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“I know. But it would be too risky.” Abby picked up the fork again.

“How so?”

Abby went to take a bite but put it down.

“Well, what if we still met, but the connection wasn’t as strong? I know myself, Quinn. I moved back here to get away from everything. I don’t know that I’d given up on love entirely when I did that, but I know I wasn’t planning on meeting anyone or even looking. If I would’ve bumped into you somewhere, I might not have given this a shot. And that’s assuming we would have met. In the other scenario, we didn’t, and I don’t like that, either. Had you asked me this when it first started, I might have answered differently, but I know what it’s like to kiss you now. The fact that we saw all oftheirfirst kisses when our lips first connected, doesn’t matter to me. It was after that… After that…”

“That the kiss got really good?” Quinn guessed.

Abby smiled over at her and said, “Really, really good.”

“Yeah? You want to do it again right now?”

“Yes. But you are not staining my comforter with blackberries, Quinn.”

Quinn set her pie on the table next to the bed by the coffee she hadn’t yet taken a sip of, and she took Abby’s plate from her and set it next to her own. She turned back to Abby and watched as the woman moved to slide down until her head was on the pillow.

“I thought you wanted to read this book tonight,” she said as she scooted over, resting her elbow on the bed and her head in her hand as she stared down at her.

“It can wait until tomorrow, can’t it?” Abby asked.

Quinn smiled at her before she leaned down and kissed her.

“Yeah, it can wait until tomorrow.”

???

Hours later, long after they’d fallen asleep but before the sun was up, Quinn’s eyes opened. At some point at night, Abby had been lying against her, and Quinn’s armhadbeen around her middle while they’d been asleep, cuddled together, but her arm was now flat on the bed, and Abby wasn’t there. Quinn rolled over, checked the clock on Abby’s table, noticed that it was only four in the morning, and sat up to see if Abby was in the bathroom. With no light under the door and the door closed, she guessed that she wasn’t.

“Abs?” she asked softly into the room, knowing that she’d get no answer.

Then, she slipped out from under the blanket, stood, ran her hand through her sleep-mussed hair, and made her way down the hall. She saw a light under one of the other rooms with a partially opened door and realized that she’d yet toget an actual tour of the house. She moved by the door and peered inside, finding Abby behind her desk, with only a small lamp providing light outside of the light given off by her laptop. She appeared to be in the zone, typing.

Quinn leaned against the wall next to the door and just watched her work. Abby was really beautiful when she concentrated, and Quinn wondered if this could be her future, her life. Days spent at her shop, doing the job she loved; nights watching Abby work, making out or, one day soon, making love, and talking about what they wanted for themselves and together.

After a minute, she decided to leave Abby alone and headed back to the bedroom, where she climbed back into bed, smelling blackberries and honeysuckle before she fell asleep once again.

CHAPTER 36

1507

From the first moment Agnes remembered, she’d been preparing. Her entire life was about helping her mother in the home and in the fields. Her father’s role was different, as was the role of her two older brothers, and Agnes knew that.

When she was fifteen, her mother had sat her down and told her that it would soon be time for her to marry. Her father would travel to another village to find her a husband, and after that, she would leave with him. Agnes would leave her home and her family behind, and she’d be expected to have children and take care of a house that wasn’t her home. Her brothers didn’t have the same worries. They were already eighteen and twenty years old, but no one was telling them to find a wife yet.Shewas expected to soon be one to someone, though.

Agnes didn’t want to marry a man. She didn’t want to marry anyone, really. Not sure exactly of what she wanted, she tried to focus on her chores and taking care of her family how her mother taught her. Due to a sickness that had spread in their own village, outside of her two brothers, there were very few men left who weren’t already married, so her father went from village to village, searching for someone to marry his only daughter and pay him the dowry, which the family desperately needed due to the fact that their farm hadn’t yielded much of what they needed themselves, let alone what they’d need to sell at the market.

When Agnes was eighteen, her father returned from yet another trip. She could tell by the look on his face when he pushed open the heavy wooden door and saw her that he’d been victorious this time. She was to be married to a man that she’d never met.

“He’s a merchant, and the dowry is a sizeable one. I told him that the women in our family line have always produced sons. You bore me two before a daughter, and both of them are healthy men now. We would have had more, too,” he said to her mother when they all sat around the table in the middle of the one-room cabin that was their home.

Agnes didn’t know why her family hadn’t had any more children. Many families in their village did, and it had been a good thing, too, because so many had perished when the sickness came sweeping through. Their family had been lucky to avoid it nearly entirely, with only her father getting a little sick.

“I told him that we were strong enough to get through the sickness, and he liked that his wife would carry his sons and that they would be strong.” Her father turned to her then. “Your sons will apprentice as merchants. That’s a good match made, Agnes.” He nodded resolutely.

“Thank you,” she replied because that was what she was supposed to say to her father, who had just found her future husband after years of searching.

The next day, Agnes walked the field. She had work to do, to be sure, and her mother would certainly be mad at her if it didn’t get done, but as Agnes stared off into the woods beyond her father’s land, she couldn’t help but think about it. Running. Running far away from her home and into the woods; away from everything and everyone. Living on her own and not having to marry, bear children, or care for them when she wanted none of that for herself. The hard work, Agnes didn’t mind. She could cook and take care of a house. She just wanted it to be a home that she loved, with someone whom she loved in it. While she loved her mother, and her brothers were fine, it wasn’t the same.