“Just give me a sec,” I say before rushing inside. There, I feed Molly, change into a warmer coat, and at the last second, grab Maybelle, not wanting to leave her alone for too long. I place her in the special backpack that allows me to carry her everywhere while allowing her to look outside and stay warm, even in winter. I think the thing was built for cats, but she fits in perfectly, so we adopted the thing for our walks.

“Okay, I’m ready,” I say as I walk back out.

He nods, then leads the way toward the evergreen forest.

“She looks cozy in there,” he says, pointing at May on my back.

“Yeah, she loves it.”

“I’m sure she does.”

I narrow my eyes. “Was that sarcastic?”

“Of course, not,” he says with a smile, which might also be sarcastic. I can’t be sure, though. I’m starting to realize Aaron smiles a lot, no matter what he says. When we met, he looked more serious, but in the past few days, I’ve seen a more jovial side of him. If I had to guess, I’d say it’s his natural one.

“My dog doesn’t like to walk on cold ground. Sue me.”

He laughs. “I’d never dare.”

We exchange a look before we continue to walk, passing the main house and heading toward the forest. Meanwhile, Aaron starts explaining to me the process of getting trees to maturation and then making sure they stay in good shape until they reach people’s homes for Christmas time. I had no idea it took that much work for people to get a nicely shaped Christmas tree every year, but the farm definitely needs employees to work full time all year, between the weeding, the planting, the disease preventing, and the cultivating.

“So I guess you have a lot of work set up for you here,” I say.

He chuckles, though there’s no humor left in his voice. “You could say that, yeah.”

His pace accelerates, and I observe his back for a moment. This isn’t just a second-choice job for him. It’s a burden. His words might not have told me that, but the change in his attitude just did.

Aaron looks over his shoulder, unfreezing me. I hurry to him.

We continue walking, with the sound of crows cawing in the background, until Aaron slows and says, “Want to go for a ride?” To our right is a large garage—or a small barn—in front of which are parked a black pickup truck and two ATVs.

“Uh, I think I’ll pass.”

He quirks an eyebrow. “You going to tour the sixty acres of land on foot?”

“Sure,” I say with a lift of my chin.

“You scared?” he asks, amused.

“No, I’m not scared.” But seriously, who would want to go on one of these just for the sake of it?