Heart and Home (35 page)

I felt my stomach tighten
and clench with anticipation, not sure what to expect from a statement like
that. “Wh—what is it?”

“Well,” he began slowly,
reaching between us and taking my hands in his again. “I’m afraid we’re not
going to be able to spend much time together for the next few months.”

Confusion furrowed my brow
and my heard sped up a little, fluttering almost nervously in response to that
admission. “Okay,” I nodded, not sure what else to say.

“Aren’t you even going to
ask me why?” He was grinning almost devilishly, a sparkle in his eye that made
me question what was going to come next.

“Why won’t be able to spend
much time together?”

He reached back onto the
desk behind him and grabbed a schedule, which he then pushed into my hands.
“I’ll be busy a little busy doing homework, that’s why.”

“What? You’re going back to
school?”

“Night classes at Penn
Tech,” he confessed excitedly. “I talked to my old advisor at Penn State and
she pulled a few strings for me. I’ll be starting in a couple of weeks. It
might take a little longer to get my degree only doing night classes, but…”

“But nothing, that’s… that’s
wonderful, Troy! Wow! This so exciting.”

“It is, isn’t it?”

“What made you change your
mind?”

“I don’t know,” he shrugged.
“I kept thinking about what you said before, when I came to see you in the
beginning of the month and… It feels silly, not finishing what I started. For
so long I thought taking over the farm meant giving up every part of myself
that defined who I was, but I see now there’s no reason I can’t do it on my own
terms.”

“So it’s not because you’re
worried I think you’re some uneducated hick?” I tilted my head, knowing that
was a possible sore subject.

“Nope, I’m doing it for me.”

“Wow,” I marveled, silently
thanking the power of that waning moon Lydia’s psychic steered me toward. “It
looks like both of us are going to be pretty busy. We’ll barely even see each
other once you start classes and I get approval from the bank and make an offer
on the
Standard
building.”

“Well, we could see each
other plenty if you took me up on my offer to move in here,” he pointed out,
raising his brow with a tempting grin. “No pressure,” he added when I didn’t
say anything at first. “I’ll wait forever if that’s what you want me to do.”

“I won’t make you wait
forever,” I shook my head and stepped up to him, slinking my arms around his
waist. “Just a couple months while I get all this career stuff sorted out.”

I could almost hear Becky
humming about how nice a spring wedding would be and how great she’d look in
pastels. I wanted to call her right away and tell her everything that happened
to me that day, including the liberating feeling I’d woke with after telling my
mother’s spirit I’d be okay if she let go, but it would have to wait until
morning when I had a moment to myself.

Still, as soon as she heard
Troy turned his attic into an office space for me to use, she was never going
to let it go. She’d probably follow me around chiming wedding bells everywhere
we went.

“I guess I can live with
that now that we’re both in the same zip code. It’d be easier to settle on if I
could at least tempt you into spending the night every once in a while. Like
say, tonight, maybe?” He gestured over his shoulder, toward the bedroom at the
bottom of the stairs. “That bed’s bigger than the one in the apartment, and
it’s been pretty lonely without you.”

“I think I can be persuaded
into falling for that temptation.”

Lifting slightly on my toes,
I found his kiss, and relaxed against his chest when his arms came around me.

Troy felt like home, which
was strange because I hadn’t known what home felt like for so long I almost
didn’t recognize it, but he was it.

I thought I knew what my
future held when I’d been living in Pittsburgh, slave to my job and Cal Rogers’
insistence that in order to be somebody you couldn’t get attached to anybody,
but I knew better now. When I came back to Sonesville, Troy was there every
time I thought about running back to the city, and being with him made it
harder and harder to leave each time I visited until it hit me that I was home
wherever my heart was, and my heart belonged with Troy.

And maybe the future wasn’t
exactly clear for the first time in my life, but that was okay because I knew
Troy would be there, and my dad and Becky too, and whatever came we’d face it
all together.

Hardships, joys, laughter
and tears, maybe one day we’d actually have that wedding Becky kept pestering
me about, and after that maybe a family, too, but I’d let it all fall into
place the way it was meant to because I finally understood what my mother meant
when she said my father had been her last big adventure.

I was ready for an adventure
all my own, and I was going to take it with Troy. The best part about that was
I wouldn’t even have to leave Sonesville.

Smiling to myself as we
backed out of the attic and headed downstairs, I thought it was funny how
things had a way of working out. I’d never thought in the eight years I’d been
away that I would again call Sonesville home, and I certainly never imagined
I’d find anything that made me want to come back to that place. Flipping off the
light switch before following Troy down the steps, I could think of a dozen
reasons worth staying.