Page 203 of Pumpkin Spice Promises

Mom wasn’t surprised.

Meme sat beneath a canopy near the main house with Mom, selling cider tickets from the same galvanized bucket Carson had found in the equipment barn weeks earlier.

And I spent most of the morning wherever someone shouted my name loudest.

One of the hay wagon lights stopped working.

A vendor needed a longer extension cord.

The temporary power near the cider station tripped twice because someone plugged in a space heater despite it being seventy degrees.

A kid lost a shoe in the pumpkin field. For reasons still unclear to me, I became involved in retrieving it.

Through all of it, my attention kept finding Carson.

She had worried herself sick over this day. Now she looked like she had been born for it.

She stood near the entrance answering questions, redirected volunteers, checked on the animals, solved vendor problems before most people realized there were problems to solve, and somehow still managed to kneel beside a little girl who wanted to know if every cow had a name.

Carson told her yes.

Which wasn’t remotely true, but I imagined a younger Carson who thought the same thing. The image brought a smile to my face.

The little girl believed her, and the mother took a picture with the cows in the background.

Carson looked toward me afterward and shrugged.

I laughed, shaking my head, because Carson was never one to ruin someone’s dream.

At some point the grief that had clung to her like a dark cloud evaporated as pride swallowed all her features. Maybe it happened twenty minutes later when she caught a six-year-old climbing a fence and somehow convinced him to come down without making him feel like he’d done anything wrong. Maybe it happened when I watched her bring Meme a fresh cup of cider without being asked. Maybe it was when she stood beside Dad arguing about the tractor while an elderly couple interrupted to tell her they remembered coming to Marigold years ago when James still ran the hayrides.

I had spent the last month thinking I was falling for Carson Rome.

Somewhere between the first hayride and her threatening to murder Rosie over a missing box of extension cords, I realized I’d been wrong.

There was no falling left to do.

I loved everything about her already.

Music continued near the barn. Children screamed happily from the pumpkin patch. Rosie was still talking too loudly over the radio. Jax still looked like he was reconsidering every life choice that had led him here.

Carson stood twenty feet away with a clipboard tucked beneath her arm, listening to Dad explain something with his hands while a little boy pulled impatiently at the hem of her sweater because he wanted her to show him the goats.

I loved the woman who walked into my garage, soaked through and furious.

I loved the girl I’d watched race Blueberry in old videos.

I loved the granddaughter who still carried Pops around in everything she touched.

I loved the rancher who knew which cow was sick before anyone else.

I loved the woman who had spent years believing half her body determined whether someone could want the rest.

And maybe most terrifying of all, I loved the future version of Carson I didn’t know yet.

The one she was still becoming.

Someone slammed a hand against my shoulder.