Page 10 of Love, Untangled

He’d gotten so used to talking to Cora over the past couple of years that chatting to Mrs. Davis’s ghost made just as much sense. He set the apple butter on the table and pulled out the final item from the package.

A knit hat mostly in gray with tiny apples running along the edge. He flipped it over and noted more apples on the other side.

“Apple hat—that’s…” He spun it, looking at the even loops. He didn’t know enough to say if it was knit or crochet, but he did know Penelope was talented. Up until now, he would have considered apples on hats a silly novelty. But she must have made the hat with him in mind. The charcoal gray offset the dozen or so tiny bright-red apples attached to a mighty tree. He couldn’t imagine the amount of time she’d put into this.

His chest warmed as he held the soft wool in his hands. Since Cora’s death, few people gifted him anything. His mother had tried to host him for the holidays, but he’d acted like a wounded bear. He wasn’t even sure the last time he’d visited her and his father, spent time with his siblings and their families. Too long ago. No wonder the idea of a gift was foreign.

Penelope had made him an apple hat—to ease the loss of the actual apples, her note said.

He shook his head even as he chuckled. He cleared his throat, but the humor bubbled up underneath his attempt at a stern expression.

He slipped the wool onto his head, pleased at how well it fit. He pulled the edges down over his earlobes, unsurprised the appendages warmed in the toasty material.

He rose, hat still on his head, and settled the bread into the preheated oven. An hour later, he walked through his quarter-mile of orchard toward Penelope’s house. He’d had to remove the hat—even early in May, it was too warm outside for winter gear.

The two-story farmhouse and yard were as he remembered. The grass was too long and some weeds had taken root in the flower beds that overflowed with well-established peonies, rosebushes, and other flowers Carlo didn’t know by name, but the house’s white shutters gleamed against the faded blue siding. The porch steps sagged a little, and an anthill had formed in the driveway. The small hatchback was missing from the driveway that circled back out to the street. The barn door was closed and Carlo couldn’t hear the alpaca bleating. Assuming Penelope had gone into town to mail her package, Carlo set the covered bread on her doorstep with a note thanking her for the hat. He’d signed it Carlo, not Mr. Grumpy, though an impish part of him considered it for a moment.

Disappointed that he’d missed her, he traipsed back to his house and cut a nice thick piece of his own loaf. He spread a thick smear of Mrs. Davis’s apple butter over the warm bread and took a bite, his eyes closing as bliss slid over his tongue. He ate slowly, savoring the warmth in his taste buds and his chest.

Unwittingly, Penelope had given him something precious—another reason to smile. And Carlo did for the next few hours as he worked in the fields. He even whistled as he tended his trees.

And when Alpaca Man trotted back into his orchard, no doubt through another hole in the fence somewhere, large eyes roving over the ground, Carlo let the animal munch on a few of the fallen apples.

Living next to Penelope and Alpaca Man might just prove much more interesting than he’d first thought.

Chapter 4

Penelope

“You’ve really done it this time, my dude,” she muttered, out of breath as she sprinted toward Carlo’s property. “I swear, you’re a cat. You insist on ticking off the people who have expressed dislike or disinterest in you.”

Her feet pounded on the hard-packed dirt that was quickly turning into a path. She prepared to vault over the low, three-foot-fence Carlo had just mended, placing her hand on the newly-replaced wooden plank. She yelped as a splinter dug in deep, the pain unexpected and causing her to falter. Instead of leaping the rail as she’d intended, her midsection collided, knocking the breath from her lungs.

She wheezed, unable to draw another breath, black dots dancing in front of her eyes as she pulled her hand back, cradling her injured palm.

“Well, I don’t know what that was supposed to be, but I’m guessing it didn’t go as you planned,” Carlo said, tone dry.

Pen was still too busy trying to breathe to be embarrassed. Mortification would paint her face and grip her body after she was sure she wasn’t dying. The black spots grew worse, so she used her good hand to try and push herself off the thick log lodged in her belly. She missed the beam and stumbled back, still gasping, before tangling her feet and landing on her butt. She dropped her forehead to her raised knees, willing the blackness back from the edges of her vision.

“Shit! Penelope, are you okay?”

Carlo must have leaped over the fence—clearly with way more grace than she had—because he crouched beside her, his warm hand pressing to the side of her neck, searching for a pulse. The other one cupped the back of her head. His eyes were dark, stormy, as they scoured her face, searching for injury.

“I’m…okay…” she wheezed.

“No, you’re not. Woman, that was stupid. You could have been really hurt.” Carlo’s brows tugged lower and tight above his nose, reminding Pen of a thundercloud. “Why would you—”

“I didn’t want you to be mad at me,” she said. Each word was still spoken between gasps but the pain in her midsection lessened as she dragged in more air. “Or Alpaca Man.”

“Why would I be angry?” he asked.

“Because you don’t like him eating your apples,” she replied. Seriously, was he going to play dense now?

His expression morphed into contrition. He cleared his throat. “Alpaca Man and I have come to an agreement. He only eats the fallen fruit, and I’ll bring him home once he’s hoovered the row.” Carlo’s expression brightened. “It’s actually pretty cool. He walks the entire length of a single… Why are you holding your hand like that?”

“Splinter.”

“Let me see,” Carlo demanded, holding out his hand, palm up. He wiggled his long fingers invitingly.

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