“They’re dramatic,” he said brightly, tightening his hold on me as if he wasn’t ready to let go.
I stared down at him, at the faint flush in his cheeks from the cold, at the stubborn glint in his eyes. “Why were you waiting?” My voice came out quieter than I intended, rougher.
He blinked up at me, then looked away, suddenly fascinated by the line of snow along the curb. “No reason,” he said quickly. Too quickly. “Maybe I felt weird about the whole realtor thing, I didn’t mean to act hurt, I don’t have the right to be hurt. Anyway, I thought you’d need company on the way back.”
Wesley must’ve sensed my brooding because his chatter shifted, lighter, warmer. “What are you thinking about to make your face all scrunched up?”
“My uncle,” I said before I could engage my brain.
“You know—I remember him from the couple of times he visited the bookstore. Always made sure to visit me, loved a good murder mystery, always asked what I had on the shelf.” His smile tilted fondly, as if he were offering me a scrap of family connection I didn’t even know I had.
I shrugged, feeling uncomfortable. “I didn’t know him. I think there was a falling out somewhere backwith my grandfather. Family stuff no one ever explained to me.”
Wes hummed, not pushing, just letting the words settle between us as we walked. ”Can I ask you a serious question?” he asked.
“Save me now,” I deadpanned.
He grinned at me. “No, honestly, why didn’t you just sell the property straight off instead of coming here and being forced to locate yourself next to me?”
I sighed. “That’s a long story.”
“We have time,” Wesley said, and gestured at the way forward—we still had the rest of Wishing Tree to walk through until we got back to our places.
“I’d lost my parents, lost the tenure track, found out my trust fund ex was playing me the whole time, then I got a letter telling me I’d inherited a coffee shop in the Christmas capital of Vermont. You’d better believe I went into that lawyer’s meeting with every intention to sell, but Great Uncle, or whatever he was, McCoy had a stipulation.”
Wesley grinned, eyes dancing. “That sounds like the start of a great whodunnit—old oak-paneled offices, a crusty lawyer with ink-stained fingers, weeping family all in black. With veils, of course.” He winked at me. “Even the men.”
I huffed out a breath. “Sorry to burst your bubble, but it wasn’t like that. It was in a glass high-rise, and Iwas the last relative left standing that they could track down. The lawyer was younger than me, slick suit, no drama. Just me signing papers and wondering what the hell I was doing there.”
“But you didn’t sell because there was a stipulation?”
“Huh?”
He stopped then and flicked my forehead. “The stipulation, Hunter, tell me the juicy whodunnit stuff.”
“Oh, that. For two years, I had to run the place, not just own it but actually run it, and then at the end of the two years, I got to sell it and keep any money I made on it.”
Wesley went silent for a moment. “And the two years are up, Valentine’s next year, right?”
“You remember when I arrived here?”
“I remember you coming in the year before last, on your first day, and complaining my candy-pink balloon arch was blocking the entrance into your shop.”
“Well, itwasblocking the door.”
“It was February 14th-appropriate,” he argued, a teasing glint in his eyes, and his nose wrinkling as he baited me.
“It was an obstacle course,” I countered.
Wesley smirked. “Obstacles make life interesting.”
“Not when I’m carrying boxes of my possessions in, they don’t.”
Wes nudged me with his elbow. “Admit it, you secretly liked the balloons.”
“I did not.”
“You smiled when you shoved them aside.”
