Page 34 of Forbidden to Fall

“Ryan said you’ve been working at the maple farm.” Mom’s voice was nonchalant as she went through her shoes. Too nonchalant.

“Yeah,” I said. “Mrs. Keller’s daughter gets into town tonight, so I’ll be working fewer hours there during the season. We figured it’d be a good way for me to earn some more money while helping the farm.”

That we was a bit deceptive, but the memory of the altercation between Mom and May Carver in the grocery store had prompted me to use it.

“Hm.”

I should probably have mentioned that working at the farm also included working with James, but I hadn’t even talked to Ryan about that yet, and I felt like he should be the first to know.

Wade came in, Mia in his arms, Rusty panting happily at his heels. Ryan and Lily were out on a date, so Mom and Dad had offered to babysit.

Mia’s eyes went wide at the sight of me. “You look like a pwincess, Aunt Sadie!”

I laughed. “Did Uncle Wade tell you to say that?”

She shook her head. “He told me to say you smell bad.”

I shot him a look. He was wearing black slacks, a white shirt, and a suit jacket.

“I would never say that,” he said with fake innocence.

“Please tell me I can count on your students helping at the party tonight.”

Wade narrowed his eyes as Mia wriggled out of his arms to join her grandma in the closet. “Let’s see…you’ll have Diego and Kayla and Zoey. Oh”—he grimaced slightly—“and Ethan. He’s the one to watch out for.”

I groaned. “I don’t have time to babysit, Wade. I thought these were star students who volunteered.”

“The other three are. Ethan was…voluntold. He got in some trouble last week and is doing community service as penance.”

“Couldn’t he do that community service when my job isn’t on the line?”

“It’ll be fine,” Wade insisted. “He knows what’s expected, and I’ll be there to lay down the law if you really need me to.”

I grimaced but got a call from Archer right then, which I immediately answered, ready to hear some lame excuse for why he couldn’t make it tonight. I was prepared to remind him that he’d receive zero maple bars if he didn’t go.

I was wrong, though. He just wanted to ask where to pick me up.

With my dress chosen, it was time for hair and makeup. Neither of those were my strong suit—I wasn’t sure I had a strong suit when it came to feminine things. I’d experimented over the years with foundation, but it had never sat quite right. It either didn’t quite cover my freckles, making them look like fading acne scars, or it erased them entirely, making me look like a ghost.

I settled for some mascara and light eyeliner, using some concealer on the light bruising from my sneeze. I did my best to pin my curls up near my crown, using a Google image result from quick easy elegant up-do for natural curls and bangs. The result was my using almost an entire sleeve of bobby pins.

I wouldn’t call the outcome elegant, and it certainly hadn’t felt quick or easy—twisting my bangs back into something orderly might’ve been the hardest thing I’d ever done—but it did look fancier than my go-to ponytail or braid. It wasn’t like I was trying to impress anyone. The party would be made up almost entirely of Autumn Ridge residents—people who knew me in my natural habitat: a hairnet over my head and a generous dusting of flour on my face and clothes.

Archer picked me up ten minutes later. He did not come to the door, which lost him some points in Mom’s book. I didn’t tell her I’d warned him against a porch pickup.

When I’d dropped off the dessert fixings earlier, Town Hall was still being decorated. A lot had happened since then, and the building had been transformed from its usual boring white.

“Why are you smiling?” Archer asked.

I cleared my throat, shoving away the image of James calling my cookies boring. Why had it made me smile in the first place? Unclear. “It looks so much better than usual.”

Golden balloons covered the ceiling and walls, while bright yellow flowers sat in the middle of round tables draped in black cloth.

I told Archer to find us a seat—“Not in the back! And save seats for Wade and Ari!”—then ducked into the kitchen to make sure nothing had happened to the precious dessert fixings. The cheesecake was safe inside the fridge and the two bottles of glaze next to it. I pulled out the glaze to give it time to come to room temperature so it’d be easier to work with.

After a quick chat with Liv Rawlins, I rejoined Archer, Wade, and Ari just as the food was being served.

The tables had filled, making the room a who’s who of Autumn Ridge. In a town as small as ours, pretty much everyone was a who.