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"Okay."

"And you got an email. I saw it on your screen this morning. Contract. Winter series."

The air leaves my lungs. He saw the email. He saw it before I had a chance to explain, to think, to decide anything.

"It's an offer," I say. "I haven't accepted it."

"But you're going to."

"I don't know."

"Colorado and Wyoming. Six weeks. Starting mid-November." His voice is even, flat. The same voice he used the first day, standing over me in the patch with a knife. Stating facts. "That's three weeks from now."

"Deck, I haven't decided anything."

"You don't have to decide. It's your job. You travel. You go where the work takes you." He looks at the mountains over my shoulder. Not at me. "I knew that when I kissed you. I knew it when I took you to bed."

"So what, you're pulling back now? Putting the walls up because the assignment has an end date?"

"Every assignment has an end date. You told me that yourself."

"And you told me you don't do temporary."

"I don't."

"Then what is this?"

His eyes come back to mine. Full of something I've only seen once before, on Thursday night, in the dark, after. The thing he whispered into my hair. That's what scares me.

"I can't ask you to stay," he says. "I did that once. Asked a woman to choose this life, this mountain, this farm over everything else she wanted. She chose. She was miserable. I won't do it again."

"I'm not Beth."

"I know you're not Beth." His voice cracks on it. Just a fracture, barely audible, but I hear it. "That's what makes this worse. Because if you leave, it's not going to be a relief. It's not going to be something I get over in a year and move on. It's going to be the thing that breaks me."

My throat closes. Tears burn behind my eyes. Not anger. Grief. For the man standing in his orchard telling me he'd rather lose me clean than lose me slow.

"So you'd rather end it now," I say. "Before it gets harder."

"I'd rather know the truth. Are you taking the contract?"

The truth. The truth is I don't know. The truth is I woke up in his bed this morning, his arm around me, his heartbeat under my ear, and thought this is where I want to be. The truth is the email from Diane is still open on my laptop, unanswered, because answering it means choosing, and choosing means losing something either way.

"I need to think," I say.

"Yeah." He steps back. The space between us opens. Cold air fills it. "Take the weekend. Figure it out."

"Deck."

"I'll be here." He turns toward the barn. Stops. Looks back over his shoulder. "I'll always be here. That's the whole point."

He walks away. Steady gait, straight back, a man returning to the work that never leaves him. The festival noise swells in the distance. Laughter, kids, Hilda shouting about cider. All of it warm. All of it happening without me.

Back at the Mountain Haven Inn, I sit on the bed in Room 12. The flannel is on the pillow next to me. He didn't take it back this time. He didn't put it in my car. He just let me keep it, which feels more final than anything he said.

My phone buzzes.

Mom: