Page 91 of Falling for Autumn Again

He sets an arm around my shoulders and leads me over to the main house. “I think you made the best choice you could have at the time.”

"You do?" I'm not sure why his words mean so much to me. Maybe because everyone else seems to think I was horridly wrong or that I need to own up to that choice as if it were a mistake.

“I do. That boy was in a rough spot. Had he stayed with his father, who knows what would have happened. We all know he’d never have left you. Not willingly.” My friend’s bushy gray brows pull together. “It was an impossible situation, my girl. You were a child making a very adult decision. You did your best. And whileyour best was painful, I don’t think you can look back with regret now.”

I hold a fist to my chest, forcing my emotions down. "But I feel regret, so much of it. And yet I don't think I'd do anything differently."

“How could you?”

I breathe a little easier. Someone agrees with me. Don, a man I love and respect, agrees with me. Ezra had to leave. He couldn’t stay here.

Don pushes his way inside the ranch style home and I follow. He leads me to their kitchen table. “Cider?” he asks.

“Sure.” Cider or something much stronger. I could use a drink.

I trace the wood grain on the tabletop. “But now, it’s… different. Right?”

“Sure,” he says. “I can see why you’d want to protect him still. But look at him, Autumn. He isn’t a boy anymore. And a man needs to make his own choices. That is, until he’s got a wife to make them for him. But until then, it’s important to his character, to his pride, to his soul that he does so.” He sets a mug in front of me. The one with GRANDPA written on the front, with a stick figure of him and his grandson.

The mug is warm and sweaty as I hold it in both my hands before bringing the rim to my lips. I take a small sip of the tangy, sweet liquid and then another. I love cider in October. It makes me feel like no matter how cold it is outside, I’ll always be warm and protected.

“So,” I say, setting my toasty mug back onto the table. “You’re saying I can’t tell him he has to leave. It has to be his choice. If he chooses to stay, I need to respect that.” My heart betrays me, giving me up. Yep, I hope he stays. Selfishly, I hope Mav Bennett dies in the night and Ezra never leaves me again.

“I’m not saying that. You are.” Don settles into the chair beside me. “But it sounds like good advice to me.” He brings his ownmug to his lips and downs a gulp, not even flinching at the temperature. “One thing I know firsthand is that a beautiful girl who owns your heart has much more sway over you than a dirty, rotten cheat who never deserved to be your father.”

I swallow. “You think he’ll stay then?”

“I think he’s a grown man who isn’t going to allow Mav Bennett to influence him one way or the other anymore. He can live in the same town as that man, Autumn, and never even think of him.”

“You think?”

“I know so.” He takes another gulp, then reaches out, placing his hand over top of mine. “My home life wasn’t the greatest, you know.”

But I don’t know. I sit taller and peer at my friend. He saidfirsthand. He said he knew firsthand. Why didn’t that hit me before?

“It didn’t matter that my dysfunctional family lived in Love. Dessie and I still made a home here. A new life for ourselves. I suppose to some, it might matter. But Dessie was all I needed. I left that life behind. And started a new one. In the exact same town.” He lifts one shoulder and winks at me. Then, picking up my hand, he holds it to his lips, kissing the back of my hand.

“Wasn’t that hard though?”

“Sure. But Dessie was worth it. We both were. And so are you and Ezra.”

Chapter Forty-Three

Ezra

April chooses umpireblue for the exterior of the house and honey pot yellow for the door.

“They look different in the sun,” I tell her. “Could you step out to see the swatches on the house?”

Her cheeks concave as she sucks them in, staring at me as if I’ve asked her to take a trip to the moon. “We looked out back,” she tells me.

“We did, but that was the shade. I don’t want to buy all the paint if you haven’t seen it in both lights. The front is what everyone else will see. I want to make sure you like it.”

She runs a thin hand over the back of her neck. I start for the front door, acting as if I know nothing about her aversion to crossing that threshold.

But I can’t pretend for long. I step out onto the cement porch, my toes in line with the door’s frame. I hold out a hand to her, my wrist and palm just inside the house.

I don't say anything. And neither does she. But slowly, and with a small tremor, April places her hand in mine. She takes one small half-step outside the house and turns to the wooden siding next to the door.

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