Free A Second Harvest by Eli Easton Page A

that’s okay to ask?”
    “Thirty. My youth is behind me, alas.”
    “You’re thirty? I thought you were closer to Joe’s age. I would have guessed twenty-four or five at the most.”
    “Thank you?”
    “Even so you’re still just a pup.”
    “I guess it’s all relative.” Christie smiled wryly. “How old are you, David?”
    “Forty-one.” He ducked his head down when he said it like he was… what? Embarrassed? Lying? Christie didn’t think he was lying; he had no reason to. Maybe he didn’t feel his age.
    “That’s pretty young to have two grown children.”
    “It’s not that young. I was twenty when my oldest, Amy, was born.”
    “Most twenty-year-olds are still trying to decide on a major.”
    David looked out the window. “By the time I was nineteen, I was married and running this farm full-time.” It was a statement that might have been said with a prideful tone, but it wasn’t. There was a weariness to it that made Christie’s stomach clench.
    “Why? What about your dad?”
    “He died when I was a senior in high school.” David tore off a piece of naan and dredged up some sauce with it. “He was only fifty-eight. Had a massive heart attack while driving the tractor. Died almost instantly, they said. I had to drop out of school to run the farm full-time.”
    “That’s terrible! Fifty-eight is so young.”
    “It is. He worked too hard, and he was… not a happy man.”
    “That must have been so hard, having that much responsibility so young and dealing with your dad’s death too.”
    David shrugged, but his neck got bright red, as if he were feeling much more than he showed. “It wasn’t such a bad deal for me. The teachers at my school helped me finish my high school diploma from home, plus I got the farm. Most young adults have to work and save a long time to buy a house. When I got the farm, it was already paid off, plus I had job security to boot.”
    “It is a beautiful place,” Christie agreed, looking out the window. David was right. Christie knew a lot of people his age who were still searching for their path in life. Maybe being born with a path all laid out wasn’t such a bad thing. But his host didn’t have the vibe of a contented man.
    “Are you happy, David?” The minute Christie said it, he wished he hadn’t. He had a tendency to be too pushy, and that was a very personal question for virtual strangers.
    David blinked at him in surprise. “I’m… I guess I don’t think about it like that.” He looked down at his plate. “What about your family?”
    “My dad was a dentist, and my mom a teacher. I grew up in a small town too, in Illinois.”
    “Do you have brothers and sisters?”
    “Nope. Only child.”
    “Christie is an unusual name. Is your family Swedish or something?”
    Christie laughed. “Pretty all-American, really, though my dad has Swedish roots. It’s Christopher on my birth certificate, but my mom started calling me Christie when I was little, and it stuck. I tried a couple of times to get people to call me Chris, but it never lasted.”
    It brought back a wave of memory—himself in high school trying briefly, and pointlessly, to be more butch. But trying to change his name just made him more of a target, as if he were admitting shame about who he was. In the end he was just grateful if the other students didn’t call him faggot or fairy.
    “I like it. Christie . It’s… foreign-sounding. Italian maybe, like something in Latin.”
    Christie looked at David curiously. “Are you serious?”
    David shrugged, his cheeks going a little pink. “Do you see your parents much?”
    Christie was very careful to keep his voice light. “No. We’re not close.”
    David looked like he wanted to ask why not, but he didn’t. Thank goodness he wasn’t as blunt as Christie himself.
    “What about your mom?” Christie asked.
    “She lived with us for a while when the kids were little, then her older sister’s husband passed, so the pair of them moved