Page 56 of When I Fall In Love

“And what am I trying to do?”

“You’re trying to make me fall in love all over again.”

“With?” My heart is in my throat. When I fell in love with her ages ago, it was for forever. Then I didn’t know such a thing even existed. But now it took nothing for me to tumble headfirst into Beth again, and it’s only through sheer willpower that I’m not thinking about her flight home that’s booked in a couple of days.

“Vermont,” she says. “Ashleigh Lake.” She puts her cup down and folds her fingers over mine. “Maybe even a little bit with you.”

“As long as it’s only a little bit.” I muster a smile. If there’s a moment to talk about what happens next, it’s now. “Bee—”

“I think you need to take me to see your factory.”

Just like that, the wind goes right out of my sails. “Today?”

“You have to be back at work tomorrow, so if not now, when?”

Time. By far the cruelest thing on the planet. And her words, reminding me that I need to go back to a pile of problems and a life that would be empty without her. She filled every hollow space that echoed in me over this weekend, and I don’t want to go back to the status quo. You only miss what you know, and before this weekend, I didn’t know how life could be. With her here like this, my old life looks sterile and cold.

As for work, I haven’t checked my phone since switching it off on Friday night. I haven’t bothered to go into my home office to glance through emails on my desktop there. It’s as if crossing that line will burst this bubble of fragile magic we’re in and I want to float in it as long as humanly possible. But Beth just said it: what we have is ending and the thought is soul-destroying.

“We can go there now.” I drain my own coffee cup and signal for the check. If Beth wants to see my business, I’m not going to stand in her way. For all I know, it might swing her vote when it comes to selling Collingwood Farm. “The factory will be running but the admin offices will be empty.” It’s Sunday afternoon. If anyone is in the admin block, I’ll be surprised.

It’s quiet between us in the car on our way back to Ashleigh Lake. Beth is staring out of the window as we drive through tunnels of fall colors. It’s breathtaking, but I’m somewhat blind to it, having seen it for a lifetime of seasonal changes. My head is busy too, trying to find the words I need to say. They are building up in my throat, but I don’t have the guts to ask them. Not yet.

When I turn at the sign to the factory, she flicks me a glance.

“You have your own road?”

“It sort of came with building the factory. We have a lot of milk trucks in and freight out.”

When you drive up to our buildings, they look deceptively small at first glance. They stretch deeper than you can see from the front. The road splits. “That one is for trucks only, and this takes us to admin.”

I pull up at the employee parking lot. There are quite a few cars.

“It seems busy.”

“We have three eight-hour shifts a day. The factory runs twenty-four seven.”

“Really? I didn’t know that.”

“Well,” I start on a laugh. “Cows get milked twice a day and all that milk has to go somewhere.”

She punches me in the shoulder. “Don’t be mean. Just because I’m a city girl and have been brainwashed by high rises to think steak comes produced on Styrofoam and cows churn out bottled milk straight out of the udder—”

I lean over and silence her with a kiss. When I pull away, I murmur, “Ow, that’ll hurt. Poor cows. Milking out gallon bottles.”

“Ugh,” she groans.

She’s too cute like this and my heart swells. “Are you ready to be amazed?” I ask as I open my door. “To be brainwashed by stainless steel towers into thinking ice cream pops out of somewhere in neat, pint-sized containers?”

“Like a chicken laying an egg?” She grins at me, wide-eyed.

“Exactly. Just like that.”

28

BETH

Hunter leads the way to the entrance of the admin building and opens the door with an electronic card he had in his truck. In the foyer there are welcome signs and metal doors that lead to the factory and a staircase that leads up to the admin floors.

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