After passing it to him, I remember Carlos and mime zipping my mouth shut. “I’m all ears.”

“Pop and Grandad taught me to take care of the land because it’ll take care of your family.”

It’s not easy to keep my mouth shut because I have opinions, but my lips remain zipped.

“They may have been misled by companies like Congento; they may have been operating on now-debunked ideas. But their hearts were in the right place.”

I nod because I do believe this.

“Anyway,” he says, tossing up the ball without apparent effort. “You and Grandad were cut from the same cloth, so you’d butt heads no matter what.”

Letting Gomer run after the ball, I remain still until it seems like he’s really finished. “Sounds like you speak from experience.”

He snorts. “We’re all stubborn, know-it-all assholes, I guess. But we all care about this place.”

I can’t hold this one in, even though I probably should. “The difference for me is that I care about all the places. A lot has to change if we want this land to be here for our kids and their kids to survive. I want to take care of the earth so it feeds people for generations.”

“Yeah, well,” he says, kicking at the dirt, “we have to get it back from the bank before we can do any of that.”

Guilt twists in my gut like colic in a horse. I blow out a breath and do my best to backtrack. “I was going to tell you how impressed I am at how you’re running the family meetings, taking in everyone’s input before making a decision. I’m sorry I jumped down your throat.”

Ethan leans forward, cupping his ear. “Wait. I need to hear that again. I think I heard my stuck-up younger brother admit he was wrong.”

“I didn’t say I was wrong. I said I’m sorry.” I roll my eyes. “Sorry you’re getting so old you’re losing your hearing.”

“I may be older, but I’m still bigger and stronger, you string bean.”

Before I know it, Ethan’s got me in a headlock and is giving me an actual noogie. I’m laughing so hard I can’t break away at first, but thankfully, my dog comes to the rescue and side tackles him.

Ethan staggers to the side. “No fair. I don’t have a dog.”

“That’s a you problem.” I rush to pin his arms behind his back before he can catch his balance. “Take it back.”

“Take what back,” he says, laughing almost as hard as I am.

“String bean.”

“Stuck-up string bean, you mean.”

“Gah!” I yell, wrestling him to the ground. We continue to laugh as we roll over and over trying to pin each other.

“What in the Sam Hell is going on out here?”

Sam Hell is the closest thing to a curse word Gran ever uses. In the blink of an eye, we’re on our feet and backing away from each other, hands up. “Nothing.”

A giggle has my gaze flicking to Diane. She and Lia stand next to Gran, mouths hanging open.

“Nothing, ma’am,” Gran admonishes.

“Nothing, ma’am,” Ethan and I intone dutifully before breaking out in laughter again.

“You two have less sense than the good lord gave a goose,” Gran says, shaking her head and turning back toward the house. “I expect you both washed up and in the kitchen to help make dinner in twenty minutes.”

Grinning, I pick up the ball and stow it back in the barn office before catching up to Diane, who is scratching behind Gomer’s ears. Not sure if it was the basketball or the talk or the wrestling or the laughter, but I feel a billion times lighter than I did an hour ago.

Than I have for a long, long time. Maybe knowing that my brain is different isn’t such a bad thing. Maybe it’s how I do fit in, rather than why I don’t fit in.

I hold out a crooked elbow to Diane. “May I escort you to the house, madam?”

She raises a brow but hooks her arm in mine. “Only if you promise to meet me in the bedroom later.” Leaning closer, she fans herself. “Watching you two wrestle? That was hot.”

CHAPTER 18DIANE

Whenever I need to think, I climb a tree. This crabapple tree on Bedd Fellows Farm isn’t quite as inspiring as a Lady Apple or a Northern Spy, but it’ll do in a pinch.

Right now, I have a lot of thinking to do, mostly because I can’t say no to Ethel Bedd or her grandson. Or is it that I don’t want to say no to myself?

The point of creating my channel was to raise awareness around seed saving all over New York state. All over the country, eventually. But right now, Ethel’s got me focusing on one town. One hamlet.

Fork Lick has a surprisingly robust community doing a bang-up job fostering local varieties of plants. Every time I think I’ve exhausted video subject matter, Ethel’s got a new idea I can’t say no to. Like the video I shot this morning, which I should just give to Ethel to post. Her sheep may be an heirloom breed that provides incomparable wool, but she’s no seed.

I need to pack up and move on, but for the first time in my adult life, I want to put down roots. Like the tree I’m perched in. Where I’m wasting time playing a game instead of planning my next move.

“Is this a new camera technique you’re practicing? Shooting between the leaves?”

Peering down through the branches, I find Sam grinning up at me. I’ve cataloged most of this man’s expressions over the past week, but that beacon of light and warmth is one I’ll never get tired of.

One I’ll miss when I’m gone.

His eyes scan the trunk and lower branches, and before I know it, he’s clambered up to perch on the branch below mine. “Either this tree shrunk or I’m a lot bigger than I was the last time I climbed it.”

“I’m guessing it’s the latter.”

He plucks a crab apple and sniffs it. “Have you tried one?”

I shake my head.

“Do you dare me?”

What I’d like to dare him to do could be chanted on a playground, but if we get going, we might fall out of the tree. Before I can answer, he takes a bite.

“Yikes! Crab apples are way more sour than I remember too.” He shudders, dropping what’s left of the fruit like a hot potato, then looks around. “So if not picking apples, what’re you doing up here?”

“You caught me with my latest obsession.”

“I thought I was your latest obsession.” His tone is teasing, but there’s more truth to his words than I’ll admit.