Chapter 15
Fifteen
The Flannel Festival was everything a small-town autumn celebration should be.
String lights crisscrossed Main Street, not yet glowing in the late-afternoon sun but promising magic when darkness fell.
Booths lined both sides of the road—crafts and candles and hand-knit scarves, apple cider and kettle corn and enough plaid to dress all of Scotland.
The whole town had turned out, it seemed, everyone in flannel and fall colors, kids running between legs, dogs on leashes sniffing at dropped popcorn.
And everywhere they went, people knew Nate.
“Good to see you out!” called Maren from the Maple Reads booth, something complicated in her expression—warmth and grief and maybe forgiveness, all tangled together.
“Ten gold stars!” Edie announced from behind her Maple Sweets display, pointing at a portable version of the chapter board. “We’re halfway there, folks!”
Livvie’s phone buzzed before she had a chance to update Edie’s chapter count. She looked down and spotted Richard’s name. Shoot. She pulled it out and glanced at the screen.
Richard
Call me. We need to talk.
She typed back.
Livvie
He’ll make it. You’ll get the manuscript in the morning.
Then she switched to Do Not Disturb and slipped the phone into her pocket.
When she looked up, Nate was watching her.
“Everything okay?”
“Everything’s fine.” And the strangest part was, she meant it.
She’d watched him navigate the festival crowd for the past hour—stopping to shake hands with Mayor Gillson, accepting a slice of maple apple pie from Harper Henshaw, crouching down to answer Addie Garrison’s very serious question about the proper color for a dragon.
Two weeks ago, this man had barely left his house in three years.
Tonight, he was laughing at something Jake said, the sound rusty but real.
“Come on.” Nate held out his hand. Not a gesture, just an offering. “Remi said there’s a fudge booth that’s life-changing. Her words.”
Livvie took his hand.
They found the fudge booth tucked between a candlemaker and a woman selling hand-painted ornaments. The selection was a box of chocolates—maple walnut, chocolate sea salt, pumpkin spice, and something called “Flannel Fantasy” that appeared to involve bacon.
“What’s your favorite?” Nate asked.
Livvie studied the display. “I don’t know. I haven’t had fudge in years.”
“Years?” He looked personally offended. “That’s unacceptable. We’re getting one of everything.”
“Nate—”
But he was already ordering, pulling out his wallet, accepting the paper bag with the gravity of a secret mission. He handed her a piece of the maple walnut. “Try this.”
She bit into it, and her eyes closed involuntarily. Rich and sweet and buttery, the maple flavor deep and real, nothing like the artificial stuff she’d had as a kid.
“Good?” he asked.
“That’s…” She couldn’t find the words. “That’s really good.”
“Remi doesn’t lie about fudge.” He was smiling at her—that real smile, the one she’d only started seeing in the past week. “Come on. There’s more to explore.”
They wandered through the booths as the sun dipped lower, painting everything gold. He bought her a cup of hot cider. She made him try the maple cotton candy, which he declared “aggressively sweet” but finished anyway. They stopped at a ring toss game and she won a small stuffed fox.
“Appropriate,” he commented.
They found a bench near the edge of the festival, slightly removed from the crowd, and sat down with their haul—fudge and cider and the ridiculous stuffed fox.
The sun was setting now, the sky shifting from gold to pink to deep purple, and the string lights flickered on one strand at a time, turning Main Street into something out of a dream.
“Can I ask you something?” Nate said.
“Of course.”
“Why didn’t I meet you sooner? My first memory of you was when you were about sixteen.”
“You remember me being here at sixteen?”
He smiled. “Yes.”
Oh. “I thought you didn’t see me.”
“Braids. Cutoff overalls. And you were learning to paint with your aunt.”
Her throat filled, and she took a sip of cider.
“We came here the first time when I was eight. My parents took a vacation. A real one. Not a working trip with me tagging along, but an actual family vacation. It was in the fall, my first Flannel Festival.” She took another sip.
“It was gorgeous. My first memory of the trees in the fall—sugar maple orange, red maple, yellow-leafed birch. I loved it here.”
“Don’t forget the flannel.” He nodded toward an entire family dressed in red plaid at the pumpkin carving table.
“Yeah. All I really remember, besides the trees, was that for one whole week I had their undivided attention. No conference calls. No emergencies at the office. Just…us. We went on hikes and ate apple pie for breakfast, and my mom let me stay up late to watch the stars.”
She realized she was smiling. The memory felt warm and distant, like looking at someone else’s life.
“It sounds perfect,” Nate said quietly.
“It was.” She looked down at the stuffed fox in her lap.
“It’s hard being the only child of workaholics, and for the first time, I felt like I was seen.
” She finished her cider. “It didn’t last, of course.
We went home and everything went back to normal.
But I had that week. I’ve always had that week. ”
Nate was watching her with an expression she couldn’t quite read.
“Was that around your birthday?” he said.
She blinked. “How did you know?”
“Emma. She was working on a watercolor that last year, said it was for your birthday. I remember sending it to you, probably in late August.”
“I framed it. It’s one of my most cherished gifts.”
He considered her. Tilted his head. “So, when is your birthday, Livvie?”
Her cheeks warmed. “It’s not important.”
“When?”
“A few days ago.”
He went still.
“You—” He stopped. Started again. “Your birthday was a few days ago? And you didn’t say anything?”
“It’s not a big deal. I don’t really celebrate—”
“Not a big deal?” He stood up, a strange look on his face—determination, maybe, or tenderness, or some complicated mix of both. “Wait here.”
“Nate—”
But he was already gone, disappearing into the crowd.
She sat on the bench, watching the string lights sway in the breeze. Around her, the festival continued—families laughing, couples walking hand in hand, the distant sound of a fiddle tuning up.
She should have kept her mouth shut. Now he was going to make a fuss, and she didn’t know how to receive that kind of attention, and—
“Here.”
He was back, slightly breathless, holding a paper bag in one hand and something soft and colorful in the other.
“Birthday fudge.” He pressed the bag into her hands. “Double chocolate caramel.”
“Sounds lethal.” But she took the bag.
“And this.” He held up the soft thing—a knit hat, cream-colored with a subtle pattern of rust and gold leaves. “Because it’s getting cold, and because—” He paused, looking at the hat, then at her. “Because I saw it and I thought of you.”
Before she could protest, he stepped closer and settled the hat onto her head, adjusting it gently, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. His fingers brushed her temple, and she forgot how to breathe.
“There,” he said softly. “Perfect.”
She didn’t know what to say. No one had ever—she’d never been the person who—“You didn’t have to do this.”
“I wanted to.” His eyes held hers. “You’ve spent two weeks taking care of me. Making sure I eat. Making sure I write.” He reached out and adjusted the hat again, though it didn’t need adjusting. “Let someone take care of you for once.”
The fiddle music drifted over. People were moving toward the center of the street, where a wooden platform had been set up and the band was launching into something lively and bright.
“Dance with me,” Nate said.
Livvie laughed, but it came out shaky. “I don’t dance.”
“Then just hang on.” He held out his hand again. “Please.”
She looked at his hand. Looked at the dance floor filling with couples—Jake and a woman she didn’t recognize, Harper being spun by someone who might have been her brother, Mandie and another woman leading a line dance that was mostly chaos.
She’d spent her whole life watching other people dance.
She took his hand.
The street dance was nothing like the formal events she’d attended in New York—charity galas where everyone moved in controlled patterns, careful not to bump elbows or spill champagne.
This was joyful chaos. Couples spinning, kids jumping, elderly pairs swaying together like they’d been doing it for fifty years.
Nate led her to an open spot and pulled her close.
His right hand found her waist. His left hand held hers, warm and solid. She put her free hand on his shoulder—the flannel soft under her fingers—and tried to remember how to breathe.
“I should warn you,” he said, close to her ear, “I lied. I have no idea what I’m doing.”
“We call that fiction.”
He laughed, and they moved together, not quite dancing, not quite swaying, a rhythm in between that felt entirely their own.
The fiddle played something sweet and slightly melancholy, and the string lights turned everything golden, and Livvie couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt this… here. This present. This alive.
“You okay?” Nate said.
“Yeah.” She looked up at him. His face was close, and she could see the firelight from nearby torches reflected in his eyes, the slight stubble along his jaw, the way he was looking at her like she was something precious.
“You’re amazing,” he said quietly.
She cocked her head.
“You don’t know it, but it’s true.” His thumb moved against her waist, gentle. “You cry at good writing—real tears, not polite ones. You remember everyone’s coffee order. You sing under your breath when you think no one’s listening, and you’re actually pretty good.”
“I don’t—”
“You do. In the kitchen, when you’re making lunch. Yesterday it was something from Les Mis.”
She felt her face burn. “You weren’t supposed to hear that.”