Falling in Vermont (Cozy Nights in Vermont #2)

Chapter 14

Chapter Fourteen

BLAKE

P eople swarmed the farm, and Blake had to take a minute as he registered what a difference a month made.

Families walked through the last of his pumpkins. They picked up butternut and acorn squash and pie pumpkins with the baskets that Sophia had found around the farm. She said the baskets added to the “aesthetic,” whatever that meant. Soft indie folk music played from a large speaker he’d borrowed from Abby at the bookstore. It set the mood on the busy, gray fall afternoon.

Sophia had found a second face painter, and half the kids running around looked like pumpkins and zombies come to life. And though he liked the sound of kids laughing and dogs barking—the pet contest was today—he decided his favorite sound was the soft hammering of the cottage roof being fixed.

A burst of laughter sounded out near the snack table. Sophia laughed loudly, throwing her head back, as she talked with Mabel, who had already been wrapped around Sophia’s finger. In a true Italian fashion, she shoved food and samples of soup at people, begging them to tell her what they thought.

She only had three recipes left to finish, and he was so proud of her.

Small and large dogs on leashes and even a few cats wandered through the grounds, with some dressed as hamburgers and another one dressed as the perennial favorite, a ghost. His personal favorite was the dog dressed as a pumpkin.

Sophia had wrangled local judges, including Mabel, Abby at the bookstore, and Uncle Jerry.

She practically glowed as she corralled everyone. It was completely beyond his comprehension, he thought, hauling more hay bales over to the seating area, how she’d managed to pull all of this together.

Members of the JV football team ran back and forth from his house to the snack tables, and she directed it all with the air of a congenial four-star general. Sophia had been exhausted running back and forth, and he’d decided that the boys on the team could use a little extra cash; it would also be a good conditioning exercise now that their season had ended.

He dodged Braden who ran past him.

“Gotta get more soup, Coach!” he said, running in with an empty tray.

Sophia walked over with a basket of small tools and newspapers. After the pet costume contest, they were going to do pumpkin carving where they’d set out stations so that guests didn’t have to clean up their own pumpkin guts mess. And he could admit his pumpkin-carving abilities were on the higher end of amateur. You didn’t grow up on a pumpkin farm without some set of skills.

“Hey, thanks. It looks like you’re having fun,” he said, taking the basket from her. He pulled her in for a quick hug and forehead kiss.

Her cheeks went pink, and he noticed folks staring at them, whispering. As far as the town of Clovely was concerned, Sophia was a short-term renter. Little did they know how permanent his feelings were.

“Oh, sorry.” They hadn’t done any sort of public affection.

“No, I liked it,” she said, looking a little embarrassed. “Roommates can do forehead kisses, right?”

He nodded. “For sure, that’s what my college roommate and I used to do all the time. Forehead kisses before we went to class.”

She threw her head back and laughed at his dry delivery. He loved making her smile, making her glow. Her arms were still wrapped around him, and he wanted to live in this moment forever. All of his worries had disappeared, and his life in Clovely had never been brighter.

“Do you want another one?” he said with a slow smile.

“You know, when the mood strikes.” She shrugged with an impish grin.

But the mood always struck around her. He placed a lingering kiss on her hair again, squeezing her against him. He rubbed up and down her arms. It was chilly today. “Are you staying warm enough?”

“No, and you know what? Even after four weeks, it still hasn’t gotten old. I literally can’t remember the last time I was a sweaty mess. Well”—she stared up at him with a sultry smile—“outside, at least.”

The picture of her working up a sweat last night would be with him until his deathbed. “Hey, you look happy,” he said suddenly.

“Hey, I am happy,” she said, as if just realizing it herself. “This is so fun. Did you see all of the dogs?” She jumped up and down in excitement.

“My personal favorite is the pumpkin dog.”

“Oh my gosh, I know, though I am a little partial to the wiener dog,” she said as a tiny, rat-like dog toddled beside them, wearing a giant hot dog bun, looking a lot like a literal hot dog. “I can’t wait for you to see Star’s David Bowie costume I got her.”

“Hey, Coach Sophia!” Elijah, one of his defensive linemen, called over. “We’re almost out of soup. What do you want us to do?”

“Coach?” Blake said with a laugh, squeezing her

“I couldn’t convince them to just call me Sophia; they insisted.”

He nodded with approval. “Good men.”

Elijah jogged over, and Blake finally dropped his arms from around Sophia, already missing the feel of her.

“We’re out of that rosemary stuff for the soup samples?” Elijah said.

“Shoot, I forgot we were almost out. Would you be able to supervise?” she asked Blake, gesturing to the tables. “I can run to the general store.”

He looked over now at the two tables filled with grab-and-go items and samples. “Why don’t I go for you?”

“No, no, I want to pick out the herbs myself. Oh shoot,” she said, realizing as she grabbed for her keys in her pocket, “I have to go get gas, too. Shit. It might be a little while.” The only gas station was half a mile outside of town, in the other direction.

“I filled up your tank for you,” he said offhandedly.

“You what?”

“Yeah, I had some extra gas in the barn that needed to be used, and I saw your tank was low, so I thought it would be helpful.”

She blinked back tears unexpectedly. “That’s really nice. Sorry, I think I’m just overwhelmed,” she said, wiping at the corner of her eye.

“Is that okay?”

“Yeah, I’m just not used to being taken care of.”

“Well, I like taking care of you.” He pulled her in for a quick hug and another forehead kiss. She said it was alright, right? “The guys and I got it covered. Go,” he said with a squeeze.

As he watched the woman he loved walk to her car, blissfully unaware of his feelings, the fear of losing her became palpable.

He had to tell her how he felt. Even if she left on the spot and he never saw her again, she needed to know how deeply she was loved just for being herself.

* * *

The next day, Blake was working in the barn, finishing his trays for seed propagation before he went back out to see how the cleanup was going.

He decided to try growing carrots for next year. Maybe he could finally give Aunt Bev her farm-to-table vegetable dream if he figured out how to grow enough different crops.

The pumpkin patch was closed today. They’d needed all the time they could get, given the massive cleanup of the pumpkin carving stations. He heard the barn door roll open and the familiar clomp of boots walking toward him.

Sophia looked like a cozy angel today with her big flannel scarf wrapped around her neck and her cheeks pink from the cold.

“Did the guys get everything cleaned up?” he asked, not able to take his eyes off her curves as she walked toward his work area.

“There was a threat of a pumpkin guts food fight,” she said with a smile and an eye roll. “But yes, they were very good helpers. They’re all on their way home.”

He’d thought the farm had seemed quieter.

Yesterday had been amazing. They’d barely had time to catch up before they’d both fallen into his bed, cuddling in the chilly night. He’d been up early and wanted her to sleep in after all her hard work.

The less time he spent with her, the more likely he’d keep his mouth shut about how much he loved her. But there she was, standing in his barn, fiddling with a piece of hay between her fingers.

“You know, I think the pumpkin sage gnocchi was the favorite because I doubled the sage. I wonder if I could do a twist on it next time. I mean, the next time that we have another big weekend.”

The season was coming to a close, and he only had maybe two dozen pumpkins left. Halloween was in a few days. “I figured next weekend would be the last time we’d be open,” he said with a pained smile.

“Oh, right,” she laughed. “People don’t really need pumpkins after Halloween, huh?”

“Maybe for the odd pumpkin pie for Thanksgiving, but no. Things will slow down here.”

“Right,” she said. “Silly. I just didn’t think about it ending. Guess it’ll give me time to finish up the last few recipes, though I’ll miss seeing everyone.” Her eyes looked sad even as she smiled at him.

He pulled her in for a hug, wanting to make that sadness go away.

“Hey, I saw the cottage roof. It’s looking good,” she said with a squeeze around his middle.

Please don't ask to move back. “It has to cure for a couple of days, but it should be good as new by next Thursday.”

“I hope you don’t mind me still staying in your house. I’ve gotten far too used to the very sexy Viking to go back. Both the oven kind and the one right here,” she said with a squeeze and a smile, burying her face in his chest.

He remembered the piece of paper for her burning a hole in his pocket. He took off his gloves, covered in dirt. “Hey, speaking of the cottage, I have something for you.” He pulled out the small piece of paper from his pocket.

She opened the paper.

“We’ve made more money than ever in the last month. You’ve helped my farm get back in the black. I had enough to repair the cottage roof, and I even paid off the last of Angie’s medical debts. I can’t tell you—” His voice caught, but he cleared it. “—what a weight off my shoulders this has been. It’s all because of your hard work, and amazing ideas. And even better food. Please, I need you to take this.”

She stared at the piece of paper with his scrawled handwriting on it—a check made back to her for the rent she’d paid.

“I just wanted to see you happy,” she said, staring at it. She looked up at him with an earnest face that broke his heart.

That face he wouldn’t get to see anymore in less than two weeks.

“ You make me happy,” he said, his hand coming to her cheek. She leaned into it.

“Blake, I don’t want this.” She slapped the piece of paper on his chest but held her hand to it.

And I don’t want to be in love with you, he thought. But here we are, and I can’t stop it.

“We don’t always get what we want,” he said. picking the piece of paper from between her hand and his chest and shoving it into her pants pocket. She smiled against his chest.

“Well, it’s good for me that you don’t know how paper works.” She reached into her pocket and looked up, kissing his cheek on her tiptoes. And as she smiled against his cheek, he heard the sound of paper being ripped in half.

“Soph, come on,” he said with a huff.

Her mouth twitched. “So that’s when my nickname comes out? When you’re frustrated with me?”

“No,” he said quietly, pushing locks of hair that had fallen beside her face and stroking a thumb along on her cheek. Quite the opposite.

Oh god, it was getting hard to hold it back.

“Then what?” she said with a warm smile, her hands wrapped around his middle, looking utterly gorgeous— happy, perfect. Her round cheeks were perfection, and he pressed a slow kiss to each of them. He thought back to Mabel and how she hadn’t had a chance for this in nearly twenty years.

And in the end, didn’t everyone deserve to know when they were loved so deeply?

“I’m so sorry for what I’m about to tell you,” he said, his brows knitting together as his insides danced. “I know it’s not what we agreed on.”

This was not what he’d set out to do this morning.

“Is it that you’ll write me another check?” she said with a worried smile. “’Cause I’ll just rip that up, too.”

He laughed. “Sophia,” he said in a low, needy breath, taking her face in his hands. “I am so in love with you, and I’m so sorry. I told you we could try to be casual, when I’d already started falling in love with you from the time I looked out the window and saw you crouched under it. I think I fell in love with you again when you spoiled Star.” His eyes scrunched together, and he knew he was acting like a giant coward. “I think I fell in love with you when you swung your hands at the fat raccoons and screamed bloody murder. Definitely fell in love with you when you were so kind to my family.”

He opened his eyes, his chest heaving. “I think I’ve been falling in love with you every day, every moment, since I met you, over and over again. I can’t stop it any more than I can stop breathing or hearing your voice. It’s just how I’m built.”

Her mouth had fallen open.

He was like a fire hose—he couldn’t stop it. “I love every bit of you. The messy, the chaotic, the lovely, the curvy, the anxious.” He caressed her cheek because, miraculously, she was still there and not a giant cloud of dust from running away. “I love your fears and your hopes. I’ve tried to fight it, tried to push it away, but your puzzle pieces fit so perfectly to mine. You have a big life with big opportunities, and I’m never going to stand in the way of that.”

He took in a ragged breath. “But you should know you brought me back to life because of how much I love you.”

His chest heaved from spilling out the most words he’d ever strung together in one go. “I’m so sorry to…to spring this on you,” he said, shaking his head. “I just needed you to know how much you mean to me.”

Uncharacteristically quiet, she stared up with big caramel eyes with a mixture of wonder and…was that horror? Panic?

Oh God, I’m never going to see her again after this.

She’s going to shove her pans and her pots into her car and then take off for the border of New Hampshire.