Page 124 of Pumpkin Spice Promises

“Walter thinks he has hardware for some of it.”

“That means he’s going to charge me 1987 prices again,” I teased remembering the invoice we had gone over for Pops truck.

“Probably,” he agreed and we both laughed at his crazy overly kind father.

Jax closed the tailgate. “Can we go before she discovers another fence we have to fix?”

I looked toward him with a half-smile. “There are several if you’re offering.”

“I hate this ranch.”

“Fools me, you ate three of Meme’s sandwiches.”

He shook his head, mumbling under his breath, and climbed into the passenger side of Beau’s truck. I grinned fully and looked back to Beau, almost not wanting this moment to end. The afternoon sun sat lower behind him, casting him in a warm glow.

For a second, neither of us seemed to know what came next. That hadn’t happened before. Our conversations usually found their own ending…

Today though, something lingered. Maybe because of his hand at my waist. Maybe because he knew I’d been limping. Maybe because I knew he’d noticed me closely enough to see it.

“Thanks for everything you did today,” I said.

He nodded toward the property. “You did the hard part.”

“Which was?”

“Opening the gate, sweetheart.”

I looked around us, pumpkins sat beside the barn, orange flags dotted the pasture, an old hay wagon waited in the sun, and the equipment barn doors were still open. For years, I had thought keeping everything closed was how I protected what remained. Maybe all I’d really done was keep myself inside with it.

My gaze returned to Beau. He was watching me with that same steady expression that made lying feel more difficult than it should.

“You really notice everything,” I said softly. “Don’t you?”

His attention held mine. “Not everything.”

Something shifted low in my stomach. “What do you miss?”

His eyes moved briefly over my face. “I’ll let you know when I figure it out.” Then he stepped past me. The space between the barn and truck was narrow. His hand returned to my waist. Only for a second this time. A light touch as he moved around me. It was completely unnecessary, but my entire body went warm anyway.

He climbed into the truck and I remained beside the barn while they drove away.

Only after the sound of the engine disappeared down the road did I let myself look toward the space where he’d been standing. The smartest thing I could do was keep Beau Jones exactly where he was—the helpful mechanic, old family friend, just a man assisting with the festival, all beyond safe categories that didn’t lead to awkward moments neither of us could forget. Mostly because the version of me Beau knew was easy to want, and I wasn’t sure what would happen when he met the rest.

But somewhere between him noticing a limp I had spent five years teaching the world not to see, and touching my waist like my body was nothing unusual, my heart was sent into a spiral.

Because unlike a broken fence or failing water pump, I had absolutely no idea how to fix this.

Chapter

Fifteen

CARSON

By Wednesday morning, Willow Creek had decided Marigold Ranch was officially interesting again. I knew because three people I had barely spoken to in years had waved at me before I made it through the first block of Main Street, Mrs. Patterson from the grocery store had somehow heard we were “bringing the old hayrides back exactly the way James used to do them,” which was not remotely true, and someone had left a handwritten note beneath the windshield wiper of Meme’s Camry offering to volunteer for the pumpkin patch.

We didn’t even have a pumpkin patch. Because unlike Pops I hadn’t kept growing the pumpkins. There just wasn’t enough time in my day to do everything like he did.

I carried the note with me into Sugar and Pine, the bakery smelled like cinnamon before the door fully closed behind me. Warm sugar, coffee, butter, pumpkin, something with apples baking somewhere in the back. The air felt heavier because of it, richer somehow, as if calories didn’t matter if June Whitaker had anything to say about it.