Page 96 of One to Watch

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FLYER POSTED IN THE BOONE, OKLAHOMA, FARM SUPPLY MART

TOMORROW: TRACTOR PARADE

HIGHWAY 47–12PM

WELCOME HOME WYATT

FROM MAIN SQUEEZE!!!!

BRING FOOD

IF YOU WANT

Wyatt had promised Bea a tractor if she visited his family’s farm, but when she met him at the main street in the center of Boone, she found he’d done her one better: There was a parade of a dozen tractors flanked by hundreds of onlookers—it seemed the whole town had shown up to wish Wyatt well and meet the girl he’d brought home.

“Oh my gosh.” Bea laughed as he helped her climb into the gleaming red tractor beside him. “This is unbelievable!”

“There are farms where you’re from—no one’s ever taken you to a tractor parade?”

“No one.” Bea threaded her arm through his. “You’re my first.”

Bea hadn’t meant the line to be a double entendre, but from the way Wyatt blushed and looked away, she worried she’d embarrassed him. They still hadn’t really talked about his virginity, about why he hadn’t had sex or what that might mean for their potential relationship. But given how much faster things were progressing with the other three men in that department (particularly in light of the incredibly sexy afternoon she’d spent making out with Luc pressed up against a brick building on the Chelsea High Line), Bea knew they’d have to discuss it today—just hopefully not in front of Wyatt’s family.

Bea and Wyatt leaned out of their respective tractor windows and waved to the crowd, who cheered and even shouted their names. After they’d made their loop on the tractor, Wyatt helped Bea down so they could mingle with the crowd and enjoy some lemonade.

“You can’t eat any of that potluck, though,” Wyatt told Bea. “There’ll be hell to pay with my mom if we don’t come home hungry.”

The group at the tractor parade was warm and unpretentious, and it was such a relief to be seen as normal, to feel normal, even in the midst of a parade thrown in her honor.

Back at the farm for lunch, though, the pressure was a little higher as Bea met Wyatt’s mother, Hattie, his sister, Peg, her husband, Miguel, and their two kids.

“Have you tried the bread yet?” asked Hattie. “We make it with the wheat we grow right here on the farm.”

“It’s amazing.” Bea could barely speak through the mouthful of warm, fresh brown bread. Maybe she’d given farm living short shrift after all.

“That recipe has been in our family for four generations,” Hattie explained. “Now, what about you, Bea—do you bake? I know you can eat!”

Hattie laughed good-naturedly—she was no small woman herself.

“Mom,” Wyatt warned, but Bea put a hand on his arm.

“No, Mrs. Ames, I’m not much for baking. I’m more of a cook than a baker—and not much of a cook either, I’m afraid.”

“What about your mother, then? Didn’t she cook?”

“My mom made a lot of casseroles, pasta, burgers, things like that. I have three older brothers, so we went through a lot of food. On two teachers’ salaries, we had to be economical.”

Hattie nodded her approval. “That’s one thing Bill and I always tried to teach our kids. No sense spending what you haven’t got—that’s a quick way to hand your life over to the bank.”