My gaze strayed to Mark, where he was placing the apple baskets at each child’s seat. His eyes found me watching him and he smiled, just one of his tiny, barely there grins that tilted the corners of his full lips.
Yeah, sometimes life wasn’t fair and you didn’t get what you wanted.
Feeling the need to get things back on the right track—the one to clearly labeled and boundary-inclusive Friendship Town—I cleared my throat. “Thanks for helping me set up for the party.”
He made an amused sound, and I spotted his even white teeth as his smile widened. “It’s sort of my job.”
“Your job doesn’t start for twenty more minutes,” I argued.
A blush washed his face in sudden color, and Candace from last Friday would have given just about anything to know what thoughts heated those scruffy cheeks.
But then I caught sight of my sister in the distance. She was driving the tractor and hauling the giant apple crate out into the north fields. Fuji was on the schedule for picking this week. Mark would be out there with her.
Time to steer this ship into safer waters. “I appreciate your help,” I said around a closed-mouth smile that doubled as a convenient shield. With my eyes carefully trained on his, I added, “You’re a good friend, Mark.”
At my words, he went utterly still. Mark watched me for a long moment before shoving his hands into the front pockets of his jeans. He nodded slowly. “Of course. Happy to help.”
We finished setup fifteen minutes later. I thanked Mark again and watched him head off the way Joan had gone to start his own workday.
I’d done the right thing by establishing a boundary.
Even if I was wrong and Mark and Joan weren’t together officially or openly or even at all, I didn’t want my time here in Kirby Falls to be filled with drama and bad decisions. I didn’t want the almost-kiss hanging over me like that—a fantasy, a daydream, a what-might-have-been.
Making it clear that we were back in friend territory was the safest way forward. He should know I was fine with that. There was no need to worry about me bringing it up. I wasn’t going to jump him or something, no matter how attracted I was to him.
I had no desire to fuck things up even more with Joan. I wanted to prove myself to my sister. Show her I was a helpful member of the team, a good worker, someone she could rely on. So, maybe eventually, Joan might stop resenting me for being here.
I came home to get myself together and out of trouble.
Not cause more.
ten
CANDACE
“What is that?”
I winced as Brady came to stand beside me on the dew-covered grass.
He took a step toward one of the pallets of two- to four-pound pumpkins. “Are these the ones for the pumpkin patch?”
A flush was climbing a rope ladder up my sternum, shaky and uneven.
I tried to clear the rising panic from my throat, but my brother spoke again before I could manage it. “Why are they so small?”
I stared at the bins that the delivery driver had unloaded behind the Apple House and willed them to be right. However, the roughly four hundred pie pumpkins didn’t magically grow into jack-o’-lanterns perfect for a pumpkin patch. They stayed small and uncarvable. And if you listened closely, you could hear their little orange bodies saying,Way to go,Candace.
“I—”
“What the hell is this?” my sister’s voice interrupted as she joined us in the early-morning sunshine.
I gave up andclosed my eyes.
Ignoring the sound of approaching footsteps, I tried to figure out how to explain this monumental fuckup.
It was actually what I’d been doing before my brother had approached. That and frantically checking the invoice from Owensby Acres on my phone.
A light touch at my elbow had my eyes opening.
