Page 107 of The Story Between Us

The late-afternoon air was cool on his freshly shaved face, carrying the scent of woodsmoke and fallen leaves and something caramelized from the direction of town. The sky was deepening into late-afternoon gold, the lake catching the color and holding it. From the direction of the town square, he could hear music starting—fiddles and guitar, the opening notes of the Flannel Festival.

He hadn’t been to the festival since Emma died. Three years of avoiding it—the crowds, the memories, the people who would look at him with pity and ask how he was holding up.

But Livvie was beside him, her boots crunching on the gravel driveway, her face lit up with the kind of anticipation he remembered feeling once, before grief had made everything gray.

She was beautiful. He’d been noticing it for nearly two weeks—the freckles, the smile, the way she tilted her head when she was thinking. But tonight it hit him differently. Tonight she wasn’t just beautiful. She was here. With him. Walking toward a future he hadn’t known he wanted.

His hand brushed hers as they walked to the car.

He didn’t pull away.

Neither did she.

“Ready?” she asked.

He thought about the chapter he’d written. Aldric’s words: You make me want things I stopped wanting a long time ago.

He thought about the notebook he couldn’t find and the map he’d found instead and the woman beside him who’d given him more than she knew.

His deadline was in two days. And then Livvie would go back to New York, and somehow, tonight, he had to figure out how to ask her to stay.

But right now, the festival was starting, and she was smiling at him, and he was a wordsmith. He’d figure it out.

And they’d live happily ever after.

Fifteen

The Flannel Festival was everything a small-town autumn celebration should be.

String lights crisscrossed Main Street, not yet glowing in the late-afternoon sun but promising magic when darkness fell. Booths lined both sides of the road—crafts and candles and hand-knit scarves, apple cider and kettle corn and enough plaid to dress all of Scotland. The whole town had turned out, it seemed, everyone in flannel and fall colors, kids running between legs, dogs on leashes sniffing at dropped popcorn.

And everywhere they went, people knew Nate.

“Good to see you out!” called Maren from the Maple Reads booth, something complicated in her expression—warmth and grief and maybe forgiveness, all tangled together.

“Ten gold stars!” Edie announced from behind her Maple Sweets display, pointing at a portable version of the chapter board. “We’re halfway there, folks!”

Livvie’s phone buzzed before she had a chance to update Edie’s chapter count. She looked down and spotted Richard’s name. Shoot. She pulled it out and glanced at the screen.

Richard

Call me. We need to talk.

She typed back.

Livvie

He’ll make it. You’ll get the manuscript in the morning.

Then she switched to Do Not Disturb and slipped the phone into her pocket.

When she looked up, Nate was watching her.

“Everything okay?”

“Everything’s fine.” And the strangest part was, she meant it.

She’d watched him navigate the festival crowd for the past hour—stopping to shake hands with Mayor Gillson, accepting a slice of maple apple pie from Harper Henshaw, crouching down to answer Addie Garrison’s very serious question about the proper color for a dragon. Two weeks ago, this man had barely left his house in three years. Tonight, he was laughing at something Jake said, the sound rusty but real.