Page 32 of Autumn With The Grumpy Mountain Man

I lifted the crate of gourds onto the tailgate and slid it in beside the others. Shepherd didn’t look at me. He went back into the barn for the next load.

Three days ago we’d had pot roast and a conversation that ended in him sending me down the hill to sleep alone. He hadn’t asked me to come back up since. He still said good morning when I came down the stairs. He showed me what needed to be done. But he said it all the way he had that first week, one word at a time, with his eyes somewhere over my shoulder.

I kept telling myself he was tired. The festival was tomorrow. He’d been working too hard. Anybody would be short with people.

But he wasn’t short with Walt when the old man stopped by with the trailer. He wasn’t short with the hardware store when they called about the extra stakes. He was only like this with me.

He came out of the barn carrying two platform sections stacked together. I went to take one end. He turned so I couldn’t reach it, and set them both in the truck bed alone.

“What did I do?” I asked.

He shoved the sections into place. “Nothing.”

“Then why won’t you look at me?”

He finally looked at me. It was worse than when he hadn’t.

“Deb told me,” he said. “About Sedona.”

All the air went out of me.

“She told you?”

“She thought I already knew.” He pulled off his work gloves, slowly, one finger at a time. “You should take it.”

“Shepherd—”

“It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, Hazel. You know it is.”

“I was going to tell you.” My voice came out thin. “I was trying to figure out what I wanted first. I didn’t want to⁠—”

“You don’t have to explain anything.”

“I want to explain it to you. You don’t even know what I want.”

“It doesn’t matter what you want.” He said it quietly, but it hit like he’d shouted. “Go. Take it.”

I stood there by the tailgate with my hands still dusty from the gourd crates. A crow called somewhere up the ridge. The radio was playing inside the barn, some song I didn’t know.

He wanted me to leave.

I’d spent days wondering whether I could stay. I’d stood at that window wanting to tell him, so afraid he’d say exactly this. And now he had. He didn’t even let me finish a sentence.

“Is that what you want?” I asked. “For me to leave?”

“I want you to have the life you deserve.”

“That’s not an answer.”

He looked away, at the ridge, at the trees going bare. His jaw was tight.

“I’m too old for you,” he said.

I stared at him.

“I was eighteen when you were three, Hazel. I’d already left home by the time you learned to read.” He said it flatly, like he’d practiced it. Maybe he had. “You’re standing at the start of everything. You’ve got your whole life in front of you. I made my choices. And I’m not going to be the reason you don’t get to make yours.”

“I don’t care about that,” I said. “I never once even thought about it.”