Page 40 of She Autumn Be Mine

“Nope. Orange.” Nanette shook her head, keeping score.

He cocked a brow my way.

“To be fair, I like both colors. Especially in the fall,” I explained.

“And her favorite snack?” She persisted, but he wasn’t falling for it and cut her off.

“I get it. She was your friend before she was mine. We both have been there for her in different ways at different points in her life. I would never take your friendship away from her. My only guarantee to you is this: making Autumn and Stetson happy, safe, and loved is my goal here. As soon as she becomes Mrs. McCall tomorrow, we have the rest of our lives to figure it all out.” He grabbed the luggage and headed out the door.

From the stairs, he called back. “Her favorite snack is cocoa puffs cereal if it’s after midnight. Otherwise, a pint of chocolate cookie double chunk ice cream will do.”

I grinned. “Well?” I got the baby out of the high chair and cleaned him up so we could go.

“He may be more handsome than in all the photos you've sent me, but we’ll see.” Fifteen years of friendship and I knew exactly what that meant: judgment reserved.

So we all headed to the ranch for rehearsal night with the jury still out. Nanette sat in the back seat next to Stetson, cataloging every move Jake made like evidence.

He slowed the truck down at the last crosswalk out of town.

“What’s wrong?” I looked up from my phone, where Ivy had texted me a schedule for the evening with time stamps.

“One minute.” Jake slammed the truck into park with his hazard lights on, right there at the end of Main Street, and got out.

“What is he doing?” Nanette’s face screwed up, observing.

He ran to an elderly woman at the corner by the pharmacy with her cane in one hand and a paper sack in the other, about to walk into a crossing she had no business doing herself.

We watched him offer her his arm and patiently, slowly help her across.

Cars in both directions stopped and waited, nobody honking, because this was Forest Grove and also because Jake was the size of a barn door and people probably knew better than to mess with him.

He carried her sack, listened to some story with his head bent down to her level, and deposited her safely in front of the bakery like precious cargo.

That was Jake. My Jake.

Nanette especially found this all curious, her jaw on the floor. “Oh. My. God. Remind me again why you’re not fucking him already?”

“Nanette!” I whirled in my seat. “Baby ears!”

“Na-na,” Stetson agreed.

“Seriously. What’s taking you so long?”

I couldn’t believe hers. “You’re the one who said I should take my time, and especially wait for you to form an opinion about the man.”

“Consider it formed.” The twinkle returned to her eyes. “You are one lucky bitch.”

Jake jogged back, climbed in, and killed the hazards. “That was my third grade teacher, and we all thought she was old back then.”

“Mm-hmm,” I commented casually, like my whole heart wasn’t beating faster for him.

The rehearsal itself took twenty minutes, which was nineteen more than Sheriff Patrick said he needed, being the officiant. Jake and I opted to simply repeat vows instead of creating our own; I’d be nervous enough. We walked through the ceremony once, standing under a pretty rough-wood arch the ODRR ranch hands had built for us, and set up near the Pumpkin Patch.

Tomorrow, Jake’s mom and her friends would attach beautiful silk floral arrangements they’d made for the arch in all the fall colors. To define the ceremony area, the ranch hands set up large galvanized tubs with wood posts through them and strung lights between each one. The tubs themselves held pots of mums along with gourds and pumpkins of all kinds.

While me and Jake, and Nanette and Jamie practiced the procession and where to stand, Dot and the Wylde sisters directed the ranch hands where to set up the chairs they’d borrowed from the church in Forest Grove.

It was all becoming a little too real. I’d be marrying, and the only person missing, when I looked around and tried to keep myself calm, was Trig.