Page 135 of Fall Over You

THANKSGIVING WEEKEND TO CHRISTMAS EVE

My heart thrums, because that’s my girl, making everyone happy, bringing the party, knowing how to celebrate life. I hate how many years I spent denying her infectious joy, considering her more of an infection herself. I’m sad I spent so long believing CJ when I knew she was lying about other things.

But I have to forgive myself. It’s like Jake said: you can try to protect yourself from pain, or you can choose to trust people and get let down every once in a while. I can see my time with CJ for what it was: a time of intense pain that had an extremely positive result.

My Ellie.

And now I get to share her with this person who trusts, who welcomes people with open arms, who has so much love to give that I’m pretty sure there’s no bottom to her heart. I’m the luckiest because she decided I’m worthy of a piece of her heart.

I completely spaced out on listening to the car, because as I get off the next exit to turn around, a word on the radio makes me perk up.

The commercial is backed by jingle bells with a warm voice telling me all the fun that awaits me at Woodpeckers: a Pecker Farm experience.

That’s my Becca. I want to rush home now and kiss her. I want to feel her skin all over mine, to hear that raspy laugh, to feel the unmatched comfort of her love.

Before I turn around to get back on the highway, I notice something in a plaza on my right, a place I’ve never been.

A jewelry store. I know what I need to do.

FIFTY

BECCA

“You ready, lil mama?”

“Yeah!”

The autumn afternoon sun is just behind the mountains, casting a golden hour glow over everything around us. Tyler is dressed nice for once, wearing his good jeans, boots, and a flannel with his Carhartt duck coat on top. His usual ballcap is missing, and it looks like he put a little of the product he keeps in the medicine cabinet in his hair. He holds Ellie up to put her pumpkin in the basket of the trebuchet and she places our Halloween pumpkin inside. “Drop it in there, shug.”

Next to us, Dusty holds my niece up to do the same on a catapult that he’ll have to jump on.

We made it to the final weekend of my Autumn Spectacular, closing out with punkin’ chunkin’ at our Pumpkin Smash. I’m surrounded by a long row of contraptions designed to fling rotting pumpkins through the air: catapults, trebuchets, slingshots, and stuff I never could have thought up. The farthest fling will win a special prize.

We had so many people come to the farm this morning that we had to send someone to give out timed tickets for entry. My farm is now the talk of the area, and I have every confidence that we have nothing to worry about when it comes to paying off this loan.

“Sorry, Ellie. Your god-dad’s going to win this one,” Dusty calls, climbing up to the little platform for him to jump out of. Currently, I’m debating whether I should have increased my liability insurance for this weekend.

At least my brother won’t sue me. Probably.

Tyler and Dusty look at each other with a laugh. “Three, two, one, go!”

Tyler releases the peg to send our pumpkin flying, and Dusty jumps onto the catapult. Both pumpkins sail through the air, but Dusty’s makes a slightly shorter arc. They land with satisfying crunches.

“NO!” he shouts. “I thought I had it! I need a bigger pumpkin!”

“Not how it works,” Tyler taunts.

Jake saunters up from where he’s been watching. “Yeah, you see, what you need to do is⁠—”

“I love you, Jacob, but I don’t want a physics lesson right this second,” Dusty says with a growl.

“Did I win, Mama?” Ellie asks.

I scoop her up and swing her up over my head. “You win, sweet girl!”

I settle Ellie on my hip and look over to make sure Ada doesn’t feel left out, but she’s blissfully unaware and picking pumpkin seeds out of the grass. Only her father is crushed by the defeat.

I turn to Jake. “Where’s your woman?”