She petted Leon with her finger and spoke softly to him. He was a quiet creature. He wasn’t a very good substitute for a sister, but he was a good listener.

She thought about Pete. She always thought about Pete. Sometimes she could think about him for three or four days without even thinking of other things. Sometimes she noticed him staring at her, and it would send her heart soaring. She looked at him the same way and hoped it made his heart feel the same way. But then he wouldn’t even talk to her. She couldn’t understand him. Long ago they had been best friends. Now they were people leading separate lives on the same farm.

Pete had changed. He’d become so painfully quiet around her that sometimes he’d blush when she spoke to him. She was seventeen, and that was practically old enough to vote. But sometimes he treated her like a child.

She wondered if Pete ever thought about her. She sighed. She wished for things. And she wished against things too. She wished against the possibility that he would one day find some beautiful girl and leave the Warner farm, just like Reese did. If that were to happen, she would never recover from such heartbreak. It would surely kill her. But every day she feared it. She worried that he didn’t care for her.

At the sound of a vehicle, she opened her eyes and saw a truck in the distance, loping up Miss Warner’s long dirt driveway. A trail of dust followed behind. It was Paul’s truck. It circled the long driveway and parked before the porch.

Ruth wandered toward the porch edge.

Vern stepped out of the passenger side first. His face was lit up like a flame. “You gonna wanna see this, Ruthie,” he said, big teeth showing.

Ruth placed Leon on the ground and leapt off the porch.

“See what?”

“Just come here, right over here.”

“What . . . what?”

“Just come on.”

She ran toward Vern, barefoot in the dust. Vern reached into the flatbed of the truck, beneath a tarp. With both hands, he lifted something that yelped. He brought out a puppy in his arms. He balanced the animal against his chest. “We got us some new friends,” he said.

She shouted, “Ohboypuppiespuppiespuppies! Ohboypuppies!”

This made Paul and Vern erupt with laughter. After only a few moments, she’d touched each and every puppy they’d brought home. Ruth bathed herself in puppies. She let them crawl on her and nibble her ears. She pressed her nose into their puppy fur and smelled their silky coats. She let them lick her face until they’d made her skin raw.

Pete ran his hand along the smooth fur of a black-and-tan puppy Ruth held against her shoulder. Pete was close enough that she could smell the sweat on his hair. He touched the puppy with such gentleness it made her heart hurt.