Page 35 of Autumn With The Grumpy Mountain Man

I bent down to the switch at the base and flipped it.

Light poured out of the sculpture.

It shone through every single cutout at once, warm and gold, spilling out across the lawn in a thousand scattered pieces. Leaves of light on the grass. Circles of light on the courthouse steps. Light on the faces of the crowd, on the kids holding their parents’ hands, on the band, who had stopped tuning. It moved across everything, soft and shifting, and the whole courthouse lawn went quiet.

And it fell across her. Light caught in her eyes, which were wet now and shining.

She stared up at the pumpkin. Then her gaze dropped to the base, to the hand-lettered sign I’d finished at five in the morning.

Shepherd Tate & Hazel Parker.

A sound came out of her that I felt deep in my chest.

She stepped closer. I watched her eyes move across the cutouts. Leaves and circles. And then she stopped, and her breath caught, and I knew she’d found it.

Low on the side facing her, among the leaves, there was one bloom. Thin, spidery petals cut by hand. Witch hazel.

She turned around and looked at me.

“I was wrong,” I said. My voice was cracking. “I told myself I was doing the right thing, but that was bullshit. I was scared you’d leave, so I made sure you would. I told myself it would be easier to do it now, rip off the bandage and get back to hiding away on the mountain. I’m done with it.”

She didn’t say a word. Tears were running down her face.

“I love you, Hazel. I don’t care about the age difference. I care about you.” I took a breath. “I’m not asking you to give anything up. I’d never ask you that. If you want Sedona, go. I’ll fly out to see you every chance I get. I just want to be part of whatever you choose. If you’ll let me.”

She pressed her hand flat against her mouth. Her shoulders were shaking. For one terrible moment I thought I’d waited too long.

Then she laughed. It was wet and broken and the best sound I’d ever heard.

“I turned them down,” she said.

I stared at her.

“Last night. At two in the morning.” She wiped her face with the back of her hand. “I was sitting on my bed listening to your drill through the floor, and I thought you were down there working all night so you wouldn’t have to see me. And I opened my laptop and wrote to Kessler and told them no.”

“Hazel—”

“Not because of you,” she said. “I need you to know that. I did it because this has become my home. Harper, Walt, and Lily, and this whole town. I came up to the mountains to prove I could make art that makes people feel something. I want to keep doing it here.” Her voice broke. “I’m going to finish my last semester in Asheville. And then I’m coming home. Whether you wanted me to or not.”

I couldn’t speak.

At two in the morning, I’d been on my knees on the barn floor finally seeing what a fool I’d been. And she’d been right above me, at the same hour, choosing to stay.

I closed the distance between us.

I took her face in both hands. Her skin was cold and wet with tears, and the lantern light moved across it in pieces. She grabbed the front of my jacket with both fists, pulled me down, and her mouth met mine.

She tasted like salt and cinnamon. She kissed me hard, desperate, like she was angry, relieved, and in love all at once. I kissed her back the same way. I slid one hand into her hair and knocked her hat off, and neither of us cared. I wrapped my other arm around her waist and hauled her against me until she was up on her toes.

Somebody in the crowd whistled. I didn’t hear it so much as sense it, far away.

She opened her mouth under mine, and I swept my tongue against hers. She made a soft, needy sound I’d been missing. Her hands slid from my jacket up around my neck. Her fingers dug into my hair. She pressed her whole body to mine, and even through two jackets I could feel her heart going as hard as mine.

I couldn’t get close enough. My whole body remembered every inch of her and wanted it back.

I dragged my mouth to her jaw, to the cold skin below her ear. She shivered. Her breath came out ragged and hot against my neck.

“Shepherd,” she whispered. “Everybody’s watching.”