Page 41 of Harvest Moon

“Cup of cider and a donut?” a pleased female voice asked, and I looked up to find a small, but very alpha, woman standing on the other side of the main counter. Her smile was kind and genuine, but with just enough sharp edges to remind me of Claudia. This was the kind of woman you didn’t want to mess with. Her name tag said Juniper, and I remembered her from Claudia’s stories: Juniper Grove, the alpha’s sister.

“’Course,” Ridge said. “Part of the day, right? Everybody’s got to pick some apples, have some cider and a donut, and take home a jar of apple butter.” He glanced over at me and smiled. “Or a pie.”

The woman chuckled. “So two ciders, two donuts, a jar of apple butter and a pie? And the apples, of course.” She motioned for him to set the apple basket on a scale, then gave him a little nod when it came in at eight pounds. “Not a bad haul. These galas are some of the best for applesauce, if you’re looking to cook them. They’re not really pie apples, but they’re some of my favorites.”

She handed us our donuts and little cups of cider, then went into the back to grab a frozen pie. Yeah, frozen was good. I’d have to put it in the oven for an hour, so Claudia couldn’t just eat it the second I got home. She’d have to eat the chicken and broccoli I had planned for dinner before the pie was ready.

“You didn’t want to take home a pie?” I asked, and for some reason, that made him flush bright pink.

He shoved the rest of his donut into his mouth, then chewed slowly to buy time. Finally, his answer was so cute it absolutely made me want to keel over dead. “Don’t want Barbara to think there’s anything wrong with her pies. I don’t think she makes her own apple butter, so this won’t make her feel like I’m trying to say anything about her cooking.”

And this.

This was the Ridge I’d always been in love with. The man who was so worried about hurting someone’s feelings that he overthought a gift. I didn’t doubt that Barbara Hill would be thrilled with literally anything he brought her—like me and my shelves and shelves of rocks and coins and other Ridge-things. It had nothing to do with the monetary value of a thing, or whether there was some underlying message about baking skills.

It was all about Ridge, and how he thought of everyone before himself.

And unfortunately, also about how he let people treat him as less, like that douchebag he’d lived with in college. Not for the first time, I wished I’d gone to college with him. Doubtless we wouldn’t be here now, going through—whatever this was. We wouldn’t have stopped being able to communicate properly, and I’d have been able to protect him from assholes who made him feel bad about himself.

Maybe kick a couple of them in the nads.

But then also, I’d have spent a whole lot of money on a college degree of dubious value. What kind of degree does a guy like me need? Communication, my high school guidance counselor had suggested. But I already knew what I needed to know about communication. It didn’t seem like the kind of thing you needed a degree for. Not like Ridge and his science degree about how to plant things and make them grow.

Even my mother had agreed with me on this single thing. “No reason to go to college to get an ‘MRS’ degree,” she’d said airily, ignoring the fact that if she wanted me to marry, she’d probably want it to be a college boy, and never brought it up again. Part of me had wanted to point out that even if I did get married, I’d still firmly be a Mr., never a Mrs., but since she’d sort of been agreeing with me, I’d dropped it.

Dad had shrugged and told me that as long as I did something that made me happy, he didn’t care what it was. “As long as you’re following your heart, my little star, that’s all that matters.”

So I’d started a podcast, and it worked for me. Communicating with thousands of anonymous listeners had proven easier than communicating with the one man I wanted to talk to.

Looking back over at him, I wondered again. Were we on a date? What if itwassupposed to be a date?

I finished the last bite of my donut, licking the cinnamon sugar off my fingers, and then transferred my cider into the freed hand. My clean left hand, I very unsubtly slid into Ridge’s, twining our fingers lightly together.

His hand contracted around mine, tightening, but he didn’t snatch it away instantly, so that was a good sign, right?

He was still bright pink, determinedly not looking at me, and sipping at his cider, but he wasn’t running for the hills. It was a step in the right direction, if it was a date. Maybe Claudia was right.

“Okay,” the woman said, coming out of the back, holding up a cardboard box. “One lattice-top apple pie. Your eight pounds of galas. And a jar of apple butter. Did you want regular, cinnamon, or a blend? We’ve got apple-pear and apple-cherry.”

Ridge bit his lip, looking at the big sign above her head and considering. I knew if it were for him he’d pick the cherry kind, but he was picking it for someone else. Someone whose tastes he didn’t know as well. And of course, he wasn’t the kind of man who would just assume they liked what he liked.

I almost gave one of those childish sighs and stared longingly at the side of his face.

“They’re all good,” she promised. “Or you could just let your boyfriend pick one.”

And with that, everything broke apart.

Ridge snatched his hand out of mine, stuffing it into his pocket, his shoulders hunching in on themselves. His gaze dropped to the floor and wouldn’t budge. “It’s for Mrs. Hill, not me. Not... us.”

She cocked her head at him for a moment, curious or confused, but shook it off. “Well, then I’d say go with the pear. She’s a pretty big fan. Come holiday time, she loves Rowan’s pear tarts, too.” She leaned in conspiratorially. “But between us, his pumpkin pies are better.”

Ridge nodded without looking up from the floor. “I’ll, uh, remember that. Pumpkin pies. But, um, the pear. That’s a good idea.”

The woman threw me a confused glance as she reached for the apple-pear butter, but what the hell was I going to say? I was as confused by the one-eighty as she was.

Oh, I knew what had triggered it: she’d said the word “boyfriend.” As in, me, Ridge’s boyfriend.

Before the notion even had the chance to penetrate my brain and leave me floating, it had turned Ridge into another person. A person who didn’t, under any circumstances, want people to think I was his boyfriend.

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