Page 65 of Sweet Surprises

The realization made him ashamed. He had two amazing children and a family all around him. He had work that brought him peace and a community that held him and the kids in its collective arms when they lost Iris.

I shouldn’t need a woman…

But Charlotte wasn’t just a woman. She was waking him up inside, and Olivia too. And the way she loved and protected Chance—she had his boy more relaxed than Tag had ever seen him.

And Tag had pushed her away—worse than pushed her away. He had publicly shamed her by implying that she meant nothing to him.

She’s not the boy’s mother. You aren’t supposed to discuss my children with strangers.

He’d felt sick inside the moment those words left his mouth, and he still couldn’t shake the shame and regret that left him unable to sleep or eat since then.

Maybe some part of him had expected her to scream at him or cry—to fight for what they had tenuously built.

But what he had said was too much. He couldn’t even bear to ask for her forgiveness, because he knew what he had done was unforgivable. And then to walk in on her in the barn with his daughter after that, to hear how Olivia felt…

Olivia is right. I ruin everything.

The bells over the door jingled, and he looked up to see Allie coming in. He braced himself, knowing this wasn’t going to be good.

She peeled off her coat and scarf and sat down across from him. Her expression was tight, and she didn’t meet his eye.

His stomach clenched and he looked around, glad that the café was pretty empty at this hour. He was pretty sure she was about to give him an earful. And he deserved it.

“Thanks for coming,” he told her. “I want your advice about the ice cream shop.”

“No, you don’t,” Allie said.

He blinked at her, taken aback.

“You’ve never asked for my advice about the shop or the farm my whole life, not even once,” Allie said. “Which is a whole conversation for another day. Why don’t you tell me why you actually want to talk?”

“It’s about Charlotte,” he admitted softly.

“My best friend?” she asked. “The one Ispecificallytold everyone to give space to? The one who was already hurting when she got here, and came here to heal?”

“I’m sorry,” he said, letting his head drop.

“You know, I forgave you the minute I saw what was starting to happen with you two,” Allie said crisply.

“You did?” he asked, glancing up at her.

She still looked really, really angry. But as far as he could tell, she was telling the truth.

“I saidTag gets itthat night when I was telling everyone to leave her alone,” she said. “And I meant it. You don’t play around with women’s feelings. When you like someone, you like them, period. And you’re honest about it. That’s how it always was with Iris.”

“Oh,” he said, taking that in.

“And you haven’t exactly painted the town red since you lost her,” Allie went on. “So when you started looking at Charlotte like she hung the stars, I figured you were about to give me a new sister-in-law.”

His heart lurched, like it was going to beat out of his chest.

“You… you didn’t have a problem with that?” he asked her.

“I love you, you enormous cow patty,” Allie said, reaching across the table to give his shoulder a light slap. “Don’t you get that? We all do.”

“You were all talking about me?” he asked.

“We can only listen to Zane talk about pasteurization so many times,” she said. “Did you really think we weren’t going to discuss the most exciting thing that’s happened around here in years? And it’s not just us—it’s the whole town. Apparently, Chance asked Kris Olaffson to make Charlotte his new mommy for Christmas.”

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