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The hayride wasn’t meant for pure enjoyht otherwise stay up half the night After the main course and dessert, the women headed to the kitchen for cleanup and coffee, while Grandpa, Annie’s brothers and the kids got out a variety of board gao back to Nate’s house, gather up her Christmas puppies and make some deliveries

Bundled up and on the way to her truck, she wandered around the house to the back The ht it lit up the farm The weathered barn in rusty red stood quiet She reoats, chickens, not to le one of the McKenzie kids had had big parties at the far a hole and fill it with hot coals to cook corn; hot dogs would be turned on the grill, and Rose would put out a huge bowl of potato salad and deviled eggs to die for The kids who cah the pastures, barn and woods They’d swing from the rafters of the barn on a rope and fall into a pile of hay, ride the horses, chase the goats She could re hills and pastureland

Soht, my own children and their friends will play here

She clion and lay down in the sweet hay, looking up at the sky It was clear, black, speckled with stars At thewith noise, but ordinarily it was so quiet in the country you could hear a leaf rustle a hundred yards away

The sound of a car approaching caused her to sit up, and she recognized the Dicksons’ truck, their nearest neighbors Another country custo ho for at least a cup of coffee Of course the McKenzies didn’t go visiting when the family was ho behind the Dicksons’--looked like the whole fa over She plopped back down on the hay, hoping to be invisible Once they all got inside, she’d take off She wasn’t feeling sociable

There was only one person she wanted to be with right now She hugged herself and tried to pretend his arms were--

"Annie? You out here?" Beau called from the back porch

Don’t answer, she told herself

"Annie!"

But her truck was parked out front "I’ in a second What?"

"I just wanted to knohere you are!" he yelled back

"Well, go away and leavethe stars!" And then more quietly she on e body flopped down next to her in the hay

"Aw, Beau, you jerk!" she nearly yelled She sat straight up, plucked straw out of her hair with a gloved hand and looked at the body next to her Not Beau Nathaniel lay facedown in the hay beside her "What are you doing here?" she asked in confusion

He turned his head to one side "I came back to sweep you off your feet, but I’ve been either flying or driving or hanging around airports so long that I’m too tired to roll over, et rinned "Thank you very o?" she asked

"I went I made it all the way to Miaely "I realized halfway there that I couldn’t go to the Bahamas without you, but they wouldn’t turn the plane around"

She was quiet for a second "You’ve lost your mind"

"Tell me about it," he said "What have you done to me?"

"Like this is ain "I was nor how et a nonstop I was up and down all day I had to go fro--I had to ride in the bathrooh She lay down in the hay beside him