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“I couldn’t help myself.” He handed her one of the hand pies. “Fresh chicken, leek, and thyme.”

“You made these this morning too? After I’d left the bakery?” If he’d been trying to impress her, it had worked. And if he hadn’t, that was better.

“Yes.”

Mara took a bite. The pastry was crisp and buttery, the filling still warm. She closed her eyes for a second, and when she opened them, Gabe was watching her. “Delicious.”

His smile came immediately. “You sound surprised.”

“I’m not surprised. I’m starting to worry that ten days here is going to ruin every bakery at home for me,” she admitted.

“I can live with that.”

They ate sitting beside each other on the bench, sharing the bread and cheese while the wind moved through the trees behind them. It was easy. That was what Mara kept noticing. No effort in the conversation.

When Gabe poured hot cider into two cups, they sat for a while and looked at the mountains. Mara cradled her cup. “This is one of the best vacation days I’ve ever had.”

“I’m glad.”

“It was supposed to be completely different.” The words came out before she had decided whether she wanted to say them.

Gabe didn’t immediately ask what she meant. He drank his cider and waited.

Mara looked down into her cup. “I was supposed to come here with someone. My ex-boyfriend, Scott. We were together eight years.”

Gabe’s eyebrows lifted slightly. “That’s a long time.”

“It is. We booked the trip six months ago. Then a few days before we were due to leave, Scott told me he couldn’t come because of work.” She ran her thumb along the rim of the cup. “It wasn’t the first time work had changed our plans. Normally I’d have been angry for a while and then rearranged everything.”

“But this time you didn’t.”

“No.” She breathed in slowly. “I asked him when the right time was going to be. Not just for the vacation. For everything. We’d talked about getting married. A house. Children. There was always a reason to wait. Work was busy, or we needed to save more, or it would make more sense next year.”

She paused. She was oversharing with a man she had met that morning, and she carried on anyway. “Then he told me he didn’t think he wanted children after all.”

Gabe’s mouth tightened. For an instant Mara wondered if it was disapproval, but when he spoke his voice was gentle. “That’s a lot to find out in one conversation.”

“Yes. And I know he’s allowed to change his mind. People do. I don’t blame him for that.” Mara stared at the mountains again. “I think what hurt most was realizing he’d changed his mind somewhere along the way and I hadn’t known. I was still making plans for a future he wasn’t sure he wanted.”

Gabe nodded slowly. “I’m sorry.”

“Thank you.”

She should have said me too. But sitting here beside Gabe, she didn’t feel that sorry at all. Maybe because deep down, deep, deep down, she had seen the signs. She hadn’t been brave enough to face them. Every next year had been one. So had every plan she rearranged while telling herself it was only work. When had she stopped asking Scott what he wanted, in case she didn’t like the answer?

They sat quietly for a moment.

“I almost canceled the trip,” she said.

“I’m glad you didn’t.”

Mara looked at him. “So am I.”

Gabe smiled, then reached into the basket. “There’s one more thing.”

Mara watched him take out a small cardboard box. “No. Is that more pie?”

His expression gave him away entirely. “I didn’t know what you liked.”