“I do.”
“Because you think I’m decent, I suppose.”
“No, not at all. That isn’t to say you aren’t decent, because you are, but you’re a bit more dangerous than decent, and that’s why I think if you’d planned this, you would have chosen somewhere less...”
“Dilapidated?”
“Rustic. I was thinking rustic.”
“That is without a doubt the kindest word ever applied to Old Man McCauley’s cabin, but you’re right to suppose I would have chosen differently. God knows, the barn loft would have been better, but I had something like a room at the Butterworth in mind.”
“Because no one would have known us there or what we were about. Yes, that’s a much better plan.”
He nudged her head with his shoulder. “Somethinglikea room at the Butterworth.”
“Another hotel in another town. That might have been worked if you could have gotten me there.”
“When I was thinking about it, you have to understand I had the end in mind, not the getting there.”
“Yes.” She tilted her head and looked up at him; the smile that lifted the corners of her mouth a mere fraction was settled more firmly in her eyes. “I see that now.”
He turned his head and kissed her high on her brow. “So there you have it. It wasn’t planned, but somehow it was right. Or almost right.”
“Remington.”
He ignored the note of caution she used when she said his name. “I want to make it right, Phoebe. And wanting to make it that way is not an afterthought. I wanted to make it right before I made it wrong.”
“You’ve been thinking about this, then.”
“For a while. Maybe since I saw you on the train. Maybe before.”
“There was no before, Remington.”
“There was the photograph.”
“You don’t mean that. Even you are not that romantic.”
“Jumpin’ Jesus on a griddle,” he said under his breath. “Maybe I am.”
She gently poked him with her elbow. “I won’t say a word.”
He didn’t believe her, but he wasn’t sure whom she would tell. Not Fiona. Probably not Thaddeus. Maybe Ellie. Could be she’d tell one of the men; that way everyone in Frost Falls would know inside of a week.
“It was probably not the photograph.”
“See? You are already backing away from it nicely.”
“It was the photographandall the things Thaddeus told me about you.”
“Thaddeus. Theshadkhn.”
“The what?”
“Matchmaker. It’s Yiddish. Fiona called him that. She also said he was a yente. A busybody.”
“Like Mrs. Jacob C. Tyler?”
“Exactly like her.”
