Page 43 of Pumpkin Spice Promises

“What else would?”

“Oh, I don’t know.” She casually spooned pudding into her mouth. “Maybe the six-foot-something mechanic who brought you home wearing a shirt tight enough to make an old woman appreciate the Lord’s work.”

“Meme!”

“What?”

“You’re seventy-three.”

“Not dead.”

I covered my reddened face as her laugh filled the kitchen.

“He was handsome.”

“You saw him for a few minutes on the porch.”

“I have excellent eyesight.”

“You use reading glasses.”

“For reading. Not men.”

“You’re ridiculous.” I dropped my hands.

“And you’re blushing.”

“I am not.”

“You absolutely are.”

Heat climbed higher into my cheeks, proving her point. Meme looked delighted.

“I remember Beau spending a lot of time here one summer. I’m not that old. It was the summer you were on the circuit.”

At seventeen, I’d spent more weekends outside Willow Creek than inside it. Pops and I had been chasing every event we could reach because sponsors were finally beginning to notice me. Back then, Marigold Ranch had been the place I returned to between the life I had and the life I thought I was building.

Now it was both.

“I don’t remember him at all.”

Meme studied me over the rim of her glass.

“What?”

“Nothing sweetie.”

“That is never true when you say it.”

“He seems like a good man.”

“You met him when he was seventeen.”

“I knew Walter and Margaret before you were born. Good people tend to raise good people.”

“You’re getting dangerously close to planning something.”

Her mouth twitched. “I’m eating pudding.”