Page 57 of While the Sun Shines

“Reminds me of you,” he says, and there, that’s better as she laughs.

Lucy gently swats Drew on the head, smiling too. Joking with his family, Penny not jerking away from him—this is good that he came here.

And then Uncle Bert steps outside, and Drew’s chest freezes again.

“Drew.” Bert holds out his arms as Lucy lets him go. White hair, white beard, and hands still rough and chapped like he just got finished with a day’s farm work. Drew hugs him as Bert claps him on the back.

“What’re you doing off the farm, kid?” Bert asks.

“Day off.” Drew’s face heats as he says it. Bert never, not once, missed milking. And here Drew is half a state away from the barn, the afternoon edging toward evening, and clearly, someone else is going to be shuffling the cows through their milking stalls.

“The rest of the herd is going to file out of Drew’s Jeep like a clown car,” Julie says. “Didja bring the chickens too? Hey, where’s Sadie? Or is she running things with you gone?”

“Of course she is,” Drew gets out.

“Everything must be going well for you to be here,” Bert says.

Right, ’cause the other reason would be that Drew just up and took off. Asked Cooper and Whit to cover for him yet again. Which Bert must know—the rest of it, too, that Drew’s mad juggling of the family farm has him dropping balls, one after the next. The sheep, the waiting cheese orders, trying desperately to keep the house standing, the same house where his dad, Bert, and Lucy all grew up, where Julie spent holidays and summers, where the family still gathers every fall, Bert and Mary driving up north to visit.

Drew’s hands are clammy, though some part of him feels like he’s been sweating since the first time Bert called him into the kitchen to show him the house he and Mary had found in Florida.

You got this, Bert had said that last morning, mist rising over the fields as Mary packed the final suitcases into their car. I don’t, Drew should’ve said then. He didn’t and he doesn’t now.

“Food?” Penny asks him, poking his side until he steps forward into the house.

“Are you—” He licks at his lips. Focus, he tells himself. Penny. Not the farm, not the seething spin of worry in his stomach. Not the fact that he’s so sure Bert can see right through him, straight to the mess Drew drove away from that morning. “Are you hoping to start with the awful grocery store cake or do you want actual food first?”

Penny props her hands on her hips. “Wow. Andrew Madison.”

“What’d you do?” Aunt Lucy asks in a loud whisper. She grabs Drew by the waist, peering past him at Penny. “What’d he do? Tell me. It was awful. I just know it.”

“First, he insulted the world’s best baked good,” Penny says.

Aunt Lucy lets out a loud gasp. “Drew!”

“Second, he presumed the answer about cake and burgers was one after the other, not both at the same time.”

Lucy hugs Drew tight enough he grunts. “What were you, raised on a damn farm?”

“Seriously,” Penny says.

“And third,” Lucy plucks at his shirt and his pockets. “Third, Drew, did you not bring any cheese with you?”

“One plate of food, coming right up,” he says, twisting away from Aunt Lucy and threading through the throngs of guests for the kitchen.

When Drew gets back, he finds Penny and Julie on the couch, their feet up and beer bottles resting on their knees. He holds out the two plates filling his hands, loaded with burgers, a beer bottle hooked under his finger, and a smaller plate bearing a giant piece of cake balanced on top.

“Don’t mind if I do,” Julie says, reaching for one of the burgers.

“That was also for Penny,” Drew says. “Pen, I didn’t know how hungry you were.”

“Get yourself a girl who can eat,” Julie says and bites into the burger. “Thank you.”

“M’gonna want a hot dog also, but later,” Penny says.

“Me too,” Julie says. “Now go away so we can keep talking about you.”

“Funny,” Drew says. A smile quirks Penny’s lips. Drew feels his cheeks color. “And, no, shove over.”