Chapter 1 #2
The founder and chief executive of a company large enough to have its logo on stores in three countries is obeying my instructions about equipment placement while my best friend silently convulses in the doorway.
A woman in a camel coat crosses the gravel from the campaign van that has just pulled in. She has a phone pressed to one ear and a leather folio tucked under her arm.
“Grant,” she calls. “Cameron says legal approved the revised location release, but she wants you on the nine o’clock call.”
There it is.
No chance of pretending Tessa is wrong.
Grant sets the last light stand down and looks at me.
His face has not changed, which somehow makes this worse.
“You knew,” I say.
“My name?”
“That I didn’t know your name.”
“You asked. I answered.”
“With the least useful half of it.”
“You were busy with a goat.”
“The goat had a vest. It was an emergency.”
His mouth twitches.
I walk back toward him, lower my voice, and prepare to execute the rare professional maneuver known as apologizing without surrendering jurisdiction.
“Mr. Ashford, I was told you were arriving at nine.”
“Grant is fine.”
“I was told Grant Ashford was arriving at nine. I assumed you were crew.”
“I am crew.”
“You are the client.”
“Today I’m also the person who parked badly.”
That lands harder than it should.
Landon used to treat every mistake like a jurisdictional question.
If he had caused a problem, there was always a vendor who had placed the sign wrong, an assistant who had sent the old floor plan, a venue coordinator who had failed to communicate.
By the end of our business, I could trace half our arguments back to the exhausting task of proving I had experienced what I had just experienced.
Grant simply looks at the lane and says, “You were right.”
My irritation loses traction.
This is inconvenient.
“Well,” I say. “Yes.”
“I gathered.”
“Don’t be smug about agreeing with me.”
“I’ll work on that.”
The woman in the camel coat arrives, gives me a quick, assessing smile, and holds out a hand. “Priya Shah. Northspan campaign operations. You must be Nora.”
“I am. Welcome to Bellweather. Please don’t put any fake trees on my orchard.”
Priya blinks, then looks at Grant.
“Long story,” he says.
“It was four minutes.”
“Emotionally longer.”
Priya’s smile widens. “Cameron warned me you were both going to be difficult. I assumed she meant separately.”
“Cameron is his sister,” I say before I can stop myself.
Grant glances at me. “You did read the briefing packet.”
“I read all briefing packets. Some of us enjoy the erotic thrill of being prepared.”
Silence.
Priya coughs into her fist.
Tessa, from twenty feet away, makes a sound like a dying goose.
I consider throwing myself under the dairy truck.
Grant’s eyes are suddenly very bright.
“Good,” he says. “I was hoping we’d have compatible professional values.”
I stare at him.
The billionaire is flirting with me.
Or he has a medical condition that presents as eye contact and timing.
Either way, I have work to do.
“Nine o’clock walk-through,” I say. “Public route first, then production access. Your crew needs reflective vests anywhere past the cold-storage turn. Nobody shoots in the loading lane. Nobody moves guest barriers without telling me. If your agency wants a change that affects traffic, food, parking, or farm operations, it comes through me.”
Priya nods and starts typing notes.
Grant just says, “Agreed.”
“That easily?”
“Was I supposed to negotiate for unsafe parking?”
“You’d be surprised what people negotiate for when they have a marketing budget.”
“I probably wouldn’t.”
His expression shifts, just slightly. Less teasing, more tired.
For the first time he looks like the man from the business profiles, not because he seems powerful, but because he looks as if three hundred people have been asking him to approve things since dawn.
I know that kind of tired.
I hate that I know it.
“Come on,” I say. “I’ll show you the site before the tourists take over.”
We cross toward the farmstand as the parking lot begins filling with Subarus, minivans, and one heroic sedan with three bicycles strapped to the roof.
The morning air still has a cool edge, but sunlight has reached the gravel.
Somewhere behind the kitchen wall, fresh dough hits hot oil. Cinnamon follows a second later.
Grant inhales.
“That’s unfair.”
“What is?”
“That smell.”
“Tessa weaponizes it. We stopped pretending otherwise in 2018.”
“Can I buy one?”
“You can buy six. We have shareholders.”
“Family orchard?”
“Family orchard. My grandparents expanded the public side. My parents mostly handle growing and wholesale now. Aunt Mae runs the farmstand whenever she feels like it, which is apparently a recognized governance structure. I run events and agritourism. Tessa runs food. Everyone else does whatever keeps us from collapsing into the mud.”
“And Northspan is here to make that easier.”
I look at him.
“Northspan is here to run a national campaign during my busiest six weeks. I am open to being pleasantly surprised about the easier part.”
“Fair.”
He does not give me the sponsor speech. Another point in his favor, which is becoming annoying because I was prepared to dislike him cleanly.
We pass the farmstand porch, where Aunt Mae is arranging brass leaf charms in a shallow wooden bowl beneath a handwritten sign that reads TELL THE TRUTH OR BLAME THE WEATHER.
Grant slows.
“I have questions.”
“Don’t.”
Aunt Mae looks up. “Ask all of them. I charge by the answer.”
“This is my aunt Mae,” I say. “She is not licensed by any recognized authority.”
“Neither are most interesting people,” Mae says.
Grant picks up one of the little brass leaves. “What am I blaming the weather for?”
I groan.
Mae’s eyes light up. Fresh tourist. Better, wealthy fresh tourist. She can smell disposable income at fifty paces.
“The Truth Maple,” she says, pointing past the picnic lawn.
The tree stands near the edge of the gathering area, enormous and broad-limbed, still mostly green except for a few early leaves at the crown already threatening red. Small brass charms hang from twine on the lower branches, catching light when the breeze moves.
“Local legend,” Mae continues. “Couple lies beneath it about being in love, tree makes sure the truth comes out before the first hard frost.”
Grant looks at me.
“Makes sure how?”
“Depends who is buying the charm,” I say.
Mae ignores me. “Quarrel, confession, sudden revelation, inconvenient kiss. Truth finds a door.”
“Or,” I say, “two people who are already lying to each other continue behaving badly until statistical probability catches up with them.”
Mae pats my arm. “Nora has always hated whimsy because it cannot be color coded.”
“I love whimsy. I simply require a purchase order.”
Grant laughs.
Not the polite exhale he has been giving me. An actual laugh.
It changes his whole face and does something regrettable to my concentration.
Mae notices.
Of course Mae notices.
She pushes the charm toward him. “Five dollars.”
“He’s a billionaire,” I say. “Charge him eight.”
Grant takes out his phone.
“We accept cash,” Mae says.
He pauses.
Mae smiles with the serenity of a woman who has trapped a wolf using a cash-only farmstand.
“I’ll come back,” he says.
“They all say that.”
As we walk away, he leans toward me. “Is she serious?”
“About the tree?”
“About the cash.”
“Completely. The supernatural is ambiguous. The payment policy is ironclad.”
Another laugh.
I should not like making him do that.
I do.
My radio crackles again. “Nora, Price Event Production just pulled in. Where do you want their trucks?”
Every muscle in my body locks.
Not visibly, I hope.
I knew this was coming. The subcontract was signed before Northspan brought the orchard into final planning, and replacing a production company three days before launch would have been expensive, stupid, and exactly the kind of emotional decision I pride myself on not making.
Knowing something is coming does not make it less capable of punching you in the sternum.
Grant looks at me, the humor gone from his face.
“Problem?”
“No.”
Too fast.
I press my radio. “West service lot. Keep the lane clear. I’ll meet them there.”
Tessa appears in the farmstand doorway again. This time she is not amused.
She sees the trucks coming up the drive and mouths, Fuck.
Yes.
Exactly.
The first truck turns past the orchard sign, white with PRICE EVENT PRODUCTION in black letters along the side.
The second vehicle is a dark pickup I know before it stops.
Landon Price gets out wearing the same kind of work boots he used to leave by the door of our apartment, the same battered navy jacket he wore through three years of events, and the same easy smile that once convinced me we could build a company and a life together without either one swallowing the other.
My stomach drops with a familiarity I despise.
He sees me.
His smile changes.
“Nor.”
Only one person has ever called me that.
Grant does not move closer. He does not touch me. He does not perform concern for an audience that does not exist yet.
He simply looks from Landon to me and waits.
It is, absurdly, the most useful thing anyone has done for me all morning.
I lift my chin.
“Landon,” I say.
Fall has officially begun.