Page 53 of Sweet Surprises

“I’ll bet he loved tinkering with it,” Tag said after a moment. “He’d probably be really happy to see you enjoying it for him.”

She nodded, pressing her lips together and feeling terrible for being on the verge of tears.

“You okay?” he asked, as he pulled up in front of the shop.

“Yeah,” she said, nodding. “I don’t know what happens to me sometimes. I can usually talk about him, but every once ina while, it hits me all over again out of nowhere, like it’s brand new.”

“That’s normal,” he said, his blue eyes meeting hers. “You loved him.”

“I always will,” she said.

“So, are you ready to show off your hard work?” he asked. “Or should we just go get pancakes or something and save it for tomorrow?”

“No way,” she said. “I can’t wait to see what you think. Just keep in mind that it will be super easy to undo, if you don’t like it.”

He chuckled and shook his head as he got out of the car. She followed, glad that the lights were off in the shop. She’d be able to do a big reveal when they got inside.

When they got to the door, he tossed her the car keys, which also had her key for the shop on the ring. She unlocked it, and stepped into the toasty warmth of the shop with Tag close behind.

“Okay,” she said, feeling for the switches. “Here we go.”

She managed to flip them all at once, and suddenly the space was fully illuminated, the fresh colors and new images greeting them.

The front wall of the shop was all plate glass and a door, so that was the same as before. But she had touched just about every other inch of wall in the place.

Behind the counter, she had painted a big red barn. The back and side walls were rolling meadows with green Vermont mountains in the background, and little brown and black and white cows dotting the landscape.

Framed headshots from her photos of a dozen of the cows were hung around the space. To anyone who didn’t know, there was no sign that they actually covered all of the roughly patched holes in the plaster walls.

To Charlotte, it seemed that the place felt playful and welcoming now. And the answers to a few customer questions were right there on the walls. Happy black and white Holsteins and brown Jerseys wandered free in the pastures. Old friends from Sugarville Grove would recognize the elements of the real Lawrence Dairy Farm that were on the walls, like the stone farmhouse and the creamery. And flatlanders would be reassured when they had evidence that the animals were cherished.

She held her breath, waiting to see what Tag thought.

“Charlotte,” he breathed. “I…”

But he didn’t finish his sentence. Instead, he moved around the room, stopping to admire the image of the woman bottle-feeding a brown Jersey calf in the barn.

Charlotte was pretty sure he could see from the dress and apron that it was meant to be his mother, though her face wasn’t visible—Charlotte’s artistic skills weren’t equal to that.

Tag moved to the back wall and admired the stone house with more tiny suggestions of family members outside, and the shape of his own green house in the shadow of the hillside.

“Oh wow,” he said when he got to the first headshot. “It’s Jane Austen.”

She nodded, and watched him lean in to read the little plaque.

“Strawberries and Sensibility,” he read aloud,“is named in honor of Jane Austen, one of our friendliest cows. We provide the strawberry goodness. The sensibility comes if you can stop with just one scoop!”

She waited for his reaction.

“Strawberries and Sensibility?” he asked.

“Zane and I thought some new flavors might be a good idea,” she said. “We thought it would be fun to name them after the cows.”

“All of them?” Tag asked, his eyebrows lifting.

She nodded.

As she expected, he turned back to the wall.

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