Page 57 of Pumpkin Spice Promises

“Are you planning to charge Carson?”

He looked at me like I was stupid. “Of course.”

“How much I need to add to the quote?”

“What I paid.”

“That was probably twelve dollars.”

“Fourteen.”

“Dad.”

“What?”

“The part would cost four times that now.”

“I didn’t pay four times that.”

“She’s not going to accept this.”

I looked toward Jax. He kept his head buried beneath the hood of another vehicle. Coward.

“Fine, Beau.” Dad placed the hose beside my parts tray. “Charge her fourteen fifty.”

“She’ll know.”

“Then tell her the truth.”

“That you found a twenty-year-old hose in storage?”

“Vintage inventory.” He chuckled like that was a good enough answer, and I sighed. “Sounds better than twenty-year-old part, don’t you think?”

There was no point arguing. Dad squeezed my shoulder once, set the part onto the workbench with care, and wandered toward the office with his thermos in hand, while I returned to Carson’s truck. The hose itself wasn’t important. The reason Dad had looked for it was. James was gone five years, and Dad still treated his belongings like pieces of somebody who might walk into the garage tomorrow. I understood that more after visiting Marigold Ranch. The place still felt like James was alive too. Not because it was unchanged. Because so much of what remained looked like it had been preserved.

His truck. His property. His granddaughter holding all of it together.

I rubbed my lip with my teeth.

“Dad.”

He stopped at the office door.

“When did Marigold Ranch stop hosting the Harvest Festival?”

The question made him turn. Jax looked up too. Dad’s expression changed slowly.

“The year James died.”

“I know that, but…why? Didn’t it bring in a lot of money for them?”

Dad studied me as if the answer should have been obvious. “Because James was the festival.”

I leaned against the workbench. “What does that mean?”

“You don’t remember?”

“I was seventeen the last year I helped out there. I remember moving hay and being yelled at.”