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Me:

I used one of your emergency condoms

Lena:

WHAT

WITH WHO

Me:

The sheriff

Lena:

THE PERMIT SHERIFF????

Me:

The permit sheriff

Lena:

Ramona Isabel Vega I'm calling you in five minutes

I shove the phone in my pocket, grinning like an idiot.

Across the field, Josiah stands at the Main Street barricade with Sergeant sitting at his feet. An old man in a wheelchair is struggling with the curb cut, and Josiah bends and tips the chair up and over without a word, then crouches to say something that makes the old man laugh. Two little kids pat Sergeant. A tourist asks for directions and Josiah points, patient, his big hand steady.

He looks up and finds me across the whole crowded field. Like he knew exactly where I'd be.

He touches two fingers to the brim of his hat.

My knees go weak all over again. Two weeks. That's all this is supposed to be. A job, a festival, a fling with a steady man who fixes things.

But I stand there with my clipboard pressed against my chest and think about waking up next to him again tomorrow. And the day after that. And I let myself want it, just for a minute, standing in the middle of a field that finally feels like it might be mine.

Chapter Five

JOSIAH

Mona sleeps on her stomach with one arm flung off the edge of the mattress and her hair everywhere.

Sergeant is sprawled across her feet. He abandoned me for her the first night and never looked back. When I roll over and slide my hand up the warm dip of her spine, he opens one eye, decides I'm no threat, and goes back to sleep.

Sunday. Gray light through the curtains. I've slept in her bed every night since the bonfire.

The festival wrapped a week ago, and it was a hit. Denver ran a two minute segment on the evening news. The grant committee chair came back for a third plate of Mabel's biscuits and asked Mona for her business card. We spent the week tearing it all down, hauling folding tables back to the church, rolling up banners, stacking hay bales for Wade to take back to the orchard. Every night she walked the empty field one last time with a flashlight. Every night I walked it with her. Every night I followed her home.

Tomorrow I drive back over the pass.

She stirs under my palm. Makes a small sound and turns her face toward me on the pillow without opening her eyes.

"Stop thinking so loud," she mumbles.

"I'm not thinking."

"Liar." She scoots back until her ass is snug against my hips and pulls my arm around her waist like a blanket. "Five more minutes."