Page 65 of Fall is Brewing

“There,” I say, voice rougher than I mean it to be. “Safety inspection complete.”

Her chin lifts, cheeks pink in a way I’m choosing not to attribute entirely to the heat. “You should inspect that ladder of yours.”

“Um, I’m pretty sure my ladder is innocent here.”

“Your ladder conspired.”

“With gravity?”

“Probably.” She grabs one of the rungs, giving it a shake. “See? Rickety.”

“Stop manhandling my ladder,” I say, biting back a smile. “Do you always blame equipment?”

“Only when handsome men get smug about catching me.”

The words land between us and I see the moment she realizes what she said.

For one perfect second, Willa Hartley is speechless.

I look at her. “Handsome, huh?”

She closes her eyes briefly and holds up a hand cutting me off. “Don’t start.”

“I don’t think I can ignore that.”

“You absolutely can.”

I clutch my nonexistent pearls. “I’m being objectified in my own orchard.”

“You’re being insufferable in your own orchard. And don’t pretend you don’t know you’re handsome.”

She reaches past me for another apple, shoulder brushing my chest as she does, and if it’s retaliation, it’s effective. Her hair smells like cold air and apples and something soft I can’t name. I turn my head slightly before I can stop myself, chasing it on instinct, but the scent slips away before I can catch it fully.

It’s always like that. Hints. Edges. A world everyone else seems to inhale whole.

I push the thought down before it can surface.

By late afternoon, the sky begins to change.

Not all at once. Just a slow bruising at the edge of the horizon, clouds gathering beyond the western ridge, darker than they were supposed to be this early in the evening. The air shifts with it, dampness sliding under the warmth, the leaves turning their pale undersides toward the wind.

Willa notices before I say anything.

“Rain,” she says.

“The forecast said tonight.”

“Well, the forecast lied.”

I whistle toward Jace, who looks up from across the row. “We need to pull the west block before that hits.”

Willa is already moving. “Which trees?”

I point, and she doesn’t wait for more. She grabs a crate, sets it on her hip, and heads toward the west block like she works here. Like she knows the urgency before I have to explain it. Something opens in my chest, inconvenient and warm and terrifying.

We pick faster, the easy rhythm sharpening into purpose. Apples thud into crates. Leaves whisper harder overhead. The tractor rattles between rows, Evan appearing from the storage barn with tarps draped over one shoulder. Willa argues with him for thirty seconds about which bins should come in first, and somehow, by the end of it, Evan is doing what she suggested.

Jace catches my eye and grins like an idiot, then gives me a thumbs up.