He nodded. “Not as enlightened a practice as Poe’s meditation, but it’s quiet. Peaceful.”
Towering pines dusted with snow surrounded the river, the bare branches of oaks and maples rising like stark sculptures into the sunny winter sky, the air thick with the scent of balsam. It was a place made beautiful by its desolation, and I felt the noise of my mind go quiet.
“I see why you like it here,” I said.
“Want to sit?” he asked.
I looked around. “On the ground?”
The snow wasn’t deep but that didn’t mean I wanted to sit in it.
He took off his jacket and spread it on the concrete bridge support. Then, before I could object, he circled my waist with his giant hands and lifted me onto the jacket.
“You’ll freeze!” I said.
“I’m fine. It’s not even that cold.” He hopped up next to me and reached for the basket. “Besides, Cassie packed us hot chocolate.”
He removed a thermos and two mugs.
“You asked your sister to pack us hot chocolate?”
“I could have done it myself, but Cassie makes the best hot chocolate.” He took out a chunky square of wax paper tied with red twine. “Plus she has double chocolate chip cookies from thebakery in Blackwell Hollow. They’re not as good as yours, but you shouldn’t always have to eat your own food.”
He handed me the square package and pulled a mug from the box.
“Of course," he said, looking at the winter-themed mug in his hand. It featured a snowy tree and tiny woodland animals — a squirrel, a rabbit, a doe — gathered under its branches.
I stifled a laugh. I was beginning to understand the dynamic between Bram and Cassie and it was adorable. “It’s cute.”
“Is it?” He sounded skeptical, and I wished I could get away with taking a picture of Bram holding the kitschy coffee mug in his giant mitt of a hand.
He poured some of the hot chocolate into the mug and handed it to me.
Steam rose from the mug, and I wrapped my hands around it for warmth and inhaled the scent of rich chocolate laced with vanilla. “Hmmmm… this is nice.”
Bram poured hot chocolate into a second mug and unwrapped one of the cookies. “My sister likes you.”
“Thanks, but I think you're just being nice. We only just met.”
He shook his head. “Doesn’t matter. Cass has a killer bullshit detector.”
“She’s so nice,” I said, breaking off a piece of my cookie.
He laughed. “She is, but don’t let that fool you. She’ll knife you in a heartbeat if she thinks you’re up to no good.”
I finished chewing. “You must be really proud of her. She’s so accomplished for someone her age, my age.”
I didn’t know exactly how old Cassie was, but she seemed about my age.
He crumpled the wrapper, his cookie gone. The man could demolish sweets like nobody I’d ever seen. “I know there are people who would say she had everything handed to her since I bought her the building, but she still has to make the moneywork. She’s the one who developed her brand and designed the shop to be so inviting, and she’s the one who sought out smaller coffee farmers to negotiate a better price and a better product. She’s trialed new products and partnered with the bakery that makes the cookies, and she reaches out to book clubs and other groups to offer up the shop as a meeting place.”
“Which brings in more business,” I said.
“Exactly.”
“Smart.”
He nodded. “The coffee shop was profitable almost from its first month. That’s almost unheard of in such a small town.”
