Chapter 93 93
Sherry lifted her face to the sky and inhaled the smell of wood smoke drifting from the chimney.
This place was somnolent, like Sleeping Beauty’s castle. Sherry turned to Justin. “Sometimes I think about starting and owning a working farm? I don't know if I would be able to do something like that. I know it's not easy work but it just seems so peaceful.”
He shaded his eyes with one hand as he looked around. “It does sound great, but I don't know if I would do something like that now. Maybe in the future. Maybe if one of my children takes an interest in agriculture.”
The way he said the word children hurt something deep in her chest. “How many do you want? Kids, I mean.”
He shrugged. “That will depend on my wife, I guess. But at least three. Maybe four.”
Four? Sherry felt faint.
When she was silent, he continued. “I have the means to support a big family. And I want a noisy house, not like where I grew up. By the time I was eleven, Mom quit making me go to a babysitter after school. I got off the bus and let myself in with a key we kept hidden under a rock in the backyard. She always left me snacks ready…lemonade in the fridge, fresh fruit and cookies. But I hated the silence when I went inside.”
He visibly shrugged off his preoccupation with the past. “I don’t want you to think it was a terrible childhood, ’cause it wasn’t. It wasn't all that bad. I guess Mom did the best she could with a rambunctious son who was pretty mischievous. I had plenty of friends in the neighborhood. So I spent a lot of time at their houses.”
“Tell me something, Justin,” she said, touched with compassion by the picture he painted. “How can you be so sure you won’t end up divorced like your parents? The statistics aren’t in your favor.”
He picked up a stick and hurled it, an almost palpable sense of frustration in the jerky motion. “For one thing, I’ve learned the difference between lust and love. And how important compatibility is.
That’s where people go wrong when they marry too young. They ignore the fact that attraction and wild sex are not a sound basis for long-term commitment. I guess I can’t be one-hundred-percent certain, but the reason I’ve waited this long to get married is so I can be sure of as many variables as possible.”
“Sure how?” Sherry kicked at a stone with her boot. This was an odd place for a serious conversation, but at least out here they weren’t likely to strip off their clothes and attack each other. Just the thought of it made her layers of clothing far too warm.
“My parents weren’t a great match from the beginning. I’m going to pick someone who shares my values, who wants what I want.”
And she didn't. It was probably why he had not pressed her on the topic of marriage after she had said no. He'd noticed it too, Sherry thought. It brought a lump to her throat for some reason.
“No offense, Justin, but you said that your dad’s workaholic nature was partly to blame for the divorce. Aren’t you like him in that way?” She wasn’t being mean. It was a fair question.
He unzipped his coat partway, pulled the hood back and ran his hands through his hair. In the bright sun she could see glints of red in his thick waves. “It’s true,” he said. “I work long hours. But that’s because I can. If I had a wife and kids at home, things would be different.”
“Mmm…”
His eyes snapped with displeasure. “You don’t believe me?”
“I think you’re pretty set in your ways. Are you expecting this paragon of a wife to stay home with the kids?”
“I hope she’ll want to…since finances won’t be an issue. The two of us will share responsibility for child-rearing, but it seems to work best when one parent stays home to give the kids security.”
She couldn’t argue with that. Her mother had not been around, and her dad, though she'd loved him dearly, hadn't been the cuddly type. The existence Justin described was very appealing. As long as he acknowledged that his wife would surely have dreams outside of simply being a mother. Somehow, she thought he would. Despite any evidence to the contrary, Justin was not a chauvinist.
“Well,” she said, feeling depression settle like a pall over the day, “I wish you luck.”
Any last glimmer of hope that Justin might care for her in a deeper sense and that his proposal had nothing to do with getting back at her brother withered and died. The two of them were not compatible either. They wanted different things. They fought. She’d be a lousy mother. Even if she were willing to put her career on hold and give him multiple babies, the picture would fall apart rapidly.
When he wasn’t looking, she scooped up a handful of snow and shaped it into a ball. Pool wasn’t the only game she knew how to play. She wandered a few yards away. Justin was gazing up at the sky. Taking careful aim, remembering everything her brothers had taught her, she reared back and flung the sphere of snow as hard as she could.
Thwack? It couldn’t have been a more perfect bull’s-eye. The snowball caught the side of Justin's neck, disintegrated from the force of the hit and slid messily into the open collar of his shirt.
“Hey,” he shouted indignantly. “No fair.”
She grinned. “You’re the one who said we needed exercise.”
Rapidly, she scooped up more handfuls of snow, creating her ammunition and taking cover. Justin's glare promised retribution. He amassed an arsenal as well, only instead of huddling behind a barrier like her, he stacked his snowballs on a small wall and climbed up beside it. Now he had the advantage of higher ground.
When he turned to put one last projectile on his growing pile, Sherry shot to her feet, threw three snowballs in quick succession and crowed when every one of them hit the intended target. Justin's hair was coated in white, and he had to wipe snow from his mouth.
Revenge was swift and targeted. Too late, she remembered that Justin pitched for his college baseball team. A hailstorm of snowballs descended on top of her. She huddled into her coat, pulled the hood down tight and waited him out.
Inevitably, he ran out of ammo. Now it was her turn.