Page 49 of Cozy Girl Fall
“Well, you just let us know if he gives you any more trouble,” Philip said, the stern look on his face melting away as he peered behind Angie to try to glimpse therest of the pies. “Now, what does a fellow have to do to get some more pie around here?”
One thing Penny hadn’t missed about being in a new relationship was the early-days anxiety.
She’d seen Ethan sparingly over the past week, what with him being busy working for a client and Penny in the throes of setting up the Halloween Orchard Fest. If you’d told her a few weeks ago that she’d miss seeing Ethan around the orchard, she would have laughed and resumed climbing the closest tree to hide. But now he wasn’t there and the harvest was largely complete, she missed seeing him between the rows of trees.
But it had been almost two weeks since the night of the bonfire. Two weeks since she’d done anything more than kiss Ethan in the stolen moments they’d found after work or as they crossed paths around the orchard. And while she knew that sex wasn’t everything, it bothered her regardless. It made her wonder whether their second first-time hadn’t lived up to what Ethan had imagined, or if it had been much better for her than him.
It was a good thing she hadn’t harbored any hopes of ‘getting it out of their system’ by sleeping together. Now that she’d tasted Ethan again, she wanted more. Shelby was kind of a dick, but Penny had to admit that she understood why Shelby couldn’t just let Ethan go, even if it was annoying as all hell.
But at least their temporary separation would beover in a matter of moments. Ethan’s client work had finished yesterday and the Halloween Orchard Fest was ready and waiting for the town to enjoy that day. Ethan had agreed to meet her there and Tasha was coming too.
Angie was buzzing around with directions and finishing touches for the decorations that had been set out. Fairy lights and paper chains had been strung in the trees, illuminating the way through the orchard to the different stations like a maze, and several tables had been set up running along the side of the shop for the apple pie competitors to leave their pastries. The scene was everything she remembered it being and more.
She shivered lightly under her sweater and decided a warm drink was needed. She hadn’t wanted to ruin her outfit with a bulky coat; she’d opted for a short black skirt and thick black tights with hearts on them in pink print and a matching deep-pink oversized sweater. Her only concessions to the cold were her purple fluffy scarf, matching gloves and temporary heating pads in her boots.
She headed along the tree-path to the east until she found the table with warm apple wine and took a tentative sip, surprised to find it was actually good. The sign declared that the drinks had been made with apples from this very orchard, likely part of last year’s harvest so that the wine had time to mature.
It was still early, with mostly just parents and their young kids visiting the orchard for the time being, butmore people would be arriving soon. The later it got the more magical the fairy lights looked in the trees and the deeper the glow of the pumpkins set along the main path through the orchard, until the ground looked golden.
Competitive apple bobbing had been set up at the front of the orchard, with scores being kept for how many apples were retrieved in thirty seconds. The winner would get to take home the winning apple pie from the competition—though Angie had won it enough times in a row now that people had complained it was rigged. Penny couldn’t say for sure one way or another, though she did have her suspicions.
A voice called her name and Penny spotted Tasha by the store in a denim jumpsuit that made her look like she’d stepped out of a cowboy lookbook, the style heightened by the barrel curls in her blonde hair. She waved and took another sip of her apple wine as she joined Tasha.
“Hey, you look cute.”
“Thanks! You do too. Ethan’s just inside talking to your dad about something.” Tasha smirked at the instant concern that filled Penny’s face. “Orchard-related, I think.”
Penny nodded, like this wasn’t worrying in the least. There wasn’t some trend she didn’t know about that involved getting a girl’s father to bless a break-up was there? Like the opposite of giving permission to marry? Had Ethan’s dad got to him more than she’dthought at the dinner party?No, surely Ethan would have said something if that were the case.
Before Penny’s thoughts could spiral too far out of control, Ethan appeared sans Philip and she smiled, letting him fold her into a hug that did more to warm her than the apple wine. She buried her face in the crook of his neck, enjoying the warmth of his skin on her cold face and the softness of the faux-fur collar of his corduroy jacket.
“Hey, you.”
“Hi,” she breathed. “I missed you.” Tasha made a fake gagging sound that had Penny rolling her eyes. “OK, come on. Let’s get Tasha a candy apple before she combusts.”
Tasha’s face did brighten at the mention of the sweet treat and Ethan chuckled as Penny led them through the trees toward the dipping station. It was a delicacy Penny had loved as a kid but that was liable to give her a sugar crash just from smelling the caramel now that she was an adult.
Under the cover of the trees, Ethan slipped his hand into Penny’s and leant in close to murmur in her ear, “I missed you too.” The husky softness of his voice made heat curl in her core as butterflies took flight in her stomach.
Several kids with harried-looking parents walked past, sticky apples in hand and Tasha sped up a little until the station came into view.
“More power to you,” Penny said as Tasha pickedout her apple and placed it firmly on a white stick, ready for submerging. “I think they have a cinnamon-toffee flavor this year,” she offered and Tasha practically salivated as she handed the stall vendor some cash and hurried over to the vats for dipping. “I wonder if that’s an apple I picked,” she mused and Ethan chuckled.
“It’s a wonder you got anything done, what with all the climbing of trees and frolicking that went on.”
She narrowed her eyes and he laughed, the sound warming the night air as he kissed her frown away.
“I can’t believe you outgrew this stuff,” Tasha groaned, oblivious, as she licked the excess off her fingers while twirling the apple expertly to prevent any drips as the sugary mixture cooled and hardened. “Do you remember that year your mom asked us to run the stand and you dared me to get inside one of the vats at the end of the festival?”
She laughed at the memory, remembering how long it had taken Tasha to get the toffee out of her hair and eyelashes. “And you did it, too.”
They’d been twelve at the time and Ethan had been going through his moody phase where he’d thought it was uncool to hang around with his sister. He’d missed toffee-gate in favor of playing basketball with his guy friends, and had regretted it as soon as they’d told him what he’d missed. Ethan used to have a sweet tooth almost as big as Tasha’s.
It was the perfect night for the Orchard Fest: the sky was clear and the ground was mostly dry, it was coolbut not freezing, and tucked into Ethan’s side Penny wasn’t sure when she’d last been this happy. Strange that it had taken coming back to Magnolia Springs to feel like this. She wasn’t sure it was just being close to her parents, or even rekindling her romance with Ethan and friendship with Tasha, but sometimes she thought she liked the town itself. The thought was ridiculous.
For the longest time, she couldn’t have imagined anything worse than being stuck in Magnolia Springs and becoming a lifer in the little town. But now that she was here … Well, maybe Ethan had been right. Magnolia Springs wasn’t so bad—and not just because it was the place where she’d first met him, but because it was her first home. Maybe her only home, considering how disastrously things had gone in the city; she couldn’t say she felt much of a connection to the place. For her, it had been more about what San Fran and being a chef in the city could offer her. Now, as she watched Ethan and Tasha under the light of the twinkling trees, she wasn’t sure the city would have ever been enough.
Tasha spotted several friends a little over the way, standing in line for apple wine, and took off to greet them, leaving Penny and Ethan alone. She slid her arms up and linked them behind his head, gazing up at him intently.
