“You think you’re so brave,” said Walter. He crossed the loft and reached up for the bottle. A shock of electricity surged through him as their fingers touched, and he jerked his hand away.

Kate smiled coyly. “Scared of that little spark between us, are you?”

She leaned down and kissed him, her mouth sweet with the taste of brandy. Walter let his lips linger on hers, and then forced himself to pull away. Of course Kate knew that Walter was in love with her. It had never been much of a secret. And this was not the first time they had shared kisses in the hayloft – or the Parker woodshed, for that matter, or the front seat of Walter’s truck on the days when he drove her home from school. But he also knew that he was not the only one she was taking to the back of the barn, or getting rides home with. And he had promised himself he wouldn’t be one of many. Not anymore.

“What’s wrong?” Kate asked, running her finger along his collar.

Walter shrugged her off. “Nothing.”

“It doesn’t seem like nothing.”

“It just seems like you have that spark with a lot of people.” Walter could hear the humiliating whine in his voice, like a petulant child who finds someone else playing in his sandbox.

“You’re so uptight, Walter,” she said. “You need to stop taking everything so seriously.”

“Maybe you need to start taking some things more seriously.”

“Like you?”

“Like us.”

Kate took a final swig from the brandy bottle and tossed it into the hay. “Oh, I am very serious about us,” she said, turning to look out the opening across the farm. She was so beautiful, standing there in the loft door, her hair a tangle of curls backlit by the mellow evening sun. Maybe I’m going about this all wrong, Walter thought. She was a free spirit. She did what she wanted, and she didn’t care what other people thought. Neither should he.

“Marry me,” he said, feeling his face grow hot with adrenaline.

Kate laughed, turning back to face him. “Well of course I’m going to marry you.”

“You are?”

“Yeah. I mean, eventually. When I’m ready to get married and settle down.”

“When will that be?”

“I don’t know. Sometime. You don’t want us to turn out like our parents, do you?”

Walter thought of his own parents – civil enough to each other but sleeping in their separate beds, avoiding each other in the morning, arguing about who paid the mortgage or swept the floor – and concluded it would take a crazy turn of events to turn him and Kate into them. “I don’t see what that has to do with anything,” he said.