Fall a Latte for Me (Seasons in Montana: Fall)

Chapter 1

one

Dani

One month until the Wintervale Art Walk, and I’m still putting the finishing touches on the last five pieces every night after closing.

None of them are quite right. Not quite perfect.

And if there’s one thing my family taught me how to be, it’s to be perfectly meticulous about my work.

“You okay?” Mel asks, hand over her swollen belly.

I glance over from where I’m working the espresso machine, pushing out orders, and lining them up on a tray for Kelsey to take to her brother Travis, Mrs. Sanderson, and the rest of the crew waiting in our central cozy space situated before the exposed-brick fireplace.

“Yeah, fine. Just tired.” Brushing my hair out of my eyes, I swallow down a curse as I spot a sliver of turquoise at the edge of my nail. “Art walk’s coming up fast, and I’m not quite finished.”

“Not getting enough sleep?” She snorts a little, one hand smoothing over her belly. “I know what that’s like.”

I smile at her. “Girl, I think you’re not going to get enough sleep for a while.”

“Don’t I know it?”

“When do you pop again?”

“Pop?” She laughs. “What a way to put it, Dani. Like they’re going to magically appear rather than be forced out of my body after hours of agony—”

“Oh, please.” I hold up a hand to stop her, wrinkling my nose. “I really don’t need to know about the magic of childbirth. I’ll just… find out for myself if I ever get there.”

Her smile broadens. “You’re so squeamish. Easy target for me, Dani.”

“Yeah, well. I have other things on my mind.”

She waits a beat. “You’re going to be great, Dani. Don’t worry. I’m sure your paintings are going to blow people away. We have your work hung up here, and it always gets compliments. We’ve even sold a few.”

“I know.” I can already feel the blush creeping up my neck.

It’s silly to be embarrassed, but trying to be proud of something I’ve created still feels really hard.

“It’s just, everything else I’ve done has been derivative or commissioned, you know?

Bringing someone else’s vision to life. Not my own. ”

“Well, you had that one piece, didn’t you? The one you showed off at the MSU Alumni Showcase?”

“Yes, yes, it sold.”

It was the first non-commissioned piece of work I’d shown anywhere. Seeing it hanging in the alumni gallery was a defining moment for me, and I was glad to experience it alongside Lily, Sloane’s five-year-old daughter, who wanted to come to the art show.

Though it was meant to be a gift to the university, they wanted to help artists gain visibility, too. So, they auctioned off the pieces and split the funds with artists.

I walked away with a tidy sum of money to stash into my future art studio savings and absolutely no clue who the buyer was. Apparently, he wanted to remain anonymous.

“So, shouldn’t that tell you something?”

I don’t answer because someone drops their dirty dishes on my counter with a loud clatter. I scoop them up and away, my eyes drifting over to the closed storeroom, where my mess of paints and works-in-progress are hidden away.

Kelsey lets me run paint-and-sip classes and use the coffeeshop as a studio after closing time. As long as I clean up, of course.

Not super ideal, but it’s better than stashing them at my place where my parents would take one glance at what I’m doing and moan about how useless art is and how much of a waste my education was. They think I would’ve been better off following in their footsteps into accounting.

But numbers. Bleh. Boring.

The best things to come out of my time at Montana State University, Starlight Springs, were my skills as an artist and my relationships with my sorority sisters.

Kelsey, Melissa, and Sloane are my three biggest cheerleaders and the only reason I haven’t actually had to doom myself to a lifetime of doing math.

This year, all three of them have been finding love and settling into their new lives. Each of them is stupidly happy. And I think it’s beautiful.

Really.

I’m happy for them.

But that leaves me.

Alone, late to the party, last to bloom, whatever you want to call it.

I’m the straggler. The sorority sister who shyly hid behind her sketchbook for fear of being noticed.

The painter who uses the call sign Fanny because, God forbid, someone trace it back to my family, and it reminds everyone what a damn shame it is I haven’t been able to “make” something of myself.

Ugh. Whatever.

I spin around the tight space behind the Brewbirds Coffeeshop bar, forcing the frustrated thoughts out of my mind and trying to recenter it on whether I should add a bit of seasonal burnt orange to last night’s painting. It’d evoke the color of the scattered leaves blowing down Main Street…

The overhead bell chimes, and a gust of cool autumnal air bursts in along with a man and a dog.

For one minute, I feel like one of those women in a rom-com. The ones who stand there stupefied because they’ve just watched the sexiest man they’ve ever seen stride in alongside an attention-getting puppy the color of a well-made latte swirled with milk.

He’s tall with a slim, athletic build. The dirty blond curls atop his head—not quite the color of wheat, not quite sun-kissed—deepen a couple of shades into a rusty golden scruff dusting his jaw.

If I could abandon my station right now, I’d be mixing paints and working to find the right palette for him.

The black-and-white suit and sunglasses ‘fit he’s sporting now doesn’t do much for him, but it’s classic enough. Safe. Even with the two top buttons undone, which suggests some degree of informality.

But when he bends to tie the dog’s leash to the table by the window, my pulse picks up speed as my gaze drops to his ass. Then, he scratches the dog under its chin and murmurs something soft while its tail wags happily in the air.

Girl, I know the feeling.

I turn away, forcing my attention back to the coffee order at hand. Best not to look too hard or get caught staring, openly drooling like the dog at his feet.

Pretty soon, it’d be my tail wagging back and forth.

But there’s no use getting excited about anyone new in town. Chances are, they’re probably tourists. They blow in, they blow out, and most of them are already involved with someone else.

Still, my ears strain to hear when Mel takes his order.

“I’ll have the pumpkin spice latte, please. Iced.”

A full-body shiver works its way through me at the sound of his voice. Rich. Low. Rumbly. Something about it strikes me as familiar, but I can’t pinpoint why.

But as he sits at the window table, swapping his shades for a pair of wire-framed glasses, I feel a wave of… something.

Attraction? Tenderness? Curiosity?

And so, when I’ve made his drink and Mel excuses herself to run to the bathroom mumbling something about one of the twins kicking her bladder, I pick up the tray full of food and drink and make my way through the dining area.

Along the way, I dodge one twirling toddler with a peanut butter cookie crumbling in his hand. I nod a greeting to the local grannies who’ve gathered to tinker with their yarn, then I slip the plates of sweet treats to those who’ve ordered them.

Just as I turn and step forward to serve the stranger in a suit, a few things happen at once.

First, the dancing child notices the dog staring at him with interest.

Next, the child extends her hand and asks, “Doggy want a cookie?”

Third, that caramel-and-cream four-legged cutie leaps across the aisle, pulling her leash taut.

And I trip right over it.

The dog swings around, darting between my legs. It wraps around my ankle as I fall forward.

“Dulce—!” he admonishes, half-rising from his seat.

But it’s too late. I’m already in motion.

The drink tips, slips, and all of it slides…

Right down his front.

He gasps, shock rippling over his striking face as his arms flail open and I fall into them.

I knock him back into the chair and land squarely in his soaked lap.

“Oh God. Oh my God. I’m so sorry—” Mortification spirals through me as I dab at him with my apron like an idiot. The dog dances at my feet, jumping and barking in a high-pitched, excitable yap. “I should’ve been paying more attention.”

Underneath that suit, he’s all muscle, and I think my face must be on fire.

“No, I—It’s my fault. She’s my dog.”

His voice rumbles in my ear. Like an intimate caress, the sound of it prickles my skin and sends something electric through me.

The moment I look up, everything freezes.

I hear nothing except his staccato breath and my hammering heart. Because that weathered bright cerulean blue of his eyes?

I know that color.

They’re Colby Cutter blue in my brain—named for the college playboy with all the pretty words I secretly crushed on all through college.

After he published his blockbuster debut novel, Beyond the Blue, I purchased every one of his titles and listened to every sweeping audiobook. I wept my eyes out listening to his words while I painted and ached at the way he described love and the pain of losing it.

But there’s been nothing new for a while—no new words, no new photos. Not since the accident that killed his wife on the eve of his last book launch.

“Colby?” I whisper. “Colby Cutter?”

His eyes flare wide, and the dog settles on the floor beneath my feet to chow down on the stolen peanut butter cookie while somewhere behind me, the toddler—and maybe the world—laughs.

“You… You know me?”