Page 143 of Sugar & Shadows

How’s the proposal coming?

Sabrina:

Good. May have actually created a bear militia?

Gabe:

That feels on brand for you

I smiled, my eyes still teary. I’d spent years cultivating a persona based on competence, self-control, and extreme emotional detachment. And somehow a flannel-wearing small-town mayor had reduced me to staring at text messages like a lovesick teenager.

Get a grip, Monroe.

The phone buzzed again.

Gabe:

You’re gonna pull this off.

His encouragement making my heart clench. Looking around the room at the amazing people by my side, I believed him. We would pull this off. Because I wasn’t carrying the weight of Maplewood on my own. I had a kick-ass team.

And that was the real miracle.

“All right,” I said, handing a whiteboard marker to my mom to take notes. “Let’s write one hell of a proposal.”

Chapter 37

Gabe

Josh was supposed to text me when Sabrina got here, but I still hadn’t heard from him.

I’d been roped into doing an overnight boil for social media content, and I’d been in the sugar shack for hours.

People were losing their minds over our heritage batch of syrup. This first batch would be auctioned off online to support the Vermont Children’s Hospital, and people in the comment section were raving about it like we were bottling unicorn tears blessed by fairies.

Harper might actually be a genius. Maybe she’d be interested in dropping out of high school to take over as mayor. She’d be far better at it than I was. But it probably wasn’t worth the ask.

My mom and dad had gotten the boil started, but I’d come in for the long haul. I liked it out here; it was peaceful, and the quiet helped me manage my building anxiety about the woman I was falling for, the baby, the town, and the recall election.

But it meant I was stranded out in the woods while Sabrina met with Brooks Bramble-Rutledge. It was best that I did not attend with her, but it was hard to believe she’d make headway regardless. Brooks and Bitsy had the flexibility of a hall monitor on a power trip and they lacked creative vision for this town.

When she arrived, I’d go down in the ATV and get her. I was dying to find out how the meeting had gone. For hours, I’d been feeding logs into the evaporator and staring at my phone like a lovesick idiot.

The sugar shack was warm and steamy as the evaporator hissed and roared and the fire crackled beneath the stainless-steel, leaving me sweaty and sticky and probably smelling like sugar.

An engine hummed outside, and as it got louder, I threw the door open. A blast of cold air hit me as I squinted in the beam of a pair of headlights.

The truck turned slightly, and then Sabrina hopped out in her full business attire.

Fuck me. My body heated again, and not because of the fire.

She was decked out in a tight black pencil skirt, blazer, and heels, with her dark hair loose around her shoulders and blood red lips.

I swayed at just the sight of her. She was a sexy goddess, and she was here on my family farm.

My brain short-circuited as she approached and gave my cousin a wave.

“Josh gave me a ride,” she said as she approached. “Holy tank top.” Eyes dancing, she squeezed my bare arm. “Why are you barely dressed?”