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He leans in close enough that only I can hear.

“Save me a seat.” His breath is warm against my ear.

He straightens before I can respond and moves back toward the rest of the band, already reaching for his phone.

I stand there for half a beat with a sleepy four-year-old on my hip and an entire body full of static.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

FOX

I’ve been walking for so long I can’t feel my toes.

The sky was pale gray when I woke this morning. Then it turned that steady, watery blue Vermont gets in the middle of a winter day when the sun makes a just-because appearance. By the time I’d finished helping Sylvie prep for tomorrow’s Christmas lunch, the sky had gone back to gray, dark and heavy.

The weather hasn’t improved—hell, it’s December in Vermont. Now it’s dark, and the first flakes have started coming down. They land on my coat and don’t melt.

I’ve stayed away from the festival on purpose.

If I’d gone, I would have been tempted to pull Finn aside and confess everything, but that would have been a very selfish thing to do, so I stayed away.

Today is the last day of the festival, and Finn has enough to focus on. Every family walking through those gates, every kid with cocoa foam on their face, every wreath sold and cider poured and photo taken in front of that tree—all of it exists because he refused to let Christmas be ruined.

I used to have to wait months just to see him. I can wait a few more hours for the closing ceremony.

That was the deal I made with myself this morning when I woke up in the guestroom at the farmhouse.

So instead, I spent the day in the kitchen with Sylvie and my reward was a thick slice of fresh-baked bread with a chunk of butter, a slab of cold ham, and a piece of sharp cheddar. God, I love that woman.

The bread was so good, I had to stop myself from asking questions that would give away my recently acquired knowledge about bread-baking.

By the time I finished, I was too full to keep working in a warm kitchen without falling asleep standing up. She told me to go take a walk. I kissed the top of her head on the way out and pulled my coat on. Her parting words were to not forget to take a flashlight with me.

The plan was a short walk to the barn to check on the new calves Bastian hasn’t stopped talking about for days.

The calves were, in fact, adorable. There are three of them, only a few days old, all legs and eyelashes and confused expressions. They came up to the fence to sniff my glove and one of them tried to lick my sleeve. I understood, for the first time in twenty-five years of hearing Bastian talk about farming, why my best friend wanted to walk away from the stage to come back to this.

After that I kept walking, and at some point, I was joined by Gouta, who seemed intent on pushing me in whatever direction she wanted to explore.

In a battle of wills, I won some and lost some.

The Halls don’t work all of their land. Big sections remain as they’ve always been. Old stone walls collapsing quietly into moss. Deer paths worn into the grass. A stand of birch trees on a small rise. A creek that freezes over in December and thaws every spring.

This is the part of the farm I love.

I’ve walked it every year since the first time I came home with Bastian. I know where the deer are likely to cross, where the ground gets soggy in the spring, and where you can stand in the middle of the trees and not hear a single human sound.

Today I walk it slowly and let the cold help me clear my head.

Gouta goes ahead of me toward the frozen lake but stops short of going on the ice. Bastian’s told me the first few meters are frozen solid, but I’d rather she didn’t try at all because I have no desire to die of hypothermia for a goat. Even if she’s the most adorable goat I’ve ever seen.

The dock creaks under my boots.

This is the exact same spot where I told Nikko I’m in love with Finn. It seems I can’t visit this place completely alone.

Gouta comes over and licks my glove.

“You like it here too, huh?”