“Football was everything in my family—you should know that first.”

I exhaled, relieved that he was trusting me enough to tell me his story, and pleased that he wanted to. I tightened my hold on his waist, my hand resting along his hip under his jacket, warm and cozy.

“Football. Got it.” I nodded and looked up at him. The sunlight was encircling his head a bit like a halo.

“My father played football—never was a star, mind you, but played in the NFL for almost five years. Third string for Indiana, then half a season in Detroit, and he played out his last season close to his family home in Green Bay. When his contract wasn’t renewed, he moved us all to the farm and worked with his father at the dairy they owned.”

A family of dairymen; interesting.

“But football was still part of his life, all of our lives. I played, my brothers played, he coached, and if we weren’t out working the cows or milking them in the barn, we were on the field.”

“Sounds like fun,” I replied when he seemed to stall in his story.

He nodded with a faraway look. “It was. As we got older, it wasn’t as much fun. I loved football, loved the game, the sport, the community, all of it. But if you were good, and I was, it could take over everything else. That’s what happened for me and my brothers. Everything became about training, everything became about the game that weekend, what plays we could have run better, what block could have been harder, what tackle should have been a sack. We literally ate and slept and breathed football. When the season ended, we kept on drilling at home, year-round.”

He paused somewhere in the middle of Oak Street, scrubbing at his face. “He wanted us to have that edge, to be better than anyone else. It started to not be so fun anymore.”

“Did you ever want to quit?” I asked, and he shook his head immediately.

“Not an option—quitting is never an option. Eventually, it became just such a part of everything that it seemed normal. We were a football family, and that’s what we all did. Even my mom—she ran the boosters, organized bake sales when we needed new uniforms, all that.”

“Family business,” I mused, and he squeezed my shoulder.

“That’s exactly right. My older brother, he ended up getting a partial scholarship to a regional school there in Wisconsin. He played for four years, and that was it. But me, I started getting scouted when I was a sophomore in high school. I was really good, and my family knew if it was going to happen, it was going to happen for me.”

“Were you still working for the dairy?”

“Yup, football and cows, that was literally my life.”

“And Missy,” I said quietly, knowing that by now in this timeline, she’d made an appearance.

“And Missy,” he agreed. “She was as much a part as everything was back then. She was a cheerleader, she was right here for every game, on the sidelines or with my parents. We used to sit out back at nighttime, in one of the pastures, and talk about what things would be like when we were older. I’d play professional, I knew that now, and I knew I’d be afforded a life that I couldn’t turn down. No one from a tiny town in Wisconsin whose only other prospect was a lifetime at a dairy wouldn’t go for it guns blazing.”

I kept quiet, sensing that there was a turn coming in this tale.

“My knee started acting up my senior year at USC. At first I thought it was nothing; we all got banged up pretty good each game. My knee held, we were winning games right and left, and it was all starting to fall into place. After graduation, I got drafted, Missy and I got married right after that, and we were off for Dallas. To this day, I’ve never seen my dad more proud.”

He chewed on his lower lip, lost in thought.

“And then?” I prodded, and he cleared his throat.

“And then it was just how life was. We bought a house, we started talking about kids, I was playing, it was all good. Then my knee started getting really bad, but I thought, I really thought, I’d be able to stick it out. But . . . seventh game of the season, I was driving hard and the turf was loose. I went one way, my leg the other, and I could literally hear my knee pop. Worst pain I’ve ever felt.”

“Oh, Oscar.” I sighed, leaning my head on his strong arm, feeling the power that was still there, humming beneath the surface. So strong.

“Anyway, that was it. I had the surgery, went to rehab, tried liked hell to not see the signs that were so clear, but in the end it was obvious, I was done.”

“I bet that was rough.”

“You know what?” His expression lightened surprisingly. “It was rough, but it was kind of a relief. I couldn’t play anymore, so I could actually breathe for a bit, think about what else I wanted to do. Neither one of us wanted to stay in Dallas; big cities were never our thing. So we went home. I’d saved most of my signing bonus, and money went much further in rural Wisconsin than it did in the big city, so we went home and started over.”

“And that’s where the cheese comes in?”

“Exactly. I knew an old guy who lived in town, made cheddar. He used to buy his milk from our dairy, and I’d been interested in the process. I started working with him, learning the business, and when Missy and I talked about what we wanted to do with the rest of our lives, we started thinking about where else in the country we might like to live. She’d always wanted to live somewhere different—and it’s crazy when an idea takes hold, how fast things can change.”

I shook my head. “It’s not crazy, it’s just you. Anyone who can overcome an injury like that is tough. You’re determined as hell, Oscar. I’m not at all surprised you figured out a way through it.”

He blushed a bit, shrugging his shoulders. “Anyway, that’s how we ended up here. There was a farm for sale, there were several outbuildings on the property for me to get my ­cheese-making thing going; it was almost too easy. But once we got here and settled in, things changed.”

“Between you and Missy?”

“Yep. Away from family and friends, away from everything we’d always thought we’d do together, we started to . . . I don’t know . . . drift apart, I guess? Not right away, but luckily it happened before we had any kids. So when the split came, it was clean.”

“And she didn’t go back home.”

“Oh no, she loved the area. She lives in the next town over, as you know. I admit, I didn’t get to know many people here when we first moved. You might have noticed I tend to be a little . . . standoffish?”