Page 234 of Pumpkin Spice Promises

“Yeah?”

She smiled. “Yeah.”

I kissed her.

When I pulled back, Carson stayed close. Her forehead rested against mine. “I don’t know what will happen next,” she whispered.

“Tomorrow?” I questioned, and she nodded. “Neither do I.” I shrugged, wrapping an arm around her shoulders. That seemed to surprise her. I brushed my thumb over her cheek with my other hand. “I know I want you in it.”

Her eyes searched mine. “That’s it?”

“Basically.”

She smiled slowly as I stared into her green eyes that were illuminated by the dying fire. “Pops would’ve loved you for me.”

“You think so?”

“I know.”

I swallowed the weight of her words because it meant the world to me. I kissed her hair.

Tomorrow we'll have cleanup. Monday I’d go back to the shop. Carson would have payroll and milk deliveries and a ranch that still needed more work than one person could ever finish.

There would be bills.

Broken fences.

Bad days.

Arguments.

There would probably be another festival next year because Rosie had already threatened us with a Christmas market.

Nothing had magically become easy.

It had simply become ours to figure out.

Together.

Epilogue

CARSON

One Year Later

I’d learned that success had its own particular kind of chaos. One that sounded like Rosie Malone screaming into a walkie-talkie because someone had parked the kettle corn trailer six feet too far to the left. Failure was quieter. And I had never much liked the quiet.

“Carson, do you copy?”

I stared at the radio clipped to my jeans. “No.”

Static crackled. “I heard you.”

“Then why’d you ask?”

“Because that’s how radios work.”

A deep laugh came from behind me, and I turned at the sound.