Chapter 28 Ally
ALLY
The pumpkins needed rearranging. Ally stood on the inn’s wraparound porch, hands on her hips, studying the display she’d already adjusted twice this morning.
Three large orange pumpkins, a cluster of white ones, decorative gourds in shades of green and gold.
A hay bale anchored the corner, and dried cornstalks tied with burlap ribbon flanked the front door.
It looked fine. It looked more than fine—it looked like something from a fall décor magazine.
But she kept fiddling with it anyway, because fiddling with pumpkins was easier than thinking about the text she’d gotten at six this morning.
Can we talk? I’ll be at the inn around ten
Her phone had buzzed her awake, and she’d spent the hours since alternating between checking the time and convincing herself she didn’t care what he wanted to say.
They’d been dancing around each other for weeks now—ever since he’d shown up at the grand opening, humbler and quieter than the Colton she remembered.
They’d worked side by side that day, falling into old rhythms, and then he’d left.
Gone back to his house across the lake, the one he’d bought but barely lived in.
Had flown back to New York for his last shoot of the year, a life that didn’t quite include her.
The crunch of tires on gravel made her stomach tighten. She didn’t turn around. Just kept adjusting the pumpkins, moving the largest one two inches to the left, then back to the right.
“You’re going to wear a hole in that pumpkin.”
His voice came from behind her—warm and familiar and close. Ally finally turned, and there he was. Colton Matthews, former Major League Baseball star, standing at the bottom of the porch steps in jeans and a flannel shirt, his dark hair windswept and his blue eyes fixed on her face.
He was holding two cups of apple cider.
“Peace offering,” he said, climbing the steps. Steam curled from the cups, carrying the scent of cinnamon and warm apples. “Mary said it’s her grandmother’s recipe. The secret ingredient is a splash of bourbon.”
“It’s ten in the morning.”
“It’s mostly apple.”
Despite herself, Ally felt her mouth twitch. She accepted the cup, wrapping her cold fingers around the warmth. The first sip was perfect—sweet and spiced, with just enough heat at the back of her throat to remind her it wasn’t just cider.
“You wanted to talk,” she said, keeping her voice even. “So talk.”
Colton leaned against the porch railing, his own cup cradled in both hands.
Behind him, the mountains blazed with color—crimson maples, golden oaks, the deep green of pines cutting through like anchors.
A breeze stirred the wind chimes near the door, sending a cascade of soft notes across the porch.
“I’ve been doing a lot of thinking,” he said. “Since the opening. Since before that, really. I guess after I’d been in New York for a week and realized everything I wanted was back here.”
“Colton—”
“Let me finish. Please.”
Ally pressed her lips together and nodded. The cider steamed between them, and somewhere in the yard, a crow called.
“I told you I needed space to figure out who I was without baseball.” Colton’s jaw tightened.
“And I meant it. But I went about it wrong. I thought I had to go back to the city, back to the life I knew, to find some kind of answer. Instead, all I found was—” He shook his head.
“Empty. Everything was empty. The apartment, the meetings, the parties people kept dragging me to. I’d look around these rooms full of people and feel absolutely nothing. ”
“That’s not my problem to solve.”
“I know it’s not.” He set down his cup on the railing, turned to face her fully. “I’m not asking you to solve anything. I’m trying to tell you what I figured out.”
Ally waited, her fingers tight around the warm cup.
“The house here,” Colton said. “I told myself it was an investment. But I’ve spent more time picking out furniture for that house than I ever spent on my apartment in New York. I adopted the horses from that farm outside of town. Named the new one Cy Young, which Marco thinks is hilarious.”
“You named a horse after a baseball pitcher?”
“Seemed fitting.” A ghost of a smile crossed his face.
“The high school asked me to help coach their baseball team this spring. I said yes before I even thought about it. I’m still under contract for modeling and endorsements, but they’ve all agreed to me flying in twice a year to do the shoots all at once. ”
Ally’s chest felt tight. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying I choose this.” Colton gestured at the inn, the mountains, the town beyond. “I choose Blueberry Hill. I choose mornings that smell clean and evenings on the lake and watching kids learn to love baseball the way I used to. I choose a life that actually means something.”
The wind picked up, sending a swirl of crimson leaves across the porch. One landed on Ally’s shoulder, and she brushed it away with trembling fingers.
“And what about us?” The words came out rougher than she had intended. “You left. You said you needed space, and I gave it to you, and then you were just—gone. For months. Do you know what that was like?”
“I know I hurt you.”
“You broke my heart.” She hadn’t meant to say it so plainly, but there it was, hanging in the October air between them. “I understood why you needed to go. I even supported it. But watching you leave, not knowing if you’d come back, not knowing if I was foolish for hoping—”
Her voice cracked, and she stopped. Took a breath. The cider had gone lukewarm in her hands.
“I loved you too much to ask you to be someone you’re not.” The words she’d said to her mother months ago, the ones that had felt like accepting defeat. “And I thought you loved that life too much to give it up, even for love.”
Colton went still. “You really believed that?”
“What was I supposed to believe? You were gone. Back to New York, back to the parties and the spotlight and everything I couldn’t compete with.”
“There was never any competition.” Colton’s voice was quiet, stripped of all the charm and confidence she’d first fallen for. This was the real him—the man beneath the headlines, beneath the career, beneath the easy smile. “I was just too stupid to realize it until I’d already left.”
He reached for her hand, and she let him take it. His palm was warm and rough, callused in new places she didn’t recognize.
“Come with me,” he said. “There’s something I need to show you.”
They walked back to his house. Ally stared. The house looked lived in—not staged for sale, not empty and waiting. There were rocking chairs on the porch, firewood stacked neatly by the door, and a wreath made of dried lavender hanging from the knocker.
“You decorated.”
“I tried.” He was watching her face, gauging her reaction. “I hired someone to help with the inside, but the porch stuff I did myself. Including the lavender, which I may have stolen from your greenhouse.”
“You didn’t steal it. I gave you those cuttings.”
“Same thing.” He shoved his hands in his pockets.
“It’s beautiful,” she said, and meant it.
“There’s more.” Colton took her hand again, leading her around the side of the house. “Close your eyes.”
“Colton—”
“Humor me.”
She closed her eyes, letting him guide her across the grass. She could feel the ground change from lawn to something harder—flagstones, maybe—and hear the soft clucking sounds before they stopped walking.
“Okay.” His voice was close to her ear. “Open them.”
Ally opened her eyes and felt her breath catch.
It was a chicken coop. But not just any chicken coop—the fanciest chicken coop she’d ever seen.
A proper little house with a peaked roof and window boxes planted with herbs, a wire run that stretched across a generous patch of yard, and inside, a dozen hens in shades of brown and red and speckled gray, scratching contentedly at the ground.
“You built this?” Her voice came out strange, thick with something she couldn’t name.
“I had help. Will showed me how to frame it out, and Ryan helped me paint.” Colton was watching her face again, with that careful hope in his expression.
“I remembered you saying once that you wanted chickens. That it was the kind of life you’d always imagined—bees and chickens and a garden you could actually eat from. ”
“I said that ages ago.”
“I know.” He turned her to face him, his hands on her shoulders.
“Ally, I spent months in New York, going to every event and meeting I thought I was supposed to care about. And the whole time, I kept thinking about you. About what you’d say if you could see me there, pretending to enjoy it.
About what I’d rather be doing instead.”
“And what would you rather be doing?”
“This.” He gestured at the coop, the house, the mountains rising behind them. “I want to feed chickens with you. Every day. For as long as you’ll have me.”
The words hit her like a physical blow—so simple, so ordinary, so exactly what she’d stopped letting herself hope for. She thought about all the months of convincing herself he’d never choose this life, never choose her over the glitter and noise of the world he came from.
“You built me a chicken coop,” she said, her voice breaking.
“I built us a chicken coop.” He brushed a strand of hair from her face. “And a garden. And a place for your bees, if you want to expand. There’s plenty of land.”
“Colton—”
“I love you.” The words were steady, certain. “I’ve loved you since you refused to be impressed by anything about me except whether I could help stack hay bales. I’m done pretending I don’t know exactly what I want.”
Ally looked at him—really looked. The lines around his eyes that hadn’t been there a year ago. The flannel shirt dusted with what she now realized was sawdust from working on this place. The calluses on his hands that came from building something real.
“I never stopped loving you,” she said. “Even when I wanted to. Even when it would have been easier.”
“Then why do you look like you’re about to cry?”
“Because I thought—” She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “I thought you loved that life too much to give it up. I thought I’d have to choose between losing you and losing myself. And now you’re standing here showing me a chicken coop you built, and I don’t—”
He kissed her.
His mouth was warm and tasted like apple cider and hope, and Ally forgot everything she’d been about to say.
She forgot the months of loneliness and the fear that had kept her awake at night.
Her hands found his shoulders, then the back of his neck, and she kissed him back with everything she’d been holding in.
Around them, the chickens clucked, and the October wind sent leaves spiraling down from the maples. The mountains rose blue and gold in the distance. When they finally pulled apart, Ally was breathless and laughing.
“We should probably go inside,” she said. “Before I scandalize your chickens.”
“They’re our chickens now.” Colton kept his arm around her waist. “If you want them to be.”
Ally leaned into him, breathing in the scent of clean cotton and something underneath that was just him.
The fear wasn’t entirely gone—it probably wouldn’t be for a while.
But standing here in front of the ridiculous, beautiful chicken coop he’d built, surrounded by the mountains and lake she loved, she felt something she hadn’t allowed herself to feel in a long time.
Hope that might actually be warranted.
“I want to see the rest of the house,” she said. “And the garden. And wherever you’re planning to put the bees.”
“I have blueprints.” His grin was the old Colton charm surfacing beneath the new steadiness. “I may have gotten a little carried away.”
“How carried away?”
“There might be a honey house designed into the barn renovation.”
Ally pulled back to stare at him. “A honey house?”
“Climate controlled. Proper extraction room, bottling station, storage for the cured frames.” He was trying to look casual about it and failing. “I did some research.”
“You did research on honey production.”
“I did research on everything you do.” He touched her face, his expression softening. “I wanted to understand your world. The one I want to be part of.”
Ally didn’t trust herself to speak. She just took his hand and led him toward the house, past the chicken coop and through a gate in a white picket fence that surrounded what would clearly become a kitchen garden.
Raised beds waited for spring planting, the soil dark and rich.
Lavender bordered the path, the late-season blooms filling the air with their scent.
“The bees would love this,” she said.
“That’s what I was hoping.”
She stopped at the bottom of the porch steps and turned to face him. “I can’t move in with you. Not yet. We need to actually date first, like normal people.”
“I know.”
“And my greenhouse. I’m not moving my whole operation until I know this is going to work.”
“I know that too.”
“But—” She took a breath. “I’m ready to give up the tiny house. I think Sam wants to move in after she finishes school. I want to try. Building something together. If you’re sure this is what you want.”
“I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life.” Colton pulled her close, pressing his forehead to hers. “Not baseball, not any of it. This is what I want. You’re what I want.”
The wind chimes she hadn’t noticed before sang from the porch corner—the same kind her mother had at the inn. The chickens clucked contentedly behind them. From somewhere in the barn, she heard the soft whicker of a horse.
“Show me the honey house plans,” she said.
Colton grinned and led her up the steps, through the front door, into the beginning of a life she’d stopped letting herself imagine.