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There was only the whisper of the wind in the branches and the distant call of a bird. Nothing else.

“This is us,” he said at last.

Mara climbed out and turned slowly, taking in the narrow trail disappearing between the trees. “You really do know the places tourists don’t find.”

“It isn’t a secret.”

“It feels like one.” She turned a full circle, taking in the scene before her.

“Well, I like sharing it with you.” Gabe ducked his head as he lifted the picnic basket from the back seat and shut the door with his hip.

Mara held out her hand. “Give me something.”

“I can carry it,” he insisted.

“I know you can.” She cast her eyes over his chest, and he forgot what he’d been about to say. “But that doesn’t mean you have to.”

He looked at her for a second, then handed over the smaller thermos bag. “Coffee and cider.”

“The important stuff.” She took it from him and hooked it over her shoulder.

“Very.” He nodded toward the trail. “This way to the red trees.”

“Toby did say you knew where the best red trees were,” Mara said as they started up the trail together.

“I will not disappoint you,” Gabe replied.

Ever, his bear added.

The path climbed gently through the trees, roots crossing it every few yards and dry leaves shifting beneath their shoes. Mara stopped more than once to take photographs. Sunlight coming down through the branches. A stretch where the maples overhead had turned a deep, glowing red. A stand of pale birch trunks. A maple that had turned bright red along one side while the other half remained green.

Each time, Gabe waited beside her with the basket in his hands. There was nowhere else he needed to be.

Or wanted to be.

The realization surprised him. On a normal working day, some part of his attention always remained at Mountain View, even when he was away from it. He would remember an order, wonder whether a delivery had arrived, or think about the next morning’s dough.

Today all he wanted to think about was being here beneath the fall leaves with his mate.

They took the steep stretch in the middle slowly, and then the path leveled off. Ahead, the trees began to thin. Gabe knew what was coming. Mara didn’t, and he found himself watching her rather than the path as they rounded the bend.

The woods opened up, and Mara stopped. Bear Creek sat below them, the creek a silver thread through the valley, while mountain ridge after mountain ridge rose beyond it. Fall had spread across the slopes, gold and rust and red running through the evergreens beneath a clear sky.

For several seconds, she didn’t say anything. Gabe stood a little behind her with the picnic basket gripped too tightly in his hand and felt nervous.

He had not made the mountains. He had not turned a single leaf. But he had brought Mara here, and he wanted her to love the view.

She turned slowly toward him. “Gabe.”

He smiled. “Worth the walk?”

Mara looked back across the valley. “Oh, yes.”

His bear let out a long, happy sigh. She likes our mountain.

Yes, he told his bear. She does.

CHAPTER 5