“You really think so?”
“I think you’ve been doing professional event coordination without calling it that,” I said firmly. “And I think anyone who had you managing their marketing campaigns was lucky to have you.”
“Even though I got fired?”
“Holly, safe and boring doesn’t create the kind of community engagement you’re planning for this festival. Your old company let go of someone who could have made them a lot more successful.”
The smile that spread across her face was worth every word of that compliment, even if saying it had probably crossed the line from professional encouragement into something more personal.
“Thank you,” she said softly. “I... needed to hear that.”
“Any time.” I kept it light, even though my cock yelled at me to make it heavy. Now was not the time.
As I walked her to the car, I realized that the evening had accomplished something more important than venue assessment. I’d seen Holly Winters as she really was—not the uncertain woman worried about living up to expectations, but someone genuinely gifted at bringing people together and creating experiences that mattered.
That person was infinitely more attractive than anything I’d imagined.
Which was probably going to complicate our working relationship in ways that had me stroking my cock in the shower while I wished it was her.
As we drove home, I replayed moments from the evening, I realized that the Everdale Falls matchmaking committee might be onto something after all.
I knew I was falling for Holly Winters.
The question was whether she was falling for me too, or if I was just wishful thinking my way into emotional complications that would make the next two weeks of festival planning significantly more challenging, not to mention living next door to her, picturing her naked and playing with herself.
I cleared my throat, and Holly looked over at me as I pulled into the driveway. “Thanks for the lift,” she said politely.
“Anytime,” I managed, my voice sounding a little rough. The comfortable intimacy we’d found inside the empty community center seemed to evaporate in the confined space of the car, replaced by a sudden awareness that we were just two people sitting in a dark driveway, our houses only a few feet apart. I wanted to tell her how much I’d enjoyed the evening, how impressed I was, how much I was starting to look forward to our planning sessions for reasons that had very little to do with vendor logistics. But the words got stuck somewhere behind professional courtesy and the fear of making things awkward.
Before I could figure out how to navigate that minefield, Holly had unbuckled her seatbelt. “Well, I guess I’ll see you tomorrow.” Her tone was all business again, the warmth from earlier tucked away behind a shield of practicality.
“Yeah,” I said.
She gave a small, tight smile and opened the door, letting a gust of cold air rush in. “Goodnight, Declan.”
“Goodnight, Holly.”
I watched her walk up the path to her front door, the porch light illuminating her for a moment before she disappeared inside. I sat in the quiet darkness of the car for a long time, the engine humming softly, feeling like I’d just fumbled a crucial play. My sabbatical was supposed to be about simplifying my life, figuring out what I wanted. Instead, I’d just discovered that what I wanted was sitting in her childhood bedroom thirty feet away, building walls I wasn’t sure how to get over. This festival was getting more complicated by the second.
Ten
HOLLY
Decoration Complications
“Okay,”I said, staring up at the community center’s decidedly tall ceiling and the equally decidedly short stepladder that someone had optimistically provided for decoration hanging, “I’m starting to think Mrs. Peterson’s vision of ‘festive garland draped artfully from the rafters’ might have been conceived by someone who’s never actually had to hang anything higher than a picture frame.”
Declan followed my gaze upward, then looked at the stepladder with the kind of expression usually reserved for clearly inadequate tools.
“That’s definitely not going to reach,” he said. “What’s the backup plan?”
“I was really hoping you wouldn’t ask that,” I admitted, consulting my clipboard with the kind of false confidence that fooled absolutely no one. “The backup plan was to figure it out when we get here and hope for the best.”
“Solid strategy,” Declan said solemnly. “Very professional.”
“I prefer to think of it as adaptive planning,” I said with dignity. “Leaving room for creative problem-solving.”
“Is that what we’re calling it?” He walked over to examine the stepladder more closely, testing its stability with the kind of careful attention that suggested he was actually considering using it. “Because I’m pretty sure there’s a significant height differential betweenadaptive planningand apotential emergency room visit.”
