Falling in Vermont (Cozy Nights in Vermont #2)

Chapter 15

Chapter Fifteen

SOPHIA

S tatic filled her ears. Or was that the sound of an out-of-body experience?

How had she missed all the signs?

A montage flashed through her head: him running after her when he’d thought she wasn’t safe, in the bookstore, whenever he’d pulled the covers over her and tucked her in, too many times to count over the last month.

“I, um.” She needed to say the right thing.

This was a precious, crystalline gem of a man. She’d never want to hurt him, and she’d fight anybody who wanted to.

But how did she even respond to this?

How did she even feel about this?

“I need to go for a drive,” she heard herself say.

He nodded, as if processing much faster than her.

“Yes, a drive, I think. Um, you know, to get some produce,” she said, backing away, a response of “ I love you too ” on the tip of her tongue. But no, she had to be sure. She didn’t want to just say something to make him happy.

He was too important.

“I’ll be back, okay?”

“Do you want me to warm up your car? It’s cold outside.”

“Yes,” she said. “No, wait, I have to do this on my own. I have to think about this. Thank you though. Can I get you anything? Toothpaste? Baking soda?” A cohesive response to the most romantic declaration of love I’ve ever heard ?

“No,” he said with a slow smile.

She bit her lip. “Aren’t you worried I’m gonna walk out and never come back?”

“No.” He walked to open the big barn door for her. “You love your cast iron enamel pots too much,” he said, a knowing look on his face.

She stopped in the doorway, the wind having turned frigid almost overnight. He looked down at her with what was now such obvious love in his eyes. She mentally facepalmed herself at not seeing it before, or maybe not wanting to believe that it could happen to her.

She pushed up on her toes and pressed a long, lingering kiss on his cheek, then ran like a giant coward to her car.

As she turned on the SUV, the gas gauge that had been hanging out at nearly zero for over a week jumped all the way up to almost full like it had yesterday.

There it was. She barked out a laugh—or was that a sob?—as she shook her head.

She turned onto the road, trying to process everything, and yet, there he was in the gas gauge of her car. Her roommate who apparently loved her, having taken care of her one more time before she’d even thought to ask.

For some reason, tears pulled and clawed their way up her chest and into her throat, threatening to spill out onto her cheeks.

She drove the only route she knew back to Clovely, wanting to see the comforting, familiar sites she’d visited every few days. Driving by the farmer’s stand with the great cucumbers. The You-Pick apple farm that had an adorable honor system money box drilled into one of the trees.

Her brain was on autopilot as she wound her car through the streets filled with historic homes. She drove until she found herself outside of a small park.

It had old-style lights on it, and in the gray, low light of the afternoon, they had flickered on, illuminating paths through the trees. She called Iris.

“Hey, how’s?—”

“I ran away,” Sophia said.

“Now you ran away?” Iris responded in confusion.

“Yes.” Sophia’s voice caught. Finally the tears caught up to her eyes and started to spill over. God, she hated this.

“Are you crying? Where are you?”

“I’m at a park,” Sophia said in a wobbly voice.

“Where? Are you okay?”

“In Clovely.”

“That’s a good park,” Iris said, laughing for some reason.

“Everything is ruined,” Sophia responded.

“Why, what happened?” Iris said with concern and surprise.

“He—” Sophia heaved a sob.

“Loves—” Another sob,.

“Meeeeee,” Sophia said, unable to form a more coherent sentence.

“Hold on, let me FaceTime you.”

“No FaceTime,” Sophia said, wiping her eyes in frustration. “I’m an old millennial. Just let me have this one, okay?” She looked around for a Kleenex in her rental car.

The closest she got was one of those sanitary bleach wipes that came with the rental. “Better than my sleeve,” she mumbled, reaching for it and blowing her nose into it. Oh god, this is a new low.

“I think…I think I love him back?—”

“Then why are you crying?” Iris said, exasperated.

“I don’t know…” Sophia hiccuped. “...because I think he really, really loves me, and it’s overwhelming. And then I think maybe I’ve never actually been loved before because nobody ever told me all the things that he told me.” Sophia knew she was rambling.

She shook her fingers out to try to regulate herself.

“And?” Iris asked.

“I haven’t felt like this in so long, and I don’t think I can trust myself.”

“Of course you can. You are in charge of everything, number one organizer; of course you know yourself.”

“But what if I’m wrong? What if I throw away what I worked so hard for?”

“What, being single and alone?”

“Okay… ow, ” Sophia said in response.

“What would you throw away? Your life in Dallas?”

“My life, my influencer persona, and the cookbooks. I don’t know…I’m just not sure if…” She trailed off, unsure of what she was unsure of.

“Sophia, it doesn’t have to be all or nothing. Just stay a little bit longer; just try it out. I’m only a few hours away. In fact, I thought maybe I’d come and visit you next weekend. We finally got back from our assignment in Iceland yesterday,” she said through a yawn. “It doesn’t have to be all or nothing.”

“When did you get so smart?” Sophia said through a sniffle.

“Need I remind you I threw away ten years of my life on my idiot ex-boyfriend?”

“Because you didn’t listen to your big sister.”

“And then what happened after two weeks? I knew I was in love with Sam.”

“Two weeks, really?” Sophia said with awe.

“Sometimes I think that’s how long it’s supposed to take. Maybe less. If you know, you know.”

“He said he knew”—Sophia felt embarrassed admitting this—“when he first saw me.”

“Ohh,” Iris swooned on the phone. “No waaaay. That’s so fucking adorable. He was such a quiet guy when I met him, almost embarrassed to be around us.”

“He is quiet,” Sophia said with a smile. “And also funny, and so sweet, and so thoughtful. And hot .”

“It’s never too late to start over and try out a new life somewhere else. I should know.” Iris had spent many years with her ex-boyfriend in Buffalo and, after getting dumped, had started over her new life in Boston only a year ago.

“I wouldn’t be starting over, really,” Sophia said, fiddling with her steering wheel. “I’d just be continuing.”

“See, that’s not so scary.”

“Maybe I started over without even realizing it, because I loved it so much.”

Loved him so much.

“Will you still make your cookbook deadline?” Iris asked.

“I dunno. It seems sort of small in comparison to figuring out you’re in love and maybe upending your life.”

“See?” Iris said with a laugh. “Now you have new anxieties to replace those old anxieties.”

“I just never—” Sophia laughed as she rolled her head back and forth in the car. “It never felt like this, you know? Like I might die and also burst into tears and barf and dance if I said I loved him back.”

“What do you really want?”

“A martini.” Sophia rubbed a hand on the bridge of her nose.

“And then tomorrow, what do you wanna wake up and do?” Iris asked. “Tell me your best day ever.”

Sophia sighed. “I wanna wake up, do a bunch of things I cannot talk to my sister about with a hot farmer.”

Iris laughed.

“And then bake a bunch of pies or muffins, or braise a lamb shank, make some roasted broccolini. Feed it to people that I get to talk to, see that they love it, encourage them to eat more. Go to a bookstore, play with Star, have an amazing dinner overlooking orange and red trees, and do it all over again.”

She laughed, realizing that was all possible. She could do that tomorrow, and the next day, and the next day, if she was just willing to start over.

“I gotta go, Iris. Love you.” She started the car and drove to the Clovely Inn, where she spotted Beverly just opening the back door, heading inside before the dinner rush.

“Beverly!” she said, calling as she parked her car and jogged over.

“Hey, did I know you were coming?” Beverly said, twirling her keys.

“Um, no.”

“Walk with me.” Beverly hung up her bag and coat on the old wooden hooks at the door.

“Hey, Chef,” an older man called from the line prep counter, “Marco called out sick today, again.”

“Oof, that flu. The price you pay for having little ones in daycare.” She chuckled. “We’ll just have to work extra fast and hard. What did you wanna talk about?” she asked Sophia as she washed her hands at the sink, having donned her chef’s coat and tied her apron around her waist.

“Um.” Sophia had never pitched herself into a job. In fact, she’d had exactly one job interview ten years ago for an accounting job that she’d fucking hated.

“I’m hardworking,” Sophia said, diving in, “and, um, I’ve built my own business, doing influencer campaigns, marketing.”

Beverly nodded with a smile as she grabbed vegetables from the gorgeous glass fridge and a wooden cutting board. She set them out with a sharp chef’s knife on the prep table and then grabbed a second apron.

Sophia kept rambling. “Everyone loves the recipes that I’ve tried out at the pumpkin patch. My standout was the butternut squash and bacon soup, paired with a hearty, rustic bread. And then of course, the pumpkin pie bites. You can’t beat a pumpkin pie bite when the pumpkins are fresh from the farm,” she rattled on as Beverly picked up a paring knife and set it beside the four carrots, two stalks of celery, and broccoli heads on the counter.

Sophia prattled on, not sure how to actually say the “ Can I work here? ” part.

“You know, I’m not afraid of hard work,” Sophia said, wringing her hands.

“Mhmm.” Beverly nodded, searching through the fridge-scaped fridge, then pulling out two bunches of herbs.

“Oh, that sage is going to go soon; you might want to include that,” Sophia said, peeking over her shoulder.

“Good idea,” Beverly said as she grabbed the herbs. “You’re a hard worker, yes, continue.” Beverly rummaged through drawers until she came to what looked like a bin full of potatoes.

“And I’ve always wanted to work in a kitchen, or a bakery, anywhere with other people, because I think I like people. I realized that maybe I created a life where I don’t really see anybody or talk to anybody or get to feed anybody in Dallas.”

“Hold these,” Beverly said, putting the potatoes into her arms, piling more and more on as Sophia talked. Beverly grabbed two onions. “Yes, you’re a hard worker. You want to work in a kitchen?”

“I can do anything, I can start as a dishwasher, or a server, an, um, unpaid intern.” Jesus Christ, she was normally more eloquent than this. Sophia smiled through her grimace, so completely embarrassed. “Whatever I can do to get my foot in the door.”

“So you can do…what?” Beverly asked, setting onions down on the large prep table and gesturing for Sophia to set down her potatoes.

“So I can become a baker, I think, and enjoy feeding people, and I don’t know, just being a part of the whole process.”

“Excellent, that’s a great idea,” Beverly said as she tied an apron around Sophia’s waist.

“It is? So, can I work here?” Hope teetered on the edge of Sophia’s soul.

“Your paid trial started ten minutes ago. Wash your hands and chop these vegetables for soup.” She winked and walked past Sophia, already on to the next seventeen tasks.

“Really?” Sophia said, spinning around.

“Before I change my mind,” Beverly called in a singsong voice over her shoulder, walking into the walk-in freezer.

Sophia dove for the hand soap. A scent had never smelled sweeter than the cheap Dial soap as she washed her hands for her first ever cooking job.

As she thoughtfully peeled the carrots and potatoes, diced just the way her grandmother had taught her, she thought of what she’d say to Blake when she got home.

To their home, as she thought of it now.

How she could explain that she ran away to understand just how much she loved him back. That it was too overwhelming for her to think about, outside of building a life with him.

She paused, chopping as she actually imagined leaving him. Never seeing him again.

It was a physical impossibility. She would have turned back at the county line.

How could she explain that she had to put all the puzzle pieces together at once—her career, her goals, her life, how much she loved him, what their future would look like together?

She knew in her bones that she needed to be here with him and their Star girl forever.

Carrots sliced, she moved on to the broccoli.

But Blake isn’t a talker, he’s a doer.

He’d been showing her he loved her since the moment they met, and now she had some catching up to do. She happily dreamed, as she chopped vegetables, of how to surprise him that night to convince him she loved him back.