Page 104 of Falling for Mr. October

“Surely there won’t be,” Giovanni says softly. “Not with this many people roaming around.”

“There’s only one way to find out.”

I nod in the direction of the little orchard, to the left of the tent, and he walks with me, still holding my hand. We stroll through the picked-over trees, passing other couples and a few kids playing with a deflated ball.

“Tell me about your family,” I say. “Tell me about your siblings.”

And he does. He fills me in on Enzo and his fiancée, who just launched a major healthcare app, Nico, who’s been running the store in his absence, and Aria, who is having the time of her life in Greece. I can hear the longing lacing his words. He loves them. His family is his everything, just like my family has always been everything to me.

He pauses before turning down another alley of trees. We walk slowly, like sap running down a tree in winter. “There’s something I’d like to ask,” he says, “but I hope I won’t offend you.”

I laugh. “Not a promising start.”

“When you went away to nursing school, Miles thought you’d get a job in Hendersonville or maybe Asheville. Why’d you come back?”

“You’ve seen the magic of this place,” I say, smiling up at him. “It’s here all around us—” I gesture to the trees, the leaves a rainbow of colors on their sculpted branches, the clouds kissing above our heads, pressing against the Carolina blue sky.

“I love this town,” I continue. “It’s my home. I’ve never wanted anything else. But if you’re asking why I still live with Nonna, I didn’t plan on that. My grandfather died a couple of years after I finished nursing school, and then there was Miles’s accident. Nonna was sad, and even though Uncle Ted lived close, I could tell she felt so alone.”

“You take care of people,” he says, his eyes impossibly deep and full of a sadness I don’t fully understand.

“I guess I do, yes. But it’s not some awful burden. I like taking care of people. It’s my calling.”

“I can tell.” He leans in close, brushing hair behind my ear, and his fingers curl around it, warm and gentle. “But who takes care of you?”

A gasp escapes me, and suddenly my heart is beating too hard.

“I’d like to take care of you while I’m here, Bianca. If you’ll let me.”

My lips part further, inviting words that refuse to come. Finally I say the one thing I can manage to say. “You have been. You already have been.”

Even on those first days, when I was unkind to him, he made food for all of us. Food is love, my nonna has always said, and it’s definitely Giovanni’s way of showing affection.

He lowers his face and kisses me softly, and I lean up and into him, wanting to accept what he’s giving me. Daring to want more. I know he’s going to leave—he told me so. Besides, everyone has always left me, while I’ve stood still in the house time doesn’t change. My father, my mother, Miles, and patient after patient after patient.

It wasn’t my patients’ fault, obviously. They left because they had no choice. Each of their lives had reached the end of its cycle. They were in autumn when I met them, fading inevitably into winter, but each time it hurt. Each time, I burrowed a little deeper into myself, forgetting that life could be fun and vibrant. Forgetting that you can be surrounded by people but still alone if you don’t let anyone get close enough to touch your soul.

I kiss Giovanni with all I have, letting him all the way down to my guarded, tired heart.

Because even though he’ll be leaving me too, he’s here now, and I want that to be enough.

It’s when he breaks away that I see it, nestled high in the branches of one of the overgrown trees, which aren’t as carefully pruned as the ones on our farm because they rely on volunteers to keep them from turning wild.

“The final apple,” I say, my voice shaky, and point to it. “Kitty always said the final apple is special.”

It might not be the last one. There could be dozens of them, tucked away on those hard-to-reach branches, hidden from prying hands. But finding this apple feels significant in a way I can’t pinpoint, kind of like Emily and I finding those zinnia sprouts by the bench last weekend.

“Then it’s ours,” Giovanni whispers into my ear as another couple turns the corner. “Don’t look at it too closely and give them any ideas.”

The couple smiles at us and then continues to stroll along, chatting.

As soon as they’re a few trees ahead, I start to take off my shoes, and Giovanni stops me, laughing. “What are you doing?”

“I’m going to climb the tree. These shoes are all wrong for it.”

“Climb me,” he says.

Heat washes through me, even as he crouches down, giving me his back. I climb onto it, and he shakes his head, his hair brushing me. “Climb onto my shoulders. It’s the only way you’ll get high enough.”