The question made me halt in the doorway. No one had ever asked me that question. That couldn’t be right. I thought on it and decided it was right. Not even Greer had asked me. I guessed, however, my best friend just assumed she already knew the answer: I loved words. “I didn’t know I wanted to be an editor until I started working for the film mag. I just knew I wanted to be in publishing, to be surrounded by the written word. I can’t explain my love for words. Not well, anyway. They’re like a golden sunset across a tranquil sea, viewed from a run-down shack. They can turn even the most ordinary of feelings or thoughts into poetry.”

Roane smiled at me.

I shrugged, smiling back. “When I started working at the magazine, I realized an editor got to have a part in creating something interesting and meaningful. After I started taking on fiction writers as clients, I knew I loved that more than the magazine. Not only do I get to read books before everyone else, I get to read some pretty great books and help tighten the plots, make the characters richer, guide the author a little. It’s fun for a book nerd. That’s why I edit.”

Roane considered me with a soft look on his face that was becoming familiar. “Good. Everyone should love what they do for a living.”

“Yeah. Except I no longer do it for a living. And book editing on the side merely supplemented my income.”

The farmer was quiet for a second or two as we pulled out plates and put the roast chicken sandwiches onto them.

“Coffee?”

“Aye, please,” he said, taking a third bag I hadn’t seen out of his jacket pocket. Seeing my questioning gaze, he nodded to Shadow. “I’m quite strict about what he eats, but every now and then he gets a wee treat.” After rummaging in the cupboards, Roane produced a dog bowl. Obviously, the apartment was pet friendly. Penny seemed to think of everything. Roane opened the bag and removed slices of deli meat. “Corned beef from the butcher.”

I laughed at the way the dog’s eyes grew huge as Shadow dug the side of his head into Roane’s waist, waiting impatiently.

Roane broke it up into pieces and put it into Shadow’s bowl. “Good boy,” he said affectionately as he set the bowl on the ground. Then he sat down at the counter like he had this morning.

Warmth suffused me at his proximity, and I was just about to ask him if farming made him happy, when he asked, “Why don’t you make a career out of it? Book editing?”