Me?
I’ve always moved forward too quickly—hopping from one place to the next with no sense of direction. Here with them, Lindenvale Hill feels like home. In the bed of this truck, with the orchard on both sides and the river stretching before us, peace overwhelms me.
Because the moment I was forced to slow down, I finally found my center.
EPILOGUE | COLTEN
11 MONTHS LATER
The cool fall air brushes against my overheated skin from days of exhausting myself. A honeyed, fried scent with a hint of crisp apple catches the breeze and swirls around the field.
Music blares through the speakers on the stage while the band sets up for their set, providing entertainment for the crowd. People swarm the stands lined in all directions, collecting produce from local vendors and looking at products from small businesses and artists around Washington. My favorite booths are the ones serving apples—Lindenvale Hill apples—in unique ways, which is always a favorite for guests visiting the hill.
Kids run around with caramel apples in hand, bouncing from fair rides to cornhole games, scarecrow-making tables, and bobbing for apple buckets. Bales of hay, pumpkins, and corn stalks decorate the venue.
Looking around at it all, I can’t help but grin. The festival looks like it used to years ago. Like it never stopped.
There’s a warmth in the air now. A sweetness I can taste on my tongue instead of a bitter flavor that lingered before Idecided to cancel the Lindenvale Harvest Festival after Mom disappeared.
I never thought I would be here. Hosting another festival with a clear mind, admiring how families roam the property. It feels like it used to—back when I was a teenager, soaking in the moments with my family. Sure, it’s different now, knowing what Mom went through and that our father still sits in prison, but the future grows brighter each day.
And when I turn, my future is walking toward me. My little ghost. Taryn’s body sways to the music, her beautiful eyes taking in every detail of the festival she worked so hard to help me with. Elena smiles, my eyes instantly noting the hole in her mouth where one of her teeth should be. She runs toward me, the love of my life following behind her.
Elena crashes into my leg, her power making me take a step back to keep myself from falling over. “Whoa there!” I try to regain my balance. “Looks like someone finally got that tooth out.”
She shows me her pearly white teeth, pointing at the hole. “Isn’t it cool? It’s under my pillow now!”
“She literally just ripped the thing out during breakfast this morning.” Taryn laughs. “Tristan couldn’t even finish his breakfast because it grossed him out too much.”
I haven’t seen her all day except this morning when she woke up with my cock inside her at five a.m. Her heavy eyes took a second to open, but when I pulled a nipple into my mouth to suck on it, her cunt started to weep for me, her back arching off the bed, craving me deeper. She’s my favorite way to wake up. And after drawing out two orgasms from her and filling her pussy with my cum, I kissed her goodbye and slipped out the door, so she could fall back asleep.
I had too much to do today.
Opening an arm out so she can come closer, she tucks herself into my side. Her warmth radiates through me, causing my pulse to hammer faster than it has all week. She always does that to me, but it’s different now—a tapping under my skin that I want to make permanent.
Pressing my lips into her forehead, I ask, “Where are Jess and the twins?”
Jessica came home from college this weekend for the harvest festival. When I told her my plan a few days ago, I said I wanted to make this festival memorable for us again, since we’d been absent for over five years. She nearly skipped all her classes because she was so excited.
“Cameron and Brennan were waiting for Jess to finish up with a paper. They should be meeting up with us in a little while,” she says.
“Hi, Miss Taryn!” a small voice yells from afar.
We turn our heads and find a girl with her mom at one of the stands near us.
Taryn smiles, her features bright as she waves to her student. “Hi, Claire.”
Last winter, Taryn stepped into a temporary teaching position at Cedar Creek Elementary. Once the school year ended, Alaric Sinclair, my former principal, offered her a full-time fourth-grade teaching position. She takes Elena and Tristan to school, brings them home in the afternoon, and we take turns taking them to sports practices and games.
“I really want to go on the hay bale ride!” Elena points at the tractor sitting near the entrance with the trailer attached and bales of hay piled on top to look like seats.
My heart jumps. Here we go.
“Don’t you think we should wait for everyone and all go together?” Taryn suggests, running the palm of her hand over Elena’s brown hair.
Elena shrugs. “We could go twice!”
Taryn looks at me, waiting for an answer.
