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for a small town lawyer, so a lot of the time I
help the Erickson family out in the fields." A little more of her
wall was breached when he spoke so lovingly and passionately about
his family, his farm, and his job. This man truly loved everything
about his life. He was faithful and loyal. That explained a lot
about his insistence on working at their marriage. It was very
telling of who he was.
    "You rent to the Erickson’s then?"
    "Yeah, about half of our land, the other half
we rent to the Parks, I help them occasionally, but they hire help
too. Todd Erickson and his wife, Anna are really good people. Todd
has always been like a big brother to me, they’re a great couple,
and their kids are amazing, they have ten, and she’s pregnant
again." She felt her eyes go wide.
    "Eleven kids? Why?" He shrugged,
    "Because God gave them eleven kids, I
suppose. The oldest six are adopted. They didn’t think they could
have children, so they did foster care, and ended up adopting,
during their last adoption Anna found out she was pregnant with
twins." She couldn’t envisage having eleven kids. Is that what he
expected, a whole houseful of kids? At this point, she didn’t know
if she would or could ever give him children. He said he’d give her
time, and that’s what she needed. Time to think and figure out what
she needed, and what she was capable of giving him, if
anything.
    "They sound like great people."
    "They are. We buy our eggs and meat from
them."
    "You don’t buy your groceries at the store?"
She was suddenly filled with images of Little House on The Prairie
style living. He wouldn’t expect her to put in a garden and bake
bread, would he?
    "Some of them, but other things are better
straight from the source. We always had chickens and a few hogs and
cattle to butcher growing up. When both Julia and I left home my
parents stopped raising their own and started buying off of Todd
and Anna, they really need the money, and I prefer the taste." He
shrugged, so this was her new life. Farm fresh eggs and eating meat
from animals that she’d probably get to meet first.
    "How does that work? Every time you need
more, you call?" He let out a small chuckle at her naivety.
    "We let them know when we’re getting low, and
how much we want, no less than a quarter of the animal, and when
they take one to slaughter they let us know. We have a few deep
freezers for storing the meat. We always have plenty."
    "That’s interesting….so, tell me more about
your family, do you just have one sister, then?" He nodded,
    "Yes, they just had the two of us, they
wanted a big family, but God had other plans. Julia is two years
younger than I am, she married her husband, Steven right out of
high school, and they moved to Maine shortly after. They eloped
too, my mom was livid; she’s going to hit the roof when she finds
out about us doing the same thing." He laughed and shook his head,
"Be warned; she’ll accuse us both, me more heavily, of taking away
her only other chance at seeing one of her ‘babies’ get married."
She swallowed hard, she hadn’t even thought about how his family
and friends would play into this whole mess. She let out a deep
breathe.
    "Sorry to interrupt, I just thought about,
um, well," she swallowed again "how, your, um, family and friends
will play into all of this…will they be in on our secret, or will
we just act like everything’s okay? See, another thing we didn’t
think about!"
    He put a hand up to stop her; "Just calm
down, Aria, I did think about this. I’m going to leave it up to
you, if you want them to know that we’re in a platonic
relationship, that’s up to you. If you want to just let them think
what they will, that’s your choice, too. I want you to be
comfortable with every single step in our relationship, no matter
how big or small. For the record, they’re our family now." A
family. That’s something she never thought she’d have again, not
that they would replace her own, they might not