Page 239 of Pumpkin Spice Promises

“Part of it.”

“What else?”

“I’m cooking.” He wiggled his brows and I grinned knowing exactly where this was going.

“The first time you cooked for me, I ended up naked.”

“That’s correct, my beautiful fiancée.”

I wrapped my arms around his neck, and he kissed me. A year hadn’t made his lips on mine ordinary. If anything, time had made it more familiar and every kiss better.

When we separated, Beau glanced through the windows. “You know your grandmother was right.”

“That’s dangerous territory. About what?”

“This place.”

I followed his gaze. A few months ago, when we’d first brought Meme up here after the framing was finished, I’d worried she would misunderstand.

That she’d hear what I couldn’t quite say. I don’t want your house when you’re gone.

Instead, she’d walked through every unfinished room slowly. Touched the kitchen windowsill. Looked toward the farmhouse in the distance.

Then she smiled.

“James always wanted this place to grow.”

That comment had nearly destroyed me. Not because she’d given me permission. Because she’d understood.

Building something new didn’t erase what came before it. I’d spent too many years confusing those things.

A crackle came from the radio clipped to my waistband. “Carson, where are you?”

Beau instantly groaned and rolled his eyes.

I lifted the radio. “What, Rosie?”

“We have an issue at the pumpkin weigh-off.”

I closed my eyes. “What kind of issue?”

“Darlene is demanding a recount.”

“It’s weight.”

“That’s what I said.”

Beau laughed. I pressed my forehead against his chest.

“Coming.”

By seven, the temperature had dropped enough that everyone wanted the bonfire. By eight, Marigold looked exactly like the version of fall people tried to manufacture for photographs.

Only ours was real.

The trees had darkened to silhouettes around the property, and orange lights wrapped through thinning branches while leaves blew across the paths in bursts whenever the wind moved through. Smoke drifted from the bonfire. Children carried cups of cider beneath strings of lights. Pumpkins glowed from every corner of the barn.

The haunted hayride screamed every fourteen minutes with enough consistency that Walter had started timing it.