Page 164 of Pumpkin Spice Promises

By seven o’clock on Saturday night, Marigold Ranch had finally gone quiet. I was starting to learn there was no such thing as silence on a ranch.

Cows made noise whether anyone asked them to or not. Crickets had started up somewhere beyond the pasture. Blueberry occasionally snorted from the paddock as if she had opinions about the day and expected someone to hear them. The old barn creaked whenever the wind pushed through it, and every few minutes, the generator behind the equipment shed hummed to life before settling again.

But the town people were gone.

For the better part of ten hours, Marigold had been overrun by half of Willow Creek. The Harvest Festival was two weeks away, and apparently that meant everyone had collectively decided Saturdays no longer belonged to them.

June had arrived before nine with enough cinnamon rolls to feed an army and left by noon after somehow volunteering Sugar and Pine to run the cider station. Darlene spent four hours attaching miniature scarecrows to fence posts until Carson informed her the cows were eating them.

Rosie and Jax had argued over the placement of the bonfire area for so long that Dad eventually moved the marker himself while they were still fighting. Then he spent most of the day working on one of James’s old tractors despite being told approximately twelve times that nobody expected him to get it running. Clover had painted pumpkins. She had also painted a tiny orange pumpkin on the back of Hunter’s prosthetic hand while he wasn’t paying attention.

Mom and Meme sat on the porch like two queens overseeing their kingdom, drinking sweet tea and assigning jobs to anyone unfortunate enough to make eye contact.

And Carson, well that woman didn’t sit down for even a moment. She had been everywhere.

She’d started the morning in the dairy barn before most of us arrived, changed into a clean shirt after one of the calves sneezed something disgusting across the first one, argued with the rental company about portable toilets, helped Clover measure vendor spaces, disappeared to check milk production, returned carrying a hammer, and somehow still remembered to feed all of us.

I’d watched her do it, and that was becoming another problem.

I watched Carson without meaning to.

I noticed when she got tired because the slightest hitch appeared in her stride.

I noticed when she was irritated because she pressed her tongue against the inside of her cheek.

I noticed when something reminded her of James because her eyes always went somewhere else for a second.

I noticed when she was trying not to laugh at me.

And sometime during the last couple weeks, I’d learned the difference between Carson genuinely wanting to be alone and Carson waiting to see if somebody cared enough to stay.

Tonight, I stayed.

The last truck disappeared down the driveway, taillights vanishing behind the trees. Carson stood in the middle of the yard with her hands on her hips.

“Tell me they’re actually gone,” she whispered, like if she spoke any louder they would hear and circle back.

I leaned against the side of the hay wagon. “They’re gone.”

“All of them?”

“Unless Darlene is hiding in the corn.”

“We don’t grow corn.”

“Then probably all of them.”

Her shoulders dropped. “Thank God.”

I laughed at her relief.

She looked exhausted. Her blonde hair had started the day in a ponytail but was now twisted into something messier at the back of her head, with half of it escaping around her face. Dirt marked one knee of her jeans. There was a streak of orange paint near her elbow that I didn’t think she’d noticed. But I thought she looked better than she had last Friday night dressed for our date.

Date night Carson had been beautiful, but tonight she looked like she belonged here.

There was something about her that I couldn’t stop staring at.

She caught me, blue eyes narrowing suspiciously. “What?”