Page 89 of Forbidden to Fall

“I’m happy to help as long as I’m not on shift at the bakery.”

I looked at Mia, who was taking her brushing task so seriously that she’d finished the saddle and was now brushing the stable floor, kicking up clouds of dust and dirt.

I got up just as the climax of her song was swallowed by a sneeze.

“So helpful, Mimi,” I said, gently taking the brush from her. “Should we do something else now?”

She perked up, her face sprinkled generously with stable dust. “Find Mr. James in the woods?”

“Um…maybe we could go to the library instead? Emma said she misses you.” I needed to nip her fixation with James in the bud. Though, we seemed to be past that point. It wasn’t a bud but a full-fledged flower.

Thankfully, mention of Emma did the trick. Mia wanted to tell the librarian how many times she’d been read The Pout Pout Fish this week.

I suppressed the desire to tell her I’d made a fire and slept under the stars two nights ago. She could never know just how cool I was, or she’d blab it to my brother.

I hated keeping things from Ryan, but I was also too selfish to regret the campout. Too selfish not to want to keep James as a friend. I’d promised him that friendship—but that wasn’t even the reason.

Did I have feelings beyond the platonic?

100%.

But those feelings aside, James was important to me. Sure, he might need me as a friend, but I was positive I needed him just as much. More, maybe.

I didn’t want to hurt Ryan, and I didn’t want to surrender my friendship with James.

That was the long and short of it.

James and I had been friends before the campout; we could continue that way. Then he’d return to Canada, and we’d be friends from a distance.

The night I’d spent in his arms, sleeping to the beating of his heart, would be just a blip on the radar of my life.

I’d stewed and stewed over how to act toward James, but the insanity of the week before the Harvest Festival made anything beyond business talk nearly impossible.

If I wasn’t at the bakery getting things ready for the festival and tending to customers, I was getting lessons from Archer on how to drive his wagon and the team of drop-dead gorgeous Percherons that pulled it. Most of the time, though, I was baking at the sugar shack to keep our products stocked at the farm and at the businesses in town, a couple more of whom had requested to carry products.

I saw a fair amount of James, but we were more like ships passing in the day than anything. He was busy with maple farm tours and maintenance around the farm. May had insisted on helping with tours, but James had put his foot down, finally agreeing to have her do the portion in the sugar shack, which didn’t require as much movement.

We saw little enough of each other that the clothes I’d left at their house for the campout appeared on the kitchen counter one afternoon when I hadn’t seen James at all.

Despite the nature of the quick interactions we did have, there was…something. Something in the way he looked at me. Something in the way I looked at him. Like a question neither of us had the answer to or even knew how to bring up.

I couldn’t see him without thinking of the campout or remembering the steady beat of his heart in my ear. The little blip on the radar of my life was turning out to be more of a stuck key, playing at all times. An unfinished melody driving me crazy.

The Friday before the Harvest Festival began, I made my way to Horseshoe Holler after my bakery shift. Archer had double-booked the afternoon and wanted me to take my first trial-run wagon ride. There were just two guests coming, and both of them were familiar faces in Autumn Ridge, making the stakes low if I happened to do something ridiculous.

I showed up twenty minutes before the wagon ride was scheduled and helped Archer get horses saddled for his trail ride and the Percherons hooked up to the wagon for mine. It was a chillier day than it had been so far this fall, but with the leaves almost at their peak, it would be a perfect day.

I chatted softly to the Percherons, Han and Chewie, and rubbed their necks as Archer’s guests started to show up a few minutes before the ride.

I smiled and waved at them, but my hand faltered mid-wave.

James was walking toward the stables.

“Is James going on the ride?” I asked Archer as I readjusted a harness, trying to ignore the skitter of my pulse.

“He’s going with you.”

My gaze whipped to Archer. “What?”