“Good. Nothing too out of the ordinary.”
“You bored yet?” Flynn asked. “Wondering if you should have stayed and become a surgeon?”
“Not a minute.” I stuffed my hands in the pockets of my trousers. The evening was warm. I’d left my jacket back at the house. “This is what I wanted.”
“What you expected, then?” Josephine asked.
“Pretty much.” I squinted into the pink sunset. “There are more babies’ births than I expected even though Dr. Neal warned me that was a big part of the job out here.” We were at the pasture by then and stopped outside the gate. “Listen, I wanted to talk to you about Cymbeline.” I shared with them what had happened with the men. “She scares me. Papa and Mama seemed unconcerned, which I don’t understand.”
Flynn sighed as he leaned against a post. “To be honest, I don’t think they know what to do with her. We all expected her to come around to the idea of Viktor, but instead she frets about how restless she is. I thought she’d be happier when Poppy offered her a job, but I don’t know.”
My brother’s obvious worry made me feel a little better. At least I wasn’t the only who’d noticed that she seemed to be in trouble. “What do you think, Jo?”
“I think she should marry Viktor and stop acting like a little fool.”
“Never one to hold back, huh, Jo?” Flynn teased. “But I agree.” His gaze turned toward the southern mountain as if the answers were written in the trees. “I know that restlessness Cymbeline has—it’s in conjunction with a love for this place but also wondering if there is more out there.”
I nodded. “When we were kids, I always thought it would be me who left for good. You and Cym always loved it here so much. You were both ferocious in your love for this place.”
“I still feel that way,” Flynn said. “But also, you and I went away and saw parts of the world.”
“Fighting a war. I’m not sure that’s the kind of adventure Cym wants.”
Josephine made an impatient click with her tongue. “She told me she would have gone and become a nurse during the war if she could have. The girl has no idea what the world is like. It’s not so great out there.”
“Wouldn’t that have turned Papa old before his time?” I shook my head, thinking about how much havoc that would have wreaked upon our family. Flynn and I were bad enough.
“We’re not going to solve Cymbeline’s problems by fighting with her,” Flynn said. “She’s like me—has to figure it all out on her own.”
“She said she’s waiting for her adventure t
o call,” I said. “I have no idea what that means.”
“Love is the greatest adventure of all.” Flynn plucked a blade of the long yellow grass that grew inside the fence.
“Isn’t it, though?” Jo said. “I wish Cym could see that her adventure is right here.”
Josephine brushed a bit of pollen from the arm of my shirt. “Let’s talk about you now.”
I braced myself, knowing what was coming. “What about me?”
“What is happening with Louisa?” Josephine asked. “Rumor in town is that you’ve been out together every night this week.”
“What is happening? We’re getting married. Not sure of a date yet, but sometime this year.”
“Married? Did you just say married?” Flynn asked.
“Yes, he said married,” Jo answered as if it hadn’t been a rhetorical question. Her face turned red and her hair seemed to pop out of her neatly stacked bun like a cat we used to have that spontaneously shed balls of fur when scared or angry. “You’ve been home a week. You barely know her.”
“I’ve known her for most of my life,” I said as calmly and firmly as I could.
“You do remember her feelings for Flynn?” Josephine asked. “Or have you forgotten how she humiliated you?”
“She didn’t humiliate me,” I said. “At least not in a public way. We were all young back then. Her feelings for you were nothing but a schoolgirl crush.”
“Right, as were your feelings for her,” Flynn said. “A youthful fancy.”
“That you couldn’t possibly still feel, right?” Josephine asked. “You have invented them again, have you?”