Page 85 of Library or Lattes?

“I’m sure. It was like I’d been writing the plan the whole time, without even realizing it. James, I can feel it in my bones.” I shuddered with joy. “And then you. You just sealed the deal.”

I put both my hands on James’s face and pulled him in to kiss me. He wrapped his arms around my waist and held me like he never wanted to let me go.

“Maybe you’d like some company on a couple of these trips?” he whispered when we broke apart.

“I would love that. And maybe we both can meet up with Carter for a cappuccino in Trastevere, or something.” I winked as I reached for James’s hands and squeezed them.

Pumped full of adrenaline, we sat down underneath the Kissing Tree, James’s arm around me and my head on his shoulder.

“Tell me some more,” he said.

“About what?”

“About each place you’re going to go to.”

“Okay. Paris, obviously. Montmartre. Drink hot chocolate and eat croissants. In Rome, I’d wanna go during the summer and drink caffè shakerato.” James laughed at my terrible Italian accent. “And eat maritozzi, and bruti ma buoni. Mumbai for masala chai. Thai iced tea in Bangkok, kopi in Singapore, and a flat white in Sydney. Did you know that Australia invented the flat white?”

“No, I did not. But it all sounds incredible. You amaze me, Red.”

Having him say things like this was not getting old.

“It does, doesn’t it? We’ll have the best of everything. We’ll see the world, then come back home.”

Home, I thought. “Oak Falls. It’s not a bad place to live, is it?” I sighed.

“I never thought I’d be saying this, but no, it’s really not,” James agreed.

We leaned into each other and looked out over the orchard as the sunrise bled into the morning sky under the Kissing Tree. Right where it all began.

“To avoid being accused of theft again, I’ll ask: May I please kiss you, Willa Taylor?” James’s brown eyes glowed in the soft sunlight.

“You may.”

So we kissed under the Kissing Tree, and carved our initials in a heart in the bark.

And now there was no doubt that no matter where I went, a piece of my heart would always be here. In Oak Falls.

Oak Falls never sleeps. Not really.

Yeah, the shops close up for the night. A few people lock their doors. Most don’t bother.

But the town itself? It keeps breathing.

The wind rustles through the oak trees on Main Street, and in the orchards on the edge of town, a white-tailed deer creeps through rows of apple trees. The owls call from the woods and the insects meet at the creek in hordes, drawn to the water in the cooling night.

And sometimes, a plane descends through the dark fall sky, lights blinking like stars as it touches down at an airport just outside town.

Sometimes, someone comes home.

And on nights like this, the town breathes a little deeper as it welcomes back one of its own …

11 Two years later …

WILLA Taylor had never been more excited to get off a plane.

She breathed in the cold November air as she stepped outside the terminal, pulling her black wool coat around her tightly. The expensive one Pop had insisted on buying her before she first went away. She smiled and checked the time on her phone.

By the time she reached Oak Falls, Bonfire Night would be in full swing.