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ced on both sides. Cows dotted the pasture on both sides and to the left was the pond Jack must have been referring to.
The family must still have the land farmed because corn grew off in the distance as did some other crop. Taylor wasn’t sure what it was. Soybeans, perhaps.
“Like it?” he asked as he pulled to a stop in front of a porch that sprawled all the way across the front of the house. A half-dozen rocking chairs were painted to match the house’s navy roof and welcomed any visitor who wanted to spend time rocking away their cares.
Taylor loved it all. Warm, inviting, functional, like it had belonged here a hundred years and would be here another hundred.
“What’s not to like?”
“If I ever settled down, I’d want it to be somewhere like here,” Jack mused, glancing around the place with obvious admiration.
Taylor’s gaze cut toward him.
“Mountains less than an hour away for climbing and hiking,” he continued a bit wistfully. “Lots of lakes for skiing and swimming. Rivers and streams everywhere you look. Caves for exploring. Green in the spring and summer and amazing colors covering the hills in the fall. Snow in the winter for sledding and skiing in the mountains.”
“I take it you like Tennessee.”
He grinned. “Between all the big music festivals in Nashville, Memphis, Chattanooga, Knoxville, and the one in Warrenville, I end up spending most of my summers here, especially now that my mom is in Tennessee permanently.”
Such a strange life he led. “Where is home, Jack?”
He shrugged. “Some music festival far, far away.”
“An actual place?”
He shook his head. “Not really. Just a metaphorical locale that represents all the different places that made up my childhood.”
“You never lived in one place that feels like going home when you visit?”
“Only time I ever lived in one place more than a few months was the year I stayed with my grandparents.” He didn’t look pleased about the experience.
“You lived with your grandparents?”
“A torturous half-year until everyone realized how miserable I was, being stuck in the same four walls all the time.”
She couldn’t imagine four walls containing Jack.
“At first, they put it down to me needing to adjust to the change, but I inherited their need to be on the move. Eventually, they realized their mistake and had me back on the road with them.”
Whereas her parents lived in the same house they’d moved into when they’d got married and would likely live there until they died. She wasn’t sure they’d ever left her hometown other than to attend her graduation from college. Even then, they’d not stuck around but had driven back home that very night, rather than sightseeing or spending time with her.
They were happy, content with their lives, so she didn’t begrudge them what worked for them.
It just wasn’t the life for her.
As the thought entered her head, Taylor smiled that she’d moved away from everything she’d known other than Amy, that she’d sought a new adventure, that she was living a different life.
Her life.
Mostly she was grateful for Jack because he was the greatest adventure she’d ever encountered.
“Come on,” he said, climbing out of the Jeep. “Let’s get the grill fired up.”
Taylor’s clothes had mostly dried on the ride to Jack’s farmhouse. But she felt grungy and when he refused to let her help, saying he wanted to do this for her as repayment for the night she’d cooked for him, she asked to take a quick shower.
“You naked in my tub?” he asked, then, grinning, asked, “You think I’m going to say no?”
Rolling her eyes, she asked him to point her in the right direction.
