"The Henderson place is paid," he said.
"It is."
"And the north forty of my property, the part that joins your west boundary through the new acreage. I've been thinking about what it would mean if we worked it as one operation."
"A significant thought," Vera said.
"I've had it for some time."
"Since March?"
Daniel looked at her, and the corner of his mouth lifted. "Since about the time I discovered that six dollars could be spent on a future I hadn't imagined."
She tilted her head. "You were thinking of combining farms because I bought unusual chickens?"
"Not exactly. I was thinking about what sort of life a person might build beside somebody who saw what other people missed. The fields and the barns are the practical version of that question."
Vera felt the room become very quiet, though outside the hens were beginning their evening calls and a wagon rattled along the distant road. For years she had insisted that she did not have time to consider what Daniel wanted from the visits at the fence. She had needed the farm to survive, and survival had left little room for the possibility that a second person might be part of her future without taking it away from her. Now the papers on the table showed she could survive, and the man across from her was asking whether they might build something beyond survival.
"Combining land is serious," she said.
"I know."
"There would be accounts, boundaries, taxes, and arrangements we'd need to discuss properly. I won't make a promise just because you've chosen a handsome way to ask."
"I wouldn't expect you to."
She looked at his hands, then his face. "And it might be that we're talking about more than land."
Daniel let out a slow breath. "I hope we are."
She smiled then, not the guarded smile she had once given neighbors trying to persuade her to sell, but one that arrived without calculation. "Come back Saturday," she said. "Bring the survey map for the north forty. We'll look at what belongs where and what could grow if we worked it together."
"Saturday," he repeated.
"And Daniel?"
"Yes?"
"Come to the front door."
He looked at her, understanding slowly. The back door had become his usual entrance because he was familiar with the work, the livestock, and the ordinary life of the farm. The front door was for somebody arriving with intentions that deserved to be acknowledged rather than assumed. Vera had kept it closed to almost everyone who wanted something from her since 1933, and he understood what it cost her to offer it now.
"The front door," he said softly.
"If we're going to talk about putting our lives together, you ought to come to the front door."
He nodded, his blue eyes bright with a feeling he did not attempt to hide. "Then I'll be there. Seven?"
"Not seven. We're having supper, not putting up another coop. Six will do."