The First Kiss by Grace Burrowes

Author:Grace Burrowes
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sourcebooks, Inc
Published: 2014-12-03T21:11:42+00:00

Chapter 11

James’s SUV was warm when Vera climbed in, her side’s seat heater already toasty.

“Spring is just around the corner,” James said as she buckled up. “You can feel winter losing its grip almost by the day. Days are getting longer. Birds are coming back. Ground’s getting soft where the sun can get to it. This is one of my favorite times of year.”

“You miss the farm, don’t you?” Vera asked

“I go by the farm every day, most days twice.”

Maybe James was glad to be free of it?

“I didn’t realize the property was this close,” Vera said.

James was relaxed behind the wheel, making even driving an exercise in effortless competence.

“I wish the farm weren’t quite so near,” he said. “The property has been sold twice since we put it on the market, and my guess is whoever has their hands on it now is trying to hold on until development picks up again out this way. You warm enough?”

“Warm and full of delicious pancakes.” Vera let James turn the subject to what the girls might find to do, and what he and Mac would do with their Uncles’ Day Off.

“Mac will go into the office, and I will get ready for my piano lesson.”

“You can’t cram, James. It doesn’t work like that.”

“I’m not cramming. I’ll read Chopin’s nocturnes so I won’t have to suffer through them for the next few weeks, or maybe those Bach fugues. They’re nice and complicated.”

The fugues were also highly technical, all the passion in them going into their structure. Now that Vera had seen what emotion James was capable of—what caring—she was more bothered that he was so reserved with his music.

“Want to listen to something?” James asked.

“Something of mine?”

“You choose.” He gestured to a CD case between the passenger’s and driver’s seats. She flipped through them, pausing at a recording by Ashkenazy of the Chopin nocturnes and ballades.

She passed over that one without comment—a recent purchase, no doubt—and chose The Academy of St. Martin in the Fields orchestra performing Vivaldi. Cheerful, energetic, and beautifully nuanced, it made for a good start to the day.

They rode along without conversation for a few minutes until James spoke again.

“That used to be our property,” he said, nodding toward the right. “You can see the neglect. Nobody has graded the lane lately, the fences are getting tentative, the winter wheat went in late, and I haven’t seen any lime on the pastures in forever.”

Set back from the road about a quarter of a mile, the farmstead itself looked picturesque and serene. The house was a big gray fieldstone structure that might have been called a mansion in the proper setting. A few hundred feet from the house sat a stone bank barn with a tin roof, and a few scattered outbuildings, some also made of stone. The occasional stately oak punctuated a post-card pretty scene, even at the end of winter.

“What kind of cows are those?” Vera asked. They were stocky with a unique red-and-black brindle coat pattern.

“Limousine. A bit of a boutique breed for this region, but they’re handsome.

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