Page 86 of Pumpkin Spice Promises

Dad walked toward the bays. I looked at the parts sheet again. Going to Marigold Ranch shouldn’t have interested me. And yet… It did. All because I was eager to see one person.

That probably should’ve concerned me more.

Marigold Ranch looked different in sunlight.

The first time I’d driven down the long dirt road in ten years, rain had blurred everything around us. I’d noticed the bad fencing and peeling barn paint because those were the kinds of things I naturally noticed.

Today, I noticed what remained. The property was beautiful. Not the kind of farm people paid to take engagement pictures at, but enchanting all the same. Pastures rolled away from the main house in uneven stretches of green, bordered by old wooden fencing and trees thick enough to hide the neighboring properties. The dairy barn sat farther back, its faded red siding worn almost pink in places from years beneath the Georgia sun.

The main farmhouse stood near the center of everything.

White. Two stories high with a wide porch. Marigolds still blooming along the front despite the storm.

I remembered those flowers. James used to complain Evelyn planted enough of them to be seen from space. Then he’d water them whenever she forgot.

I parked near the dairy barn. Nobody came out to meet me as I expected, but I heard voices coming from inside the barn. I followed them. The smell hit first, which wasn’t unusual for a barn.

Hay.

Feed.

Animals.

That warm, unmistakable dairy smell that took me straight back to being seventeen and spending entire summers here.

Then I heard Carson. “No, Earl, we aren’t moving her.”

“She ain’t eating,” a man’s voice answered from somewhere deeper inside. Earl, I assumed.

“She’s eating. She’s just not eating enough.”

“Same difference.”

“No, it’s not.”

I stepped through the doorway. Carson stood several stalls down with her back to me. Her blonde hair had been pulled back into a braid. She wore faded jeans, work boots, and a long-sleeved shirt that had probably once been white but was now streaked with dirt along one side.

No makeup.

No careful hair.

Nothing about her looked like the woman who had walked into town hall last night.

She looked in her element, completely natural.

She looked like she belonged here.

A gray-haired ranch hand stood beside her while Carson crouched near a calf. She ran her fingers along the animal’s jaw, checked its mouth, then pressed a hand against its stomach.

“When did she stop taking the bottle?”

“Last night.”

“Why didn’t anyone tell me last night?”

“You were at that town meeting.”

“So?”