Page 87 of The Pumpkin Pie Book Nook

“Yeah,” Tyler snapped back, then immediately regretted the volume, because Emma’s head jerked up.

Her face had gone pale.

“Emma—” Tyler started, automatically lowering his voice.

Emma looked at Robyn, then at Tyler. Her mouth trembled.

“So you’re leaving,” she whispered.

Robyn’s face crumpled. “No, sweetheart⁠—”

But Emma backed up like the words couldn’t reach her. “I’m going home.”

“Em, wait,” Tyler said, stepping forward.

Emma turned and ran toward her house. Toward the route she knew by heart.

Tyler’s body reacted fast, already moving after her, leaving Robyn on the sidewalk, and he didn’t look back.

THIRTY-NINE

ROBYN

Robyn was back upstairs in her loft above the bookstore, her quick to-go dinner—Cobb salad and soup—sitting forgotten in their Styrofoam containers next to her shoes and purse by the door. The steam of the soup long gone cold.

She paced between the couch and the kitchen, still hearing Tyler’s voice on the sidewalk. Still seeing the way his face had shut down, like her good news had been a threat.

But it was good news. She hadn’t been fired. She’d been offered something exciting, something meaningful. A program she could build. A class she could teach. A way to blend what she loved with what she was good at.

And Tyler had basically exploded.

What had he expected her to do? The bookstore was likely selling. She needed a job. She liked teaching. She liked being a professor at Yale, and she hated how her life always seemed to get framed like a cruel little either/or.

Either she was the prestigious Yale professor and her parents’ shining success story, or she was a complete disappointment, a cautionary tale, the daughter who “threw it all away” for a small town and a man and a life no one in her old world would understand.

Why couldn’t she have both?

Why was Tyler making it feel impossible, like her even trying was a betrayal?

She stopped pacing long enough to drag a hand through her hair. Her chest felt tight with anger and something sharper underneath it.

Hurt.

Because she’d thought he wanted a future with her. He’d talked like he did.

But apparently his version of the future only worked if she folded neatly into Maple Falls, into his schedule, into the life he’d already built.

And when she tried to show him a plan—an actual plan—he hadn’t even looked at it. He’d acted like she’d handed him a Dear John letter.

Like he was already saying, “There’s the door. This has been fun, hasn’t it?”

Robyn’s phone started ringing on the counter.

She glanced at the screen and saw Tyler’s name.

Of course.

“Speak of the devil,” she muttered, but there was no real bite in it. Not anymore. Just the exhaustion of feeling too much at once.