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“Exactly,” she said. “For Hollows sake Autumn, this isn’t the city where you have to fight tooth and nail to prove who you are. You can have it both ways if you want it! Think about all the work you’ve been doing on the orchard and the festival. You’re turning that into somethingmore. It’s not set in stone that you have to up and walk away from that.”
A moment passed between us as her words sunk in. I’d been working for months with Janet and the community, putting together a rather impressive project I hadn’t even clued the guys into yet. It was the kind of thing marketing and business majors would have salivated getting their hands on at a firm and yet here I was, doing it on my own.
“I’m an idiot, aren’t I?”
“You’re an idiot,” she agreed. “But at least you have a pack who loves you enough to let you come to that decision on your own.”
The doorbell rang just then, and I looked at her curiously.
“Did you order something?” I asked.
She pulled the front door open, and I caught a glance of a familiar red pick up pulling from her drive.
Claire reached down, hefting a basket up, before hip checking the door to close it.
“It looks like that pack of yours also loves you enough to feed our faces tonight,” Claire said, grabbing a container and opening it, the smells of pumpkin and tomato and savory herbs and cheese filling the room.
I was up and on my feet in an instant, knowing that smell and salivating over the container of homemade pumpkin lasagna Claire was holding. Jack had made it for me once before and I may have held a whole pan hostage for myself. Before I could grab a fork and dig in, I saw the rest of the basket.
My favorite blanket that Hunter had got me was at the bottom of the basket, along with a couple of servings of Boone’s favorite hot chocolate that I loved to steal sips of, to top it all off there was a bottle of cider, the little hand drawn label on it doing me in.
Instead of the one I had painstakingly crafted with the orchard’s new branding, there was a hand drawn one. Four poorly drawn figures stood side by side, they weren’t much more than stick figures, but it was easy enough to discern who was who was who.
The tallest figure of the bunch had on a pair of handcuffs, the one next to it had a huge smile with a pumpkin in one hand while he held hands with the figure that I assumed was supposed to be me, an apple drawn on my dress. On my other side, slightly bigger than the other figures was one with a full beard, holding my other hand.
Cedarwick’s New Traditions was written across the bottom, trees drawn on the sides of the four of us standing together, but what really got me was the fact that each of the guys had apples for eyes, like all they could see was me.
“I love them so much.”
“Yeah, but you already knew that,” Claire pointed out. “You just didn’t want to say it in case you ended up moving back to the city and breaking your heart and theirs.”
“They’ve been courting me the whole time, and I never put it in perspective, gifts here and there sure and the stuff for the nest, but taking care of me in such profound and basic ways too. They said they’d move with me.”
“Now you’re trying to break my heart,” Claire said, with a faux pout. “You know you don’t want to go back to the city. Not when you’re surrounded by all of this.”
“You sound like Riley,” I said, with a laugh. “But you’re right, I don’t want to go back. I don’t want to leave the orchard or everything I’ve worked so hard to build and I don’t want to leave my pack. Plus, this town, you, Riley… I’ve never really had a lot of friends.”
“There we go,” Claire said, sounding pleased. “Now let’s enjoy all this cheesy goodness and let me try this new cider of yours before you go back and mate their asses. I doubt we’ll get another night alone for a while after that. I’m surprised they aren’t camped outside my damn house right now.”
Cracking open the cider and dishing out the lasagna, we curled up on her sofa, my blanket wrapped around my shoulders and smelling of home as we made plans for all the exciting things we could do now that I was officially staying.
Now I just had to think of a way to tell the guys, and I couldn’t think of a better thing than what I had planned to show them at the Fall Festival. They deserved something special, to feel as loved and as cherished as they made me, and I would make sure they felt it too.
Chapter27
Autumn
The next morning the pack welcomed me with what was turning out to be our habitual breakfast gathering. They’d showered me with love and affection, letting me know how much they missed me without pressing me to share what I’d decided.
It wasn’t long after that we transformed the kitchen into pie headquarters. The festival was closing in and Jack and I were definitely feeling the pressure.
The entire house smelled like pure heaven. Jack and I had an array of pie shells ready to be filled and baked. He was making pumpkin of course, while I was sticking with apples. Riley had helped me pick out our best apples for today.
I didn’t care at this point who won the contest. Spending the afternoon dancing around the kitchen with Jack as we worked in perfect harmony was a win all in itself.
“You forgot butter,” he teased me as I sliced up the dough to form a lattice pattern. Wadding up a scrap piece, I launched it at him, getting it stuck right on his cheek as he gaped at me. My laughter turned into a shriek as he stuck his fingers in the flower and flicked it at me, raining the powder all over me and the dough.
“Children,” Boone chastised half-heartedly from his spot at the table. He looked up just as Jack and I looked at each other, matching grins forming as we planned silently to team up on him. “Oh hell no, I’m out. I’ve got to run anyway.”
