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“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” Gabe said. “Give it a minute. It’s hotter than you’d think.”

Mara took the cup gratefully, the heat seeping into her fingers. It smelled wonderful, sharp and sweet at once, and she took a sip and immediately regretted it. The cider was far hotter than she’d expected, and she lowered the cup quickly.

Mara looked up. Gabe’s mouth twitched into a smile.

“Not a word,” she warned.

“I wasn’t going to say anything.” He was still smiling, but he shifted a little so the wind coming off the trail hit him rather than her while she waited for it to cool. “Everybody does it. It’s part of the experience.”

She blew carefully across the top of the cider before trying again. Gabe took a more cautious sip from his own cup and looked entirely too pleased with himself about it.

Mara bumped her shoulder lightly against his. He laughed quietly, and they moved away from the stand toward the beginning of the trail.

The lanterns were even prettier once they were beneath them, some hung from branches overhead, others standing low beside the path, their light thrown in soft patterns across the leaves underfoot. They walked slowly, because there was no reason to hurry.

“Do you come every year?” Mara asked.

“Most years. Dana brings the kids, and I love seeing it through their eyes.” He drank some of his cider. “It’s about the only hour all fall when I’m not thinking about the bakery.”

“Is that hard? Not thinking about it?”

“Usually.” He considered that for a moment. “Not tonight.”

Mara felt herself blush, and looked at the lanterns rather than at him so he didn’t see the effect he had on her. “I’m glad you brought me here.”

“I’m glad you asked me to dinner.” He took a deep breath. “The honest truth is, I’d been trying to work up the nerve to ask you to dinner.”

“Since when?” Her voice came out in a high squeak.

“Since the minute you walked into my bakery.” He glanced sideways at her.

“I’m flattered,” she said into her cup. In fact, she was more than flattered. Relieved that she wasn’t imagining their attraction. And a little scared of where this might be heading.

Or maybe it wasn’t fear. Maybe it was excitement.

They walked on, and for a little while neither of them said anything. She sipped her cider and listened to the crunch of leaves beneath their feet, the distant murmur of other people somewhere ahead and behind them, and Gabe’s footsteps keeping pace beside hers.

Usually silence made her reach for something. A question. A story. It was part of her job to keep those silences from becoming awkward.

Tonight she didn’t. It felt easy. Almost familiar, though she had only known Gabe a short time.

When she looked across at Gabe, he was already looking at her. Mara turned her attention back to the lanterns, and a few steps later their sleeves brushed again.

The temptation to reach for his hand was almost too much, but she didn’t want to push things too far, too fast.

The trail curved farther into the trees, away from the brighter lights near the entrance. Here the lanterns were spaced farther apart, each one casting its own small pool of gold across the path, and between them the moonlight came down through the branches and caught the edges of the leaves before the darkness swallowed them again.

Ahead, the trees opened onto a wider stretch of trail with a low wooden rail along one side. Beyond it, Bear Creek lay below them in scattered points of light, the town small beneath the dark sweep of the mountains.

Mara stopped. “Oh, look at that.”

Gabe came to stand beside her. “Worth the walk?”

She heard it, and so did he, and they both smiled at the same time.

“You said that to me on the trail.”