Before Ever After (14 page)

“How did you … I mean, why would that be, uh, theoretically speaking, that is?”

Rose smiled. “Raisins, of course.”

“Raisins?”

“A kiss can be dreadfully terrifying for the males of our species, I’m afraid,” Rose said knowingly. “Sex is easy. All they really need is a few good thrusts. But when they kiss, they open themselves up and let you in. And that, my dear, makes some men’s balls shrink to the size of raisins.”

Shelley snorted with laughter.

Dex strode up to her. “Did someone say raisins? I’m starving.”

“You might try asking Max for some,” Shelley said. “I’m sure he has at least two.”

Shelley quickened her pace, trying to outrun her thoughts. She found herself beside Max as they made their way up another hill. The tour group trailed behind them. She waited for him to say something. Anything. Hum. Or even whistle. But he remained quiet, glancing at her only to smile as they walked. They hiked in silence until they reached a wildflower
bush at the corner of awkward and excruciating. That’s when she heard it. Soft padding steps. Shelley turned to see who was following them.

The large gray beast waved his trunk hello. Shelley groaned. This is what the kiss she had given him had become—a lumbering pachyderm, trying its darnedest to be inconspicuous. “Oh, get lost,” she mumbled.

“Did you say something?” Max asked.

Shelley was acutely aware that this was the first time he had spoken to her since Paris. “Um … I said ‘are we lost?’ ”

“You tell me.”

The elephant swished its tail innocently.

“But I thought you were leading the way,” Shelley said.

“I am? I had the distinct impression you were the one taking the lead when we were in Montmartre.”

The elephant charged. Shelley tripped over a rock as she tried to get out of its way.

Max pulled her up from the grass. “You were the one who kissed me, remember?”

The elephant spun around. It charged again.

Shelley’s eyes darted around her, searching for a way to escape. She found one. She had reached the top of the hill. She could not have dreamed up the emerald scene sprawled below her even if she tried. She followed the shadows of clouds as they glided over the valley, tracing a path across patches of wildflowers and fruit trees before floating over the ivory crowns of the Bernese Alps. Only the weathered farmhouses dotting the grasslands hinted of men.

“Wow.” Dex walked up behind her and pulled out his camera. He framed her in a shot. “Say cheese.”

Shelley forced a smile. She was growing tired of posing for Dex’s pictures, but she owed him this much for rescuing her from a raging elephant. “Cheese.”

Brad looked over the hill’s edge and took a deep breath. “Is this what I think it is?”

Simon nodded. “Yes, Brad, it is.”

Brad sighed. “Fresh air! And so much of it.”

Max joined the group. “It makes you wonder, doesn’t it?”

“About what?” Dex asked.

“How people can even think of giving those horrid canned air fresheners names like Alpine Breeze. There should be a law against that sort of thing.”

“Oh, absolutely,” Shelley said. Max’s words played in her head.
You were the one who kissed me, remember?
She battled the urge to strangle him. “I’d certainly hate to be
misled
like that.”

“I don’t think anyone could fool you, luv,” Max said, “or would even dare to try.”

“Especially if that person knew I wouldn’t hesitate to push him off—oh, let’s say a hill—if he did.” She shoved at his chest.

Grass, sky, and more grass. And Max. Or at least parts of him. That was all Shelley saw as she and Max tumbled down the slope. Her push turned out to be less playful than she had intended. She had tried to grab his sleeve when he lost his footing and had gotten caught in a tangle of limbs and backpack straps.

They ran out of hill.

Shelley landed on her back. Max fell on top of her. He didn’t move.

“Shelley!” Dex ran toward them. “Are you guys okay?”

Shelley spat out grass. “I’m fine,” she sputtered. “Max? Are you all right? Max?”

The rest of the group gathered around them.

“Get help!” Shelley yelled. Max stirred on top of her. She held her breath. “Max?”

Max trembled. Then shook. Panic rose in Shelley’s throat. She blinked back tears. A familiar sound rumbled over her heartbeat. She pushed Max off and rolled over in time to see him shaking with laughter.

“You jerk!” Shelley said. “You scared me to death!”

Max continued to laugh. “And you almost killed me, so I guess that makes us even.” He stood up and offered her his hand.

Shelley ignored it. She scrambled to her feet and marched away.

Max caught her by the arm. “Wait.”

“Why?” She glared at him.

He leaned closer. “You haven’t answered my question.”

She frowned at him. “What question?”

“I asked you if you remembered that you kissed me.”

Shelley swallowed. The elephant was back. It peeked over Max’s shoulder and narrowed its eyes at her. She looked away. “I … uh …”

Max pulled a weed from her hair. His fingers brushed the side of her cheek. “Because I do.”

Shelley held her breath. She squeezed the crumpled slip of paper in her pocket.
Run. Run!
She couldn’t. Her insides were tumbling down the hill again.

Max grinned. “And wouldn’t you agree it’s about time we lose that bloody elephant that’s been trailing us since Paris, luv?”

They walked across the valley. Shelley looked back. No pachyderm in sight. Rose was right, she thought. All Max had needed was a push. He had not left her side since they had tumbled down the hill.

“Ah, here we are.” Max smiled and pointed to a farmhouse that was just coming into view.

“Max!” A blond man waved at him from behind the farm’s wooden gate.

The man reminded Shelley of the towering pine trees they had passed on the trail.

“Josef!” Max wrestled him in a bear hug.

Shelley was lost in their exchange of rapid German.

“Well, Josef, here are your new recruits,” Max said. “Campers, meet Josef, medieval history professor turned gentleman farmer. He will show you to your cows and you can get started.”

“I hope they’re sturdier than the ones you brought me last time, eh?” Josef said. “That group curdled the milk before they were able to fill their buckets.”

“Oh, absolutely.” Max put his arm around Shelley. “This one’s small, but don’t let her size fool you. There’s power in those tiny arms. Believe me, I know. Right, luv?”

“Er … ah, yes, I suppose so.” Squeezing Swiss udders was not exactly something Shelley could bring herself to be excited about.

“Well, glad to hear that, then. Let’s get to work, shall we?” Josef rolled up his sleeves and led the group toward the barn.

Brad was as green as the grass under his feet when they reached the barn. Simon offered him some mint gum from a pack that had briefly been his when he bought it yesterday.

Josef swung the barn door open.

“Moooooooo!” Josef’s five small children tumbled over one another as they raced to Max. They tackled him to the ground. “Uncle Max! Did you bring presents?”

“Of course!” Max laughed. He struggled to extricate himself from the giggling avalanche. “They’re in here.” He dug into his pockets.

The children hopped off him and waited on the tips of their toes.

“Aha! Found it!” Max said.

The children surged forward. He scooped up the littlest blue-eyed girl and tickled her tummy. She squealed with laughter. “Who’s next?”

The children scattered. Max chased after them.

Josef laughed.

“So no cows?” Brad asked, the color returning slightly to his face.

“No cows.” Josef smiled. “Sorry about that. It’s a traditional Swiss welcome.”

“We seem to be getting a lot of surprises on this trip,” Dex said.

Shelley smiled. “But this has been the most adorable so far.”

“I’ll take cute kids over cows any day,” Brad said. “I like my milk to come out of cartons, thank you very much.”

The tour group settled into the dining room of the farmhouse. It was early evening, but the sun was still streaming in through the windows, pouring over the folk art paintings that adorned the room’s rustic furniture.

“These are absolutely charming,” Shelley said.

“They’re called
Bauernmalerei
,” Josef said. “Or ‘farmer painting’ as you would say in English. It’s a painting style Swiss peasants developed in the Middle Ages to celebrate and record the milestones in their lives. These pieces date back to the sixteenth century. They were made by the man who built this farm. Back then, you see, peasants couldn’t afford expensive—”

“Josef, I’m sure our guests must be starving,” Ingrid said. Josef’s wife was tall and blond like her husband with blue eyes that smiled as brightly as his. “Your history lesson can wait until after dinner.”

The hot soup, the roasted veal with potatoes, and the chatter of the Von Allmen children was the balm the group needed to soothe the aches and pains they had accumulated on the hike. Ingrid brought out a platter of freshly baked butter cookies for dessert. Shelley indulged in two more of the warm treats than her jeans would allow. She undid a button and had another.

An inky night had fallen over the valley when the group gathered in the living room after dinner. Josef started a fire. Shelley sank onto a couch and breathed the crisp scent of burning pine. Max sat next to her.

Ingrid set a tray of coffee on the table.

“Dinner was wonderful, Ingrid,” Rose chirped.

“Thank you. We do enjoy having company around. Our neighbors are lovely, but they’re always in a hurry to leave before dark.”

“I’m quite certain that’s not on account of your cooking.” Jonathan patted his stomach.

Ingrid smiled and excused herself to check on the children upstairs. Without the children’s warm laughter, Shelley noticed just how chilly and quiet the farmhouse actually was. The silence magnified the crackle of the fire and the mournful wail the wind made as it wove through the eaves. She shivered.

“Well, actually, you might be right, Jonathan,” Josef said. “Our lack of dinner guests may very well be due to the fact that our farm is haunted.”

A breeze, touched with the scent of rain, snaked through the window. It swirled over the fire, making it flicker.

“Haunted?”
Brad asked.

“I’m afraid so,” Josef said. “There’s a legend about this place that dates back to the Middle Ages. Would you like to hear it?”

“Well, I’m not so sure …” Brad inched closer to Simon.

“I love a good ghost story,” Dex said.

Shelley nodded. “Come on, Brad. It can’t be any more terrifying than squeezing a cow’s jiggly bits, right?”

“I agree.” Max placed his arm over her shoulders.

Shelley stiffened. She caught the tour group stealing glances at them while trying to hide their smiles. Even in the dimly lit room, they failed miserably.

Max edged closer to her. He rubbed her shoulder with his thumb. She suppressed the urge to purr.

“Let’s begin our haunted tale then.”

Shelley noticed the change in the tone of Josef’s voice. He was a professor again and all that was missing was the blackboard. She found herself straightening in her seat.

“But first,” Josef said, “you need to learn a little bit more about Switzerland’s export industry. Would anyone care to guess what our chief export was in the Middle Ages? Shelley?”

“Er … I’m guessing that it wasn’t cheese or expensive watches,” she said.

Josef nodded. “We exported people—mercenaries, to be exact. Switzerland in those days was a very different place from what you see now. It was an overpopulated and poor country. Meanwhile, its richer neighbors, like France, needed soldiers to fight their wars, and Switzerland found itself with an abundance of young men more than willing to do the job. Soldiering became a sort of summer job for farmers who needed a means to tide them over during the winter months.

“Our mercenaries became must-haves in battles, and employers paid a premium to have them fight on their side. There was even a saying back in the day that went ‘No money, no Swiss.’ But the Swiss mercenary was worth it,” Josef continued. “Necessity, you see, had forced the Swiss to be inventive in their military tactics. Without any horses or artillery at their
disposal, they armed themselves instead with long pikes. They reintroduced the ancient Greek phalanx and formed deadly sharp and almost impenetrable porcupinelike columns that charged into the medieval battlefield.

“As there was no shortage of wars at that time, the mercenary trade grew and became more organized. A prospective employer simply had to contract trained units of mercenaries through the local Swiss canton governments. More than two million Swiss men fought abroad during a span of four hundred and fifty years until the late 1800s. This farm was built by one of those men. His name was Uri.”

“Who, you might be interested to know, happens to be Isabelle’s cousin,” Max said, “several generations removed.”

Large raindrops began to spatter on the farmhouse’s rooftop as Ingrid rejoined the group. “Uri’s wife, Esther, was my ancestor,” she said as she shut a rattling window. “This farm has been in my family since Uri and Esther lived in it in the 1500s, but Josef and I almost sold it a few years ago when my grandparents left it to me.”

“That would have been a shame. It’s such a lovely place. Why did you want to sell it?” Rose asked.

“Josef and I were busy with our academic careers in Zurich. We put the farm on the market almost as soon as I inherited it. We quickly found a buyer,” Ingrid said. “The week before the buyer was to take over, we decided to spend one last weekend on the farm. We were surprised by how much we enjoyed ourselves, and as you can see, several children later, we are still here.”

“Your buyer must not have been too pleased about that,” Dex said.

“I wasn’t,” Max said.

“What?” Shelley’s jaw dropped slightly. “You were the buyer?”

“Luckily for us, Max allowed us to buy the farm back from him on the condition that we keep the barn unaltered and allow him to visit as often as he liked,” Ingrid said.