Page 181 of Fake it ’Til Fall

“You’ve also been careful,” I say.

His hand shifts on the wheel.

“Careful doesn’t erase anything.”

“No,” I say. “But it tells me who you are now.”

He doesn’t answer.

That’s fine.

Forrest sometimes takes truth like a hit. Absorbs it first. Reacts later.

The vineyard appears over the rise, and my chest does that annoying thing again.

The Thorn vineyard is in late-fall mode now. The rows look stripped down, the vines mostly bare, the lake beyond them beneath a sky threatening rain. The tasting room porch is covered in pumpkins, lanterns, folded blankets, and barrels of mums still hanging on through sheer seasonal stubbornness.

It is beautiful.

Of course it is.

My family specializes in making the complicated look elegant.

Near the barn, a delivery truck backs up with the grace of a drunk moose. Two staff members carry folded chairs toward the terrace. A woman in a wool coat argues with Marlene near the barrel room doors. Helena’s van sits by the side entrance, the Snowberry Meadows logo painted on the side panel, buckets of mums and late dahlias packed in the back.

Forrest parks near the side of the house.

Neither of us moves.

This is becoming a theme.

“You okay?” he asks.

“That question has become your emotional support animal.”

“Answer.”

I look at the house.

At the porch where Mom will appear any second because she has a sixth sense for arrivals, disasters, and daughters who have not slept enough.

“I don’t know yet,” I admit.

Forrest nods once, as if that is a good enough answer.

His fingers close around mine.

Not for the town.

Not for the lie.

For me.

That is the problem with Forrest Wolfcraft. He makes the fake things feel safer than the real things used to.

“Ready?” he asks.

“No.”