“That’s a blessing. You be more careful. Climbing trees, indeed! I thought I was joking. I don’t want my bridegroom broken, I’ll have you know.”

“I know.” He smiled, glancing around. Fawn realized that, miraculously, they were actually alone for a moment. He seemed to realize this at the same time, for he sat in the big wooden chair by the hearth and pulled her toward him. She climbed happily into his lap and raised her face for a kiss. The kiss went urgent, and they were both out of breath when their lips parted again.

She said gruffly, “They won’t be able to keep us apart much longer.”

“Not even with ropes and wild horses,” he agreed, his eyes glinting. His smile grew more serious. “Have you decided yet where you want us to be tomorrow night? Ride or bide?”

She sighed and sat up. “Do you have a partiality?”

He brushed her hair from her forehead with his lips, likely because he had a notable reluctance for touching her about the face with his hook. It turned into a small trail of kisses along the arches of her eyebrows before he, too, sat back thoughtfully. “Here would be physically easier. We won’t get to Hickory Lake in a day, still less in a couple of hours tomorrow evening. If we camped, you’d have to do most everything.”

“I don’t mind the work.” She tossed her head.

“There is this. We won’t just be making love, we’ll be making memories. It’s the sort of day you remember all your life, when other days fade. Real question, then, the only really important one, is what memories of this do you want to bear away into your future?”

Now, there was a voice of experience, she thought. Best listen to it. “It’s farmer custom for the couple to go off to their new house, sleep under the new roof. The party goes on. If we stay, I swear I’ll end up washing dishes at midnight, which is not what I want to be doing at midnight.”

“I have no house for you. I don’t even have a tent with me. It’ll be a roof of stars, if it’s not a roof of rain.”

“It doesn’t look like rain. This high blue weather this time of year usually holds for three or four days. I admit I prefer inn chambers to wheatfields, but at least with you there’s no mosquitoes.”

“I think we might do better than a wheatfield.”

She added more seriously, thinking about his words, “This place is chock-full of memories for me. Some are good, but a lot of them hurt, and the hurtful ones have this way of jostling into first place. And this house’ll be full of my family. Tomorrow night, I’d like to be someplace with no memories at all.” And no family.