Page 1

CHAPTER ONE

EMMETT

There's a woman in my kitchen.

Not a burglar. Burglars don't usually show up at seven in the morning carrying a basket of muffins and smelling like cinnamon. Burglars don't pour themselves coffee from your pot like they pay rent. And burglars definitely don't look at you with warm brown eyes and say, "Your back door was unlocked, which is an invitation in my book."

"It's not."

"Too late. I'm already here." She sets the basket on my counter. "Harper Coleman. I run the pumpkin patch next door. We haven't officially met because you seem allergic to neighbors, but desperate times."

I know who she is. Hard not to when the woman has turned the adjacent property into some kind of autumn theme park over the last five years. Corn maze. U-pick operation. Farm-to-table pop-ups where city people drive two hours to eat soup out of a hollowed gourd. Every October my road turns into a parking lot of SUVs with bumper stickers about living their best life.

She's standing in my kitchen in overalls with flour on her collarbone and a smudge of something orange on her cheek. Her natural hair is pulled up in a puff that adds about four inches to her height, and even with the boost, the top of her head barely reaches my shoulder.

"Mr. Drake."

"Emmett."

"Emmett. I have a problem and you have a solution, and I brought muffins because my mother taught me you don't ask a man for a favor empty-handed."

"I haven't agreed to any favor."

"That's because I haven't asked yet." She takes a sip of my coffee. MY coffee. "My pumpkin patch flooded. The whole south section where we grow the festival crop. Three inches of standing water from the creek overflow Tuesday night. Five days before the Autumn Harvest Festival, and I have no pumpkins."

I lean against the counter and cross my arms. I contract with Ridge Brothers Timber Co. I cut trees. I haul logs. I come home, feed my dog, and sit on my porch in the quiet. That's my whole operation. Pumpkins don't enter into it.

"Your south field," she says. "It's unused. Good soil, southern exposure, and it's high enough that the creek overflow wouldn't touch it."

"You want to grow pumpkins in my field. In five days."

"Not grow them, obviously. I'm not a magician. I need a staging area. Somewhere to bring in the replacement crop I'm sourcing from three farms in the valley and set up the festival display. Your field is perfect. It's got road access, it's adjacent to my property so foot traffic flows naturally, and the grade is gentle enough for the hayride."

She's been studying my land. Calculating angles and foot traffic and soil grade like she's planning a military campaign, except instead of tanks, she's deploying pumpkins.

"No."

Her jaw drops. Just slightly. "You didn't even think about it."

"Didn't need to. That field isn't for rent."

"I'm not asking to rent it. I'm asking to borrow it for one weekend. I'll pay you."

"In muffins?"

"In muffins, yes. And actual money if that's what you need, but the muffins are pumpkin spice and they're spectacular, so I'd consider them the more valuable offer."

I don't eat pumpkin spice anything. On principle. The entire concept of pumpkin as a flavor category is a conspiracy invented by coffee companies to sell sugar at a markup. Pumpkin is a vegetable. It belongs in soup. Maybe pie. And that’s my list.

My morning routine is simple. Wake up at five. Let Bear out. Coffee, black, no sugar. Check the Ridge Brothers schedule for the day's timber haul. Work until the light fades. Come home. Feed Bear. Grill something. Sit on the porch and listen to the mountain settle into night. Repeat.

I built this routine the way I build everything. Intentional. Solid. No wasted material. It works because it doesn't require another person. Doesn't require conversation, compromise, or the specific kind of vulnerability that comes with letting someone see the inside of your cabin and the inside of your head.

Three years since anyone's been in this kitchen who wasn't a repairman or Diesel Torres from Grizzle and Grind delivering a part for my chainsaw. Diesel doesn't count. Diesel communicates exclusively through nods and invoice totals, which is exactly the right amount of human interaction.

"I don't eat pumpkin spice."

She stares at me like I just told her I don't believe in gravity. "You live next to a pumpkin patch and you don't eat pumpkin spice."