Page 10 of Autumn With The Grumpy Mountain Man

I stood on the curb with my hand pressed to my chest and watched his taillights disappear down Main Street. Lily had been right. He was better than he let on.

And I was in so much trouble.

Chapter Four

Shepherd

"Get out."

"You're picking up the hay today. Harper told me," Hazel said, her eyes bright in the morning sun.

"You've got lath to sand."

"I sanded it yesterday. All of it." She buckled her seat belt.

I stood there with my hand on the open door of my truck. It was still early. The leaves had finally started turning on the ridge, and my intern was sitting in my passenger seat with her braid over one shoulder and a smile that said she'd been waiting there awhile.

I could have made her get out. I'd have had better luck moving the barn.

I shut her door and walked around to my side.

She talked most of the way down the mountain. She pointed out a maple that had gone completely red overnight and a hawk sitting on a fence post. She asked if the hay smelled better when it was fresh. I answered maybe a third of it. She didn't seem to mind. The woman kept a running conversation until we made it into Ridgewood Falls.

The bell over the door at Harper's rang when we walked in, and every head in the place turned.

Harper's eyebrows went up and stayed there. "Well. Good morning."

"Morning," I said.

She set my black coffee on the counter next to the stack of newspapers she'd been saving for me. Then she looked at Hazel, and then back at me, and then at Hazel again.

"Vanilla latte?" she asked.

"Yes, please," Hazel said.

Walt Pruett was at his table by the window with his newspaper, like he had been every Tuesday for as long as I'd been back. He lowered the paper an inch when he saw her.

"Still here, miss?"

"Still here," she said.

"Huh." He looked at me over the top of his glasses and raised the paper again. "Somebody fixed the courthouse lights. Middle of the night. Ruth says the committee's been going around asking who did it."

"Wasn't anybody on the committee," said the woman at the next table. "None of them will climb a ladder."

Hazel caught my eye over the rim of her cup. She didn't say a word.

I took a long drink of coffee and studied the pastry case.

It had been a long time since I'd shared a secret with anyone. I hadn't expected it to feel like that, standing in a bakery full of people with nobody knowing but her.

Harper leaned across the counter and said something to Hazel too low for me to hear. Hazel laughed and went pink and shook her head.

I picked up the newspapers and went to wait in the truck. When she came out with her latte, I drove us two blocks down to the hardware store. I'd been coming in there for six years, and the owner still didn't know my first name.

"Hazel!" he said as soon as we walked in. "How's that hot water treating you?"

"The pipes still bang," she said. "But it's hot."