Page 45 of Once Upon a Fall

I quickly get dressed in jeans and a long-sleeve white T-shirt, run a brush through my hair, throw on a light jacket, and soon I’m out the door of the inn and walking down the street toward the bakery.

The air is crisp, the morning sun just above the horizon, and the colors on the leaves are starting to change. In a couple of weeks we will be in full leaf-peeping mode. The festival in full gear. My inn full of guests. Hopefully, if I get everything done in time and there’s not another surprise leak.

“Rosie,” Sadie Stevenson says as I enter Keller’s Bakehouse. Her wavy red hair is pulled back, and she’s carrying a fresh tray of maple bars, still glossy from the glaze.

The place smells of yeast, sugar, coffee, and joy. If there ever was a reason to get out of bed in the morning, it’s definitely Keller’s.

The only exception would be having a handsome, not-as-grumpy-as-you-thought man in your bed that you had to untangle yourself from to be here.

Is it hot in here? Of course it is. This is a bakery.

“Hi, Sadie,” I say, walking up to the display counter, which is full of freshly baked pastries. “How are you?”

“I’m doing good. Just busy,” she says, her perfect nose emphasized by the brush of freckles across it.

She slides the tray of bars onto the counter.

“I get that,” I say with a laugh.

It’s the understatement of the century.

“Did you ever find enough people to make pies for the pie-eating contest?” she asks.

“Not yet.” I look at the tray of maple bars. “Would you like to volunteer?”

She gives me a look.

“Right,” I say. “You do enough baking already.”

We launch into a bit of small talk, and when I ask her how her family is, she nods toward a white box sitting at the end of the counter. “Wade was supposed to pick that up an hour ago, but I have no idea where he is.”

My mind flashes back to the Ednas and their quilting-circle gossip session that I didn’t ask for.

I could tell her. Warn her that the Ednas are all over whatever salacious thing is supposedly happening between her principal brother and Ari Langford.

But to warn her I’d have to repeat it. And what if they have it wrong? Then I’m not just spreading a rumor; I’m spreading a made-up one. Best to leave it.

“Well, I better get back to the inn,” I say. “I’ll take a dozen. Just give me a variety.”

She makes me up a box and then rings me up, and soon I walk down the street back toward the inn.

I’m hoping Dean is still asleep when I get back, so I can go about my morning like I didn’t just have the best cuddle of my life. But when I walk in, the smell of fresh coffee hits me. And unless the Hendersons made themselves very at home, that can only mean one thing.

Dean’s in the kitchen, standing by the coffee machine in running clothes, his back to me. My heart does one stupid little jump when I see him. I know that feeling. I haven’t felt it since Jackson. The good news is that part of me didn’t die after Jackson stomped all over it. The bad news is nothing can come of it. Dean is leaving.

“Hey,” I say after debating if I could just set the pastries down and tiptoe out. But I decided to be an adult in this moment.

He turns around. “Hey,” he says.

We stare at each other. I have no idea what he’s thinking. My own head, meanwhile, is a full-blown disaster—last night, the cuddle, the butterflies currently trying to claw their way out of my stomach. I could say any of it out loud. I could also spontaneously combust.

Thankfully, I keep my mouth shut.

“You snore,” Dean says, his lips pulled into that straight line.

My jaw drops. “I do not,” I say, totally offended. No one has ever accused me of snoring.

His lips twitch.