She wore cutoff shorts, a white sleeveless shirt, the tails tied under her breasts, and a blue bandanna on her head. Levi felt a generic stir of lust. Nothing personal, Holland, he thought. He’d been stealing looks at her chest since he was fourteen.

The dog ran over to him, tail wagging, and barked once, then collapsed, rolling on his back. “Hey, buddy,” Levi said, rubbing the beast’s stomach.

Faith shaded her eyes and looked at him. “Hi,” she called tentatively. “What are you doing?”

“Tying up vines. You?”

She smiled. “Same thing.” She held up an apron, then tied it on. “My sister’s cracking the whip.” She paused. “I guess Smiley likes you.”

Smiley. Leave it to Faith Holland to have a dog named Smiley. Speaking of, the dog apparently had had enough of a scratch, because he leaped up and went romping through the vineyard rows, tail waving.

Faith, however, came to within two rows of where he was, and he braced himself for questions about Jeremy, or an explanation, or a discussion. Girls, he well knew, liked to talk about their feelings until they had nothing left to say, at which point they’d start repeating themselves.

Instead, she bent over and started doing exactly what he was. Except she was better at it. The apron held twist ties, and she didn’t have to check each shoot the way he did. She was kind of a pro, actually.

And when she bent over, there was that mighty rack on display. He didn’t have a lot of use for Faith Holland, but, man, that was a nice pair.

She glanced up. Busted. “I thought you were more of the princess type,” he said as explanation. “Run out of townies to do the grunt work?”

She just laughed. “If you’re a Holland, you’re a farmer,” she said. “If you’re a farmer, you work. You don’t just gaze out over the fields and sip wine.” She gave him a knowing look and twisted on another tie, her fingers fast and clever.

“Guess I was wrong.”

“Guess you were.”

She bent over again, and the lust felt much less generic. “So this is the property line, huh?” he asked.

“Yep. See that stone marker up there? That’s what divides Blue Heron from Lyon’s Den.” She secured three vines while she was talking, reminding him to drag his eyes off her br**sts and get back to work.

She moved steadily, bending, sometimes kneeling, holding a cluster of the dusky grapes in her hand from time to time, and somehow, out here in the field, everything she did looked unabashedly sexual. She was soft and round and sweaty now, her red hair in pigtails, basically any male’s fantasy of a farm girl.

Jeremy’s girlfriend, dude, his conscience chided.

Except they weren’t together anymore.

“So how you doing, Holland?” he asked, surprising himself.

She glanced over at him, then stood up, taking the bandanna off her head and wiping her face, then retying it. Yep. Everything she did looked like she was on a Penthouse photo shoot. Except for the clothes. If she’d take off the clothes, things would be perfect.

Damn.

“I’m fine. Thanks for asking.”

What did he ask? Oh, right. Jeremy. Maybe he’d finally come out of the closet. Or maybe she’d guessed.

“When do you leave for basic training?” Putting her hands on the small of her back, she stretched, her br**sts straining against her shirt.

“Uh, July twentieth.”

“Are you nervous?”

He started to say no and put forth some of the bravado expected. “A little,” he heard himself say. “I’ve never really been away before.”

“Me, neither.”

“You’re going to Virginia, right?”

“Virginia Tech. It seems like a great school, but now all I can think of is how far it is from here.” She gave him a funny little smile, half sad, half embarrassed.

“You’ll do great. Everybody likes you.” Aw. Wasn’t he being super-sweet?

“Not everybody,” she said, twisting those little ties with amazing speed.

“No?”

“You don’t.”

Well, shit. “Why do you say that?” he asked.

She laughed. “It’s pretty obvious, Levi,” she said. “You think I’m spoiled and irritating and ditzy. Am I right?”

Right now, I think you’re edible. But yeah, I think you should be able to tell the difference between a straight guy and a g*y guy. “Pretty much.”

“Well, you’ve always been a snob.”

“Me?”

“Yeah,” she said.

“You’re the one with the big house on the Hill.” He tied up a vine.

“Doesn’t make me a snob.” She flipped a braid over her shoulder.

“And I am?”

“Yeah.” Her voice was matter-of-fact. “You never talked to me till this year, and even then, it’s only because of Jeremy. And even then, only when you have to.”

He didn’t answer, just tied up another vine. “So everyone has to adore you, is that it?”

“No. But we’ve known each other since third grade. We were both in that special reading club that Mrs. Spritz had, remember? And I invited you to our Halloween party.”

Oh, yeah. Pumpkin carving and apple bobbing and a haunted hay ride. That’d been a fun night, even if it had been weird, being in the famed Holland house. “Right.”

“But I wasn’t cool enough for you to talk to. And when my mother died, you were the only one in our class not to write me a note.”

He felt his face flush. “Quite a memory you got there, Holland,” he muttered, tying up a few more branches.

“Well, you always remember people who hurt your feelings.”

Oh, the poor little drama queen. “So you wanted to come to the trailer park and play?”

“One time,” she continued, “I sat next to you at lunch, not to be near you, just because it was the empty seat next to Colleen. And you got up and moved, like you couldn’t stand to sit near me.” She stood up and put her hands on her hips, and the lust stirred again, even as she was listing his sins. “So.” Her voice was calm with just a little edge to it. “Who’s the real snob here, Levi?”

Girls. Way too complicated. He missed Jess, who more or less used him for sex. At least she was direct. He bent over and tied up another dangling vine, lifting up the grapes carefully. “You’re not very smart in the ways of the world, are you, rich girl?” he asked.

“I wouldn’t say that.”

He gave her a look. “I would.”

“Why?”

He remembered how she and her mother used to come down to West’s Trailer Park once in a while with a bag of clothes for Jessica. Lady Bountiful and her little angel, visiting the poor. Sometime around fifth grade or so, he’d found Jess hiding in the little cave of scrub bushes they used as a fort, waiting for the Hollands to leave. She’d been crying. Even then, he understood. Being poor was one thing; having the people on the Hill decide you were their charity case was another. Levi’s mom may have had to work two jobs, and money was always a worry, but they’d done okay. Scrappy, his mom liked to say.

But the Dunns had been truly poor. Food stamps and electricity turned off kind of poor. No way they could turn away a bag of nice clothes and coats. Small wonder Jess hated Faith.

His silence seemed to make Faith mad. She grabbed a vine with gusto, her movements sharp, rather than flowing now. “It’s funny that you think we’re rich. We’re not. We’re not even close.”

“I grew up in a trailer, Faith. Your idea of rich and mine are pretty different.”

“Which made it okay for you to hate me all these years.”

“I don’t hate you, for crying out loud.”

“No. You just ignored me and made me feel like a lump, and God forbid we should ever be friends.”

“You wanna be friends? Fine. We’re friends. Let’s play Barbies and go to the movies.”

She rolled her eyes and bent down to tie another vine. “I never understood why Jeremy thinks you walk on water. I think you’re a jackass.”

“Now, see? I want to be friends, and you’re calling me names.”

“Jackass.”

“Does this mean no tea party later on?”

She glared. He grinned.

And then she blushed, her cheeks growing pink, color staining her throat and chest. Her eyes fluttered down his bare torso. Then she jerked her gaze back to the vine and fumbled for a tie. Dropped it.

Well, well, well. Levi’s smile grew.

“You’re doing a crappy job,” she said, glancing back at his row. “You need to use more ties, or the grapes will be too heavy, and you’ll lose the fruit.”

“Is that right,” he murmured. Actually, his work had gotten spotty only since she’d arrived.

She came over to his row and demonstrated. “This one, see, it’s off the ground for now, but when the grapes mature, they’ll get too heavy. See?”

“Yep.” She smelled like grapes and vanilla and dirt and sunshine and sweat. The stir of lust became a throb.

“Tie it up higher,” she said, kneeling down to demonstrate. Faith Holland, on her knees in front of him. How could he not picture what he was picturing? “Just go back along what you’ve already done and make sure you got everything.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said. Her shirt brushed his ribs as she stood up and went back to her row.

Keep your eyes to yourself. And get going. The Lyons are paying you. You can jerk off later.

The mental advice worked for an hour.

She was much faster and steadier than he was, he had to give her that. He looked at the sky, which was a perfect, endless blue, and decided it was time to eat.

“You want some lunch, rich girl?” he called. She was twenty yards or so ahead of him.

“I brought my own,” she answered.

“Then do you want to eat with me? Now that we’re BFFs?”

“Such a jackass.”

“Is that a yes?” He lowered his chin and gave her a patient look, something that had always worked well with girls.

“Sure,” she grumbled.

Hey, idiot, his brain chided. She was dating your best friend a few days ago. What are you doing?

But the facts were blurring fast. First of all, there was the whole Jeremy-shouldn’t-be-dating-a-girl thing. Speaking of Jeremy, he wasn’t even in the Empire State at the moment. Then there was the breakup, or whatever they wanted to call it.

And let’s not forget the sight of a dewy and dirty Faith Holland in cutoff jeans and a shirt tied under her generous chest, and the fact that she was irritated with him, which Levi had learned generally meant a girl was interested.

She came over to him, taking out her braids and retying her hair in a ponytail. “There’s a nice place about five minutes from here. By the falls. Do you know it?”

He shook his head, looking at her steadily. She had blue eyes. He never really noticed before. Freckles.

She swallowed.

Oh, yeah. Faith Holland was feeling some feelings.

“Come on, then,” she said. They walked up to her father’s truck, the dog running ahead. Levi grabbed his shirt from where he’d dropped it and pulled it on.

John Holland’s truck smelled pleasantly of old coffee and oil, just as dirty inside as the outside, the dashboard and seats covered in dried mud and dust. Smiley jumped, his feathery tail hitting Levi in the face. “Sit, pooch,” he said, and the dog obeyed, his furry side pressed against Levi’s arm. Seemed like the Hollands always had a Golden retriever or two. There was always one in their brochures.

“You guys breed these monsters?” he asked Faith as she started the truck and put it in gear. The fact that she could drive a made-in-America pickup truck with a standard transmission only increased her hot factor.

“We belong to the Golden Retriever Rescue League,” she answered. Smiley licked her face as if thanking her.

“Just another act of mercy from the great Holland family,” Levi said.

“Jeesh! Stop being such a pain or I’ll push you out of the truck and eat your lunch.”

The truck jolted and rocked over the grassy, rutted paths that ran between fields, causing Levi to practically crack his head on the roof of the truck (but also treating him to a great view of Faith’s bouncing cleavage). After about five minutes, they stopped at the edge of a field that was being cleared...the Holland family owned a ton of land. Woods were thick on one side.

Faith grabbed a blanket from behind her seat and a thermal lunch box (Hello Kitty, could’ve called that one). The dog raced off into the woods, and she followed on the little path without waiting for Levi.

Birds called and fluttered in the branches. From somewhere not too far away came the rush and splash of a stream. Levi tried to imagine looking out and seeing land, acres and acres of field and forest, all the way down to the lake, and knowing it was yours, and had been in your family since America had been a baby. Levi’s mother’s family was from Manningsport, too, but there were people who’d been around, and then there were founding families.

Over to the left was the ruin of an old stone barn, the rocks covered in lichen. A sapling grew in the middle, the roof long gone.

“You coming?” Faith called from up ahead.

Thick mounds of moss blanketed the ground, and the leaves were so green the air seemed tinted with it. They passed a huge grove of birch trees, the white bark glowing, and the edges of hemlocks brushed Levi’s cheek as he walked. He slapped a mosquito, and a chipmunk peeped and ran across the narrow path.