My shoulders drop by an inch. It’s the friendliest room I’ve been in so far, with its roaring fireplace, piano, and huge window streaming light. There are cozy couches around the fireplace and big armchairs with footstools next to reading tables. It’s as lavish as the rest of this place, but it also feels lived in.

I walk right up to the picture window, which is larger than any I’ve seen in this castle, and place my hand on the cold glass. Below, a handful of cows graze or sleep lazily in dappled sunlight under the oak canopy. They remind me of the cows Emily’s boyfriend, Ben, and his family kept.

Emily and I enter Pembrook’s town square, which is pretty much the quintessential Connecticut postcard with its Victorian homes and brick storefronts with hand-painted signs. It’s late Saturday morning and people are out walking their dogs, shopping at the farmers’ market in the middle of the square, and sifting through treasures at the antiques store.

“What are you and Ben doing today that’s so important you can’t go to the movies?” I ask Emily.

She shrugs and doesn’t look at me. “Not much. Hanging out at his house.”

I stop in front of Lucille’s—which boasts it’s the best diner in Pembrook. It’s also the only diner in Pembrook. “Not much? This coming from the girl who for the last two weeks has harassed me with details about every possible everything having to do with Ben?”

“I think he wants to show me something.”

“What?”

Emily’s cheeks turn pink. “It’s nothing.”

I smirk. “His ability to unhook your bra?”

Emily’s cheeks go from pink to crimson and I can’t help but grin. “No, idiot. You know he hasn’t even kissed me yet.”

I wag my eyebrows at her. “I can keep guessing.”

She glances around at the other pedestrians, all of whom we know, and she gets hostile. “You better not.”

I put on my thinking face. “Hmmm. Let’s see here. Maybe Ben Edwards wants you to—”

“He wants me to milk cows with him, okay?” she yells at me.

I stare at her in shock. “Wait. Let me get this straight. Emily Banks, whose worst nightmare is getting dirty, and who wore high heels to last year’s graduation bonfire in the middle of the woods, is going to do farm chores?”

“Shut up,” she says. “It’s not funny.” But she’s grinning.

“I beg to differ,” I say, the beginning of a laugh shaking my words.

She attempts to keep her composure but cracks, and just like that we’re both laughing loud and hard.

“Are you two going to keep acting like fools in front of my door, blocking my paying customers, or are you going to come inside and have some strawberry shortcake?” Lucille says, opening the diner door. Her silver hair hangs in a loose braid over her shoulder.

“Strawberry shortcake!” Emily says, and squeals.

Lucille hides her grin. She’s Emily’s godmother and she knows full well that strawberry shortcake is her favorite dessert. “Get inside before you let out all my heat.” She shoos us through the door.