Page 38 of While the Sun Shines

Because it has to be.

And besides, the hay’s raked into neat windrows. And sure enough, there’s the baler waiting for them. No farm truck or rake, so Whit must be on his way back to the barnyard with them. Good, he’ll be back again with the hay wagon. He’s always got a plan, Whit does. Like Drew needs. Needed.

Because he should’ve put an effort into getting over Penny a long time ago. Not just brooded over his feelings for her on the thin thread of longing, a half-formed idea that something might materialize, a day would come when everything changed like a poof of magic blowing into his life, that she’d hurdle the gulf of friendship between them and draw him forward into something more.

“Or it’s not fine, but it will be,” Drew says.

“Drew,” Cooper says again.

“What fucking other choice do I have? I’ll get over her. Right. Right?”

“Drew,” Cooper says, louder this time.

“I will. Eventually. ’Cause it’s not like in your stupid twenty-year timeline, I’ll be standing here still in love with Penny, no fucking way.”

“Drew,” Cooper says softly. Slowly, he points behind Drew.

Drew freezes. Closes his eyes.

“What the hell?” Penny asks.

Drew’s heart is stopped. Or racing. Or both. Simultaneously turning his blood to sludge in his veins and flowing through him so hot and quick that his palms are sweating and his fingers are numb.

“Drew?” Penny asks.

Slowly, he turns. And there she is, just behind him. Not helping Whit tow the hay wagon out here. Not off somewhere with Abelardo. Just standing right there, her mouth open and her eyes on him.

Drew scrambles a step backward. “I gotta—the baler. Hay.”

“Of course.” She gapes at him. “Of course. The fucking hay.”

“Wait, wait,” Cooper says and grabs for his arm, but Drew twists free of him. Turns and jogs toward the baler. His face is on fire. He feels sick.

With clumsy hands, he pops open the plate on the baler that covers the rolls of baling twine, checking it, and then checking it again, like Whit might’ve possibly set it up incorrectly. A single shear bolt is screwed into place. It must be the last one on the farm and Whit had neatly, perfectly installed it before bringing the baler out here. The weak link in the chain, designed to break before anything more important does, his uncle had explained to him, back when Drew had to stand on his tiptoes to see into the guts of the baler.

“Drew,” Cooper calls toward him.

But Drew just climbs up into the tractor and turns the engine on. Lets the noise wash over him and pretends the heat on his face is the warmth of the day.

That didn’t just happen. No, he and Cooper walked out here and had an inconsequential chat on the way, and now Drew’s haying. Penny didn’t hear what he said because Drew didn’t say anything.

So that didn’t happen.

He can’t even look at the side of the field, where she’s standing with Cooper, staring at him.

Drew lines up the tractor and baler with the first windrow and listens for the telltale thump of the first flake being pressed into shape. The second thump, the third—perfect. Thump, thump, thump, and the spring of the tines as the baling twine encircles the flakes, and then the heavier whump as the baler spits out its first bale, all neatly pressed grass, right angles, and the correct tension of the twine.

One down, Drew thinks.

Behind him, the baler lurches. He twists to look back, but it grinds its way through the hiccup and spits out another perfectly formed bale.

Another lurch. And that same grind of metal on metal. Quickly. Drew eases up on the throttle, casting a look backward, even as he turns the steering wheel in a slow arc to follow the edge of the field.

He waits for the thump of the flakes crashing together, but it doesn’t come. And the pressure of turning only seems to irritate the baler more, the grinding rising to a clamoring squeal.

And then it stops. And something pops, loud enough to hear it over the roar of the tractor’s engine.

No, no, no. He jams in the clutch, throws the tractor into neutral, and jumps down.