After they hung up, Marco sat in the quiet of the guest room, watching the last light fade from the mountains. Tomorrow he’d go back to the cottage, hold his daughter again, try to earn another fraction of Christina’s trust. He’d help Will with whatever needed doing at the inn. He’d walk Angus and talk to Ryan and eat whatever Tara put in front of him.
Small things. Real things.
His phone buzzed with a text from Christina.
Violet’s asking for you. (She’s not actually asking, she’s just making noises, but I’m choosing to interpret them as “where’s Papa”)
Marco smiled—a real smile, the kind he’d almost forgotten how to make—and started typing his reply.
CHAPTER 28
ALLY
The pumpkins needed rearranging. Ally stood on the inn’s wraparound porch, hands on her hips, studying the display she’d already adjusted twice this morning. Three large orange pumpkins, a cluster of white ones, decorative gourds in shades of green and gold. A hay bale anchored the corner, and dried cornstalks tied with burlap ribbon flanked the front door. It looked fine. It looked more than fine—it looked like something from a fall décor magazine.
But she kept fiddling with it anyway, because fiddling with pumpkins was easier than thinking about the text she’d gotten at six this morning.
Can we talk? I’ll be at the inn around ten
Her phone had buzzed her awake, and she’d spent the hours since alternating between checking the time and convincing herself she didn’t care what he wanted to say. They’d been dancing around each other for weeks now—ever since he’d shown up at the grand opening, humbler and quieter than the Colton she remembered. They’d worked side by side that day, falling into old rhythms, and then he’d left. Gone back to his house across the lake, the one he’d bought but barely lived in. Had flown back to New York for his last shoot of the year, a life that didn’t quite include her.
The crunch of tires on gravel made her stomach tighten. She didn’t turn around. Just kept adjusting the pumpkins, moving the largest one two inches to the left, then back to the right.
“You’re going to wear a hole in that pumpkin.”
His voice came from behind her—warm and familiar and close. Ally finally turned, and there he was. Colton Matthews, former Major League Baseball star, standing at the bottom of the porch steps in jeans and a flannel shirt, his dark hair windswept and his blue eyes fixed on her face.
He was holding two cups of apple cider.
“Peace offering,” he said, climbing the steps. Steam curled from the cups, carrying the scent of cinnamon and warm apples. “Mary said it’s her grandmother’s recipe. The secret ingredient is a splash of bourbon.”
“It’s ten in the morning.”
“It’s mostly apple.”
Despite herself, Ally felt her mouth twitch. She accepted the cup, wrapping her cold fingers around the warmth. The first sip was perfect—sweet and spiced, with just enough heat at the back of her throat to remind her it wasn’t just cider.
“You wanted to talk,” she said, keeping her voice even. “So talk.”
Colton leaned against the porch railing, his own cup cradled in both hands. Behind him, the mountains blazed with color—crimson maples, golden oaks, the deep green of pines cutting through like anchors. A breeze stirred the wind chimes near the door, sending a cascade of soft notes across the porch.
“I’ve been doing a lot of thinking,” he said. “Since the opening. Since before that, really. I guess after I’d been in New York for a week and realized everything I wanted was back here.”
“Colton—”
“Let me finish. Please.”
Ally pressed her lips together and nodded. The cider steamed between them, and somewhere in the yard, a crow called.
“I told you I needed space to figure out who I was without baseball.” Colton’s jaw tightened. “And I meant it. But I went about it wrong. I thought I had to go back to the city, back to the life I knew, to find some kind of answer. Instead, all I found was—” He shook his head. “Empty. Everything was empty. The apartment, the meetings, the parties people kept dragging me to. I’d look around these rooms full of people and feel absolutely nothing.”
“That’s not my problem to solve.”
“I know it’s not.” He set down his cup on the railing, turned to face her fully. “I’m not asking you to solve anything. I’m trying to tell you what I figured out.”
Ally waited, her fingers tight around the warm cup.
“The house here,” Colton said. “I told myself it was an investment. But I’ve spent more time picking out furniture for that house than I ever spent on my apartment in New York. I adopted the horses from that farm outside of town. Named the new one Cy Young, which Marco thinks is hilarious.”
