexie’s words in the truck on the last day of school. Was there any possibility Lexie had been right? That Will was in love with her?

  She stood there in the middle of her room, her concern for Will morphing into something like anger. He didn’t have a right to be upset. She had never given him a sign that they were anything more than friends. Who did he think he was? Busting in on her and then acting all mad, like he was her boyfriend or something?

  She grabbed her phone and took the stairs two at a time, letting the screen door bang behind her. She went to the barn and saddled up Raven, then hopped on the horse’s back and headed across the dirt road.

  She waved to Will’s dad as she made her way across their east pasture. He pointed to the milking barn, and Rose nudged Raven into a gallop as they headed that way.

  She found Will halfway down the galley, kneeling in the hay on the floor and looking at an electronic milker with one of the guys who worked on the Breiners’ farm. Will glanced up as she approached, then turned his attention back to the contraption in his hands like he hadn’t seen her.

  “Will . . .” She stopped right next to him. She was almost shaking with anger, both because of the way he’d acted when he’d seen her and Bodhi and because he was ignoring her now. “We need to talk.”

  “I’m busy,” he said.

  “That’s bull, Will, and you know it.” She put her hands on her hips. “Now stop acting like a baby and talk to me.”

  He stood, handing the milker to the man at his side, who looked away, obviously embarrassed to be witnessing the confrontation.

  “Check the supply shed for that part,” Will told him. “I’ll be along in a bit.”

  The guy nodded, and with one more glance at Rose, walked away.

  Will brushed the hay and dirt off his hands. “What do you want?”

  “What do I want?” she asked. “Really?”

  He shrugged. “What else do you want me to say?”

  “Why are you acting this way? I don’t . . . I don’t know what you want from me.”

  He looked at her, anger flashing in his blue eyes. “What I want from you? Like it’s some kind of chore?”

  “That’s not what I mean and you know it!”

  “Then what do you mean, Rose?”

  She took a deep breath, trying to think through what she was about to say. “I just don’t . . . You’re obviously mad about . . . about Bodhi. But you and me, we’re friends.”

  His jaw seemed to harden. “We’re more than friends.”

  She nodded. “You’re right. We’re family, like you said. You’re like a brother to me.”

  “A brother?” He laughed, but it was as hard as the sun-cracked ground outside. “A brother. That’s great. That’s just great, Rose.”

  “What? I don’t know why you’re mad!”

  “You really think that’s what I meant when I said we were family? That you were like a sister to me?”

  “I don’t know . . . I guess.”

  “Well, that’s not how I feel, Rose. And I thought you felt something more for me, too.”

  She looked down at her legs, bare above her boots. “But you never said anything.”

  “I didn’t think I had to,” he said. “I was just trying to give you some space, that’s all.”

  She swallowed hard. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

  He hesitated. “And now that you do?”

  She kicked her feet around in the straw. “I don’t . . . I don’t know.”

  “It’s him, isn’t it?” Will almost spat the words. “Bodhi Lowell?”

  “I don’t know,” she said softly.

  “Well, what do you know, Rose?”

  She flinched as he shouted the words, and the rise in his voice brought back all her old anger. “I know that you don’t have a right to be mad! Or to tell me who I can care about or who I can spend time with! I know that you can’t expect me to be a mind reader, and you can’t come in like some caveman now that there’s somebody else in the picture!”

  He crossed his arms over his chest. “So that’s it, then? Bodhi is officially in the picture?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “But I do know that I deserve to be happy. And I don’t answer to you.”

  She turned away, stalking to the front of the barn where Raven waited.

  “He’s going to hurt you, Rose,” Will called after her. “He’s going to leave and he’s going to hurt you.”

  Sadness mingled with her anger as she climbed into Raven’s saddle, but she didn’t know if it was because she’d hurt Will or because deep down she knew he was right.

  Thirty-Seven

  “I think a pink, feathered, sequined lamp is a requisite for my room, don’t you?” Lexie held up the monstrosity for consideration.

  “Um, only if you want to look like a fifth grader on crack,” Rose said.

  Lexie scowled. “More is more, haven’t you heard?”

  Rose ran a hand over the smooth metal of a lamp whose base was shaped like the Eiffel Tower. “Must have missed the memo.”

  They were at Bed Bath & Beyond, shopping for things Lexie’s mother probably wouldn’t let her buy for her apartment in the city. If it were up to Lexie’s mom, it would be all plastic bins and comforters with polyester fill, something that made Lexie shudder. She’d been slowly adding to the college stash with her babysitting money.

  “All right,” Lexie said, “I’ll wait on the lamp. Let’s go look at bathroom stuff. I need a shower caddy, preferably something no one else will have.”

  Rose laughed as she pushed the cart. “We’re at Bed Bath & Beyond, not Versace. I think your odds of finding something original are slim to none.”

  “A girl can dream,” Lexie said. “Besides, why are we talking about shower caddies when you never finished telling me about the Will thing?”

  “I did finish,” Rose said. “We had a fight and I left. That’s all there is to tell.”

  Lexie veered down the candle aisle.

  “Can you even have candles in your room?” Rose asked.

  “I’m just looking,” Lexie said. “So you didn’t make up or anything after?”

  “Nope,” Rose said. “And I’m not apologizing. He’s in the wrong.”

  “He totally is in the wrong,” Lexie said. “But it’s Will. Do you really want to fight with him like this?”

  Rose thought about it. “I honestly don’t care right now. Maybe we just need some space from each other.”

  “Well, I hate to say I told you so,” Lexie said, adding a pomegranate-scented candle to the cart. “But I’ve known Will was in love with you since the day we met.”

  “Gloating is so unattractive,” Rose said, steering them toward the bathroom section.

  “So does this mean you and Bodhi are, like, a thing?” Lexie asked.

  “I don’t know,” Rose said. “I mean, there’s definitely so
mething there. I think.”

  Lexie raised an eyebrow. “You think?”

  “Well, he hasn’t said it or anything, so I can’t be sure. But he did hold my hand at Maggie’s the other night out on the porch.”

  “Really?”

  Rose nodded.

  “He’s into you then.” Lexie picked up a set of six-hundred-thread-count sheets. “I wonder why these don’t come in twin size,” she muttered.

  “Probably because you should be able to afford a decent-size bed before you spend two hundred dollars on sheets.”

  Lexie narrowed her eyes. “I think you’ve gotten funnier.”

  “If you say so.”

  Lexie put the sheets back and moved to a more reasonable three-hundred-thread-count set. Rose groaned. “We’ve been here for nearly two hours. How much more stuff do you need to look at?”

  “Don’t complain,” Lexie said. “At least it’s air-conditioned in here.”

  “True.”

  “So what are you going to do about it?” Lexie asked.

  “About the air-conditioning?”

  Lexie rolled her eyes. “About Bodhi.”

  “Nothing. I mean, what can I do? I’m going to wait and see what happens.”

  “Well, don’t wait too long,” Lexie said. “We’re halfway through summer already.”

  The thought caused a shadow of dread to pass over Rose’s mood. She was right. Bodhi would be leaving soon. Even if he felt the same way, their time together was rapidly dwindling.

  Two hours later, Lexie dropped her off at home. Rose watched her leave, the car kicking up a cloud of dust in its wake.

  Being back outside after spending the afternoon in air-conditioned bliss was like stepping from a meat locker into an oven. Rose looked up at the sky where billowy clouds sat over the mountain. The forecast called for a thirty percent chance of rain, but she didn’t want to get her hopes up. She went inside and threw on her bathing suit, then headed for the pond.

  Thirty-Eight

  Bodhi spent the day finishing the irrigation repair, then went over the books. He was worried about the farm’s finances. Marty left him a paycheck in the kitchen every Friday, but the profit-and-loss statement was more loss than profit. Normally, he wouldn’t be concerned. He’d start cutting hay soon, and then the Darrows could sell some of it to bring themselves more solidly into the black. But the herd was going through the stored hay at an alarming rate, and if they didn’t get rain soon, the Darrows would have to set aside some of the new hay for feed as well.