Page 59 of Forbidden to Fall

The product stickers were designed and rush-ordered, arriving the day before the first official tour of Carver Maple Farm, performed, much to May’s chagrin, by James.

I was admittedly curious to see how James Carver, a man of few words, would manage a customer-facing task like a tour. Since customers were brought to the sugar shack for part of it, I was able to witness it for myself.

James was a natural—something I had not expected. I supposed he’d watched his parents run tours his whole childhood. Not only was he natural, though, he managed to sell a dozen boxes of baked goods, six jars of syrup, and solicited twenty dollars in donations for the elementary school library. Apparently, Emma Harper had seen him in town and asked if the farm would participate in the competition too.

I decided on the amber maple syrup for the bars, then added a glaze to the top, hoping that would be enough. I wasn’t totally satisfied, but I’d promised product to a couple of town businesses, and this was what we had to work with.

The packaging made me happy. Small brown paper bags with a place for the maple farm sticker and a window just above it with a view to the baked goods within. We closed the bags with a smaller product label sticker. May was in love with the result.

Following my shift at Keller’s on Thursday, I spent an hour at the stables and the rest of the afternoon baking in the sugar shack, then packaging products, which James helped with. Each day, a bit of his reserve seemed to melt away like a steady spring thaw.

I loaded up my car Friday morning to take bags to Rosie at Once Upon an Inn and Juliet at The Velvet Wick.

My car, however, had other plans. Like not starting.

I took in a big, slow breath after trying multiple times. Unlike with the truck, this wasn’t a matter of not knowing the car was manual. It was a matter of driving an old piece of junk.

I dialed Rosie’s twin, Dominic, who’d been my go-to mechanic. He wasn’t one. He was just handy and nice to me because I was Ryan’s little sister. I was too poor to afford a real mechanic.

“Sadie!” he said. “I’m gonna go out on a limb and assume this isn’t a friendly catch-up call.”

“I’m so sorry!”

“Car troubles?” There was smiling sympathy in his voice.

“Dead. Just…so dead. Maybe forever this time.”

“No way. We’ll bring her back to life. Any way you can get her to my place?”

“For sure,” I said, as though I kept a fleet of tow trucks ready at all times.

I considered calling Ryan, only to dismiss the thought for the same reason I’d dismissed it last time: I wasn’t about to tell him to come tow me from Carver property. I hadn’t heard from him since I’d babysat Mia at the stables. The silence could have been good, bad, or neutral. Thankfully, I had plenty of work to keep me from overanalyzing which.

Regardless, I had just one option. The same one as last time: ask James for help.

One quick, humbly executed call to James, and within a few minutes, he was leaning over the open hood of my car. He insisted on checking the battery, which, from all we could tell, was fine—which was welcome news because I’d replaced it four months ago.

He tested a couple other things, then closed the hood. “It’s something beyond the scope of my knowledge, which is pretty limited, but it also means it may not be a quick fix.”

Oh, joy.

He backed the truck up so the hitch was close to the hood of my car. He rummaged around in the truck cab for a minute and emerged with a strap.

“Can you at least teach me how to do this?” I asked. “I hate standing here like a waste of space.”

He smiled. “Of course. Come on over.”

One end of the strap slipped over his truck’s hitch, while the other had to be attached under my bumper.

We crouched down, reaching under it and sliding our hands around, looking for a loop or hook. By some miracle, I found it. Today was all about small wins.

“How do you know how to do this?” I asked as he guided me through the process of attaching the strap.

He stood and brushed off his hands. “Lots of forest visitors have car trouble.”

I felt another flash of jealousy for his experiences. His competence. What good was I in a tricky situation?

“You’ll have to sit in the driver seat of your car,” he said. “You’ll need to brake and steer, but without power, it’ll take a lot more strength to do.”