Hello, Sweetheart,
Hope this email finds you well, and that your writing is going fine. The weather here has been hot, as you can imagine. Mom and Dad are worried because the heat makes the cows give less milk, as you'll remember, and they have taxes coming up to pay. They've been kind about not asking too much where you went or why, but I know they're looking forward to seeing you again, just like I am. September can't come soon enough for me. Maybe you taking this time off to do your thing and think things over will make our marriage stronger. Speaking of which, I told Pastor Faulkner that we want to do it in December, does that sound right to you? It's a slow time for Mom and Dad, and it's my slowest month at the bakery, too, so it seems like a good time. What do you think? Does that give you enough time to plan everything, get a dress and all that? I get so excited just thinking about being husband and wife at last, no more sneaking around when I spend the night haha. Seriously, though, Honey, won't it be nice when all this uncertainty is behind us and we can just live?
Love, Sam

Reed sighed as she closed her laptop and set it aside. She was alone, in her own bed, having returned in the night after making love in Duncan's bed. In spite of what he'd said after that first time, Reed didn't want him to feel crowded, and usually returned to her room after he fell asleep. He didn't say he'd missed her or anything, so Reed assumed it was the right thing to do.

She could feel September looming ever closer, and she felt as undecided as ever. Her writing was going well, Ruark and Esmerelda were on an adventure with some pirates at the moment, and Reed knew she'd be finished, or nearly so, by her September deadline. However, she didn't feel nearly ready to head back to Ryedale and become Mrs. Sam Rogers for the rest of her life.

"Hey there."

The voice from the darkened doorway of her bedroom made her jump. It was Duncan, looking sleepy and adorable, hair going every which way.

He approached and lay down next to her, stretching as he moved the laptop out of the way to give himself more room.

"Yes? May I help you?" Reed asked with a smile as she, too, lay down and turned into his arms.

Duncan gave a half-shrug. "Woke up and you were gone. Missed you is all."

"How sweet," Reed responded, heart soaring. "I just don't want you to feel like I'm assuming anything, you know? This is my room for the summer, and I do know that."

Duncan tightened his arms around her. "Please, assume away, darling, I love having you in my bed." He himself was surprised to hear these words coming out of his mouth. He was generally one who liked his space when actually sleeping, and frequently wished his female companions would just go away after sex was over.

Reed, though, soft, welcoming Reed was different. She almost felt like an extension of the bed, just comfort, like coming home. He hated rolling over, only to be pinned down by long, hard leg, or to feel a bony elbow in his back. He felt none of that with her, and truly did miss her when he woke up in the night only to find she'd left him.

"I hope you don't mind that I'm here?" he asked, planting a soft kiss on her forehead.

She shook her head. "I think this is the first time you've been in my room," she said with a smile. "With me in it, I mean."

"You might be right," he agreed comfortably. "This bed is nice, for all it's so small."

"Small? Are you kidding? It's the biggest bed I've ever slept in, that's for sure," Reed retorted.

 "What is it, a king?"

"Yeah, but mine's a California king," Duncan countered. "Nice and wide, plenty of room."

"How much room does one person need?"

Duncan climbed on top of her, straddling her and smiling. "Yeah, but what about when there are two people? Or three, even?"

"Three?" Reed carefully kept the surprise out of her voice. "Is that something you want to do?"

Duncan looked at her, brows drawn, before breaking out into a grin. "No, you muppet, not for threesomes, I meant like for a dad, a mum and a child!"

"Oh. Oh!" Reed laughed in the near darkness. "Is that something you've thought about often?"

She felt him shrug.

"Sometimes. I just wonder what I'm doing, you know? I'm on the near side of thirty, and what do I have to show for it?"

"Um, multiple real estate holdings all over the world, hordes of fans that love you, money coming out of every orifice?"

"That's just stuff, that's just my career. I'm talking about things that matter," Duncan responded earnestly. "I mean, I'm not asking you to have a child with me or anything, but I do think about more than my next single or my next movie part, you know."

"Well, that's a relief," Reed answered with a gentle laugh.

"But would it be so terrible?"

"What?" Reed sat up abruptly. It was too dark for her to see the look on his face, so she turned on the lamp to its lowest setting.

He was grinning at her, but not nearly wide enough. "I'm serious, Reed. You know how I feel about you, you must know that I'm stupidly in love with you."

Reed swallowed. "Wow."

"I think you, me, and a baby would be marvelous, if I'm being honest." He pulled her down to lie next to him again, though he left the lamp on. "We get on so well together, we really work, don't you think?"

"But I have nothing to give a baby, I haven't done anything yet," Reed said, knowing how bewildered she sounded. "I have nothing to give you, either, for that matter."

"Please, you give me plenty," Duncan answered, pulling her close. "You love me, better than anyone I've ever known. You're damned good at it, I'd say."

"Duncan. Duncan." Reed pulled away so she could look at him. "Please listen to me. I do love you, oh my god do I love you, but I'm serious. I don't have anything more to give you right now, and I am planning to leave in September."

Duncan looked at her reproachfully. "You can't be serious. What we have is so good, so very good—how can you say you want to throw it all away and just—leave?"

Reed sat up on the edge of the bed. "This is so unfair. You knew when we met that there was a time limit on whatever was going to happen between us, you knew. You can't change the rules on me now and expect me to just go along."

Duncan, too, sat up, putting a hand on her shoulder. "What rules? What rules, darling? Seems to me we're just souls, wandering around the world, looking for other souls. When we find someone, shouldn't we try to hold on to it?"

Reed put a hand to her face. "You must think I'm crazy. There are millions, hundreds of millions of girls and women who'd give a limb for what you're offering me, and here I am—"

"No, don't do that." Duncan squeezed her shoulder. "Don't make this about them. None of them know me, none of them ever has known me. This is me, the real, honest Duncan, who snores and forgets to flush the toilet in the middle of the night.

"Look," he continued earnestly. "I'm not proposing marriage or anything. I'm just asking, is there so much of what we have in this world that we should just turn our backs on it when we find it? I know it's only been a few months, I know that. I also know how I feel. I know myself. Just tell me you'll think about it? You'll think about staying?"

Reed sighed, a sigh that had tears on the end of it. "You don't understand. I can't."

"Why?"

Reed shrugged his hand off her shoulder, not knowing what to say. To give Sam as a reason for not staying with Duncan seemed ridiculous. She felt so much more for Duncan than she ever had for Sam. What could she say? She had a "previous commitment"? A prior engagement? How had she gotten into this mess?

"I have to leave at the end of the summer, I just do." She finally broke down into hopeless tears.

"Okay. Okay, please don't take on so," Duncan entreated, though his words sounded hollow to her. "I'm not even going to pretend to understand because I don't, but I guess there's nothing more to say."

Reed felt the bed shift as he rose from it, but she remained motionless, facing away.

After she heard his footsteps receding down the hall, she turned a tear streaked face toward the door.

"I love you, Duncan," she whispered.

She lay down for more hopeless crying before, eventually, she fell asleep.