Kaelyn
It’s the day of the fall festival, and Hemming and I are heading into town to check out the storefronts, but also to support Kate and Between the Pages opening.
I have two fourteen-by-fourteen boxes of mini cupcakes sitting on the back floorboard of the truck, Hemming’s rear seats folded up to give them room. I thought bringing nearly four hundred cupcakes was overkill, but Kate convinced me to make them all.
One box is completely filled with my caramel apple cupcake, and the other box is half and half, vanilla and chocolate.
Hemming and I discussed taking the SUV but it rained last night. Assuming we won’t be able to park in the business owners alley, we’ll likely be parking in the field across the highway, and if it’s muddy...
It will just be better to have the truck.
Handmade signs proclaiming the First Annual Fall Harvest Days in Forever are posted every few miles.
“Are you even allowed to call something an annual event if it’s the first one?” I muse.
“Semantics,” Hemming says with a chuckle. “Oh, I’ve got a riddle for you.”
I adjust in my seat to try and face him better. “Okay, shoot.”
“Tripp—” Jay’s oldest “—shared it this morning during our run, so if it’s bad, blame the kid.”
Grinning, I nod. “Okay.”
“What starts with an E and ends with an E but only has one letter in it?”
Squinting my eyes, I repeat the riddle softly, trying to figure out the answer.
“Give up?” Hemming grins at me.
“You’ve got me. Yeah, I give up.”
“An envelope.”
Hemming looks proud of his riddle and I have to give him credit. For a joke coming from an eleven year old, he pulled it off nicely.
“Not bad, not bad,” I giggle. All morning I’ve been battling between excitement and nerves—and I’m not even doing anything today; not really—and Hemming’s riddle was just the right thing to give me peace.
As we near town though, traffic begins to slow and with it, so does Hemming’s mood. For me being the introverted one of our pair, he sure shut down quickly at the idea of spending all freaking day at this fall festival. I told him I didn’t plan on being there all day, and when we were ready to go, we could go.
I sometimes get a kick out of the fact I was the one who was nervous to come to town initially, and now that we’ve made been here, Hemming could take the public or leave it. He’s a bit of a homebody, and I’m not entirely sure I’ll ever be able to get him off the compound.
He seems to like the wide open space that’s secured behind a sturdy fence.
“It doesn’t even start for another thirty minutes,” Hemming mumbles.
“Everyone’s excited. And! The firefighters had their pancake breakfast this morning, remember?”
Hemming glances at me, his brows up, and I smile at him. He may not be excited, but I certainly am.
Besides Beyond the Pages opening, all the existing stores will have goodies for those walking through town, and the police and firefighters are doing a pie throwing contest for charity. I think I even heard the town square will have a bunch of blow up slides and bounce houses.
With so much of traffic being directed into the farm field across from downtown, Hemming simply goes with the flow instead of trying to get into the alleyway behind the bakery. I hold onto the “oh shit” handle as the truck rocks on uneven ground, and I glance over my shoulder at the boxes in the back.
“They’ll be fine,” he reassures me. “I’m barely going 5, which is why the bumps feel so big.”
Once parked, Hemming grabs the boxes and we walk through the field toward Main Street. It’s a good thing I went with low-heeled boots today—they go to mid-calf and I was feeling extra fallish today, pairing the camel colored boots with cute tall socks—or else I’d be breaking an ankle.
Or losing a shoe to the grip of mud.
My phone buzzes in my hand and I see a text.
“Kate says to go through the back. People are already window browsing and she doesn’t want to unlock the door yet.”
Because my bakery is on the corner of Main Street, we get to walk beside it. I can’t help but grin at the brown paper that now lines the window and glass door, signifying inside construction will be beginning soon.
As we move along the outside wall, an idea hits. “How much do you think it’d be to knock down this wall,” I run my fingers along the bricks, “and make it a window wall, too?”
Hemming doesn’t stop his forward movement but he does look, and seems to consider. “I don’t know. Probably wouldn’t be cheap, but we’re meeting with Landon on Monday. You can ask him then.”
I made the call to the contractor and felt good about moving forward. Landon is only able to meet during the day, so Hemming took Monday afternoon off. I told him I could do it on my own, but I think he knew I’d feel better with him there.
“Is it a silly idea?” I ask as we turn the corner into the alleyway.
“I don’t think so. But maybe don’t get your heart set on it yet. Let’s see what the quote is first.”
There are five buildings on this side of Main Street—mine, a place where local crafters can rent out booth space and sell their goods, Pōr, Between the Pages, and Bailey’s Custard. The craft place, called MADE, should be opening soon, and the owners seem to be taking up both of our parking spots in the alley.
“You wanna text Kate back and say were almost there?”
“Sure.”
I give her the heads up and as soon as we get to her back door, Tanner is pushing it open for us.
“Good timing,” Hemming comments as we step inside.
Tanner closes the door behind us. “Kate’s got a table in the front for you.”
The way Kate’s set up the bookstore, she has a holding room immediately to the right of the back door, and a bathroom to the left. The hallway isn’t long, and as soon as you clear it, you’re in the thick of the store, with a kids area being in the far back corner.
Kate pops her head around a shelving unit and smiles. “You made it! And you brought cupcakes!”
“As if you didn’t know either of those points,” I laugh, giving her a quick hug. “Congratulations on today!”
“I haven’t even opened yet,” she says, hugging me back.
“I can still congratulate you. Here, Hemming,” I turn away from my friend, “I can take those.”
“Nope. Show me the table, Kate.” At my lifted brows, Hemming rolls his eyes good naturedly. “Please.”
It never fails to amaze me how different he is depending on who he’s with. Aside from Wyatt’s death, it’s been such a long time since Hemming has not only given me short answers, but also random subject changes, that I usually forget that’s who he is until we’re around the people he calls friends.
Not that Kate isn’t his friend.
Kate has a place for the cupcakes near the front desk, and as Hemming opens the boxes and puts them out, Kate pulls me to the desk.
“I overnighted these from Staples because I didn’t think you’d think to bring anything,” she says, reaching for a small brown box.
“Kate...” I have no idea what she’s done, but I can feel myself getting emotional. Whatever it is, I know it’s a supportive gesture.
Heck, she’s been supportive since the moment she walked into my house, excited to eat cupcakes.
She opens the box and reaches in, pulling out a stack of cards that are secured with a paper band. After ripping it, she turns the cards over, revealing mint green postcards with a large white circle off center, “Kae’s Bakery” in a funky retro font across the entire card.
“Oh my gosh, Kate,” I whisper, reaching for them.
In smaller letters is, “Coming Soon,” as well as the website and domain email address she helped me set up a few days ago.
Tears fill my eyes and I have a hard time looking at my friend.
“You like them?”
Shaking my head and blinking rapidly, I finally lift my eyes to hers. “I freaking love them, Kate. Thank you so much.” I throw my arms around my friend.
“I figured you needed something for the table, so people knew what they were eating, and then they could get excited for the bakery to open.”
When I pull back from Kate’s embrace, I lower my sleeves over my palms and use them to press lightly into my eyes—completely forgetting I wear makeup today.
Kate laughs and takes my wrists, bringing them away from my face. “You’re going to have raccoon eyes, and the day hasn’t even started yet.”
“You making my wife cry?” Hemming interrupts, moving to lean into the desk on crossed arms. There’s a tease in his voice but when I look over at him, I notice the concern there, too.
“Look what she had made for today,” I tell him, holding out the stack of cards.
He takes them, looking them over, before giving me a crooked grin. “Makes it real, doesn’t it?”
“So real.”
I wouldn’t say everything up until this point felt like a fairy tale. There’s enough real in the moments, in the conversations, for me to know I’m Kaelyn Johansen and this is the life I’m building for myself.
But something about this moment, with my husband and two people I consider my closest friends, makes me incredibly excited for the future.
Kellie Zimmerman may be dead, but I don’t know that her life would have ever been as exciting as Kaelyn Johansen’s.
And I wouldn’t trade a thing.
Between the Pages has been hopping since the moment Kate opened the doors.
The men have been in and out, but I’m pretty sure they’re both over at the hardware store right now. Kate has two girls working today and when a third comes in at noon, she and I take a break. Not that I was doing much other than being a cupcake dealer.
In two hours, I’ve gone through nearly two hundred cupcakes.
Fifty percent of what I brought...
Gone.
I know it won’t be that way when I open the bakery, but it gives me a good idea of what demand may look like.
“The Paiges will meet us in the square,” Kate says as we step onto the front walk. There are people all over, milling around and chatting.
Some with bags in their hands, others with bags and samples.
There are kids running up and down the blocked off Main Street, balloons flying behind them, their faces painted in bright colors.
Pōr won’t open for full service until dinnertime, but Pay does have the door unlocked, allowing people to come in and sample local wines. She’ll be busy at five, no doubt.
Bailey’s will be closing for winter after this weekend, so Paige and her workers are busy as people are likely filling their freezers. Her family recipe custard is so much better than anything you can buy at the grocery store, although I think I saw a few pints at The Market a few weeks ago.
I’ve only met Pay and Paige briefly, but Kate really enjoys their company so I’m not at all nervous to do lunch with them.
Kate and I walk to the square, talking about the morning and discussing her plans for the future of Between the Pages. We’re only in the square for a few minutes before Paige meets up with us, Pay shortly behind her.
There are plenty of food options today, with the diner and Zane’s being town staples, but there’s also a food truck selling standard fair food.
We opt for corn dogs for each of us, and share a big plastic bucket filled with fries. As we’re eating at a picnic table, I listen to the women chat and ask Kate about the bookstore opening, and I grin, looking around at all the activity.
Forever truly is a special small town. I’ve learned in the last months how it was practically a ghost town until earlier in the year when someone with money decided to bring it back to life. Even with new stores and modern touches, it still feels like an old small town, where the currently asphalt covered roads were once dirt or cobblestone, and old Model Ts parked diagonally along the sidewalks.
“What about you guys, Kae?” Pay’s words catch me off-guard.
Shaking my head, I grimace with a grin. “Sorry, I was daydreaming. I didn’t catch the question.”
“Kate was telling us about the house plans she and Tanner are drawing up. Are you and Hemming going to build a house?” Paige asks.
“Oh, I...” I grimace then shake my head, shrug, nod... A whole slew of emotions as I’m hit with a single question I haven’t prepped for. “I’m sure in time,” I finally come up with. “Hemming really likes his space and routine. If we were going to build, we’d have to find a big chunk of land, I’d think, but...”
“That’s what Kae and Tanner did, right?” Paige directs her question to Kae, who nods.
“It’s right next to Tucker’s land. There may be another parcel. We can be neighbors all over again,” Kate suggests.
Of the three women here with me, Kate’s the only one who knows the truth about me and Hemming, and for all I know, she thinks I’m playing the role I was given.
Not that the truth affects things between him and I. Not that I think, anyway.
We sleep together—figuratively and literally.
We say I love you.
We have embraced this marriage.
I’ll be the first to admit when Hemming started shutting me out with Wyatt’s death, I feared divorce was still imminent. I wasn’t sure we’d survive a year, not if he couldn’t let me in during his low moments.
But he and I vowed to make this marriage real, and in my heart, it feels very, very real.
“Maybe if Tucker helps him secure the land,” I finally say, forcing a grin on my face. “Oh, I have a riddle for you,” I change the subject. “Hemming got it from Tripp.”
Kate claps her hands once and laughs. “Yes! It’s great. Tanner told me it this morning, too.”
“Do you...”
Kate shakes her head, smiling, and ushers her hands toward the Paiges. “No, you tell them.”
I share the envelope joke, which prompts Paige to tell a similar riddle, and the mood is once again light. I’m not the topic of the moment, and I can breathe easier.
Our corndogs are long gone and the fries bucket is nearly empty, when Tanner and Hemming find us.
Kate stands up and Tanner takes her spot, pulling her back down into his lap.
Hemming stands behind me, his hands on my shoulders.
“How are things at Pōr and Bailey’s today, ladies?” Tanner asks.
Once again, I can just listen, but this time, I have Hemming’s body to lean back into. He’s not a big cologne wearer, but I bought him one to try. “For certain occasions,” I’d told him when he raised his brows at it.
I was surprised when he wore it today, but I definitely love it on him.
“These two are coming up on their anniversary,” Tanner says, pointing his thumb in our direction. Once again, I’m caught off guard, having gone into my head instead of listening to the conversation around us.
How did we circle from Paige and Pay, back to me and Hemming?
Hemming squeezes my shoulders lightly. “We are. Next week.”
“Our fifth,” I offer the lie easily. Far easier than I thought I could. Do people actually believe we’ve been together for over five years?
“Are you guys doing anything special?” Pay asks, leaning into the table.
I shake my head, “No,” but when both Paige’s and Pay’s eyes move from my face to the man standing behind me, I tip my head to the side and look up at him. He just smirks down at me.
“Hemming...”
“Nope. Not doing anything,” he tells me, but I have a feeling he has something up his sleeve.
A phone chimes. It’s an alert that Paige has to get back to Bailey’s.
We all get up and carry our trash to the garbage bin.
“Head home in an hour or so?” Hemming asks, his hand in mine.
“Sure. That’s fine. The cupcakes are nearly gone, anyway.”
“Tanner and I stopped there before heading this way. Babe, they’re gone.”
I stop, my eyes wide and my mouth gaping open. “But there were nearly four hundred!”
Chuckling, he tugs me until my front is to his and I’m looking up at him. “The people have spoken. They want you in this town.” And when Hemming kisses me, I can’t stop myself from smiling against his lips.
I never want our kisses to end, and this one is no different. But then Hemming taps my butt and I dance away, laughing.
I’ll let him think it’s a PDA thing and not the fact that when his fingers brush the undercurve of my ass, it’s not only ticklish, but it makes me instantly wet.
“I’ll grab you from the bookstore,” he tells me with a wink, and we split apart, me for the girls and him toward Tanner.
“You guys are too cute,” Pay grins, her eyes following Hemming briefly. I don’t feel any jealousy at her looking at what’s mine.
Partly because I’m nearly positive she doesn’t mean her look as anything, but also because I’m pretty confident these days in what Hemming and I have.
“Are you guys going to have kids?” she asks, looking at me now.
Once again put on the spot, I feel myself turn red. “Oh, I... We haven’t really...”
“Pay!” Kate saves me. “You don’t ask women that.”
“I’m sorry!” Pay laughs, holding her hands up. “I was just saying... You two would make cute babies, that’s all. If you wanted them, of course.”
“I didn’t take any offense to it, promise,” I tell her, my words stronger than I feel. “We’re just enjoying our time together. I have time.”
“It’s so unfair that women have a limited number of years to have healthy eggs but here men are, having kids well into their seventies,” Paige says, shaking her head. “I’m three seconds away from going the Single Mom By Choice route. My clock’s tickin’!”
“Paige, you’re only twenty-five,” Kate grins.
“And I haven’t been on a date in over two years. There’s like...cobwebs growing down there.”
“Oh my gosh, girls, we all have time,” Pay laughs. “But two of you have very handsome, very virile men. If I had a man like either of them, I’d either be clearing the shelves of condoms, or willingly birthing dozens of children.”
All four of us laugh, and when we reach Bailey’s, everyone hugs.
Pay, Kate, and I head further down the block, and when Kate and I head for the door of Between the Pages, Pay tells us she’s bringing a bottle of wine over to celebrate Kate’s opening success.
Inside, I see my cupcakes are indeed gone, as well as most of the postcards. I clean up as Kate mans the desk, sending one of her employees on a lunch break.
“I really like your friends,” I tell Kate, after I return from throwing the bakery boxes away.
“I think you can call them your friends too,” Kate teases. “Oh, and Kae?”
I look up from breaking down the table.
“You know I know...you know. But for what it’s worth? I agree with Pay. You two would make cute babies.”
Where before the question caught me off guard, there’s something about hearing my closest friend say it. The one person from that group of girls who knows the truth of my situation. Hearing her say it...
“You think?”
“I know. And...” She leans into the counter and lowers her voice so it doesn’t carry, “I’ve seen you two. Something tells me... Well, I see the way he looks at you, and the way you look at him, and I think there will be more anniversaries.”
There’s no stopping my grin as I shrug a shoulder, looking back down at my task.
But then I give in and smile at her. “I think so too.” We kind of sound like we’re speaking in a code of some sort, but I appreciate her letting me know she sees it.
After bringing the table back to the storage room, I tell Kate to give me a job. For the next hour, between sipping on the wine Pay brought over and restocking Kate’s card catalog with stickers, bookmarks, pins, and patches, I enjoy the atmosphere of Between the Pages.
I love that I can share Kate’s passion with her, by being here to support her, when she’s been my second biggest supporter with the bakery...
Although she does give Hemming a run for his money.
They support my business in different ways. I wouldn’t trade either of them.
Today was a good day.
A really good day.