Page 29 of Falling for Autumn Again

I swallow, nerves rising. But this is what I want. Right?

“Take my four-wheeler,” Dessie says, hopping off the machine.

“But won’t you—”

“I’ll ride with Don. We like snuggling up like that. Like when we were kids. Don is the spice of my life.”

I force a smile. I’d rather not think about Don being Dessie’s spice. “Great. That’s great, Dess.”

Don winks at his wife, then suggestively raises his bushy brows. Which is my cue to exit.

“Okay, I’ll go find Autumn.”

“You go get that girl,” Dessie sings. She knows we’re just working, right?

It’s a fast, bumpy drive, but I find Autumn easy enough. The old green Ford is a dead giveaway.

Her brows lower the second she sees me. I drive up, stopping right where she plants a tiny tree. She crouches but peers up at me, scowling as if I just ran over her row of saplings. “What are you wearing?”

I glance down at my dirty T-shirt and jeans, all the way down to Don’s boots that I’ll regret more tomorrow than I already do today.

“Uhh—” I look back up at her. I don’t know what she means.

“Why are you in work clothes?” She stands, hands on hips now, death glare in place. Autumn may only be five foot four, tiny, and curved in all the right places, but the girl could scare a bear. She always could. Once a kid in middle school stole her sister’s diary, the notebook Summer carried everywhere she went, and Autumn scolded the kid so harshly that he peed his pants.

But I don’t let her mother hen tone and deadly glare faze me. She may not want to talk about it—but I know her, in and out.

“Because I’ve been working,” I droll out. I’m pretty sure this bit of information is going to tick her off—and I’m okay with that. A pissed Autumn always had something to say.

“No, you have not.”

I snicker, loving the pitch in her voice. “Ihave.” I hold out my dirty hands to prove it to her.

“Well, stop it.”

“I can’t stop it. Don hired me on.”

“What?” she yelps, her voice so high-pitched that I literally have to put one finger in my ringing ear. “He did not!”

“We can pretend he didn’t. Just like we pretended Dessie didn’t hire me to design your bistro, but—”

The confidence in her face wavers. “It’s notmybistro, it’s the Linus’s. I’m just running it for them.”

“You always wanted your own place.”

She called it hers before—what’s changed? A lot, apparently. She never wanted to manage a small-town Christmas tree farm restaurant before.

“Dreams change.”

“That, I know.” I watch her, wondering what I’m missing. What’s gone on all these years.

“Fine,” she says, turning back to her saplings. “Go dig a hole or something.”

“I was digging holes when Don sent me over here to help you.”

She sighs like I am a big inconvenience. “Fine. Start the second row. There are boxes of bare roots in the back of the truck. One is opened with a few saplings left inside. Do you remember how?”

“Of course I remember.” I scan over the boxes. There must be a hundred little trees here—it’s going to take us a week to get them all planted. Little sprouts that will be ready to decorate a home in twenty years. The Christmas tree game is a long haul.How old will Dessie and Don be when these trees are ready? Ninety or more. Who will be running the farm then?

---