by Olivia Miles
Only this time she wasn’t concerned about him not keeping his word.
No, this time she was concerned he might have a change of heart.
“Am I?” Maddie feigned innocence. “It’s what I usually wear this time of year.”
“For a night out!” Cora narrowed her eyes in suspicion as her lips suppressed a smile. “Hoping to find an eligible guy at the Harvest Fest, huh?”
Maddie felt her shoulders relax. She knew as well as Cora that there would be no chance of that, at least not seriously. Sure, there might be a tourist in town for the fall weekend, but usually the only guys coming to Blue Harbor for the fall activities were family men, already married, or dragged along by their girlfriends for some “country air.” The summer was the real chance for a fling—and nothing more. You couldn’t exactly form a relationship with someone who wasn’t going to be staying in town, could you?
Still, Maddie decided it was best to go with this theory. Throw Cora off the track. Candy and Gabby might be open to the idea of giving Cole a second chance, but her sisters still harbored the same view that was the general consensus here in town. That Cole was broody, moody, and unpleasant.
Except that he was turning out to be none of those things.
“You caught me,” Maddie said. “Guilty as charged.” She smiled as she began stacking paper plates and napkins.
“Well, I give you credit for trying,” Cora said on a sigh. She looked down at her own attire, sadly. Jeans, a flannel shirt, and a vest for added warmth. Her auburn hair pulled back in a low ponytail. Her feet tucked into weather-appropriate wellies to avoid all the muck. “Britt has me signed on to help with the children’s section today. My best shot at finding romance is a single dad.”
“Or a fun-loving uncle?” Maddie tried, but they both knew it was pointless. It was fall, winter would come sooner than they expected, and with any luck, they’d both be far too busy with their businesses to even have time to think about finding men.
Except that now, as Maddie watched over Cora’s shoulder as Cole approached, men seemed to be the only thing on her mind. Or rather, one man in particular. A man who had surprised her, and who was here to support her. Out of the kindness of his heart or out of charity, she wasn’t sure.
Or maybe, she thought, with a quickening of her heart, out of interest.
He was looking around, meandering through the gathering crowd, and she held up a hand and waved when their eyes met.
Cora, looking at this exchange with confusion that quickly morphed into interest, widened her eyes, speaking a thousand questions without saying anything at all. Maddie pretended not to notice so she didn’t have to feed into it. Really, she should have expected this would happen.
After all, there was no telling how Candy would react when she saw Cole was here.
“Cole, you know my sister, Cora, right?” Maddie felt a little breathless and resisted the urge to smooth down her hair. That was another thing she hadn’t counted on today: wind. The gusts were going to blow the napkins clear across the orchard to the apple trees if she didn’t weigh them down.
Cora shook his hand, raking her eyes over him, still not saying anything.
“Haven’t seen you around in a while,” she eventually said.
“I don’t get out much,” Cole said gamely.
That wasn’t exactly true, Maddie was quickly learning, but still, Cole was a bit of a loner, always sitting by himself, never with a friend.
Which was why it was particularly interesting that he had volunteered to spend the day here today.
Don’t read too much into it, Maddie, she scolded herself. Maybe, she realized with sadness as she thought back on her childhood, the reason he always sat alone was because no one invited him over. Certain routines and habits eventually stuck.
“Cole’s going to be helping me with the stand,” Maddie explained. Then, seeing the shock in her sister’s face, she added, “You know that Cole is doing the work on the bakery, right?”
Cora just nodded. Very, very slowly. Finally, with wide, unblinking eyes, she began to back away. “Well, I should probably get back to my station. Cole, nice seeing you. Maddie, we’ll talk later?”
Even though it was framed as a question, Maddie knew that there would be no escaping an interrogation. She pursed her lips and managed not to roll her eyes. The last thing she needed was to sit around discussing her contractor with her sister as if…as if something was going on between them.
Obviously, nothing was. Except…
She stiffened as Cole brushed against her hip, her arm. She hadn’t factored how tight the space would be, or how long the day would last. She couldn’t exactly move to the side without getting her leather boots dirty by a puddle of mud from last night’s rainfall. And even though she was wearing her best cashmere sweater (she’d forgotten that, though clearly, Cora had noticed) and omitted a jacket, she felt the heat coming off Cole’s body, warming her.
“Thanks again for helping,” she said, giving him a smile.
Something passed through his eyes that she couldn’t quite read. And lingered. Instead of shifting his gaze as he had done so many times, he left it there, trained on her, the faintest hint of a smile forming the corner of his lips.
“So this is what the locals do for fun around here,” he finally said, looking out over the crowd.
She laughed. “You mean, you never came to Harvest Fest?”
But then, she’d been to every Harvest Fest, obviously, and she had never seen him. He didn’t come to any town events, not as a kid, and certainly not as an adult. Did he want to? She wondered now if he’d felt left out. If she should have tried harder to be his friend back when they were young and he was still her neighbor.
“Not really my scene,” he said, and then, perhaps catching her frown, he said, “But now I see that I’ve been missing out.”
“On town festivals?” she laughed. Few single men in town bothered with them.
His eyes seemed to lock onto hers and hold them there. “On a lot of things.”
Right. Maddie licked her lower lip and quickly looked away, her heart beating so loudly inside her chest that she was near certain that Cole could hear it. She needed to keep busy, at least until the festival filled up, and then she expected she’d be too busy to even worry about the fact that Cole was standing so close to her that she felt more like a couple than a team, and that she liked it. A lot.
Nervously, she started explaining the pricing, and told him how many of each item she had made. She was just getting through an overly detailed description of the muffins when she spotted Candy out of the corner of her eye, coming directly toward them.
Maddie groaned under her breath. “Brace yourself. Here comes Candy.”
She didn’t have enough time to see Cole’s reaction. Candy was already on them, her eyes round, her smile huge.
“Well, isn’t this a picture!” she exclaimed, giving a dramatic wink in Maddie’s direction.
Maddie kept her face expressionless. She would not feed into this. She would not argue. She would turn the conversation back on Candy. It was her only hope.
“Helping out with Amelia today?” It had, after all, been Maddie’s job in the past. Together they’d plan and prep for every festival, working side by side in the kitchen of the café and then schlepping over the containers of food to the festival destination. They had a routine, one that was well rehearsed and ran smoothly, and even though it was still always a little stressful, Maddie longed for those long days with her sister.
Sure, she was just a few yards away, but it wasn’t exactly the same. The ride over had felt like a taste of the past, when they’d loaded the trunk of Amelia’s SUV until they didn’t think they could fit anymore. It was the same for every festival, only this time they were working separate stands.
“Oh, a little of this, a little of that!” Candy wiggled her shoulders. “Your father insisted on overseeing the harvesting crews, and with his arm and leg all healed by now, I couldn�
�t exactly protest.”
Maddie turned to Cole and explained, “Candy was my father’s caretaker, after his accident.”
Cole raised an eyebrow. “Accident? I didn’t know, I’m sorry.”
“Oh, he fell off a ladder.” Maddie shook her head. She and her sisters were unanimous in their opinion that their father never should have climbed so high, all on his own. And Maddie knew what her mother would have had to say about that, too.
“Boys being boys.” Candy grinned fondly, and then looked at Maddie with a sense of camaraderie.
Maddie said nothing. She really wished that someone would come along and buy a muffin, and not just because she was worried about having too much on hand.
Candy seemed to take her cue, saying, “Well, I don’t want to interrupt. And I really should go help Amelia, even though she did ask me to check on your father…”
Maddie suppressed a grin. She knew from experience just how busy Amelia would be setting up for the day, and if she was already sending Candy off under the pretense of checking on their father, she must really need a break.
“Why don’t you go check on my dad,” Maddie said, “and I’ll see if Amelia needs a hand. I’m already set up here, and Cole can watch the stand for a few minutes.”
She glanced up at him to see if that was okay, but she realized with a start that she had known it would be. And that she rather liked that.
That somehow, over the past week and a half, they’d become something of a team.
Maddie walked over to where Amelia stood, her cheeks flushed despite the chill in the air, and a look of fury in her eyes when she spotted Maddie. She glanced around quickly before whispering loudly, “She is driving me crazy!”
“You’re the one who hired her!” Maddie couldn’t resist. She started to laugh.
“Only because you decided to open your own bakery,” Amelia grumbled.
“Last I checked you all but kicked me out your kitchen door. I could have helped longer,” she pointed out. And she’d tried, and offered, but Amelia had been insistent.
Amelia shook her head firmly now once again. “No. You never would have gotten things going at the bakery if you were still helping me out every day.”
Maddie knew this was true. Standing on her feet all day at the café was tiring, and time consuming, and getting the bakery ready for opening day was proving to be a bigger undertaking than she’d expected.
“It is a lot of work,” she admitted.
“You can handle it,” Amelia gave her a reassuring smile. Her first of the day. “And Cole is doing a great job, so Candy says.” She raised an eyebrow. “I see he’s here today. You didn’t mention that on the way over.”
“Nothing to mention. He’s just helping me,” Maddie stated pertly.
Amelia just lifted her eyebrows. “If that’s what you’re calling it.”
“Now you sound like Candy!” Maddie would have swatted her sister if she’d been standing any closer.
“What can I say? I spend too much time with the woman.” Amelia began laughing, too, though, and handed Maddie a stack of paper plates. Without explanation, Maddie knew just what to do. For a moment, it felt like old times again.
“There,” she said, when she was finished, and Candy could be seen making her way back.
“We still have our groove,” Amelia said brightly.
Maddie nodded a little sadly. They did. And she missed it. And she wasn’t sure if she would ever find it again all on her own.
Only looking over at the stand where Cole was standing, assisting a mother and her two young children to three apple muffins, Maddie thought that for today at least, she already had.
*
The day was long, but went by quickly, with constant activity at the stand making it impossible to spend much time trying to chat with Cole or let her eyes linger too long on those deep-set eyes, which had a way of pulling her in and keeping her there.
By the time she closed up shop it was deep into the afternoon. The festival was still going on, with pony rides and face painting for the children, and Cora was now helping to distribute cider while Candy hovered near Amelia, who was getting ready to help feed the dinner crowd. Soon the strings of lights would come on and the sun would set and the music would pick up, and even Britt might sit down on a hay bale and relax for a bit. For now, though, there was more work to be done.
“Thanks for helping today,” Maddie told Cole. “I’m honestly not sure that I would have been able to handle it all on my own.”
“Sure you would have!” Cole helped her box up the last of the napkins and bakery bags. “But I was happy to be here. Fresh air. A change of scenery. All good.”
She gave him a small smile, hesitating as she contemplated whether she should ask him to stay. She opened her mouth to speak at the same time he did, and laughed. “You first.”
“No, ladies first. I insist.”
She swallowed hard, losing her nerve. “I was just thinking that maybe I should hand these leftover items to Amelia, in case she needs them. She might need my help.”
Although, if recent history proved anything, Amelia would be more inclined to shoo her away.
“What were you going to say?”
He looked a little bashful as he pushed his hands into his pockets. “I was going to see if you wanted to give me the grand tour. But I can see you’re busy. Another time.”
Maddie immediately regretted not saying what she meant earlier and straightened her back, hoping the eagerness didn’t show too much in her face. “I can never resist showing off the orchard. Besides, Amelia will just tell me she doesn’t need my help, even when she probably does.”
“She sounds a lot like you then,” Cole commented, and Maddie paused for a moment. It was true that despite probably needing her help or an extra set of hands, Amelia was determined to handle everything without the one person most willing to pitch in.
She supposed they were both self-reliant like that. Or stubborn. Two traits they had inherited from their parents.
Or maybe, they were just always putting each other before themselves.
“You know, you’re right. I never thought of it like that. And…I’ll take it as a compliment. Amelia is my greatest inspiration. Well, other than my mother, of course.”
She glanced over her shoulder as they began walking to see if any of her sisters or cousins had noticed her slipping away, but the festival was still crowded and lively. It felt good to disappear into the quiet fields after such a chaotic event.
She closed her eyes and breathed in the sweet, fresh smell as the sounds faded behind her. “I love it here,” she said, opening her eyes to find him looking at her closely. She felt her cheeks burn. “Sorry, I always love the clean air, and the quiet. This place is as much my home as the big house on Water Street.”
She led him through to the apple orchard, which was mostly picked over by now. “You know,” she said, laughing, “when my sisters and I were little, we’d meet our cousins here and play an epic game of hide and seek while our parents worked.”
Cole grinned. “Did you always win?”
“Of course!” Maddie grinned. “But Britt was so competitive; she put up a good fight, even if she was the oldest.”
“That must have been wild, growing up with such a big family.”
“It was.” Maddie laughed, thinking of the few times that a fight would break out, usually over something as trivial as who had last misplaced the hairbrush. “Sometimes I don’t know how my father handled it all, once it was just him.”
But she did know. Because of Amelia. It was Amelia who cooked their dinners and made sure that she and Cora had everything they needed for school. And it was Amelia who made sure she properly cleaned her skinned knees when she fell off her bike. Who gave them the female role model that they needed. Who didn’t fall apart.
Now, just like then, Amelia took things in stride.
“You had each other,” Cole remarked. “I’m sure he was grateful for it.”
“Sure, and my aunt and uncle helped a lot too,” Maddie said. She slowed her pace, her heart growing a little heavy as it always did when she thought back on that time.
Eventually, Cole filled the silence. “I always wanted a big family as a kid.”
This was the first insight he’d given to his past, and she waited to see if he’d elaborate. He didn’t. “And now?”
Cole shrugged. “Might be nice to have family.”
“At least your mother is close. Besides, it’s not always easy having so many family members,” Maddie said slowly, as her anxiety began to pick up again as she stood at the edge of the field and looked back over the neat rows of trees. “Especially when they’re all older than you and more established, and well, more successful.”
“You’re successful,” Cole pointed out. “You’re the youngest of the group and you’re starting your own bakery.”
“Yes, but…” She wanted to say, but would it be a success? Would people come? Would they like what she made? Would she make it through the slow months, before the summer people returned?
Instead, she just shrugged. “I guess when you always have someone telling you what to do, or carving a path, or just…making things easier for you, it’s hard to think about doing something all on your own.”
“You could ask them for help?”
Maddie shook her head. “That would defeat the purpose. Besides, they’re busy. I don’t want to be a burden. I want…I guess I want to make them proud. I want to show them that thanks to everything they showed me and gave me all these years, I could apply that towards something, you know?”
Cole nodded. “I feel that way too, sometimes. But family…well, family just wants what’s best for you.”
Maddie slipped him a sidelong glance and smiled. “You’re very wise, you know.”
“I do know, actually,” he replied, dead-pan, before his mouth quirked into a slow grin that made her heart flip over.
She was so busy staring at it that she tripped over an abandoned basket that they distributed for apple picking and lost her footing, lunging forward, until she felt a strong, firm hand on her arm that righted her quickly.
